Latest news with #MoMA
The Guardian
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘I was censored for a long time': the woman who photographed Chile's sex workers and dissidents
When the Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz showed her first photobook to a well-known society photographer of the day, he told her 'look, a housewife will never be a photographer'. 'That's what he said!' she laughs. 'Imagine … that was my beginning.' Today, aged 81, her work documenting life on the fringes of Chilean society sits in the collections of Tate Modern and MoMA in New York and in 2015 she represented Chile at the Venice Biennale. Between 1982 and 1987, Errázuriz spent time photographing life in the brothels of Santiago, as trans sex workers fixed their hair, shifted their stockings, refined their makeup and killed time waiting for male clients. It was, she says, a 'beautiful' experience. 'We talked or we'd have a glass of wine or a coffee. They trusted me.' Such was her empathetic bond with her subjects, that she even developed a friendship with the mother of two brothers working in one of the brothels. 'I dedicated the series to her.' She titled the project Adam's Apple, and it characterised a career defined by an enduring love of outsiders. Works from the series can now be seen in her first major solo UK exhibition, Paz Errázuriz: Dare to Look – Hidden Realities of Chile at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes. Other subjects of the 171 photographs on show include psychiatric patients, circus performers, boxers, political activists and the homeless, highlighting the humanity of those living under duress during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. Talking to me over Zoom from her home in Santiago, Errázuriz admits to being nervous about the interview. But she remains an energising presence, even on screen: a huge smile and rippling laugh, spiky hair, she beams through my laptop like a grandmotherly punk. 'My idea is not to shock,' she states. But shock she did. 'I was censored for such a long time. For instance, there was a small group exhibition at a museum during the dictatorship and my photograph was taken out. It was a reflection of a naked man in a mirror.' It was artistic, she laughs again, not obscene. 'You couldn't see anything specific.' Errázuriz was born in Santiago in 1944. Her father, a lawyer, was both strict and traditional. 'I never got along with him. He didn't accept that I studied art when I finished school, so I resented that,' she recalls. A childhood snap taken during her first communion made an impression about photography's importance as a record. Her head was partly out of the frame. 'I was frustrated because friends had very formal photographs. It seemed very unfair.' She trained as a primary school teacher, studying for a time at the Cambridge Institute of Education in the UK. While teaching in Santiago she began taking pictures, initially of children. 'I enjoyed that very much because they didn't see me. They forgot about the photographer,' she recalls. That project led to her first photobook in 1973 – Amalia, Diary of a Chicken – in which she depicted a household seen through the bird's shin-high perspective. She was encouraged in her early work by the book's editor, Isabel Allende, later the bestselling author of The House of the Spirits and a niece of Salvador Allende, Chile's president during the early 1970s. 'I didn't know other photographers. I never had the chance to see photobooks in those days. I'm self-taught.' But everything changed on 11 September 1973 when General Pinochet took power in a coup that saw the country's air force bomb its own presidential palace. When Pinochet's troops stormed the building, President Allende was found dead, lying next to his rifle. Isabel Allende went into exile. Errázuriz stayed. But the coup ended her teaching career; the junta considered her 'inappropriate' for the classroom. Photography and family life took its place. She married and had two children. Meanwhile, she began photographing Chileans living on the margins of society, embracing an informal social documentary style with a humanist sensibility. 'Little by little, I became more active.' In 1981 she co-founded Asociación de Fotógrafos Independientes, which provided credentials and a membership card as she wielded her camera around town. She went on to photograph vagrants sleeping rough, elderly nudes, riot police, tango dancers, wrestlers, acrobats, dissidents and endangered ethnic groups. All are treated with respect. Errázuriz compares looking at her old work to flicking through a diary. 'It was analogue photography and so you had negatives and you made contact sheets. Film here was very difficult to find, very expensive. You had one roll of film, 36 shots, and when that contact sheet appeared there were so many things on it,' she explains. 'The first six strips were of the protests in the street, where the military is doing this or that. Then came the photography of my son, a baby, and then at the end of the sheet is my grandmother's birthday.' In the 1980s, Errázuriz volunteered at a charitable centre for people affected by Aids. The crisis decimated the community of sex workers she had photographed. 'So many people died. From my project all of them except one,' she says, adding that she remains close to that survivor. 'For the past 10 years, the first call I receive in the new year is from him.' The dictatorship was mercurial, she recalls. In 1987 she began documenting the city's boxing community. 'That, I thought was innocuous,' she says. 'But when I went to the place where they trained, they said: 'Oh no, you cannot come in because women are not allowed here.'' She won them over with 'imaginative arguments'. The last time she showed in the UK it was alongside other international luminaries such as Bruce Davidson, Diane Arbus and Larry Clark in the group show Another Kind of Life: Photography on the Margins at the Barbican in London. She is thrilled to be back in Britain, a nation of which she is fond, not least because, when Pinochet was placed under house arrest in a Surrey country club in 1998 on charges of human rights violations, 'everyone realised, seriously, what he had done because England is such an authority,' she says. 'That was the real fall of a dictator.' He told Chileans he'd be home for Christmas but was held for 16 months before, notoriously, the then homesecretary Jack Straw released him on the grounds that he was too ill to stand trial. Errázuriz is still photographing (albeit on her smartphone, as carrying a camera on the streets of Santiago would be a magnet for muggers). There is widespread poverty, crime and yet more protests, she says, and she is not, perhaps, as primed for the latter as she once was. 'You have to run fast. The teargas hurts so much, I discovered that the gas today is totally different to the one 40 years ago.' Does she think Chile is a better place today than it was half a century ago? 'We got rid of the dictatorship. That was the main thing we've done. That's really important,' she says. 'But it's difficult in Chile, really. It's not exactly what we dreamed of.' When I ask if she still gets pleasure from photographing its people, 'Sí,' she says and her face lights up. 'When I choose who I'm going to photograph, it's because, somehow, I like that person. I reflect myself in them. I learn from them.' Paz Errázuriz: Dare to Look – Hidden Realities of Chile is at MK Gallery from 19 July to 5 October
USA Today
14-07-2025
- USA Today
Cool escapes: Top indoor activities, attractions for hot summer days
There are plenty of attractions across the US that offer fun indoor activities on a hot day – Photo courtesy of Sarah Miller / Color Factory With the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasting above normal temperatures for much of the United States and, particularly, the Northeast this summer, people are adjusting their vacation and travel plans to include more indoor activities and attractions. Madison Pietrowski of GetYourGuide, an online marketplace for travel activities, can attest to this trend. 'During NYC's heat dome in June, 100% of the top 10 most-booked experiences for these days were at indoor attractions or on the water, with the majority being indoors," she says. "It's clear that both New Yorkers and visitors were desperate to escape the heat, either through air-conditioned tours or breezy cruises.' Advertisement Thankfully, there are numerous things to do inside that will keep you cool and entertained. To help kickstart your planning, here are a few indoor activities and attractions worth checking out this summer, to include several 10BEST Readers' Choice award winners. Make a splash at an indoor water park Among indoor activities, an indoor water park always makes a splash with kiddos – Photo courtesy of Kalahari Resorts & Conventions One of the most popular things to do on a hot day is splash around at an indoor water park. Playing in the wave pools, water slides, lazy rivers, and splash pads of these indoor water wonderlands is a fun way to beat the heat. For instance, the water parks at Kalahari Resorts feature uphill water coasters, surfing simulators, a virtual reality water slide, and an exclusive water play area for young visitors. At time of publication, park locations include Round Rock, Texas; Sandusky, Ohio; Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin; and Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania. Stroll the galleries at a museum The Children's Museum of Indianapolis offers many things to do inside on a hot day – Photo courtesy of The Children's Museum of Indianapolis Museums provide an interesting way to escape the high temps. Maybe it's teaching the kids about dinosaurs, or perhaps it's taking a deep dive into presidential history. In New York, a top-trending indoor activity on GetYourGuide is the MoMA Before-Hours Tour with Art Expert. Advertisement 'Our MoMA Before-Hours Tour is an amazing way to escape New York City's summer heat while soaking in iconic culture,' Pietrowski says. 'Visitors get a rare experience to explore the museum galleries before the crowds rush in for the day with an expert art historian guide. It's an ideal blend of comfort and culture, especially on hot days when travelers are looking to stay cool without missing out.' Explore underwater wonders at an aquarium This award-winning aquarium in Springfield, Missouri, boasts more than 1.5 miles of immersive galleries – Photo courtesy of Johnny Morris' Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium When it comes to indoor attractions, aquariums rank high on the list. You can spend time sitting in the dark, watching schools of fish, sharks, turtles, and other marine life swim away the hours. One of the best spots for doing just that is the award-winning Johnny Morris' Wonders of Wildlife National Museum & Aquarium in Springfield, Missouri. Here you can see more than 35,000 animals representing more than 800 species. Galleries range from a three-story saltwater aquarium that highlights the Great Barrier Reef to a sunken shipwreck teeming with marine life to a murky swamp filled with nocturnal animals. Indulge in retail therapy at an indoor mall Aside from shopping, this Florida mall offers many indoor attractions, such as an art collection – Photo courtesy of Aventura Mall Indoor malls are ideal for escaping hot weather. They offer something for every age and interest. For example, Florida's award-winning Aventura Mall — the state's largest mall — is home to more than 300 retailers, over 50 restaurants, and an extensive art collection. Try your luck at a casino Hitting a casino is a sure bet among indoor activities — just make sure you quit while you're ahead – Photo courtesy of Yaamava' Resort & Casino When you're looking for some adults-only indoor activities, check out the action at a local casino. Maybe you like to try the slots, or perhaps you prefer one of the table games like blackjack or craps. Or it could be the action of a high-stakes game in a private room. Whatever your game, a great casino to check out is the Yaamava' Resort & Casino at San Manuel in Highland, California. This casino has over 7,000 slot machines and more than 150 table games, plus five high-limit games where you can test your skills. Do you have what it takes to beat Lady Luck? Take a spin around an indoor skating rink There's nothing cooler hanging at an indoor ice skating rink when temperatures outside are soaring – Photo courtesy of Galleria Dallas
Fast Company
14-07-2025
- General
- Fast Company
Step inside the Nakagin Capsule Tower, one of the world's weirdest architectural wonders
The Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo was one of the most distinctive buildings of the 20th century, both for its oddball form and for its tumultuous evolution. A space station stack of 140 prefabricated cabin-like capsule living spaces completed in 1972, the building went from high concept design to marketing triumph to architectural wonder to lamented demolition. Now, the building is taking on a new form inside the galleries of New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower, a year-long exhibition opening July 10. The central piece of the exhibition is the roughly 100-square-foot capsule A1305, a complete and fully restored living chamber from the building that visitors will be able to step inside. 'Especially for architecture exhibitions, sometimes we're able to show actual pieces of buildings, or fragments,' says curator Evangelos Kotsioris. 'But what is extremely rare here is that it's a whole unit by itself.' That's because the building had a wholly innovative design: two tower cores surrounded with individual rectangular living units, or capsules, that attached to the structure like appendages. Designed for the Nakagin Company by architect Kisho Kurokawa, the building came to epitomize the avant-garde Metabolist movement that developed in 1960s Japan as an effort to use adaptable architecture as an avenue for rebuilding postwar Japan and Japanese society. In the mind of Kurokawa, who died in 2007, the capsule tower was meant to evolve, with old capsules being swapped out for new ones as needs and times changed. This never happened, not exactly anyway. The building slowly decayed over the years and deferred maintenance doomed much of it to becoming uninhabitable before it was demolished in 2022. Some capsules and building parts were salvaged, though, and more than a dozen capsules have been fully restored. Capsule A1305 was acquired by MoMA in 2023. But the Nakagin Capsule Tower exhibition is more than just a showcase of an architectural curio. It features 45 other objects relating to the building and its design, including the only surviving physical model from the early 1970s, the original architectural drawings of the building, historic marketing material from the Nakagin Company for the building's original use as a businessman's pied-à-terre, and a digital building walk-through created with 3D scanning technology just days before the building's demolition. Kotsioris also interviewed the group of residents who lived in the capsule tower during its final decade, and the exhibition includes documentation on the varied ways they repurposed the capsules. 'The capsule itself, if you just look at it from the outside, it's not telling you much. You cannot fully comprehend the radicality of the proposition behind it,' Kotsioris says. 'I thought it was really important for its first presentation in New York to contextualize it properly, with the ideas about the birth of the project, the drawing, the models, but also interviews with residents.' The capsule in the exhibition is a faithful recreation of the way the building was originally marketed, as a part-time residence for businessmen visiting Tokyo for work. One famous ad for the building shows a smiling businessman inside a capsule, seemingly after work, lounging on the bed while talking on the phone and smoking a Marlboro, with the capsule's built-in Sony TV and audio electronics playing in the background. Kurokawa intended the building to be more than just a space for businessmen, envisioning the building with multiple capsule sizes for offices, hotel rooms, and family residences. That vision narrowed, but also evolved, as Kurokawa later went on to design the first capsule hotel in Osaka in 1979. Even short of Kurokawa's original intent, the Nakagin Capsule Tower has influenced generations of architects, while also pushing new ideas about urban living in Japan, impermanence in the built environment, and prefabricated housing. 'Even though there was a lot of speculative projects about capsule living and prefabricated dwellings, even from the early 20th century,' Kotsioris says, 'this was really the first realized prototype on the ground that said this is an idea that you can actually put into action.' MoMA members will be able to step inside the capsule during several special events throughout the exhibition's run, which Kotsioris says should be a treat. 'I remember the first time I entered a capsule,' he says. 'There's something extremely magical about being inside it, because it's very small, but at the same time it feels spacious.' The Nakagin Capsule Tower exhibition explores the ways the building played multiple roles in its five-decade lifespan. Despite the compact size of the capsules, they evolved over time from a kind of temporary living quarters to more of a permanent residence. And, Kotsioris found, the individualist nature of the capsules changed over time, too, as maintenance and structural issues began to plague the building. 'The more the building started to break down over the years, the more it generated social interactions,' he says. Residents told him that frequent earthquake evacuation alarms in the aging structure turned into social gatherings in the lobby. When the hot water boiler stopped working, a group of residents would travel together to a nearby bathhouse to take showers, and when the air conditioning broke, they'd gather in one of the units with a working dehumidifier for drinks after work. These unintended uses of the building—a version of the Metabolist architecture idea Kurokawa was designing around—helped it remain useful up until the end. 'Kurokawa had one idea of how this project could be metabolized or change over time,' Kotsioris says. 'And it did metabolize, but maybe in a different way than he would ever have imagined.' The super-early-rate deadline for Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies Awards is Friday, July 25, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
Japan Times
11-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Japan Times
The many lives of Nakagin Capsule Tower on display at New York's MoMA
Despite a yearslong battle for its preservation, the Nakagin Capsule Tower designed by Kisho Kurokawa was dismantled in 2022. However, in a poetic exemplification of the tenets of the metabolism movement that it once represented, the beloved building continues its existence, albeit broken down in parts, akin energy from food metabolized in a body. The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project saved 23 of Nakagin's capsules and has been restoring a number of them under the supervision of Kisho Kurokawa Architects and Associates. The refurbished capsules started resurfacing in public as early as 2023, with a unit turned into a van by the Yodogawa Steel Works company. More units were acquired by the Museum of Modern Art Saitama, the Museum of Modern Art in Wakayama, M+ in Hong Kong, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. From July 10, 2025, through July 12, 2026, MoMA is displaying the A1305 capsule in its street-level galleries in Manhattan as part of a larger exhibition titled 'The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower,' showcasing the 50-year history of the building through nearly 45 pieces of contextual material. 'These materials include the project's only surviving model from 1970–72; original drawings, photographs and promotional ephemera; an archival film and audio recordings; interviews with former tenants; and an interactive virtual tour of the entire building,' states MoMA's press release. MoMA members have the opportunity to enter the Nakagin capsule during a number of special activation events during the exhibition. | Jonathan Dorado "The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower" is on view in the street-facing galleries of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, from July 10, 2025, through July 12, 2026. | Jonathan Dorado Evangelos Kotsioris, who led the exhibition's curatorial team, told The Yomiuri Shimbun in writing that the museum housed the capsule because the tower is 'one of the most important buildings of the 20th century.' The 'many lives' in the exhibition's title allude not only to the refurbished capsules but to the people who once made their homes in the 140 single-room apartments of the retro-futuristic building in Tokyo's Ginza. Photos and videos show a range of interiors, from a simple minimalist bedroom to a tea ceremony room and a DJ booth. 'Each capsule — that is to say, each unit — is an expression of the idiosyncrasies of each individual,' wrote Kurokawa in 'Oh! The Code of the Cyborg.' The architect had always imagined that his poster-child of metabolist architecture would transform and change. While Kurosawa once drew up plans for a twin building to Nakagin Capsule Tower that was never realized, the latest exhibition is an invitation to imagine both the structure's past lives and its future potential we have yet to experience. 'The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower' in New York's Museum of Modern Art runs through July 12, 2026. For more information, visit
Yomiuri Shimbun
04-07-2025
- General
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Tokyo's Nakagin Capsule Tower Unit to be Shown at MoMA in New York
Part of an iconic residential capsule building in Tokyo's Ginza district that was demolished in 2022 will be exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from July 10. Designed by the late architect Kisho Kurokawa (1934-2007), the Nakagin Capsule Tower building was completed in 1972 as a housing complex comprising a total of 140 single-room housing capsules. One of the capsules, now housed in the renowned institution for modern and contemporary art, will be shown at the exhibition 'The Many Lives of the Nakagin Capsule Tower,' focusing on the building's 50-year history, until July 12, 2026. Thanks to the design using detachable and replaceable capsules, which each had about 10 square meters of space inside, the building was famous as a structure that represented Japan's Metabolism architectural movement. It is also one of the representative works of Kurokawa, who designed the National Art Center, Tokyo, and the Toshiba IHI Pavilion for the 1970 Osaka Expo. The capsules were never replaced, and the building was dismantled due to aging in 2022. The Nakagin Capsule Tower Preservation and Restoration Project, a citizen group formed by former unit owners and others to preserve the building, obtained and restored 23 capsules. The preservation group has been searching for recipients for them. To date, capsules taken from the building have been added to the collections of several prominent overseas museums, including M+, one of Asia's largest contemporary art museums in Hong Kong, the National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Evangelos Kotsioris, assistant curator at MoMA, told The Yomiuri Shimbun in writing that the museum housed the capsule because the tower is 'one of the most important buildings of the 20th century at large.' 'The Nakagin Capsule Tower anticipated contemporary conversations about circularity in architecture, in other words, the idea that designers should not only think about the design and construction of buildings, but also their life cycles, and ultimate disassembly and repurposing of the materials that made them up,' Kotsioris wrote, adding that the museum concluded that the capsule deserves a place in MoMA's collection. '[The capsule] is a cozy space that has inspired generations of architects, and captivated the imaginations of both residents and people around the world,' Kotsioris wrote. In addition to the capsule with its interior fully restored to the state it was in when the building was completed, about 45 related materials that include photographs, films and the project's original models and drawings will be on display during the upcoming exhibition.
