Olafur Eliasson is interviewed in Fast Company this week, discussing his design projects and views on urban infrastructure, including the capacities for city planning and art to change how people interact and use limited urban space.  “Reflexivity is about connectivity, and connectivity is sometimes more about looking into yourself than looking at the ‘other.’ It can be hard work, and it can be uncomfortable, but sometimes public space has to make that demand of you,” he says.  “And sometimes art—and good art always—makes that demand of you. It makes you work. It makes you give. It makes you into a producer of space, of situations, of life, instead of being a consumer.” (more…)

The London Underground has announced a year-long series of artist commissions in the newest iteration of its ongoing arts patronage, including video work from Liam Gillick, and new design commissions from Giles Round and Design Work.  “Gillick has taken his camera, picking out features of the Victoria Line in an unfolding narrative,” says Eleanor Pinfield, the head of Art on the Underground. (more…)

The Serpentine has announced a Build Your Own Pavilion contest for young and aspiring architects, aged 8 to 14, inviting them to try their hand at executing their own unique architectural design.  “The platform and workshops give an insight to the basic principles of architectural design and workshop students will be given the Pavilion brief and a toolkit that begins with sketching by hand, working with simple modeling materials and progressing to 3D design and print technologies,” the Serpentine says. (more…)

A muralist and designer is suing Starbucks, following the coffee company’s allegedly unlicensed use of her signature style.  Painter Maya Hayuk was approached by the corporation late last year, and declined an offer to work with them on a campaign, but sued when Starbucks rolled out new branding that seemed strikingly similar to her own work.  “Starbucks brazenly created artwork that is substantially similar to one or more of Hayuk’s copyrighted works,” the lawsuit claims. (more…)

New shoes from artist Takashi Murakami and Vans hit stores this weekend, a collaboration that sees the artist’s signature flowers and skulls adorning the skateboard shoe company’s iconic slip-ons.  The collaboration also features a number of limited-edition skateboard decks and t-shirts. (more…)

Artist David Shrigley has designed the new mascot for Scottish soccer club Partick Thistle, a disturbingly rendered sun icon with a comically menacing face, a figure that some in the media have called “terrifying.” (more…)

Dasha Zhukova’s long-awaited Garage Center for Contemporary Art has opened in Moscow’s Gorky Park, designed by architect Rem Koolhaas from a repurposed Soviet-era dining canteen.  “We are very happy to work on turning the almost-ruin of vremena goda into the new house for garage,’ says Koolhaas. “We were able, with our client and her team, to explore the qualities of generosity, dimension, openness, and transparency of the soviet wreckage and find new uses and interpretations for them.” (more…)

W Magazine takes a look inside the home of Frieze director Victoria Siddall and her partner, gallerist François Chantala this week, just in time for the opening of the organization’s New York edition.  “Our work and social lives are totally continuous and intertwined,”Siddall says.  “But when we’re in the same city, it means that at least we get to see each other in the evenings. The art lot always knows how to put on a great party.” (more…)

The Renzo Piano Workshop has unveiled a handbag design collaboration with fashion designer Max Mara, taking the facade of the Whitney Museum as its inspiration.  Proceeds from the bag’s sale will go to benefit the Renzo Piano Foundation.  “We tried to maintain a simple, pure design,” says the architect, “working only on the details by applying a creative use of technology and placing the accent on respect for the materials.” (more…)

The Guardian reviews the ongoing rebuilding efforts at the Glasgow School of Art, after the school’s Mackintosh library was destroyed in last year’s massive blaze.  A fundraising campaign has already launched to help finance a new building, but a debate over rebuilding the space or starting over is currently drawing considerable attention.  “[Mackintosh] was driven by a lifelong search for new forms in architecture and technology and was never a copyist,” architecture professor Alan Dunlop says. “I have no doubt that he would reject the approach of building a replica.” (more…)

London’s Hayward Gallery has commissioned a major commission from artist Carsten Höller for the artist’s upcoming retrospective, Decision, inviting the artist to design a pair of slides for installation on the outside of its facade.  “Decision will ask visitors to make choices, but also, more importantly, to embrace a kind of double vision that takes in competing points of view, and embodies what Höller calls a state of ‘active uncertainty’ – a frame of mind conducive to entertaining new possibilities.” says Ralph Rugoff, the gallery director. (more…)

The design for the Serpentine’s annual summer pavilion has been announced for 2015, a colorful, cocoon-like structure by the architectural collaborative Selgas Cano that celebrates the program’s 15th anniversary.  Selgas Cano “sought a way to allow the public to experience architecture through simple elements, [a] journey through the space, characterized by color, light and irregular shapes with surprising volumes.” (more…)

A 1986 Ellsworth Kelly design for a free-standing building has been acquired by the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, and will be constructed on the museum grounds this spring.  The building has some ties to the contemplative, spiritual air of the Rothko Chapel, as well as Matisse’s design for the Chapelle du Rosaire.  “I think people need some kind of spiritual thing because, as you can see, there are spots around the world that are blowing up and we don’t want that,” the artist says. “No one wants that.” (more…)

Artist Vito Acconci has contributed a new architectural design proposal to the Tasmanian capital of Hobart, a twisting, maze-like bridge linking two of the city’s main memorial sites.  “All the surfaces of the maze are riddled with holes, from tiny to less or more than tiny; each of the many multiple mazes surrounds an empty open space,” says a spokesman from the artist’s studio. “You retrace your steps back and forth, and find your way from one maze to another, up and down and up again.”   (more…)

Converse has offfered the first images from its upcoming series of Andy Warhol-inspired Chuck Taylors, featuring iconic imagery from the artist’s career.  The collection, which features a number of recognizable Warhol screenprints, will be released in January.   (more…)

The Fondazione Prada has unveileved a new design for its space in Milan, designed by Rem Koolhaas’s architecture firm, OMA.  This will be the second space for the Fondazione, which will continue to operate out of its location in Venice as well. (more…)

Artist Bjarne Melgaard has unveiled a new fashion collection he designed himself, inspired by the 2013 Catherine Breillat film Abuse of Weakness.  “I was thinking about creating clothes that are about the mental state you’re in and the faults you feel you have,” the artist says. “And rather than do that in sculpture, I wanted to try it with a commercial fashion line.” (more…)

The Oslo city council in Norway has approved a proposal for a new Munch Museum design on the city waterfront, created by firm Herreros.  The process in building the museum has moved slowly over the past years, with a number of critics challenging the tilting, “Lambda” design.  A vote on zoning is due to take place in November. (more…)

Perrier-Jouët is releasing a new edition of its 2005 Cuvée Belle Epoque Rosé, packaged in a limited-edition bottle designed by celebrated Brazilian visual artist Vik Muniz.  “Much as Perrier-Jouët has long embraced Art Nouveau’s love of nature and enchantment, I took the idea of captivation in a natural setting as the inspiration for this motif,” Muniz says. (more…)

Artist Miranda July has designed a special edition handbag, created in collaboration with designer Laurel Consuelo Broughton of Welcome Companions, including remarkably specific titles for each compartment (“Almond in Case of Low Blood Sugar”) as well as a series of cards bearing questions and phrases like “I can’t understand you because my cell phone has a bad connection.”   (more…)

Bloomberg takes a look this week at the trend towards artists painting luxury automobiles, profiling specially commissioned projects by Frank Stella, Jeff Koons, and others, and investigating the economic versus aesthetic values that the work brings up.  “It’s not a given that because it’s a Calder or a Warhol car it’ll automatically get a huge premium — that has not been proven by the market,” says luxury auto insurance head McKeel Hagerty. “An art car raises more questions about the real value of the car than it answers.” (more…)

Artist Glenn Ligon has created a specially-designed tote bag, for sale to benefit Harlem’s Studio Museum.  Based on the artist’s work Untitled (I am Somebody), the bag is co-designed with MZ Wallace, and is available for $225.  “It’s always been a favorite text of mine,” Ligon sayws. “When I was approached about an image for this project, I thought the message of that image and its history, and also how it works on the bag when I saw the sketches, that this is a perfect marriage of these two things.” (more…)

Absolut Vodka has rolled out a new marketing campaign heavily indebted to Andy Warhol’s own designs for the brand in the 1980’s, inscribing a limited edition bottle with a design the artist created for an Absolut print ad in 1985/86.  “Warhol is an icon and Absolut has a fantastic heritage of collaborating with him,” said Dan Brooks, creative director at the Sid Lee New York, the firm that created the campaign: “This is not about being back in the past, rummaging in the past. It’s about looking forward, reinventing.” (more…)

Continuing its ongoing series of artist collaborations, New York streetwear brand Supreme has announced a capsule collection incorporating the work of Raymond Pettibon.  The Californian artist will lend his work to a pair of skateboard decks, a hooded work jacket, a hooded sweatshirt, and two tee-shirts.   (more…)