Oscar de la Renta, Pre-Fall 2012 For Spring, Oscar de la Renta gave us a refresher course on all the reasons we love him. The taffeta ball skirts! Those handkerchief lace dresses! The embellished gowns! The pre-fall collection he presented today on Park Avenue wasn’t the ode to joy he put on back in September,… Continue reading Oscar de la Renta, Pre-Fall 2012
Author: Magazine Contemporary Culture
Jeff Wall
Jeff Wall, Boxing and Boy Falls From Tree, 2010 Over the course of Jeff Wall’s career, his versatile and disciplined approach to the possibilities of the medium of photography to ‘paint modern life’ has resulted in a body of work notable in its attention to composition, scale, color and construction and for its hybrid integration of… Continue reading Jeff Wall
Exhibition: Lygia Pape, Magnetized Space
Lygia Pape, Magnetized Space, 7 December 2011 – 19 February 2012 Serpentine Gallery, London Pape was a founding member of the Neo-Concrete movement, which was dedicated to the inclusion of art into everyday life. Pape’s early work developed out of an interest in European abstraction, however she and her contemporaries went beyond simply adopting an international… Continue reading Exhibition: Lygia Pape, Magnetized Space
“There is a dialogue to be had about sex. All the information out there, whether it’s about sex parties, Internet sex, or pornography, is overwhelming. There is a real need for an edited voice.”
Classy pervs, rejoice: The coffee-table sex magazine Richardson is back from the dead. British fashion stylist Andrew Richardson (no relation to the similarly licentious photographer Terry) put out three glossy issues featuring porn stars and pontification between 1998 and 2002 before going on hiatus amid the post-9/11 economic downturn. In the years since, Richardson refined his… Continue reading “There is a dialogue to be had about sex. All the information out there, whether it’s about sex parties, Internet sex, or pornography, is overwhelming. There is a real need for an edited voice.”
Shahryar Nashat
Shahryar Nashat, Dowscaled Upscaled 1, 2011 A stout cavalier straddles a parade horse, his head bowed slightly to survey his troops in promenade. In the fresco he created for Florence Cathedral, Paolo Uccello painted Sir John Hawkwood and his horse in one-point perspective, on the same level with the viewer, but depicted the cenotaph on… Continue reading Shahryar Nashat
Sculpture: John Kleckner and Patrick Tuttofuoco, Those Ghosts, 2011
John Kleckner and Patrick Tuttofuoco, Those Ghosts, 2011 The works in this exhibition are about human figures dissipating into voids, into abstractions, and shape-shifting into solid structures. Transformation, transcendence, and transience are the core concepts fixed into 2- and 3-dimensional material permanence in each of the exhibited artworks. In his newest works one can see John… Continue reading Sculpture: John Kleckner and Patrick Tuttofuoco, Those Ghosts, 2011
Ditte Haarløv Johnsen, Maputo Diary
Ditte Haarløv Johnsen, Maputo Diary, 2000-2009 Mozambique gained its independence in 1975. It was ruled by the socialist Frelimo Party. My parents decidedto relocate to help the government rebuild the country. We arrived in Maputo on the 11 of January 1982. I was five years old. In 2000, I spent another summer in Maputo. This time… Continue reading Ditte Haarløv Johnsen, Maputo Diary
Narcissism is back in fashion
Who, Me? Pretty pretty good Narcissism is back in fashion It may come as a surprise, but narcissism was facing extinction by 2013. That’s when the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – also known as the DSM–V – was due to appear without its traditional entry on the Narcissistic… Continue reading Narcissism is back in fashion
Eddie Peake, Transexual, 2011
Eddie Peake, Transexual, 2011 The flesh-coloured walls of the young London-based artist’s room-within-a-room were plastered smooth. In the middle stood a lumpen beige sculpture, There is No Such Thing as an Equivalent (all works 2011): slightly phallic and bulbous – with wonky lumps and bumps, like an ill-formed Barbara Hepworth – its colour mimicked that… Continue reading Eddie Peake, Transexual, 2011
Iman Issa
Triptych #6, 2009. Photographs, Text, Dimensions Variable Issa’s Triptych series (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6) from 2009, is a group of six beautiful wall installations comprised of photography, video objects and texts. They are images of places she collected in New York and restaged; settings that occurred through a personal psychological process in order… Continue reading Iman Issa
1 December; We Were Here
We Were Here, 2011 Dir: David Weissman, Bill Weber, US, 90 mins Beginning in San Francisco’s gay Castro Street district, around 1980, We Were Here manages to be both uplifting and powerfully truthful. A riveting, moving, account of the fear, paranoia and prejudice that accompanied the AIDS epidemic as it ripped through the US West Coast… Continue reading 1 December; We Were Here
Exhibitions: Paul McCarty
Paul McCarty, The King, The Island, The Train, The House, The Ship, 16 November 2011 – 14 January 2012 Hauser & Wirth London and Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly Combining political figures and pop culture, ‘Pig Island’, on view at Savile Row, is a morally deviant world populated by pirates, cowboys, the likenesses of George W. Bush and Angelina… Continue reading Exhibitions: Paul McCarty
Alexandra Mir
Alexandra Mir, Triumph, Detail, 2009 ‘Triumph’ at the Shirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt is Aleksandra Mir’s first solo show in Germany. Inspired by a friend who had been a famous athlete in his youth and kept mementos of his achievements, Mir placed an ad in the local newspaper in Palermo, Italy, where she lives, asking for old… Continue reading Alexandra Mir
Sculpture: Danh Vo
Danh Vo, Oma Totem, 2009 Maybe everyday objects is the wrong term to use for my production because the way I refer to objects in my work is not about the everyday object in itself. Im interested in building up and sustaining a certain way of thinking which enables you to look at objects in a… Continue reading Sculpture: Danh Vo
Exhibition: OMA/Progress
OMA/Progress, 6 October 2011 – 19 February 2012 Barbican Art Gallery This autumn, the Barbican Art Gallery is transformed by an exhibition on OMA, one of the most influential architecture practices working today. Celebrated as much for their daring and unconventional ideas as their inventive buildings, the work of OMA and its think tank AMO anticipates the architectural,… Continue reading Exhibition: OMA/Progress
Exhibition: Anri Sala
Doldrum, 2008, Installation view Anri Sala, 1 October – 20 November 2011 The Serpentine Gallery Anri Sala (born 1974, Tirana) is a leading contemporary artist whose early videos and films mined his personal experience to reflect on the social and political change taking place in his native Albania. Sala has attached a growing importance to sound, creating… Continue reading Exhibition: Anri Sala
Kap Bambino, Obsess
Kap Bambino, Obsess, 2011 Shot through Colonel Blimp, director Carl Burgess’ new promo for Kap Bambino track, Obsess, features actors demonstrating (some better than others) their ‘ability’ to express a range of emotions.
Lernert & Sander
Lernert & Sander, Trampling, From the Series, Elektrotechnique, 2011 Dutch designers Lernert & Sander create pieces that reflect on the remarkable, often messy endeavor of art-making. In their surreal, Pantone world, the creative process is always beautifully exposed. Though not yet a household name, the Dutch duo have amassed a considerable body of work –… Continue reading Lernert & Sander
Gerhard Richter
Uebermalte fotografien, 5 october 1998, Uebermalte fotografien, 8 september 2004 and Uebermalte fotografien, 2 march 2005 Gerhard Richter is a German visual artist and one of the pioneers of the New European Painting that emerged in the second half of the twentieth century. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs… Continue reading Gerhard Richter
Sarah Braman
Sarah Braman, Small Fry, 2008 Sarah came from rural massachusetts. She had been accepted to other, fancier schools, but luckily for us, she was broke and the one thing our Philadelphia school had to offer was big scholarships. I don’t remember much about the work she applied with other than it was sculpture and mainly… Continue reading Sarah Braman