What is the Bel Paese you ask?

"It is a mixture, a sum of many elements: flavors, history, landscape and cultures. It’s the feeling of the abundance just before the harvest. It’s the contemplation and awe while walking through Pompeii or the Etruscan tombs in Cerveteri, the theatre and fantasy of Frascati gardens and the valley of the temples in Agrigento. It’s the pure pleasure of drizzling olive oil on dense durum wheat bread, spotting the shepherd and his flock on the hill, candlelit dinner in a cave and driving the tractor plow with my 3 year-old son August."
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Since its founding in 1989 under the tutelage of director Tonio Creanza, Messors has worked on a host of preservation projects in the Puglia region in Italy covering archeological research, restoration projects on frescoes, wood and stone statues, decorative painting, guided tours, educational field school projects and study abroad university programs.

"I do not want to preach,  I really just want to share, believe it is all possibe and have fun doing it. If I could harvest, meet people and work with with them to conserve and restore, and feast with my wife, son and traveling friends every night I would."

Qompendium in talk with Tonio Creanza, click to read further

MuseumNext is Europe’s major conference on the future of museums. The event brings together delegates from around the world to discuss ‘what’s next?’ across all aspects of the museum including architecture, exhibitions, technology, skills, collections, conservation, purpose and leadership.  MuseumNext 2015 will take place in the Swiss city of Geneva. 

“My work is non-narrative, actually; there aren’t any stories there. There are a lot of symbols and a lot of images, and the images have multiple meanings.” Alex Katz, 1990

The Museum Kurhaus Kleve is showcasing 40 pieces, a retrospective of Alex Katz represeting his work from the years 1957 to 2008. Exbihition ends on the 21.02.2010.

Museum Kurhaus Kleve
Tiergartenstraße 41
47533 Kleve

www.museumkurhaus.de
www.alexkatz.com

Karl Nawrot and Walter Warton founded their studio Voidwreck in Amsterdam with Karl a graduate of the Werkplaats Typografie, a school considered as quite influencial in the realm of typography. Both graphic designers like to explore different mediums in order to develop shape and pattern within the borders of typography. Check out their site and make sure to reload often in order to see more.

Anna Wegelin is greatly inspired by Pocahontas, who was a Virginia Indian princess notable for having assisted colonial settlers at Jamestown in present-day Virginia. Her accessory line is handcrafted, reminding us of indian jewellery with a blend of contemporary swedish fashion. We met Anna Wegelin in Berlin and hopefully soon again on the catwalks of the fashion world.

www.annawegelin.com

The French photographer Jeanloup Sieff (1933–2000) began photographing in the early 1950s. In the course of his long career he engaged in reportage, landscape, fashion, commercial and portrait photography, working for magazines such as Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, Paris-Match, Esquire, Glamour and Jardin des Modes. He published several books, including J’aime la danse (1962) and Faites comme si je n’étais pas là (2000). This exhibition features a selection from Sieff’s photographic oeuvre, with a special focus on his images portraying dance.

More on the exhibition here.

Mark Morrisroe was a man driven to achieve fame and recognition. Restless and demanding—of himself as well as of others—he always wanted more, and from this inner restlessness he derived enormous resources of artistic energy. Right to the very end, his life and work, down to the photograms feverishly produced in the makeshift darkroom in his hospital, which have hardly ever been publicly shown until today, attest to an unlimited and ecstatic search for a sensual, aesthetic, and always ambivalently charged pictorial world.

On Sunday, 28 November 2010, the event A Tribute to Mark Morrisroe with Jack Pierson, Elisabeth Lebovici, Stuart Comer, Gail Thacker, Frank Wagner, Ramsey McPhillips, Teresa Gruber, Beatrix Ruf and Thomas Seelig will take place.

Exhibition
27. November 2010 to 13. February 2011
Fotomuseum Winthertur

Das Museum Kurhaus Kleve zeigt in der Ausstellung „Alex Katz – An American Way of Seeing“,  über 40 Arbeiten von Alex Katz aus dem Zeitraum 1957 bis 2008.

Für die Ausstellung ist ein Katalog erschienen, der einen umfassenden Überblick über das Werk von Alex Katz liefert. Im Anhang werden die ausgestellten Werke und eine ausführliche Biographie aufgeführt.

Zur Alex Katz Ausstellung

www.museumkurhaus.de
www.alexkatz.com

We at Qompendium are excited to present to you, dear readership, a very special gift, a result of a collaboration with Hugo Verweij of Cleartones.

There a bazillion of ringtones out there on the market but non so delicately written, so precise, minimal and yet ear piercing as these custom ringtones. You will not miss a phone call.

As a response to the ever growing amount of polyphonic and musical ringtones, Cleartones presents a set of minimalist ringtones and notification tones optimized for the iPhone and Android devices. These simple, monophonic ringtones are designed with a sole purpose: subtle notification.

Like the shoes you wear, a ringtone is part of your outfit. It says something about you. And, like with shoes, you have a choice. You might choose one of the standard ringtones and sound like everyone else. Or choose a custom ringtone. But be aware of the omnidirectional nature of sound: when your favorite Looney Tunes character, your favorite eighties disco anthem or your two-year old kid notifies you of an incoming call, your co-workers, students, or boss will hear it as well. Ringtones should be mood-less, personal, unobtrusive yet functional.

The Qompendium x Cleartones ringtone consists of a clear sound to grab the attention combined with a hidden message - the word QOMPENDIUM in morse code, on a very low volume.

Exclusive and free download here in friendly association with Cleartones. And some very special Qompendium Wallpapers going along with it.

Paul Smith has designed a collection of soft furnishing fabrics with the American fabric company called Maharam.

This photo shows the Oxford Chair, designed by Arne Jacobsen.

Newspaper aficionados, this summer is indeed one of the best for us. We are very happy to see Monocle launch its summer newspaper, which is supposed to be a super-sized, high-quality newspaper, targeting holidaying readers around the Mediterranean and city hubs throughout Europe, Asia and North America.

We have not received the hard copy yet, but we will be posting soon in detail on its haptic, functionality and ofcourse content factor. As our publisher soul-mate Tyler Brûlé puts it: “There’s a huge amount of talk about the death of print, thanks to various types of ‘pad’ devices, but if you think of summer – with sand, swimming, sun cream and socialising - a carefully crafted newspaper is more useful and reader-friendly than a backlit screen that hates the sun and salt”.

We believe that print is more than alive but it can only stay alive if you keep your content strong, your design inspiring and find commodities to prove your unique selling proposition and then you will also find advertising companies. Monocle partners with BMW, BlackBerry and Pictet as part of the mix for their summer newspaper.

The Monocle newspaper is available on newsstands from 29 July for eight weeks, accompanied by the weekly Monocle Summer Series audio bulletin, online at www.monocle.com from 30 July.

The Monocle newspaper cover price: £3.50/€5; size: 460 x 300mm; pagination: 60