IKEA Plans Major Art Commissions For Moscow Development
Global giant IKEA Retail Estate is planning multimillion-dollar commissions by major contemporary artists, including Piotr Uklanski, Jeppe Hein, and Jim Lambie, as part of an “airport-size” Moscow-based development due to open in 2012, reports the Art Newspaper.
The works are part of a plan to roll out mixed-use spaces across IKEA sites, beginning with Russia and the former Soviet republics. The first will open at the mammoth Mega Teply Stan retail park in Moscow. “The new building will be totally different from what’s there now,” said Simon Dance, of Simon Dance Design, who has been working with the Swedish brand since 2007. “The idea is to create a day out, somewhere people want to spend time, especially in Moscow where it takes so long to get anywhere because the traffic is so bad.” He said the concept of the developments is to “fuse culture, commerce, and leisure—and the works of art are a key part of our vision.” Plans for the site include shops, restaurants, and an ice rink, as well as an IKEA flat-pack furniture store.
Hein is proposing a mirror labyrinth to be placed opposite the new building’s facade, which will be nearly one thousand feet in length and eighty feet in height. Uklanski is working on a large-scale iron sculpture, which will be viewable from the sixteen-lane motorway that runs alongside the site, while Lambie intends to make a new version of Secret Affair, 2007, an installation of giant keyhole-shaped sculptures.
No comments:
Post a Comment