Legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who was an icon of modernist architecture in the 20th century with his dislike of right angles and who created curving, sensuous concrete structures, has died at the age of 104 in Rio de Janeiro. photograph by Andre Luiz Mello

The Museum of Vancouver is pleased to present the first time solo exhibition of internationally acclaimed Vancouver-born artist Tobias Wong who committed suicide in 2010 at the age of 30. Wong’s work defied categorization, as he engaged with a range of art processes from installations, performances, and furniture making to product and fashion design. He was cheeky, playful, witty, and clever. He appropriated, manipulated, manufactured, mass-produced, and re-issued objects, pouring new meanings into them. Like many pioneers, his art both seduced and upset. Object(ing): The Art/Design of Tobias Wong opened yesterday and is on view until February 24, 2013 at The Museum of Vancouver. 

A new exhibition at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England is a comprehensive survey of work by Tony Arefin (1962–2000), a graphic designer who emerged during the late 1980s as one of the most important figures in the British art world. With his numerous catalogues for institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, ICA, Chisenhale Gallery and Ikon itself, Arefin had achieved such art world dominance by the early 1990s that design critic Rick Poynor described him as ‘single-handedly processing the print needs of the entire British art scene’. Comprising early publications from the YBA movement to seminal advertising campaigns for corporate clients such as IBM, Ikon’s exhibition reveals the intuitive genius of Arefin’s work. Arefin & Arefin: The graphic design of Tony Arefin will be on view between September 12 and November 4, 2012 at Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square  Brindleyplace, West Midlands, United Kingdom

Aviator Mirrors by Nigel Coates available at Grey Area

Coming soon by Taschen, Marc Newson’s complete works to date in a hefty 600 page monograph. He has designed chairs, restaurants, boutiques, cars, planes, and even a spaceship. For Australian industrial designer Marc Newson, the sky is no limit. From mass-produced objects to limited edition furniture to fashion, Newson has blurred boundaries, mapped new territories, and made himself an international superstar. This comprehensive tome leaves no stone unturned in cataloguing all of Newson’s works to date, from early pieces such as Lockheed Lounge (which holds the world record for the highest price paid for a piece of designer furniture, at over two million dollars) through designs of household objects and more recent, large scale projects such as the interior of Qantas’s A380 and the Aquariva boat. Marc Newson’s Works, edited by Alison Castle, will be available by Taschen in August 2012, and a limited art edition is available now. 

Today is the second day of the 2012 Modernism Week in Palm Springs, a 10-day festival that celebrates mid-century modern design, architecture and culture, and features over 80 events including home tours, films, lectures, fashion, and swank receptions at locations rarely-seen by the public. Modernism Week will commence on February 26.

At Art Basel Miami Beach 2011, Maison Martin Margiela will present Love, etc., an off-site installation in the Miami Design District situated near its Miami retail location. This exhibition will feature the Maison’s Line 13, dedicated to objects & publications. Line 13 also explores the Maison’s relationship with interiors. November 29 through Saturday, December 3, 4141 NE 2nd Avenue Miami, FL 33137.

Yellow Velvet is a unique, niche purveyor of cushions, throw pillows, and home décor curated by Carole Dugelay –  who previously created textiles for the fashion houses of Christian Lacroix and Kenzo. Each quarter Yellow Velvet commissions a designer for a new capsule collection. This time around Yellow Velvet has teamed up with 28 year old, Parisian designer Baptise Viry for a collection, entitled Absolutely Fabulous, inspired by, “hidden vices, misappropriation, [and] losing one’s point of reference.”

The Czech-American designer Ladislav Sutnar (1897—1976) created many internationally-acclaimed design icons. At the age of 65, he delved into painting. Now on view at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, U.S. Venus is the first independent exhibition of Sutnar’s art in forty years and presents his paintings of female nudes never shown before. Sutnar called these works Venus and exhibited them under the label Joy-Art. In this art manifesto, he formulated his concept of art for the 21st century – as vigorous, humanistic and joyful. His geometric figures rendered in contrasting colors reflect American painting of the time, namely Pop Art. U.S. Venus is on view until October 8. 

Born into a Turin architect and civil engineer’s family, Carlo Mollino studied art history and architecture and made a name for himself as a skier, racecar driver and aerobatic pilot, as an author and photo artist. Yet his international renown is primarily based on his work as a designer of furniture and exclusive interiors in the spirit of the gesamtkunstwerk – the German philosophy of total art. His organic language of forms was not least inspired by the form of the female body – as particularly evidenced by the part of his photographic work he always kept private: over 1,000 Polaroids portraying beauties of Turin’s night life in the nude in mise-en-scène settings. The pictures were part of the preparation of his “House for the warrior’s rest” (today: Casa Mollino), a villa in Turin on the Po River. An exhibition, opening at this month at the Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna, will juxtapose furnishings of the villa with a selection of these Polaroids for the first time. It explores the boundaries and bridges between this universal artist’s male erotic imagination and his intellectual and artistic attitude. On view at the Kunsthalle Wien from August 31 to September 25.