IDEA, the publisher and bookseller of Dover Street Market London, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, is back with its incredibly popular–sell out in the blink of an eye–coffee table book, Ibiza ’89 by Dave Swindells.

An expansive vibey photo book, the title perfectly captures the hedonism of the White Isle, as seen through the lens of Dave Swindells. Here, he documents one fun-filled week spent in and outside the likes of Pacha, Café del Mar, and Amnesia; after all, he’s famously been photographing nightlife and people since 1983. 

“It was easy to believe that almost anything was possible in Ibiza in 1989; that many of the big clubs put MDMA powder into their cocktails; that the music could jump across genres and not only be exciting, but better than the sum of its parts; that there was always another club or bar to carry on to as long as you wanted to carry on; that it didn’t really matter about your age or sexual preference or how much money you had if you came for the fiesta and the music (although it helped to dress up to get into Pacha, and only the wealthy could buy tables overlooking the dance floors there); that there was always a secret cove or beach where you could create your own party…And all of that was pretty much true.” Dave SwindellsSnapping the Brits abroad, Dave also recalls first-hand the story of the British guy in the pink shirt framed so perfectly in the mirrored morning light of Amnesia’s terrace, “When a group of Spanish clubbers turned up at the gate I went down on all fours and crawled in behind them. Boom! I was in! The girl in the photo with me was an Italian Princess. She was with a group of people who had water pistols filled with liquid E – it was mental! That was without doubt the best night of my life.”

Back by popular demand, the title it now on its third edition, with four times as many photographs in the new book and has been released this week as an edition of 1,200 at Dover Street Market London. 

Text: Felicity Carter

doverstreetmarket.com

Theatrical staging, high-drama and luxurious technicolour – photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager’s large-scale photographs feature ensemble casts that teeter between reality and artifice. 

In this intimate series classic American archetypes are presented in the cinematic colour palette of a Hollywood Western. A cowboy, a cherub, an air stewardess, all frozen, suspended mid-air. Artefacts of modern American life seem to float  – or fall – alongside them.

Part One: The Mountain at London’s Lehmann Maupin gallery continues her exploration of the hyperreal. The series was created as a response to the last two years and the effects of the pandemic. Prager’s meticulously constructed characters are paired with details from the character’s backstories – casino chips, prozac and a pair of high heels capture our human idiosyncrasies. 

Prager plays on the tradition of classical portraiture as a way to encourage people to really look at one another again. After such a long period of isolation and polarisation, she works to flatten people out and then hone in on our emotional states. These questions are infused into each portrait, creating a spiritual death and consequently – rebirth. Shot in her hometown of Los Angeles, The Mountain draws on the themes of revelation, pilgrimage, achievement, and adversity. 

Alex Prager’s Part One: The Mountain is at London’s Lehmann Maupin gallery until March 5 2022.

All images are Courtesy of the Catherine Edelman Gallery, Chicago

Cover Image: Hank, 76, and Samm, 67, North Little Rock, AR, 2015

Over the past five years photographer Jess T Dugan and social worker & professor Vanessa Fabbre traveled throughout the United States in documentation of the stories and imagery of transgender and gender nonconforming older adults in the country. Traveling from coast to coast , the duo sought out subjects whose experiences of life exist in the intersections of gender identity, age , race , ethnicity , sexuality, socioeconomic background &  geographic location. The result of their venture, a moving body of work giving voice & visibility to an underrepresented group of older individuals with a wide variety of narratives spanning throughout the last ninety years, offering a historical record of transgender experiences & activism in the USA in the form of a book and several exhibitions. 

“So many trans-related stories in the media are about people being murdered orare about discrimination of some kind. With this project, I wanted to create representations of many different ways of living and aging as a trans person. I also wanted to record the history of people who, in many cases, paved the road for the world we live in now. I worried their stories were at risk of being lost or forgotten, and I wanted to record and preserve them,” explained Jess T. Dungan.

“For me, part of the inspiration for this project also came from thinking about the limits of knowledge dissemination in the social sciences, especially in terms of our ability to engage in broader cultural forces and public discourse. I saw the potential to make an impact beyond academia by creating this project together, ” added professor Fabbre.

Each story, each image captured and included in the photo series, shines a brighter light on stories that have been long overlooked, and in many ways creates blooms of hope and validation for onlooking generations of trans individuals.

“This coming into my real, real fullness of knowing why I was different is because I was expressing my spirit to this world. And I didn’t know how God felt about it, but I believe in God and I have a deep spiritual background and I talk with the Holy Spirit constantly who’s taken me from the Lower West Side doing sex work to being at the White House.” – Dee Dee Ngozi .

“One of the hardest things in terms of transitioning was the difference in personal space. When I was perceived as female, there wasn’t a lot of touching. Women don’t get into each other’s space. When two women are attracted to each other they don’t immediately put their hands on the other woman’s body. It’s not considered appropriate. Whereas the way men cruise, there’s about two seconds of eye contact, and then an approach, and either hands on your chest or hands in your crotch or some other type of immediate physical contact.I started out with a lot of insecurity in terms of my body, insecure about myself, and it has taken time to build confidence.” – Mike

“I just know I’m me. I don’t think in terms of names and forms and all that. It doesn’t matter.I’m just myself and that’s who I am.I am at peace with myself. It is the most wonderful feeling in the world because you’re never in a hurry to get somewhere, you know, to prove to anyone that you’re who you know you are. I know who I am, and what other people think about me is none of my business. So that’s who I am. I identify as the Duchess.

I knew that I might lose family, that people might reject me. But I weighed that, and I thought,“If I lose everything and everybody, but I keep me, that’s all that matters. That’s all that matters, because I’m not going to live a life that I’m not happy in, for other people.Why?It doesn’t make any sense.”So I put my money down and took my chances. My family accepted me. They came to accept me, and I’ve had kids around me, I’ve gone to all the weddings, all the funerals, and it’s a situation that everybody just thinks of me as who I am. It’s not even an issue anymore. “Oh, you mean her? Oh, that’s just Auntie.” – Duchess Milan

“When I was five years old,I found my older brother’s first communion suit. It was a very cool looking suit, white and double-breasted, and it fit me perfectly. I wouldn’t take it off.I wore it everyday. Day in and day out, until my parents got so tired of seeing it on me, they turned it into a Halloween costume as a way to get rid of it.When I was older,I played in this little rock band and one time whenI was over at my friend’s house I heard his mother mention a story about a person named Christine Jorgenson who had “changed sex.”I couldn’t keep my mind on practice after that!I wanted to find out more about this person, but you couldn’t Google it, of course, and so it took me months to find it. I was finally able to piece together that this was a person who knew their gender and went somewhere and there were people who could help.” – David

“When we got married, I never imagined that someday my husband would become my wife,” Cheryle said. “Right from the start, SueZie confided that she identified as female on the inside, but transition never appeared to be an option. But, I never had a problem with her wearing lingerie. You know, it’s just clothes. I fell in love with the person inside, and what’s on the outside is more about what they feel comfortable with.”

For more information on the ongoing exhibition and book purchases visit To Survive on This Shore.

Born in Dallas Texas, artist Gray Wielebinski uses their practice to explore the ways in which gender and sexuality intersect with other structures of power and identity, often referencing their body and journey as an individual who is currently undergoing the transition from female to male. 

Working between London and Los Angeles in print, video, performance, sound, sculpture, and installation, Gray moved to London in 2017 to complete a masters in Fine Art Media at The Slade.  Since then, Gray has exhibited internationally and is currently an artist in residence at The City & Guilds of London, alongside Taku Obata and Alistair Gordon. 

Using a variety of strategies to explore identity, specifically their ambivalent relationships to masculinity, Gray’s more recent research and practice uses sports for both aesthetics and metaphor as an entry point to examine themes such as national identity (specifically the US and Americana), desire, myth making, surveillance, hierarchies, race, and gender. In Dark Air, the artist’s first solo exhibition at SEAGER gallery curated by Martin Mayorga and Vanessa Murrell from DATEAGLE ART, we observe Gray’s ongoing exploration of sporting ceremonies as seen in the artist’s personalised football scarf stand. Located at the entrance of the gallery space, the piece highlights the ritualistic yet commercial nature of the sport, while also reiterating the entwined nature and relationship found between myth and sport. 

Instead of displaying a body of work, the exhibition uses the body as the work – acknowledging it as something which can be moulded and adjusted continuously. Using a diverse array of textiles to create a patchwork of materials that include recycled leather and jeans, Gray creates a site-specific sculpture, a monstrous creature that is representative of both the sphinx and Scorpion. Stuffed and stitched, the physical act of creating the hybradised beast presents the audience with a work that exists in a paradoxical realm. All at once it is violent and volatile yet gentle and vulnerable – playing with traditional binary stereotypes of male and female. With only a few days left to see Dark Air, Gray spoke with Twin about the show and their grotesque Frankenstinian beast. Gray also speaks openly about their own dysphoria and dissociation with their body as well as the importance of being conscious in order to re-inhabit and bridge the gap between their mind and body to create as harmonious a relationship as possible. 

You started to create art as a way of helping you relate to your own body – is this where the tactile element of your practice and its link to your own body manifests from? 

In a lot of ways, in regards to my gender identity as well as my art practice itself, I was existing very much in my own head and in an ideological way rather than a physical one, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but I think became a problem for me as I was coming to terms very starkly with my own dysphoria and dissociation with my own body. This show in particular deals with a rejection of “before” and “after” narratives in a broader sense around myth making and storytelling, but that are so tied to mainstream/cis narratives around transness that can really seep into my consciousness, but is ultimately a dangerous way of thinking when it comes to my own understanding of myself and my life. I don’t particularly identify with the concept of “being in the wrong body” so while my dysphoria is real and distressing in its own way, there’s also a recognition of and gratefulness for the body I have and what its capable of and finding ways to inhabit it more consciously as I discover the ways, big and small, I might have subconsciously unlearned out of self-preservation. The “before” and “after” narrative tells us we aren’t complete yet or we can’t be happy or know ourselves until an outward marker of change or identity has been breached for others, but that obfuscates the work and learning and daily experiences we encounter on the road towards knowing oneself. Everyone in their own way has these experiences with learning or unlearning themselves, recognizing and accepting their bodies and their possibilities or limitations, and making their own meanings and interpretations on their own terms. With this in mind, I moved towards a more physical or tactile practice which has been a way of trying to reinhabit my body in a more conscious and present way on a daily basis (sewing in particular is quite a meditative act). Without sounding too much like Frankenstein, there is a power and a catharsis for me in creating these new ways of embodiment that take up physical space and I can hold in my hands or that literally dwarf me in a room, and I can also use this physical practice as a means of furthering my ideological pursuits and explorations of my identity and the world around me, and in so doing I hope to get closer to bridging my mind and my body in ways that are within my control. 

You are influenced by science fiction and the way it allows us to create other worlds and possibilities Can you name some of your influences? 

Whether it was books or films or TV, I consumed a lot of media and stories as a kid and still continue to do so, so the list of inspirations is long and muddled together in some ways, but science fiction has always held a special place. Science fiction has long been a means, particularly for marginalized people, to hold up a mirror to see and critique that which is made to feel “natural,” which can then be a very useful tool for survival, communication, community and ultimately questioning and fighting the powers that be by understanding where they came from and how dominant narratives are upheld. 

In Kindred, Octavia Butler interrogates the impacts of slavery and white supremacy through a time travel narrative. The Matrix has widely been revisited through the lens of the trans experience and transitioning, particularly as the directors, Lana and Lily Wachowski, came out as trans in recent years. The Twilight Zone is masterful at weaving both the minor and major elements of creating uncanny atmospheres that can go from nudging you slightly off kilter to knock you out for the count. For ‘Dark Air’ specifically I was also thinking about Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris which subverts a more typical trope of space exploration as a colonization narrative, and in fact is ultimately about the astronauts’ inability to cope, physically and emotionally, with an overpowering ocean planet. It’s about our complete inability to understand or fathom the extraterrestrial (and maybe even our own subconscious). Science fiction, at its best, lets us imagine and wonder and be awestruck with possibilities, while still keeping a foot firmly on the ground and, in fact, may help us see reality even clearer. 

With Dark air you hope to overthrow the notion of the “hero’s journey” and our perceived set paths, goals, and obstacles – is this a comment on the overwhelming conditioning that has been determined through society and the West’s patriarchal system?

I’m fascinated by the idea of the hero’s journey as a storytelling archetype, and I think more so than completely subverting or throwing it out the window, it’s about an even deeper dive into it and not shying away from the minutiae and the mundanity that arguably differentiates a story from a life. The conditioning you’re referencing I think is important especially in relation to our contemporary moment within capitalism and this tension between expectations and conditioning to want certain things for our lives, to take certain paths or understanding success in specific ways, while at the same time being led to believe it’s our decision and that our happiness or opportunities lie squarely within ourselves or within our grasp rather than questioning what is out of our control and what might be possible to question or tweak within ourselves to find our own ideas or barometers of success. Some people are just trying to survive while at the same time we’re being told what we need to be happy or what we are doing wrong or what we need to overcome, and then the goal post keeps moving. It’s a function of capitalism to obfuscate our “true” foes or obstacles and for our path to be fog-covered, so perhaps even subconsciously I proposed of a sphinx that fits in with this atmosphere, or at least how I often feel while trying to navigate it. This all sounds a bit pessimistic but in actuality I hope for it to be empowering in any small way it can, that even in a time where things are made to feel and may very well be out of our immediate hands, there may be ways to internally recalibrate our parameters for success and happiness and fulfilment even on a day to day basis, even if it’s just how we relate to ourselves and each other.

 Can you explain the link between your exploration into Mythology and sports and how you connect the two? 

I’m interested in blending ancient storytelling and mythological creatures or narratives with contemporary interpretations and iconographies, and in so doing am hoping to bring into question the biases and power dynamics/hierarchies that are often involved in storytelling and myth making both in the past and the present, and how that has the potential to shape our futures.

I also was thinking of intersections of sports, mythology/religion and even being an artist-the relationships between the grand events and the mundanity of the everyday that both, in their own ways, make up these experiences and our relationships to them. Holidays, championship games, art exhibitions certainly hold their own meanings, they can build community and give us something to look forward to and remember, but these go hand in hand with the everyday and the myriad other emotions and experiences built up around these that make up our meaning as well. Personally I am also thinking about gender and transitioning and the relationship between insular and exterior identities and how to shift narratives from a “before” and “after” to a whole other way of being and experiencing and becoming oneself on a daily basis. Rather than being a sort of trick or gimmicky reveal, my use of this iconography and the set-up of the exhibition itself is coming from a place of optimism and empowerment, of wanting to give both myself and the audience the choice to create meaning for ourselves and to question how and when we might be told otherwise. 

What else will you be working on this year?

Right now, I’m working towards making new works for a group show at Lychee One in London and a three person show in Odense, Denmark both in September. I am also working on a newly commissioned video and performance piece in collaboration with HRH that I’m really looking forward to. After that I’m going to take some time to reflect on what I’ve made this year and how I want to move forward. 

To ring in the new year, American luxury accessory house Coach, launches their global campaign for the Spring 2019 collection today. The collection features floral print dresses, ruffled blouses and dresses, and of course some of the brand’s signature bags — the Parker Top Handle and the Patchwork Dreamer. Coach ambassadors Kiki Mizuhara and Guan Xiaotong and models Adut Akech, Fran Summers and Kiki Williams among others were elegantly captured by photographer Craig McDean in a faded carnival scene in Los Angeles inspired by a western American road trip. The campaign also features a few pieces from the brand’s collaboration with Disney which gives a playful twist on some of the network’s iconic characters. The images of this all female gang breathe cool, confident, effortless spirit from the Coach girl which accurately conveys the inclusive and optimistic vision of the house with the collections main themes. To view the full collection , visit Coach. 

London based contemporary art gallery Sadie Coles HQ introduces their most recent collaboration with German visual artist Katja Seib in an exhibition entitled Dear Diary at their gallery in Mayfair. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition in London which will feature a collection of new paintings which go by the theme of lucid figuration blurs into dreamlike symbolism, sharing a quality of psychological depth in common to her previous work.  On large burlap canvases, Seib depicts characters from real-life models to imaginary personae with materials which permeate both texture and imagery.  The artist’s paintings are often marked by reoccurring symbols and themes such as female sexuality and subjectivity and reality shading ambiguously into fantasy. She explores the use of light and colour using fluctuations in shadow and tones to render spatial depth. Also installed upstairs of the gallery will be an exhibition of her smaller works made on square canvases. This collection is mainly based on photographs she has taken of people she encounters during her life in Los Angeles. The exhibition is set to open on November 16th and will conclude on January 05, 2019. Be sure to stop by and have a look.

Photographer and musician Ami Sioux debuts her first monograph of personal work in a photography exhibition and book titled From The Road. The book is curated as a collection of portraits, landscapes and abstracts shot during the photographer’s journey in New York, Berlin, Paris, Tokyo and Los Angeles from 2001 through 2018. 

Sioux’s path as a photographer initially began in the 1990s which has been a journey which has took her throughout all these cities. She is a photographer who has shot for brands such as Hermes and Maison Margiela, but also prides herself as a photographer who demands a certain type of presence of the subjects of her images. Her work in the exhibition documents and engages a time passage with portraits of lovers and friends alongside landscapes and abstracts captured in a painterly way along with outtakes of celebrities and artists she has shot for magazines throughout the years. The entire series was shot on 35mm film and the cover of book was designed by musician and artist Matt Fishbeck. This will count as Ami’s fourth personal book. The others; Paris 48°N, Reykjavik 64°N and Tokyo 35°N are series exploring the relationships of creatives and their abiding cities. The exhibition will eventually travel to New York, Los Angeles and Tokyo, but is currently running in Paris at the Mannerheim Gallery until November 11, 2018.   

In celebration of the Santa Monica-based photography collector’s new exhibition, The Fashion Show, at his self-titled gallery, Twin parks the spotlight on Peter Fetterman’s dedication to the photographic frame.

What initially sparked your fascination with photography?

I started my career in the film industry dealing with moving images then discovered the power of photography to tell stories through individual images.

How did you become such an ardent collector?

By accident in 1979. I had just arrived in Los Angeles from London. I was invited to a small dinner party and it turned out the host was selling his small collection of photographs that hung in his dining room. I could not stop looking at one image, Max Yavno’s “Premier at Cathay Circle”. I asked how much it was and the owner said it was $400. I had arrived in California with five t-shirts and two pairs of jeans, had a total net worth of $2000 and was driving a beat-up car with virtually no brakes. If I were rational I should have spent the money on new brakes, but I bought my first photo and it changed my life.

Why did you choose to open your own gallery?

My collecting habit had become so extreme. I was working out of the back of my rent-controlled apartment and making house calls like the Tupperware lady. I was asked to open a gallery in a new arts development centre in Santa Monica. The organiser said to me that he had heard I had a great eye and asked if I would like to open a public gallery. I said why not? I had no idea of what I was doing when I started out. I learnt along the way.

Over the years has there been particular photographers whose vision has stayed with you?

My first and greatest inspiration was the celebrated French photographer Henri Cartier Bresson, and still is. We became his main US gallery for the last 14 years of his life. Henri kindly introduced me to another inspiring photographer, the great Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado, with whom we have collaborated for over 30 years now. His passion fires up my own.

You have a new exhibition entitled ‘The Fashion Show’ – what made you decide on this as a fitting theme for your gallery?

I am always seeking the beauty in life and I have always appreciated the style and elegance to be found in this genre.

A fashion show can be an overwhelming collaborative celebration of creativity: do you think the images in your exhibition showcase this aspect?

I hope the selection in this exhibition does indeed show this collaboration. We have some of the greatest designers ever represented form Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli matched by such great artist like Horst, Norman Parkinson, Hoyningen -Huene, Melvin Sokolsky and many others…

There are some iconic female photographers in the line-up: who are your highlights?

There were so many great female photographers working in the 50’s and 60’s who were overshadowed by the attention heaped upon the members of the fashion boy’s club, chief of whom were Irving Penn and Richard Avedon. But I have always felt that female photographers like Lillian Bassman, Francis McClaughlin Gill, Louise Dahl Wolfe were their equals.

Were the female photographers in the exhibition initially celebrated as equals their male counterparts?

These photographers were overlooked critically, but I strongly believe that history will eventually re-write their achievements

What have you learnt makes a great fashion photograph?

I use the same yardstick I do for what makes a great photograph in any genre of photography. Like a great novel or film or piece of music, you are one person before you see a great image and another person after you see a great image.

In the age of hyper self-awareness, have we entered a new age of fashion portraiture?

I’m not so sure we have actually entered a new age of fashion photography. I think we have entered a different era because of the proliferation of digital photography. Everyone today can call themselves a photographer because the barriers to entry are so low. Perhaps I’m just old school but my taste keeps leading me back in photo history. Probably one of the first great fashion photographers was Julia Margaret Cameron. What she produced in the 1860’s is still pretty monumental in my book, and has barely been topped since. 

What was the last thing that thrilled you?

The last great exhibitions that thrilled and moved me recently was the Irving Penn exhibition at the Grand Palais. In Paris last November and the great Dorothea Lange exhibition at the Barbican this year.

The Fashion Show is on at Peter Fetterman Gallery until 20th October, 2018.

Fashion and Fine Art are as intertwined as any two mediums can be, and so on the surface a project that brings together five artist and five designers doesn’t seem so radical. But not every designer is Raf Simons, able to access and afford the works of Sterling Ruby for his Dior collections, or Gianni Versace, making Warhol’s iconic work part of Versace’s iconic image without fear of being sued. A titan of one industry working with a powerhouse of another often produces incredible results, but it rarely exposes anyone to anything new.

The reality is that producing a collection or a piece of work takes time and money, and most emerging designers and artists are short on both. Encountering the work of someone new and having the infrastructure to collaborate is a privilege, and it is a privilege that the BFC Fashion Arts Foundations aim to extend to more makers. Now in its second year, the FAF’s Fashion arts Commissions scheme sees the British Fashion Council and the Royal Academy Schools pair NEWGEN designers with recent graduates of the RA Schools. Each pair is given a budget and mentoring, and a year to produce work to be exhibited and sold at Christie’s.

As you might imagine some pairs clicked immediately, finding a symbiosis between their practice that made them easy and natural collaborators – Liam Hodges and Nicky Carvell got on so well that they used part of their funding to take a research trip to LA together. For others the clash of influence, interest and expectation might have made the creative process a little more torturous, but this kind of friction is sometimes needed to provoke new ideas and ways of working. Eliza Bonham Carter, Head of the Royal Academy Schools, puts it best: ‘The value of this process lies not only in these bold, surprising and intriguing works of art, but also in the process by which they are achieved, which will inform the practice of each participant long into the future’.

In an era where arts funding is on its knees, and the government continues to cull art from school curriculums, it’s heartening to see organisations like the Fashion Arts Foundation are still around. All proceeds from the sale at Christie’s will go back in to the Foundation, to continue funding future cycles of collaboration. Unsurprisingly the final works are as strong and diverse as the participants. Encountering each other’s different mediums, approaches and frames of reference has produced a show that is a testament to the aims of the project – there is something new here. Across the hall from the more stiff traditional pieces that are the bread and butter of a house like Christie’s, the viewer suddenly encounters is a looming metal parasol, ominously askew and slick with fabric; distorted metal sculptures that feel like collages in motion; a carpet swatch rolodex of endlessly pleasing textures printed over with sinister undertones; a room of balance and tension shadowed by projection, and a series of playful, Zeuss-like structures that are as elegant as they are unusual.

Hear about each pair’s pleasingly divergent inspiration below:

LIAM HODGES & NICKY CARVELL

The ideas behind our work – industrialism, decay and rejuvenation sparked instantly on our first meeting. A shared search / destroy / rebuild attitude meant the work had to be uncompromisingly tough yet hopeful. A road trip to Los Angeles and to salvaged sites ‘Slab City’ and ‘Salvation Mountain’ were essential to instigate our shared visions. Process wise, Liam immediately wanted to set everything on fire. The nearest we came to this was welding scrap metal with sheet steel. The end results are robust sculptures made with the American ‘can do’ attitude brought to life in an East End warehouse.

PAULA KNORR & APPAU JNR BOAKYE-YIADOM

We wanted to create a work that could exist in different iterations. Using materials that illustrated this, from the fabric that takes on different characteristics when hung, looking through, gathered on the floor or folded over. The parasol frame both electric and manually operated changing its size and orientation depending on the space in which its shown. The video illustrating a ball falling from the top of the frame to the bottom, looped in transit, accompanied with dubbed audio of a drum in an echo chamber of sound. Focusing on different forms of sculptural movement from both culture, fashion, video and sound.

RICHARD MALONE & MARCO PALMIERI

A garment, as a term, is ambiguous; it can serve a limited but clear purpose, or on other occasions can shed its functional vestiges and slip into the realms of surrealism, play and sensuality. Our bodies share an intimate relationship with these fabrics and textiles, from the clothes we wear, to the furnishings that decorate our houses. At the same time this relationship is fragile and fleeting; fashion dictates a constant change in taste. Our hope with this collaboration was to create something tactile and ephemeral, like the clothes we inhabit for the recital of our daily routines – delicate skins we shed with seasonal regularity. From gentle poses of the hand that are sketched out on sheets of paper and lines of laser-cut aluminium, to oversized figures/mannequins robed in intricately patterned fabric, the pieces present themselves in a theatrical, surrealist spirit.

 

SADIE WILLIAMS & CARLA BUSUTTIL

In highlighting the politics of algorithmic era information commodification, we use Google Adwords as material for exploring consumer hierarchies. Our “Google Adword Library” contains some of the most expensive words on auction: Mesothelioma. Lawyer. Blackjack. Cord Blood. Spread Betting. We re-channelled these words through the search engine, collaging image results on textiles through painting, bonding and printing. The installation includes a ‘tombola’ showroom display. The metallic structure stands as a confident, analogue representation of an abstract digital marketplace for words. The tombola also references ‘old school’ methods of enticing consumers – contrasted here with modern visual and digital methods of production.

SAMUEL ROSS OF A-COLD-WALL* & JULIE BORN SCHWARTZ

The starting point of the project was an exploration into the different layers that appear in Samuel’s designs. Working with the film media we wanted to play with the possibilities of light and transparency, like a collage of the different layers and structures of the clothes itself. The process was an ongoing back and forth inspiration: the musical score was made after some of the editing of the film, and the last film edit was made from the music’s compositions.

For sales enquiries contact the British Fashion Council.

From Friday 27th February, until the 27th May, the J. Paul Getty Museum at LA’s Getty Centre will play host to works by six contemporary artists, who have each expanded the role of paper in photography.

For some, a photograph is simply an image on a piece of paper, but for other photographers, paper is not merely the end result of developing a photograph – it is a material that can be animated in a number of ways. Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum, describes how “a number of works blur the line between photography and other mediums”; manipulating the printed photograph by cutting, shaping and combining images takes photography in radically new directions.

Many pieces have been borrowed from Los Angeles-based collectors, institutions, or galleries, and others have been taken from the Getty Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition provides a context and historical perspective on the experimentation of many contemporary photographers today.

Works spanning the years 1926 to 1967, by Manual Alvarez Bravo, Alexander Rodchenko, and Ei-Q, all feature cut-paper abstractions and figures modeled from paper that have been photographed. These pieces have provided a basis for more daring contemporary experimentation; artists Daniel Gordon, Matt Lipps, and Thomas Demand create paper models and images taken from current events, the internet, or books and magazines. Others, such as Soo Kim, cut and layer photographs, introducing three-dimensional elements into what is traditionally a two-dimensional art form.

The exhibition has been curated by Virginia Heckert, head of the Getty Museum’s Department of Photographs, and the works can be viewed from the end of February.

Images that shaped a vision, with Emma Tillman

Future Feminine

Fall into Ruin: William E. Jones at The Modern Institute

Forever Chuck: The Icons of L.A.

Desert Daze – Joshua Tree, California – October 2016

Golgo’s first London exhibition · FLESH · BLOOD · SUBSTANCE ·

Juergen Teller to curate Mapplethorpe retrospective

Nite Jewel Unearthed

Citizens of Humanity x Mytheresa

Molly Burch sings the blues