Menno Aden

In order of appearance

  1. Menno Aden, Untitled (Classroom), 2010
  2. Menno Aden, Untitled (Car), 2008
  3. Menno Aden, Untitled (Car III), 2018
  4. Menno Aden, Untitled, 2008
  5. Menno Aden, Untitled, 2010
  6. Menno Aden, Untitled (Box I), 2011
  7. Menno Aden, Untitled (Box VI), 2011
  8. Menno Aden, Untitled (Basement III), 2011
  9. Menno Aden, Untitled (Basement V), 2011
  10. Menno Aden, Untitled (Lift-III), 2011
  11. Menno Aden, Untitled (Lift V), 2017

Credits

All artworks courtesy of Menno Aden

Menno Aden (b. 1972) studied Art and Composition at Bremen University and University of the Arts Bremen in 2000. Aden lives and works in Berlin. 

Exhibitions include Museu Serralves, Deutsches Architektur Museum, Landesmuseum Emden, Kunsthaus Potsdam, The Wandsworth Museum, London, CMU Museum, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Dezer Schauhalle, Miami, Ratchadamnoen Contemporary Art Center, Bangkok, Institut Francais, Yangon, Myanmar, among others. 

Aden was awarded the German Prize for Science Photography, The International Photography Awards, The Accademia Apulia UK Photography Award, The European Award of Architectural Photography, among others. 

His work has been featured in The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Philosophie Magazine France, Der Tagesspiegel, Washington Post, Financial Times Internazionale, Dezeen, Nowness, Ignant, Deutsche Welle TV, among others. 

His work has been published in several books e.g. Berlin Raum Radar – New Architekture Photography (Hatje Cantz, 2016), European Month of Photography (Catalogue, 2016), Khao Ta Looh (KMITL Fine Art, Bangkok 2018), among others. 

Aden is represented in private collections in USA, Europe, and Asia, including Novartis Collection Basel, KPMG Collection London, Sanovis Collection Munich, Lisser Art Museum, among other national and international private collections. 


Peter Kaaden

Alles Wird Gut

Team

Models · Marlene at Tigers Management, Nathalie at Girls Club and Belle at Modelwerk
Photography · Peter Kaaden and Till Milius
Fashion · Peninah Amanda
Production and Casting · Pina Marlene
Hair · Ruby Howes
Makeup · Maria Ehrlich
Fashion Assistants · Sophia Bogner and Jakob Schaefer

Designers

  1. Dress THE ATTICO
  2. Bra Stylist’s own, skirt VALENTINO and stockings FALKE
  3. Coat VERSACE and jewellery Model’s own
  4. Coat VERSACE
  5. Dress THE ATTICO
  6. Dress BOTTEGA VENETA

Lila Steinkampf

Lila Steinkampf’ jelly cakes form an edible sensual experience that becomes a part of one’s body

Jelly cakes as objects of desire prelude a sensual dessert experience that cake artist and food stylist Lila Steinkampf makes. She works with jelly as a temporary sculptural medium that can be consumed while infusing a pure sensual experience, swinging between the art of sweets and the pleasure they give. She tells NR that the fact is that jelly cakes can be eaten and therefore becomes a part of your body, making them an accessible artwork. “It makes you stop for a second, try to grasp what you have in front of you. It makes you talk about the future of food,” she says. The kinship her consumers have with her jelly cakes moves beyond the visible form of food. The slow slide of the knife’s hilt onto the gelatinous surface sends an electric buzz on the skin. A shiver follows as the lilac whip cream and glossy tapioca pearls drip gradually. A slice of Steinkmapf’s treat invites the consumer to take the plate to their room and ravish the dessert at a languid pace, alone.

Steinkampf trained as a communication designer and worked as a research-based graphic designer and visual journalist before shifting toward cake making and designing. Jelly comes through as her go-to medium since she believes it toys with her creativity and allows her to explore her visual storytelling. “I could not find this space in art institutions and in my practice before. I feel free to fully express myself now, even if it is commissioned work,” she says. She adds that she can get analytical in the way she prepares and designs her jelly cakes, and the symmetry and intentional decorations of her works testify to her statement. Metaphors and allegories bond with her edible sculptures through her use of flowers, pieces of jewelry, feathers, olives, fruit, and soft colors.

Each cake she designs takes several hours to produce. “I am working in steps, but the cooling process interrupts the design process. Before that, the development of the concept and flower selection takes place. Every piece is a custom design, a personal exploration of a new technique, or color research,” she says. The versatility of her material means she can reheat and cast it again in any shape and form. She molds the jelly and twists it to her benefit, unlike baked chiffon cakes that might not fold under her desired shape and outcome. Ingredients-wise, nothing becomes discarded as Steinkampdf repurposes the leftover materials from her previous cakes – such as the fruit and flowers – to design a new one, and shares them with the people close to her. 

When she says she wants to explore the depth of her visual storytelling, she means well. Two golden cherries top her two green, rounded jelly cakes for her commissioned work with Adidas. Petals of flowers scatter around the presentation, adding up to the soft and striking features of her creation. For another order, she sculpts a rose from a red-hued jelly, injects a real rose in the middle, and places everything inside a heart-shaped, transparent cake. When sliced, the cake displays a broken heart with uneven cut lines, jagged by the knife. Sometimes, she fills the inside with strands of blonde hair, and once, she planted a curvy phallus-like design in the center of a whipped-covered cake. Steinkampf needs no words to describe why she does what she does. A glimpse of her creations is enough to flirt with the viewer’s imagination. What follows next are the salivating mouths these cakes are poised to feed.

Since her works are also through collaborations and commissions, brands and clients give her the freedom to translate their briefs and requests, and Steinkampf oozes excitement as she brainstorms what visuals she can make out of the verbal and written words. “It pushes me to go out of my comfort zone and risk developing a new visual language. There are times I feel nervous about the end product and how it is going to be perceived by the client, but until now it always turned out in the best way I could have imagined. This is the best way I can think of working – there is a balance between my own approach in tryouts as well as freedom in commissioned work,” she says.

The surroundings of Steinkampf growing up influence the flowers present in her design oeuvre. Her grandmother grew her own flowers in her garden and would pluck the bloomed ones to decorate the community church every Saturday. Steinkampf would join to assist her grandmother, and they would prepare huge bouquets inside the church, especially the altar. “By doing this, she taught me a lot about color composition and set design with the altar as the stage,” she says. Turning to her parents, both are gardeners who fostered Steinkampf’s curiosity over gardening. The cake artist and stylist owes her green sensitivity to the spacious garden her family had while growing up. She learned to identify what they needed to grow in their garden and how to let them bloom, acting as her parents’ novice gardener. 

Today, Steinkampf is far from being called a novice in the floral department. Working with flowers so closely for her cakes has made the artist and stylist aware of the natural crevices, waves, and bents of the florals, allowing her to marvel at the detailed structures found in every bloom. “It never fails to amaze me every time I spend time with them. I started deconstructing the blooms to see how their expression changed. This is what defines the detailed look of my cakes today,” she says, who adds that living in an urban environment now and being dependent on flower shops changes and informs her approach. “The geographical trading routes of the cut flowers market are determined by exploitative working conditions which we should be aware of while working with flowers.”

When Steinkampf started making cakes for private birthdays, she soon realized it formed a bond between her, the person who commissioned the work, and the people who received her cakes as presents. An element that freely runs in her work ethic today lies in how she treats what she makes as a personal token to gift and share. At the same time, her desserts spring as a genre of deconstruction to which she eventually adds layers visually. “This is a beautiful image for me. The consistency of the jelly forces you to invent something new if you want to share. The basic elements connect you with the other people on the table, but every served dessert turns into its own world. Jelly gets this magical shine when it is cut, and the light finds its way through. Combined with flowers and fruits, it starts to tell its own story staged in a small bowl,” she says.

Opting out for a less-subdued, more-pronounced body of work, Steinkampf diverts the attention of her consumers from looking at cakes solely as sweet treats to fulfill their cravings. Her instinctive and technical details turn her jelly cakes into luxurious souvenirs that stimulate the senses through their color, texture, flavor, and sparkle. “These are exactly what I am working towards to,” she says. For every mouth-ready cake designs she makes, Lila Steinkampf motivates the consumers to slow down – maybe take a picture for social media – scrutinize the design, mentally and/or physically applaud the artist behind the creations, and dig in for pleasure without thinking twice. 

Team

Photography · Adrian Escu
Cake artist and food stylist · Lila Steinkampf at Future Rep
Set Design Assistant · Tra Ma Nguyen

Neue Nationalgalerie Museum

NR · WORLD
Published · Online

Feature · Neue Nationalgalerie Museum
Words · Nicola Barrett


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After years of refurbishment the Neue Nationalgalerie museum in Berlin has shed its cloak of scaffolding and has emerged into public view. At first glance it seems not much has changed, which is exactly the intention of David Chipperfield Architects who were commissioned to take charge of the first major renovation of the building since it was built in 1968. The practice has a diverse international body of work and has ‘won more than 100 international awards and citations for design excellence.’ The team at David Chipperfield Architects in charge of this project describe themselves as ‘invisible architects, striving to keep ‘as much of Mies as possible.’ 

 

They are referring to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, one of the last directors of Germany’s famous avant-garde design school, the Bauhaus, and the architect who designed the Neue Nationalgalerie. Mies sought to establish his own style of architecture to represent modern times and the advancement of technology in the early twentieth century and embraced the aphorism ‘less is more’. The Neue Nationalgalerie is the only European building Mies designed after leaving his native Germany and emigrating to America before the Second World War. 


Historical photograph by Reinhard Friedrich

Historical photograph by Reinhard Friedrich

Speaking on his practices’ refurbishment of the museum, the firms founder David Chipperfield stated, “Taking apart a building of such unquestionable authority has been a strange experience but a privilege.” He went on to describe the refurbishment as “surgical in nature” as they addressed technical issues whilst protecting Mies’s vision. 


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David Chipperfield Architects practice is characterised by  ‘meticulous attention to the concept and details of project’ and their ‘relentless focus in refining design ideas’ and this was evident in their aim to produce, not a new interpretation of the Neue Nationalgalerie, but a respectful repair. They accepted signs of ageing in the fabric of the building as long as it didn’t not impair visual appearance or usability.



 Mies often described his work as ‘skin and bones architecture’ and this Miesian principle is something Martin Reichert, Partner and Managing director of David Chipperfield Architects Berlin, uses to describe the renovation process. Calling the original surfaces the skin, and the shell construction the bones, he stated that these were kept, as they were ‘the most important characters of material heritage’. However, much of the ‘meat’ of the building, such as plaster, wire ceilings and porous concrete, was lost, aside from a small amount that was retained as evidence in preservation zones. 


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Issues such as condensation were addressed by bringing the building closer to Mies original design. The original underfloor heating, which had been taken out of service at an early stage due to steel pipes becoming corroded and leaking, was restored making ‘an essential contribution to stabilising the indoor climate.’ In the case of unavoidable interventions, such as adding previously non existent disabled access, the changes are described as only ‘discreetly legible’. 


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 The museum is expected to reopen to the public in August 2021 and more information on the restoration and opening details can be found on the Neue Nationalgalerie website .

IMAGES SIMON MENGES

INTERVIEW NICOLA BARRETT



 

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