Klein Social Club
The goodfellas at the Klein Social Club maintain their policy of inviting quality international talent to round off sessions by various members of the Sofa Surfers. This time it’s the turn of Danny Briotett, once a member of the club-dub trio Renegade Soundwave whose mid-1990s tune ‘Probably A Robbery’ made the UK Top 40. Briotett’s penchant for dubbed-up bass sounds fits in perfectly with the Surfers’ smoked-out vibe. Details in English of events at the Meierei and the Roxy can be accessed on the Sunshine Club’s newly improved website.
Global Conceptualism
The always challenging List Visual Arts Center at MIT hosts this major touring group show, which features more than 200 works that survey the rise of conceptualism in the latter half of the 20th-century. The exhibition features idea-based photography, mixed media, films, videos, drawings, paintings and installations from over 130 international artists from Japan, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Africa, Australia, the United States, Korea and China.
Summer Nights in Santo Spirito
For the third year running, Piazza Santo Spirito transforms into an open-air bar-club-live music venue for the duration of the summer. A huge bar is erected in the centre of the atmospheric square surrounded by tables and chairs with a stage at one end. You can sip a cocktail under the trees ‘con calma’ in the early evening, or join the late night, mixed-age crowd who gathers after dinner. Live music acts playing blues, folk, rock, jazz, ethnic and classical music appear most nights with the odd theatre or dance event too.
Ramon Casas
While Gaudí and the Modernista architects were building Barcelona, Ramon Casas was painting it – portraits, nudes, scenes of family life and depictions of city events. This major exhibition surveys the work of Impressionist-influenced Casas who, along with Santiago Rusiñol, was one of the two key Barcelona painters of the city’s vibrant 1890s, a period of bourgeois economic prosperity accompanied by cultural flowering and surging nationalism. Around 100 works are on show, including many of his most noted turn-of-the-century paintings, and also a section of drawings.
Jeff Beck
A mere 18 months or so since his last Tokyo visit, veteran guitar legend Jeff Beck is back in town, still playing material from his last album, ‘Who Else!’. In a career spanning over 30 years, Beck has collaborated with many of the great names in rock, including Rod Stewart and Ron Wood. Despite all the acclaim his work has garnered over the years, Beck only really appeals to a dedicated hard knot of followers, but there are enough of them in Tokyo to justify the addition of an extra date to the original schedule, on December 5.
Internet Supermarket
On-line supermarket shopping may not be a novelty in Britain, but it certainly is here in Florence. Although visitors to the city who are staying in hotels will probably not be interested in the service, self-caterers will welcome not having to trek into the suburbs where the supermarkets are located. It’s easy to use (although in Italian, so keep a dictionary handy), there is no minimum order, deliveries are made Monday to Saturday and the overall charge is only L7,000.
Museumsquartier Building Site Tours
Due to open in June 2001, the Museumsquartier is the most ambitious cultural project ever undertaken in democratic Austria. Within the confines of the old imperial stables, it will eventually house the activities of the Karlsplatz Kunsthalle, the Stiftung Ludwig collection of modern art, the Leopold Collection of works by Egon Schiele, concert halls and a rehearsal space. Work began in 1998 and architecture fans now have the opportunity to see the current state of this 60,000m2 project. Stout footwear is recommended, hardhats supplied.
