• Spanish

WHAT: Jeff Koons
WHERE: Gagosian Gallery @ Beverly Hills, CA

Photos by Greta Álvarez / @Grets

The Gagosian Gallery is located in Beverly Hills, California. Inside you can find since December 2012, an exhibition of the  American artist Jeff Koon. The exposition shows two of his famous sculptures. Coloring Book (measurements: 222 x 131 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches) & Gorilla.

Both are giants and three-dimensional which are two main characteristics of his work with colorful, happy, shiny, pop, and almost childish touches. Koons is still the most regarded living artist in the world, and being in front of one of his sculptures is always inspirational.

• Spanish

WHAT: The Freak Show
WHERE: 909 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, California.
$: 5 Dollars

Photos and Text by Greta Alvarez
@Grets

In Venice Beach’s boardwalk surrounded by girls in bikini, men showing their abs, turists, hippies, tall palm trees, skaters, sun, music, a nomad way of life, medicinal pot, artists, sellers, burgers and beers, just in front of the pacific ocean you can find a man with a megaphone that invites you to see a two headed turtle that’s on a table while he’s gives you the first taste of a small room where you can see stuff that escapes the ordinary.

The antithesis of the Californian perfection / plasticity lurks around Santa Monica where people eat organic salads while on the inside they have more botox than naturalness. In the heart of Venice you can find one of the few authentic freak shows where people show with pride their biological rarities and capabilities to do what you would never could.

THE INITIATION

Weird people -actually freaks- eating fire, getting nails in his noses, a girl getting electrocuted, others swallowing blades and many things more that make the faint of heart close their eyes. On the otherhand, there’s people that take out their cameras for pictures. Videos are not permitted inside the facility. There’s a moment where a young guy puts a hook inside his nose and it comes out of his mouth, then he walks among the assistants so they can take a closer look…and enjoy it more.

INSIDE

No, they´re not Paris and Nicole, these were two English siamese twins that lived inside the show bussiness and sideshows since they were very little. There you have a lot of info about siameses, more than I could like to know. With all due respect to the people with these characteristics, it disturbed me to know how many siameses married with different wives and had kids separately. My mind was in “how” mode all the time in a way that was too graphic to display.

FREAKS!

Two headed kitties in a jar full formol, pigs and chickens -also with two heads each-, and several two headed turtles and snakes, alive and well. Moreover, a five legged dog carried by its proud owner who shows the audience the World Record Guiness book where it’s at. I can’t stop thinking about the hairy face man, yes, he has the entire face covered with hair. He’s a shy young guy, shy and scary at the same time. I didn’t want to go close to him but I did. It was impossible not to look at him into his eyes.

It’s important to know that the animals inside this room seems to receive care from the owners of the Freak Show. While in many places are killing animals that born with deformities, here they try to rescu them and at the same time they give to those animals a place in the world that despite them in the first place.

“THE OTHERS”

During my visit Joseph Merrick AKA The Elephant Man was in my mind the entire time. I wanted to show everyone that I cared for them which is no lie. Being different is not something to be ashamed of. In my opinion this kind of people and animals shouldn’t be rejected but embraced like something unique and different, it´s sad that not everyone think alike, but ironically they are looking to fill their lips with colagen: Hello Lana del Rey.

CONCLUSION:

Although lately freak shows around the world don’t have deformed humans, because Science prefers to use them in experiments, it’s worth to go to Venice Beach this summer, get away from the sun for a while and enter the darkness of the unknown so you can turn the lights with them…I had fun.

• Spanish

WHAT: Moritz Beer Factory
WHERE: Ronda Sant Antoni, Barcelona
WHY: Fresh beer with a history

Phots and Text by Veronica Estrada

@_Nica_

“The idea of the resurgence is what fascinates me the most”. Those were the words from the famous french architect Jean Nouvel when he was asked to take the wheels of the reopening of the old catalan Moritz Beer Factory under a concept that could merge the gastronomic and the cultural side.

30 years after it closed, this factory which can be found in the crowded Ronda de Sant Antoni in downtown Barcelona, has opened its doors once again since last december after a harder restoration work. The final result is an awesome space where the antique design touches elbows with industrial and modern brushes, pushed by an illumination game full of warm colors, and elements made with metal and glass.

Moritz, as a brand, has been around since 1856, thanks to its excellent ad campaigns and overall image. This is exactly what decors the walls inside the factory: their old, but vanguardists ads.

Ounces and ounces of fresh beer without pasteurizing are already running through the veins of this new gastronomic center. They don’t have just the brewery, they also offer a restaurant with a wide selection of “tapas” & catalan dishes in honor to the place that gave birth to its founder: Louis Moritz.

Next in line they’ll have a wine bar, a fancy restaurant, a store that will sell memorabilia, handmade bread, and even a museum. The place also has spaces that will be used to show expos and events. The last event was called “The Radiohead Night” where they showed the Life From The Basement Concert inside their old cellars.

Extra tip: You need to go inside the restrooms. On the way you’ll see the interior of the factory and you need to cross a transparent bridge just before you can go into their minimalistic restrooms. What a trip!

• Spanish

WHAT: Grabaciones Jamaica
WHERE: Between Amsterdam & Parra, Colonia Condesa, México D.F.
LINKS: http://grabacionesjamaica.tv & http://tamarindomusica.com

Text by Alejandro Gómez

@ringomez

@lostelecaster

It happens all the time in Grabaciones Jamaica, headquarters of En Petit Comité sessions and home of Tamarindo Música enterprise (México, D.F.): a memorable flow of artists generating and making compositions, performances, awesome singers, beautiful girls, an Irish nightingale, a tropical “wanatoz”, photographers, skaters and a mastermind AKA “El Chango”.

photo by jhonkid

Santiago González was born musician and he learned guitar with his mother. He worked making ad campaigns (he’s still doing jingles for commercials) and he came back to his normal state to create Grabaciones Jamaica where the celebrated cicle called En Petit Comité was born. His first version came out with the band Simplifires, with the Irish super-vocalist Dave Francis O´Gorman. “Dave blew my mind, incredible, he fascinated me…”, says Santiago next to Alvaro “Wanatoz” (Tropikal Forever) and more recently Randy Ebright (The “ameri-naco” from Molotov).

“The studio is a tool for the musicians to explode all their potential to the limit without distractions…” affirms. His vision is transparent, without false aspirations and centered on the lost essence inside the beaten musical industry, it’s trying to help the artist. For the staff, this business isn’t an exhausting work but indeed a fresh drink that tastes like Agua de Jamaica, that’s the idea.

The Singer-writer Juan Manuel Torreblanca is a great partner and friend of Grabaciones Jamaica. He says this studio has a unique and genuine style that pushes it from the rest in Mexico City. Jamaica allows to watch and feel the creative process of the musician: Jamaica does what it has to do, understands and helps the artist”, explains Torreblanca.

Grabaciones Jamaica escapes from the conventional rules of sound recording and also from the generic studio decoration; it explores sounds and transform ideas without damaging the essence of the melody and desires of the public. It’s a studio characterized by the warmth of the team work. A positive vibe surrounds the place, an ideal tone to execute your projects with a particular seal. It’s the ideal place to be and be listened.

photos by Grabaciones Jamaica

This recording studio has seen bands like:

Simplifires, Tropikal Forever, Felipe y Los Príncipes del Amor, Los Kitsch, Natalia Lafourcade, Torreblanca, Los Weeds, Los Telecaster (Venezuela), Madame Recamier, Adanowsky, Jóvenes y Sexys (Venezuela) Sabo Romo, and more.

• Spanish

WHAT: Orsai B ar
WHERE: Humberto Primo 471. San Telmo, Buenos Aires
WHY: When your favorite blog becomes a bar

Text & photos by Estrella Araque

@laperfecta

A bar born on the Internet where you can collide with authors and friends you’ve probably known thru the world wide web and where you can also find books and magazines that are made and distributed using the Internet.

Orsai started as a blog, then it became a literary magazine, and since October 2011 it’s also a pizzeria/bar/library, where the entire online community stablished by the Argentinian writer Hernán Casciari, come to life everyday.

Casciari is better known as the responsible of the first novel/blog of the world (www.mujergorda.bitacoras.com) that became a book and also a theater play in Argentina. The blog is online since 2003 (www.orsai.bitacoras.com) and it has let him interact with thousands of readers across the world creating a sort of literary congregation.

Since 2011 Orsai is also a magazine edited by Casciari where well known writers publish their work without intermediaries. It doesn´t accept ad campaigns or money from other sources and the readers serve as the distribuitors.

The bar was inaugurated as a part of their fourth edition release event. Inside you can join writers and readers alike that want to  drink some wine while they read something. They also mix themselves with tourists and local people who are always searching for a cozy corner around San Telmo.

Since October 2011 Orsai Bar works as a launching platform for musicians, writers and artists to show their proposals to the general public.

A great underground place: Friends, pizzas, drinos, books, Internet and nobody in between.

@OrsaiBar

• Spanish

WHAT: The Murder Tour: American Horror Story
WHERE: Country Club Park, Los Angeles, California
WHY: A new deadly californian point

Text by Lizandro Melean @Lizandro_Melean

Photos by Greta Álvarez @Grets

American Horror Story is the new TV series from creator Ryan Murphy. Murphy was the creator of Nip/Tuck and Glee. Now he come back with this offer that pays homage to a lot of horror movies from Amityville Horror, The Shining and even Rosemary´s Baby, reviving this genre on the small screen.

CoolHunting Project went to the house used to film the establishing shots of the house on the show. Taking a picture to this antique is even more valuable than a picture with the protagonists of the show, in the end “she” is the real star of this ghost story.

When we arrived, a twilight kind of fans were there taking photos, asking its supposed “owner” if this place was really hunted and how is the experience of living there. The man, which by the way I think is just the night watcher of the house hired by the FX crew, says the house is his, that he  bought it 16 years ago on Halloween night and that it is in fact haunted. He even said one of the most annoying ghosts of the house was a butler with no legs.

This guy, a kind of fat man that looks like an electrician with curly hair, reminiscent of Larry from The Three Stooges, said the house was build in 1902 and that FX pay him a lot of Money for a 7 year contract.

Is this a Marketing strategy? Is he the real owner?  Is he just a man hired to watch the house that is having fun with the ones that are visiting it?

Whatever the answer may be, this makes everything about the show better.

When we were about to leave we watch an old lady cleaning the windows, which by the way are made out of Tiffany’s glass, we I was looking for her again, in the matter of a second, she was gone. Was she a real ghost? Was she a new character? Were they shooting? I don’t know but the experience ending up like that was more than cool.