Precisely in a technological society to the teeth like ours, works like Aaron Holz are day by day more interesting and necessary. A solid bet for painting that clears doubts about its contemporary and also provide new sage to one of the classical disciplines. Rare Gallery presents the third solo exhibition of Holz, until October 6 in New York.

"His unique and unusual multi-layered, multi-media painting technique allows him to impart a translucent quality to his work, create illusionistic perceptions of depth and space, and utilize textures and colors in unexpected ways. Aaron’s process, along with his decision to concentrate on the imagery of flowers and the human form in motion, offers him the opportunity to mine the fertile territory between representation and abstraction in an optically rich manner." Commented to us the director of the gallery, Gabe Strader-Brown. And indeed, Holz's work demands full attention from the viewer, because as you probably read more than once: the secret is in the details.

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Today we want to reveal one of the best kept secrets in Mexico City, an alternative and independent museum you will not find in most tourist guides: the Antique Toy Museum of Mexico (MUJAM). If you're going on a trip to this huge and chaotic city and you like toys, you can't miss it. Visiting this museum is like traveling in time and back to your childhood.

The museum is a family-run business. Mexican architect Roberto Shimizu opened this museum at his home in Mexico City. Shimizu started collecting toys very young, in 1955. His parents were Japanese immigrants who ran a business importing food and toys, so his earliest treasures were gifts from them. But most of his toys are objects he recovered from flea markets, bazaars, scrap merchants and a network of suppliers. Today Shimizu has the biggest and most important toy collection in all of Latin America, with pieces that span the 19th and 20th centuries.



The MUJAM es a surrealist tourist attraction, a labyrinth with a more than a million toys collection, a live museum for people of all classes and ages. That’s why Shimizu deliberately located his museum in a working-class neighborhood, Colonia Doctores, a place where people go to buy stolen car parts.

Shimizu’s son, Roberto Shimizu Jr., organizes visits and events, like the popular collectors’ fair, Collec. Twice a month, collectors of all sorts converge in an empty floor of this museum to exchange their ideas, objects and obsessions.

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Among the many great works that we discovered in last edition of Preview Berlin we found specially interesting the work of Christoph Schirmer at Galerie Hunchentoot of Berlin. Schirmer is a young Austrian whose work is located at the midpoint between the painting that belongs to an art gallery and the graphic art closer to a design studio.

The intricate Schirmer's imagery is a mixture of elements from the graphic culture: ornaments, geometric designs, technical illustrations with a pseudo-scientific component, plans and maps in multiple overlapping layers, bringing the horror vacui to its highest point. Closed compositions that find a way out through the installations that combine various works at different levels on the wall.

His most recent works are even more visually abstract and at the same time a more complex processing, overlapping different materials, opaque and transparent, giving a greater depth to the compositions. Christoph is engaged in the exploration of a world torn between the virtual and physical, a search without a plan of the leitmotiv for an organized chaos.

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Bartosz Kokosinski

Here's the second part of our visual review of the last edition of Preview Berlin (), the emerging art fair in the German capital that every year brings together the most rabid of the contemporary art scene. In this second chapter we especially want to point our fingers in the proposal by Mario Mazzoli Gallery from Berlin, which made ​​a very tasteful selection of artists working in the field that goes between the visual-sound installation, technology and sculpture (as you can see behind the cut).

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Last week we had the opportunity to attend the opening of one of our favorite art fairs: Preview Berlin. Why do we say it is one of our favorites? Because it is a fair fully dedicated to emerging art, which sometime ago some called young art. It is true that most artists are not youngsters anymore, but older than 30 for sure. Perhaps the most appropriate words to describe this fair are: New trends and experiments in contemporary art. That said, do not expect to find something you have never seen before, what you will find is still galleries showing painting, photography, sculpture, video, etc.. But precisely what it calls our attention is the representation of a modern discourse and aesthetic.

Katja Pfeiffer

Preview Berlin is a small and charming fair with a good criterion for selecting the gallery projects. And certainly a good place to look out to discover what it is doing today in art. We filled the memory card of our camera with those proposals that we liked, like the sculptures of Katja Pfeiffer (shown above), and we offer you this visual summary divided into two parts (tomorrow you will have the rest). Today's art to enjoy today:

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We have just few more mondays officially on summer. So another monday more we start the week with an article on a photographer. Today we present the evocative and melancholy look of Ludwig West, a french guy deeply passionated for photography and art. His pictures bring to recall a past era throw the use of glazes, blurs, tonings to desaturated tones and old polaroids. Mystery and poetry come together in each image. Magic captured and developed for eternity.

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One of the artists that we have discovered recently is Charles Glaubitz (thanks to the people of Fifty24MX). His work left us fascinated. Born in Tijuana in 1973 from a German-born American father and a mother from Los Mochis of Sinaloa. Charles has spent his life between Tijuana and San Diego and his work reflects his border identity.

In his paintings, drawings and collages, Mr. Glaubitz creates its own particular contemporary mythology mixing mysticism and popular mexican culture with his personal experiences and visions. His work tells the story of "Viejo Mundo" (Old World) and "Los Nuevos Dioses" (The New Gods), a message of awareness and spiritual revelation, while critics the current society.

You can find the influences of masters like Jodorowsky or Moebius in his work, the narrative universe of comics, the myths of ancient cultures, alchemy, quantum physics, shamanic tales,...



His work has been shown in countries like USA, Mexico, Spain, France and Germany, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego, the Oceanside Museum of Art, the Carrillo Gil Museum or Fifty24MX gallery itself, among others. His latest show, called "Los Nuevos Dioses", was opened up on August 26th at the Cultural Center of Tijuana.

Belio highly recommend you to dive into Glaubitz’s parallel reality, where you can meet The Eternals, the Indigo Child, Jaguar, the Capitalist King, the Gardener, El Niño Burro (the maverick type), and even the evil Illuminati.

Thank you very much Mr. Glaubitz for give color and shape to such a magical reality.

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If we have to choose one of our favorite music artists, we could choose Hecq. If we have to choose one of our favorite street artists, we could choose Saner. And if we have to choose one of our favorite music labels, we could choose Hymen Records. Now if we put them together (A + B + C) by the grace and friendship of Belio the result will be an amazing collaboration: Avenger. Hecq's new CD released by Hymen Records, with art by Saner.

Avenger CD shows the facet that Hecq displays at his high-energetic live shows. This is his most powerful and pushing release. Hecq fights a high octane battle based on the pitch-black of dubstep and ecstatic breakbeats. Ten tracks of luminance and tension executed with the aid of sharp-cut sound splinters, enchanting chord themes and potent sub bass pulses expedited by ramming mind-bending drum beat blows. The CD also includes five remixes by Septic Insurgent, Trifonic, Architect, Anxst and Deadfader.

In order to present this amazing collaboration between these two avengers, we let you here a snippet mix of the album by Hecq and a collection of images that Saner made for the CD artwork, in advance and exclusive for Belio readers.



Avenger will be released by Hymen Records as a regular cd version and as a limited edition including the cd regular in a 6 panel dvd-sized digipak packaging, heavy duty wrestling mask with embroidered patch, sticker, button and separate patch.

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“Illustration came to my door, although I think that it already had been waiting on the landing.” That's Esteso, our Agustín Esteso, not the famous spanish actor and comedian from the seventies. Winner of Drawing Club 2010 organized by the London brand Lazy Oaf and nick-named by the American blog OK Great as The King of Doodles. The usual readers from Belio already know him, because he has been several times published in our pages and once again he opens a show with new works:

The appointment is at Espai Tactel from September 9 to October 29, 2011. Where he presents Uncertain Future, the consecration of Augustin Esteso with an adult, sophisticated and straightforward own world. “Uncertain Future, reflects the current situa- tion, in which we live these days.” comments Esteso. Direct messages and impulsive, handmade typographie, forms and colors combinations impossible: an imaginary halfway between aesthetics and message. Do not miss the opening the next friday 9 in Valencia.

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Still a few weeks left until the autumn equinox... We can say that it is still summer, but this is more a wish than a reality. And for that purpose there is nothing better to illustrate our words than some photos that evoke the days with long evenings. In our special photo for summer Mondays, today we present you the work of Andrew Gowen, a young guy from Pennsylvania, USA. He is about to complete his 365 project, a photo per day a whole year. His photos have that innocence and spontaneity that does not need any teacher. Maybe is the age, or maybe are the summer days with friends or the passion for capturing all with his Canon camera and his 50 mm and 10 mm lenses... At the end there is always the remembrances, never better framed.

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Dress in your best clothes because today we have a celebration. That's right! We are happy and proud to present our new website as design and creative studio, that is Gee.Oh.Dee. Therefore we want to invite everyone to visit our portfolio:

- www.geeohdee.com -

Gee.Oh.Dee are the designers responsible for the image of all Belio projects, but on the website you will also find all kinds of commercial works and personal projects that we have developed over the past 12 years. Customers such as ARCO, Red Cross, Mercado de Fuencarral, Delikatessen Records or Ant-Zen, who have given fame to our studio, but also recent works for Ad Noiseam, Ratten 07, Proyecto Mirage, etc. Obviously we have made a selection of projects, there is more old stuff, but still you have plenty of images to see and spend a great long time. The project site has been developed by Amrei Hofstätter (THANK YOU!) in collaboration with our studio. We hope you will enjoy it.

Behind the cut you will find a gallery with some of our recent designs. And of course we want to encourage you to contact us in case you need any service on graphics or art direction. We will be happy to offer you our professional services.

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As you know our latest Belio was published a special tribute to John Carpenter, a protest action the we proposed you by taking part on this project. How? Protesting newspaper in hand and capturing those moments in black and white. What you see below are some of the photos submitted by designers, photographers or simply restless people taking part in the action: Fabio Piccioni, Josu Sein, Francisco Gatica and I Am I Can. To all: THANKS.

photo by Fabio Piccioni

With this collection of photos, which you can see on the album They Spread of our profile on Flickr, we close this project open to submissions. This does not mean we will stop creating, disseminating and protesting.To victory!

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Anaya publishing house has launched "Digital Coolhunting. Chasing the latest trends", a book written by Anna María López López trying to bring a close and practice view of coolhunting done by digital media.

Digital Coolhunting shows the work of professionals identifing and hunting what will be the future trends in different sectors such as design, fashion, interior design, communication, photography, architecture or technology.

The book's author, Anna María López López, is a designer and teacher specialized in computer design. She has written another six books for Anaya Multimedia publishing house and also works as coolhunter for Trendhunter.com since 2007.

The book counts with the participation and collaboration of many professionals of coolhunting and analysis of trends, they contribute with their unique experience and personal vision. Among them, Pablo and Javier Iglesias, Belio directors, share their ideas about urban culture and contemporary art in an extensive interview.

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This summer we have spent a few days on Mexican soil, where we have had the chance to visit some special places and meet the people behind some of the most interesting art projects in Mexico. Today we dedicate this article to FIFTY 24MX, the Upper Playground's gallery in Mexico City. In successive articles we will discover other places and go deep into the work of some artists.

Opened in 2009, under the direction of Arturo Mizrahi and Liliana Carpinteyro, the gallery FIFTY 24MX is becoming an important benchmark for emerging art in Mexico, serving for connecting local artists with the American market. Its walls have exposed some of the artists we like at Bel and other undiscovered new talent by Liliana and Arturo are betting big. Artist as Jeremey Fish, Carolina Fontoura, Acamonchi, Saner, Sam Flores, René Almanza, David Ellis, Meredith Dittmar, Kenta Torii, Charles Glaubitz, Foi Jiménez, Miss Van, Wendell McShine, Usugrow or Elisa Malo.

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Perhaps today is the last Monday of August, but we still have some summer left and in the meantime we will continue our photo special: Photomonday. A collection of photos that we could label inside a disaster box called Summer. That is, exotic landscapes, bucolic images, vivid colors, high contrast, friendly pictures of different ethnicities, but especially the Sun that lights up, modify and beautify our world captured through the lens of photographers from around the world. Well, all these terms can be applied to our protagonist today, Monday, at Belio: Billy Plummer.

Plummer is a creator from Australia with a passion for photography and music, his two creative fields. Among his many and varied series of photo highlights black and white portraits, scenes immortalized in India and other Asian countries and his series Sun where Plummer enjoy playing with lights and shadows, lenses, glasses and liquids, an endless exploration of the basic elements.

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In the past months we already commented the new Amon Tobin album and its visual show on our Facebook page as well as in our video section. But we do not wanted to loose the chance to share the following document with you: the video published in The Creator's Project about the collaboration between Amon Tobin and the artist Tessa Farmer. An interesting visual document featuring interviews with the protagonists and images from the exhibition that accompanies the artwork from the album:

The dark and macabre world of Tessa Farmer wins in color for this occasion, but is essentially a continuation of the series that she has been showing since 1999, featuring her creepy little fairy gangs. You can read a brief interview with her recently published at Vice in this link. And after the following video you can also see some pictures of her previous works, as well as various covers for Isam and Surge.

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Boris Tellegen (aka Delta) is an old acquaintance of Belio. Already in 2000 we published an article about his work in the fourth issue of our magazine. Already at that time he was a reference in the graffiti and street art scene for his particular 3D letters style. From then until now, the work of this netherland artist has evolved into more abstract concepts, while is playing with the architecture and instalations in different spaces.

Tellegen's work can be seen as a portrait of modern-day industrial architecture with reminiscent of the Futurist art, the Russian Constructivism and the Abstract Expressionist from artists such as Pablo Palazuelo. Boris is right now an internationally acclaimed contemporary artist and his art-work have recently been exhibited in Singapore, Malaysia, United Kigndom and Italy.

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It has been circulating on the net for the last weeks, the following television program entitled The Antics Roadshow is in theory a creation of Banksy himself for Channel 4 that provides a greatest hits of wayward behaviour, sedition and sabotage. Something like the "incomplete guide to total anarchy" of Banksy.

It is a 47-minute documentary that deserves to be seen, although the majority of artists and activists are usually included as part of the popular urban culture. That is, few surprises but unpublished documents and interviews with some of the protagonists of such illustrious actions. An example of how ingenuity, creativity, freshness and / or opportunism may be the best allies of pop culture.

If you are interested, we recommend you see this documentary a.s.a.p. Before it will deleted again, as it has been changing its location very often. So: Hurry up!

Here we come back after a break of one week, it's Monday and still summer, so it's time for another Photomonday. The photographer we chose for today is Benoit Paillé from whom we have previously shown photographs in our online gallery. Among its various series of photographs we have decided to show here just a few from his latest collection: Rainbow Gathering.

As the author explains "Rainbow Gatherings are temporary intentional communities, typically held in outdoor settings, and espousing and practicing ideals of peace, love, harmony, freedom and community, as a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream popular culture, consumerism, capitalism and mass media." These pictures are an unusual document, since in these communities is not normally permitted to take photographs. However Benoir has been a member of these communities for seven years, which gives him an intimate and respectful approach.

The portrait of the human species in very different environments is undoubtedly the favorite topic of Benoir. His various series prove it, we strongly recommend exploring each of them through their profile on Behance.

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If yesterday we told you about the exhibition of Crewdson, today we also want to recommend the show of Sibylle Bergemann at CO Berlin until September 4. While the work of Bergemann does not enjoy such popularity, it is equally interesting. Hence the visit to this museum is doubly bound.

As indicated by the title of the exhibition, Polaroids, focuses solely on the passion of her author for the Polaroid format. A comprehensive collection of 140 unique pieces impeccably presented that show the dedication of Sibylle for their female protagonists, mainly. Perhaps because the reduced form of Polaroids, perhaps because the particularly point of view of Bergemann, the exhibition creates a sense of unreality, miniature world still live within its white frame. Especially the pictures of girls are the ones that best kept a magical and innocent atmosphere that gradually will fade like colors in the Polaroid, a unique past, unrepeatable and wonderful.

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