CNN Profiles - Matthew Ponsford - Writer, CNN Style - CNN

Breaking News

U.S. Edition+

U.S.

International

Arabic

Español

Ai Weiwei: Trapped in China, I saw my creations 'through a mirror'
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
When his major survey exhibition opens at London's Royal Academy of Arts, Ai Weiwei will be in the building.

Pritzker Prize 2016: Alejandro Aravena owes success to asking 'stupid questions'
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Alejandro Aravena, the socially-conscious Chilean architect famed for building "half a good house," is the winner of this year's Pritzker Prize for architecture, the profession's highest honor.

Elmgreen & Dragset get their thrills from making us squirm
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
For an artist duo with global acclaim, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset don't sound very interested in pleasing the galleries that show their work.

The lost voices of the 20th century's first genocide return to Istanbul
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Francis Alys' film The Silence of Ani begins with the rustling of wind through a breathtaking city that now lies in ruins. In the ancient stone, we see eagles carved out, and slowly a melody of birdcalls rises to crescendo -- revealed to be the sound of flute whistles played by children darting between the debris.

Los Angeles to build world's most expensive stadium complex
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Los Angeles will welcome the return of NFL football with the construction of a new 80,000-seat stadium complex and "NFL Disney World," expected to become the world's most expensive sports arena.

Seven-year search for secrets of CIA's hallways
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
The CIA's fortress headquarters in Langley, Virginia is home to more than few surprises, like a branch of Starbucks where the baristas definitely don't ask names, and a museum of spying you'll never set foot in.

Karim Rashid: Let's reinvent clothes 'as if the world hadn't existed before'
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Karim Rashid's clothes don't fit. When the 54-year-old design demi-god pulls on his trademark candy-coloured suit-combos, they're never quite right, he admits. They're the best he can find, but even these don't fit the age we live in.

David Bailey's chemical experiments: The art of little 'accidents'
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
"It's not a mistake," says Bailey. "It's just an accident."

Shigeru Ban: Pritzker winner's paper palaces could last forever
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
It has been over a year and a half since Japanese architect Shigeru Ban won architecture's highest award. Now, the 58-year-old's body of work poses a peculiar question: how long can paper houses last?

Japan's alchemist-in-chief brings mutant DNA and the distant cosmos to Europe
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Japan's Kohei Nawa is one of his homeland's best known contemporary sculptors, sharing exhibitions there with the likes of Takashi Murakami and Anish Kapoor. Although "sculpture" might not be a big enough word to describe the shape-shifting phenomena that have become his dreamlike domain.

Murakami's voyage to Ibiza: Can art's boundary-breaker get ravers to a gallery?
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Artist Takashi Murakami might be the only one not concerned that Ibiza's raging party scene will prove a reluctant audience for his new exhibition, which opened on the Mediterranean island this week.

Nendo: The Japanese studio making design fun again
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
They are simple designs. Yet simple descriptions are rarely enough to bring to mind the miniature moments of delight that Japanese doodler and prolific designer Oki Sato creates. Maybe that's why Sato has done away with words altogether and taken to calling them " ! " moments.

Ennio Morricone: Time for Oscars to settle composer score?
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Eighty-seven-year-old maestro Ennio Morricone says it is only when audiences see the pictures on screen entwine with his music that he can finally be excited by what he has created.

Banksy's first interactive artwork takes aim at French police
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
A new mural by street artist Banksy has appeared opposite the French Embassy in London, criticizing authorities' alleged use of teargas in a refugee camp in Calais, France.

Artist Ai Weiwei adds to protest with Instagram LEGO portraits
By Matthew Ponsford, CNN
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has begun posting images of political activists rendered in Lego on his Instagram account, after the Danish toymaker refused to sell him an order of plastic bricks.

A giant inverted electric pylon? Take a drone's eye view
By Matthew Ponsford and Lewis Whyld, CNN
Take an everyday electricity pylon, flip it upside-down, and stand it on its end. Suddenly the everyday becomes extraordinary.

How my childhood made me the designer I am today
By Matthew Ponsford and Zahra Jamshed, CNN
Six of the world's top architects and designers are delving into their deepest, darkest and most distant memories for a new exhibition. The exhibition hopes to shed light on the elusive role of childhood experience in shaping creativity in adulthood.

Driven underground by Saddam, 'Iraq's greatest photographer' Latif Al Ani is honored at last
Latif Al Ani, the 84-year-old photographer who first captured Iraq during its cosmopolitan mid-20th century heyday, has created a unique memory bank of everyday life in the country over decades of restless change.

Take a look inside Tehran's transformer house
By Matthew Ponsford and Layla Maghribi, for CNN
It's the townhouse that twists like a Rubik's cube, to bask in the summer sun and shield itself when winter bites.

'My essential Nordic design': The Scandinavian creations designers couldn't live without
Step into a stylish apartment anywhere from Beijing to Brooklyn and you're likely to find yourself, perhaps unknowingly, among the produce of one frosty European corner with an outsize impact on the world of design.

Finally: The $3000 Putin-themed Apple Watch you've been waiting for is here
"What's that?" They'll say.

Shape of things to come: A peek at tomorrow from today's top designers
Try asking someone in the industry how many "design weeks" you can fit into a 30-day month.

Listen: 15 super-hot DJs who deserve to be stars
Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
The annual DJ Mag "Top 100 DJs" list is ceremonially revealed each autumn as the world's millionaire club-banger-spinning playboys jostle for top spot, backed by their armies of adoring social media followers.

7 'impossible' dance performances to trick your eyes
By Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
Hardened dance purists might tell you that no film can do justice to the experience of the stage, where creative performers toe the boundary of the impossible before your eyes.

Marina Abramovic: 'We can learn telepathy'
By Rebecca Harkins-Cross, for CNN
"Even if I say I'm not afraid of dying, that's not true," says Marina Abramović. "Every time the plane is trembling I start writing testament."

Gorgeous $23 million mansion in the woods has a design inspired by math
By Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
Discover the $23 million mansion that tells a beguiling story of musical genius, mathematics, and architectural madness.

A nude sculpture so small it's 'walking on hair'
By Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
She could stand on a strand of human hair, with room to spare.

The princess with the Mona Lisa smile: Lost $150m da Vinci masterpiece or fake?
Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
It could be the find of the century, or something much more suspicious. "La Bella Principessa" -- a 13 inch tall pen-and-ink portrait of a Florentine woman with a Mona Lisa-esque smile -- sat in a drawer for decades, before being "rediscovered" and attributed as a lost $150 million masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

Nigeria's school of self-belief: Makeup is the key to confidence at House of Tara
By Matthew Ponsford and Marc Hoeferlin, for CNN
Class is in session at schools across Nigeria, where students are learning to shape eyebrows, smooth foundation, apply eye-shadow, and -- perhaps -- defy economic gloom to grasp a glamorous future.

But how was it made? Inside the world's oldest multicolor printed book
The expectant staff at Cambridge University's Library had an inkling of what they'd find when the bindings creaked open and the contents of the world's oldest multicolor printed book were finally revealed.

See the music: How astonishing visuals are revolutionizing concert experience....
Take away the 100-foot screens, the blasting lasers, and the holographic projections, and what do you have left? Tens of thousands of screaming electronic music fans with nothing much to cheer except a solitary figure, twiddling some knobs and occasionally raising his hand.

Win at Instagram: Kanye's wedding photographer reveals his secrets
By Sophia Chalmer and Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
By the time Kim Kardashian set out to "break the internet" in November last year, a photo by 23-year-old Conor McDonnell had already got there -- with a little help from Kim's music superstar husband Kanye West.

The private life of a superstar DJ? You asked, they answered
Matthew Ponsford, for CNN

Masterclass: Learn to paint a portrait in 54 seconds
Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
A portrait artist promises to capture more than a photograph is ever able to: more than just a glimpse of a person's external appearance, a portrait can display a person as they truly are. But how does the artists do it?

A new recipe for saving rhinos: Mix one 8-year-old, 2 dogs, and lots of chocolate
By Matthew Ponsford, for CNN
Even two-tonne, spike-horned, armor-skinned rhinos need a helping hand sometimes.