MAD

A redesign of the Museum of Art and Design building by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture was followed by a redesign of the museums graphic identity. Pentagram has created this new graphic identity which can already be seen throughout the city, on the side of buses, on street banners, in print ads and in the subways. The geometric-based marks are said to reflect the circles and squares present in the building's shape; its location, on Columbus Circle; and the building's iconic 'lollipop' columns retained in the redesign. The MAD acronym is such a great asset, its short, pronounceable and memorable and the design allows it to appear in different ways on different occasions. See more of the MAD on the pentagram website. Quirky typography with a playful colour palette.

Second Lives

Second Lives explore the creative approaches of contemporary artists who give existing objects new life and meaning by transforming them into compelling works of art. The exhibition includes works by well knows designers and internationally acclaimed artists creating beautiful and exciting works from buttons, spools of thread, artificial hair, spoons, forks, shopping bags, syringes, vinyls and many others. Second Lives explores the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary and stimulates debate on function, value, and identity.

Body Worlds

Whilst at school we visited an extremely unusual and astonishing exhibition in London featuring real human and animal bodies, where their skin had been peeled off to reveal the inner organs, muscles, nerves etc. It is now to be held in London for the third time. Von Hagens' technique of plastination, in which a polymer is injected into body tissues to stop them breaking down allows it all to happen. Focusing on life from conception through to death, Body Worlds looks at exactly how our bodies age and the effects that longevity have upon us. With disease, distress and accident all taking their toll on our physical form, the exhibition examines how and why the body reacts as it does to age. I probably wouldn't suggest you visit this exhibition if you were slightly squeamish!

Of all the people in the world

A new show that uses grains of rice to represent the 6.7 billion of us on the planet has been touring where the rice has been used to replicate a whole range of statistics from the population of the USA (1st image shown above) to the number of people who have walked on the moon (2nd image shown above). People are invited to compare the one grain that is you to the millions that are not. The statistics can be shocking, witty, moving and really thought provoking. 

The show adapts to its setting: the country, city and building it is in. The amount of rice used varies according to which version is performed, Of All The People In All The World: UK is a standard small version using 1,000Kg of rice to represent 60,000,000 people. Of All The People In All The World: Europe at 12,000Kg is an example of a medium size version. So far there has been a single presentation of Of All The People In All The World in which the whole world's population was represented by 104 tons of rice in Stuttgart. See more images at Flickr.

Tunnel Grafitti

A disused road tunnel in south London has been turned into a giant exhibition space by graffiti artist Banksy. It is not a location that has been listed among London’s main cultural attractions. In fact, it compares unfavourably with other dank tunnels in the capital, however the exhibition, entitled The Cans Festival, aims to "transform a dark forgotten filth pit" into "an oasis of beautiful art". Banksy himself has contributed depictions of a self-harming hoody, the Buddha wearing a neck-brace, a council worker spraying over some ancient cave paintings and a sculpture of a tree sprouting CCTV cameras. People can even add their own stencil work to the tunnel walls!

It is the first exhibition staged in Britain by Banksy since Crude Oils in 2005, when he filled a shop in Westbourne Grove, London, with 164 live rats and vandalised pastiches of works including Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks and Jack Vettriano’s Singing Butler!