For the first issue of Twin artist Harry Malt created paper designer handbags that were as covetable as the real thing (see below). But what he really does best is draw. Not scared of letting his imagination run riot, his illustrations are as sharp as his pencil.
Malt’s new show at the Print Picture Gallery in Dalston is a monument to time wasting and the parochial details of life. It’s about the trash, graffiti and subterranean characters that one might observe, say, while waiting for a bus. As ever, it’s not the destination but the journey that really counts, and Malt is an expert escapologist from reality. His work stems from a desire to always be somewhere else – be it by jet-plane, ferry or a clapped out old bus. Be sure to join him for the ride.
*Until That Day I Love You Anyway:***/* */**Tales from the bus stop. A monument to discovery, romance, ambition or lack of all three is at the Print House Gallery, from the 10th February – 7th March 2011. harrymaltdrawspictures.blogspot.com
Admission: I used to hate gourmand fragrances. Not spicy ones but obvious scents that smelt of chocolate and caramel and vanilla. Oh and fruity florals were an absolute bugbear. Why? Well in all honesty I felt they were too obvious, too commercial, too lowest common denominator (yes it was a bit snobbish of me I admit). I felt they were predominantly marketed and aimed at young girls with unsophisticated tastes who wanted to smell good enough to eat. Who would want to smell like something edible? I did at the age of 18 – I used to wear the long defunct Body Shop Mango oil and also the Vanilla and Dewberry oil. With the vanilla I thought I smellled as good as bowl of fresh custard.
How naïve I was! The grown up me found gourmand scents totally unacceptable. But I’ve had something of a damascene conversion. I think this is because some of my favourite indie perfume brands have been making gourmands recently that are a little bit different. They are not your usual fruity florals or toffee caramel concoctions. Byredo’s Pulp does smell of exotic fruit, but it also smells of green leaves and stems and slightly sour but fresh foliage. So it’s a kind of interesting riff on the gourmand genre. Likewise Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille – yes, it smells of vanilla and cocoa beans and other delicious edibles but there’s also a tinge of smoke, a dirty gentleman’s clubby woodyness about it that lends it a sophistication and hauteur that a straight vanilla wouldn’t have. Lastly, Etat Libre d’Orange’s Like This, Tilda Swinton fragrance is equally off-key. It smells of carrots and gingerbread and almonds – not your obvious epicurean fragrance by a long chalk. So, thanks to the niche perfumers gourmand fragrances are changing. I love these new oddball gourmands, if only the blockbuster brands would pay heed.
Twin meets Christa Palazzolo and Sarah Brown of slow motion-pop duet Boy Friend to talk about their latest dreamy incarnation, a U.S. girl group world takeover and what it’s like to be a twin…
Boy Friend emerged from a previous project, Sleep ∞ Over, how did it come about? Christa: We’ve played music together on and off for the last 12 years, and have managed to stay super close through all the ups and downs. When Sleep ∞ Over began to fall apart, it only felt natural to start afresh with each other in a new band. The Boy Friend EP came directly after the S.O. breakup, and was definitely therapeutic. We’re looking forward to new adventures in sound with this new project.
Sarah: The break-up wasn’t the most pleasant of experiences. I think we needed a fresh start and to stay busy and positive, so we’re both really pumped to be making new music.
What are your roles within the Boy Friend project? Christa: I play keys and sing; which is what I’ve done for quite a while now, though I’ve never had so much of my voice thrown into the mix. I also tinker with other instruments- My twin is sort of a musical savant, so I’ve learned a lot from her.
guitar and attempt to sing back up. I’ve taken piano and violin lessons and I played bass in our high school band/project. I’m mostly just here to Keep IT Real.
From a personal rather than stylistic perspective, how would you distinguish the music you produce as Boy Friend from your previous work? Christa: I have personally never poured so much into a musical project before. I’ve been in several bands where I wasn’t doing the majority of the writing, so I wasn’t quite as attached as I am now. I feel so comfortable working with Sarah, I don’t hold anything back. We both tell it like it is to each other and we want this project to be totally true to ourselves.
Sarah: I have to sing.
Christa, co-incidentally you’re a twin – when it comes to your creative relationships would you credit this as having an influence? Christa: It has definitely played a role, but I’m not sure it’s an advantage. Me and my sister have played music together on and off and perhaps grabbed some attention because of the identical twin factor (and have always been competitive with any of our artistic projects), but we’re both pretty different as individuals.
Sarah: NOVELTY FACTOR
In recent years there’s been a surge in American female bands. With groups such as Vivian Girls and Warpaint snowballing into mainstream popularity and inevitable comparisons being drawn across the genre, do you think this is the result of an industrious generation of female artists or are audiences just growing more attuned to female groups? Christa: I think it’s fucking awesome that so many females are getting into the mix, but I don’t feel anyone should be judged solely on gender. Maybe the surge has to do with confidence…either way it’s about talent. I think audiences love diversity, so put those two together and 2012 is going to be AMAZING.
Sarah: I think it’s more socially acceptable now to pursue an artistic career for both men and women. Also I don’t think gender plays a role in anyone’s ability to be creative.
Who are your strongest influences?
Harry Nilsson, Paul Simon, Ray Lynch, Fleetwood Mac, Brian Wilson, The Bangles, Boyz 2 Men, The Cure, The Cranberries, Danny Elfman, Wanda Jackson, The Everly Brothers and R. Kelly
Whose music are you currently most excited by? Christa: Chat Room, Grimes, Love Inks, I Dazzler, Melted Toys, Airwaves, Gucci Mane
Sarah: R. KELLY, Gucci Mane, SURVIVE, Speculator
You have a very luxurious euphoric sound – how do you see your music evolving in the future?
Grittier, bigger, crazier, love jams.
The opening of Susan Hiller’s major exhibition at the Tate Britain makes the London-based artist and her fascination with the intangible teeth marks of superstition in modern culture appropriately omnipresent in the capital.
Meanwhile, Hiller’s solo show An Ongoing Investigation, at Timothy Taylor Gallery continues Hiller’s 30-year study of subliminal psychology. With a typically heterogeneous spread of visual media Hiller exercises her kleptomaniac tendencies by reconceptualising some very familiar works by Joseph Beuys, Marcel Duchamp and Yves Klein.
The psychoanalytical quality of Hiller’s work extends into the mind of the observer – through her studied restaging she re-maps modernist history, poking into our subconscious with a lightness of touch that only an anthropologist could muster.
Facing her work, it’s hard to decipher whether they are homage to a collective genealogy or parody. The Timothy Taylor show is defiantly anti-retrospective: the original works are transformed by Hiller’s strategic impersonation to become living pieces, re-acclimatized within a new century rather than stranded as relics of another era.
Susan Hiller: An Ongoing Investigation is at the Timothy Taylor Gallery from until the 5th March. A major survey exhibition curated by Ann Gallagher is currently taking place at Tate Britain until the 15th May.
Words by Julia Hobbs.
Images courtesy of Timothy Taylor Gallery, London.
It is with great sadness that we must report that the prevailing trend at the Spring/Summer 2011 shows was for bare eyelids. No eyeshadow. No eyeliner. Just bare eyes, sometimes not even with a lick of mascara to define them. This was nigh on tragic for us because for decades now we have been virtually wedded to liquid eyeliner. Although not especially loyal to one particular brand, we’ve used everything from Lancome and Chanel’s smart eyeliner pens, to £1.50 e.l.f (eyeslipsface.com) which is not at all bad if you are on a tight budget. However a number of signs tell us that the flick of liquid eyeliner on the upper eyelid is not completely dead and buried, and one of these was the Bettie Page look Pat McGrath evoked at the Dior SS11 Ready To Wear show AND the look she created at the recent couture. Both featured liquid eyeliner in a feline flick extending from the corner of the eye right out to the end of the eyebrow. It’s still, along with red lipstick, an uber signifier of all things Fifties and retro, or even early Sixties actually. The Mad Men era was still working liquid eyeliner. The other thing that makes us want to cling onto it in adversity is the appointment of Gwen Stefani as ambassador to L’Oreal. Stefani is a big one for black liquid eyeliner, along with red lips it’s her signature look – a noughties rockabilly girl. So we are going to keep on wearing it, despite what other beauty pundits might be preaching.
Image by Boo George for Twin issue one. Words by Bethan Cole.
Larry Clark is synonymous with controversy. The word seems to trail the American photographer and filmmaker like a yappy Jack Russell wherever he shows his work. Since the publication of his 1971 book, Tulsa, Clark has been known as the agitator of teenage disorder with images of drug abuse, underage sex and violence. His 1995, Kids, remains the go-to shock film for an unflinching portrayal of teenage-hood.
Now at 67 years-old, Clark has a London show, What do you do for fun?, part-retrospective and part-showcase for new work, it features seminal Nineties shots – from the staged images in his book, 1992, to collages from on the set of Kids.
The show follows Clark’s recent exhibition at the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, where once again his work sparked controversy when the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, banned anyone under the age of 18 from attending. Clark declared it, “an attack on youth, on adolescents.” Prepare yourself, a contretemps is coming.
What do you do for fun? opens on the 10th February at Simon Lee Gallery
Embrace the age of rebellion. Twin’s Spring/Summer issue is charged with the power and expectation of youth. In ‘The Year of Discontent’, photographer Clare Shilland shoots the young women who are fighting for their educational rights, in ‘She bangs the drums’ modern rebel Alice Dellal is celebrated by her closest collaborators and photographed by Paul Wetherall. Elsewhere, two prolific design duos – Rodarte and Meadham Kirchoff – share their inspirations, from rugged terrains to Riot Grrl, and we enter the homes of two downtown New York renegades – artist Aurel Schmidt in, ‘There’s something about Aurel’ and actress Chloe Sevigny in, ‘Kick ass’. Last but by no means least, for, ‘The Letter Set’ Costa-winning poet Jo Shapcott showcases the women who are igniting the form in a specially curated Twin poetry portfolio. It’s our very own rebel yell.
The most recent work of the prolific LA-based video artist Diana Thater transports viewers from within the four walls of Hauser & Wirth’s Piccadilly gallery and into the Zone of Alienation that surrounds Chernobyl’s nuclear disaster site.
Via fragmented footage following wild Przewalski’s Horses, Thater invites viewers into a flickering realm to pose questions about the relationship between man and nature; encasing them within a colourful visual tableau that momentarily distorts perceptions of reality. The video projections that swamp the large blank space are designed to render you online casino bonus childlike, beckoning the realisation that humans exist in this landscape only by implication – through the eroded architecture dotted across the one-hundred mile wide radioactive territory that is navigated during the film. This is not a world that man has abandoned by choice; it is an environment where animals – endangered animals at that – have succeeded humans and thrived. It”s important to remind oneself that this is not an imagined alternate state, but a visceral consequence of our recent history. And yet whilst this is considered Thater’s darkest work to date, it exudes an unyielding optimism that somehow nature will overcome man’s misdemeanours and out-survive us all. And that is a soothing thought.
Diana Thater, Chernobyl is at Hauser & Wirth London, Piccadilly until 5th March.
The aching, fatalistic sounds of musician George Lewis Jr. under the sobriquet Twin Shadow have been steadily engulfing L.A. But with an eagerly anticipated live appearance at London’s Lexington theatre tonight, Lewis’ mesmerizing odes to spirits present and passed are set to make a long-awaited first impression on transatlantic followers.
It’s not only Lewis’ liquescent voice that is the lure; spearheaded by standout track Slow, the album, Forget, is addictive. Crisp, mournful and mid-tempo ballads blur into ticking top online casinos guitar-heavy tracks, creating a debut work that feels almost scientific in its ratio of Eighties New Wave and Brit Pop. It”s a warming blend.
The title track’s crashing beat and distortion spirals with intensity, while the blissed-out scales that rise and fall throughout When We’re Dancing reach biting point with euphoric urgency in At My Heels. Above all, Twin Shadow’s freshness adds a necessary dose of springtime to your playlist. Call it a Twin thing.
Twin Shadow plays tonight at The Lexington, 96-98 Pentonville Road, London.
Download Forget by Twin Shadow at 4ad.com.
Sportswear stalwart Fred Perry’s collaboration with London designer Richard Nicoll goes on-sale today. Nicoll has designed Fred Perry’s SS11 Laurel Wreath collection, drawing on the company’s heritage for inspiration, then cleverly subverting it. While his own summer collection shows signs of a modern sportsluxe influence, the Laurel Wreath collection unites Ken Russell’s images of Fifties teddy girls with subtle, modern androgyny.
“I like the idea that something as conservative and traditional as a cameo brooch could become subversive in the right hands,” says Nicoll. “I mixed sport jersey with lurex piqué and brocade cottons to create a clash of sport and traditional Fifties couture elements in dynamic but recognisably Fifties colours such as eau de nil and peach.” Rizzo eat your heart out.
From Henri Cartier-Bresson to Helen Levitt, street photography has always offered viewers new opportunities for people watching. But since the blogging explosion of the Noughties one photographer more so than any other has become synonymous with street style.
The Sartorialist has been name checked in magazines across the globe, and his distinctive style has sparked a thousand copy cats. While you will almost certainly recognise his photographs, which are bathed in daylight and consistent in featuring only the most discerning dressers, you might not recognise the man himself, Scott Schuman.
In a new and fascinating short documentary by Intel, Schuman talks about his work and method. Here he explains the visual elements in his life and his love of taking to the street with just a camera, waiting to be seduced by his next subject.
“It’s so instinctual the way I shoot. The way I do it is just the way I do it. I don’t see 100 images a day that I want to take. I see two or three. So for me, it’s very easy to be patient and wait for those images because that’s just the way I assumed it was going to be.”
Forty-seven years ago blonde ingénue Marianne Faithfull released her debut single, As Tears Go By. Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, it was the beginning in the making of a rock and roll icon. From Girl on a Motorcycle to the depths of drug abuse, Faithfull has lived life in the fast lane.
Twenty-three albums on and her latest record, released in March, is a rumination upon lost love. Recorded in New Orleans, on Horses and High Heels local musicians and well-known friends – Lou Reed, Dr John and Wayne Kramer from MC5 – lend a hand. “Conventional happiness isn’t my way, you know,” says Faithfull. “But this is a very happy record. I’m not depressed any more. And I think it’s all been well worth it. I did have a bit of a bad time in the Seventies but I think things have been wonderful. So I suppose this album is a bit of a breakthrough.”
Listen to the first track of the album Horses and High Heels at mariannedownload
Aesop is the cultiest of cult beauty brands. Resolutely highbrow, their products are emblazoned with quotes from the likes of Genet, Jung and Gertrude Stein. Interesting architects are co-opted to design all their stores – Rodney Eggleston of March Projects was enlisted for the recent Rue St Honore boutique in Paris. And all three of the London stores – Westbourne, Shoreditch and Mount St are worth visiting to peruse their bijou range of products.
If you’re feeling particularly indulgent Aesop’s Saint Honore skin care kit is especially investment worthy. At £167 it doesn’t come cheap, but inside are a trove of delights for cleansing, toning and moisturising – all including their wonderful Parsley Seed formulation which is high in environmentally protective antioxidants. Aesop tend to use a fusion of hi-tech and natural ingredients in their products making them very au courant: hi-tech naturals and organics are currently the hottest things in skincare.
If you’re on a budget start with something like their Fabulous Face Cleanser with Aloe Leaf, Bergamot rind and Green tea, its mild gently foaming and suitable for most skin types. Or try their Violet Leaf Hair Balm a floral smelling ointment to groom smooth and soften difficult hair. The Aesop website – aesop.com.au is also great for tips on where to eat, places to visit, books to read and art too see. Is this the most cultured beauty brand in the world?
Cult painter Rita Ackermann and seminal director Harmony Korine share a love of irreverent, mischievous beauty. As such the first exhibition of their collaborative work Shadow Fux is just that: provocative, weird and stunning.
Korine’s recent film Trash Humpers – an eerie yet comedic nightmare vision – provides the point of departure. Starting with large-scale stills from the film, in which the characters wear wrinkled jelly-like masks that make them look like geriatrics, they used a call-and-response method to build up layers of blackjack collage and paint. Accompanying these ‘cut-and-paste’ works, projections of two of Korine’s films set the scene.
The result, which appears to be a succession of arbitrary scribblings reminiscent of childish colouring-in sessions, in fact speaks of the nature of collaboration and co-existence. Characters are plastered one over the other like some kind of mutant lab experiment: the cracks and joins are still visible.
Ultimately their work is a mixed media mess, a jumble, in which fragmented narratives coalesce to form jarring yet beguiling scenes. But it’s this dissonance that is most successful and resonates most deeply. Catch it quick at New York”s Swiss Institute before it is gone.
Shadow Fux is at the Swiss Institute, New York until 23rd January 2011
YSL had one of the more interesting beauty looks for SS11. Burgundy lips and centre parted, rolled up hair accompanied the catwalk clothes. It was bold, chic and Seventies inspired and not typically summery with that darkish lipstick. But very dramatic and a great look to take you from the depths of winter to spring sunshine.
Soul Jazz Records founder Stuart Baker and tastemaker Giles Peterson have put together a stunning visual history of the Brazilian bossa nova scene. Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s features cover artwork, artist’s biographies and essays on a musical movement that’s a fascinating insight into the changing social climate of Sixties Brazil.
As Rio developed into an urban society, with ‘apartment living’ and consumer goods, bossa nova projected an image that was modern, sophisticated and cool. At the time Brazil’s newly elected president promised the country, “fifty years of progress in five.”
It was the modernist architecture of Oscar Niemeyer, which dominated this fresh vision of the capital, that inspired much of the bossa nova movement’s cover art. The record sleeve designs, like the country, were radical, innovative and exciting. While Bossa Nova quickly became a musical phenomenon with Astrud Gilberto and Stan Getz’s The Girl from Ipanema an international hit, by 1964 the period of Brazilian optimism was spent, and the country fell under the rule of a violent military dictatorship that would affect the lives of ordinary Brazilians – and the music – for the next 20 years. More than another graphic sourcebook of sublime modernist design for your coffee table, Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960s, is a snapshot of the vivacious bygone era behind the beat.
Bossa Nova and the Rise of Brazilian Music in the 1960 is available now from, Soul Jazz Records, and the accompanying album will be on sale from the 24th January.
Art students have long been relied upon to inject an irreverent attitude into the music industry and Chicks on Speed are no exception. Since 1997 the transnational collective have mashed-up performance art and music while continually smashing through clichés of femininity.
Their song We Don’t Play Guitars typified their DIY post-punk aesthetic and while they found a home within the Electroclash movement of the early Noughties, they remained joyously un-boxable. The group, aka Melissa Logan, Kiki Moorse and Alex Murray-Leslie, opened for Kraftwerk, released albums, designed clothes, appeared naked on stage and achieved cult status.
For their latest show, HAPPENING, they present sculptural objects that double as stage show props. From wearable guitar shoes with sensory strings to cigar box synthesizers, they twist the conventional band into a work of art. Each object plays upon male fetishes and in particular their DayGlo plastic stiletto is an ironic take on the cliché of male rock gods hammering out guitar chords.
With the spirit of Dadaism and the energy of anarchism Chicks on Speed continue to live in a world where what the lady wants, the lady gets on and does.
Chicks on Speed: HAPPENING is at Kate MacGarry gallery until 30 January 2011 katemacgarry.com
This month our favourite one-stop shop for virtual rummaging, Supermarket Sarah, goes uptown to Selfridges, London. From humble beginnings in the East End bedroom of founder Sarah Bagner, who curates and shoots physical ‘walls’ of objects for customers to click and buy, Supermarket Sarah has won support from Tom Dixon and showcased the work of designers Georgina Bacchus, Patternity and Bethan Wood.
Now, Supermarket Sarah’s design emporium will open the doors to its very own bricks and mortar shop in Selfridges, London. While the online wall lives on, the new Selfridges store promises the same blend of quirky collectibles, but in real time. Space is also being made for a gallery featuring all Sarah’s best loved designers. First up is Eley Kishimoto. Trolleys at the ready.
Supermarket Sarah wall will open from 10 Jan 2011 at Selfridges London, 400 Oxford Street, London, W1A. supermarketsarah.com
Tucked down a side road in Dalston, in a 6000sqft basement is Late Night Chameleon Café. Known by the acronym LN-CC the self-proclaimed ‘retail concept’ opened its doors this month.
The store is the brainchild of former Selfridges and Harrods buyers John Skelton and Daniel Mitchell who enlisted Twin favourite, set designer Gary Card to create the rabbit-warren interior.
A cylindrical corridor leads to the three fashion rooms showcasing the best of cult fashion design. In one room Damir Doma, Rick Owens and Ann Demeulemeester are ready-styled on mannequins or hanging from suspended rails. Emerging brands like Nonnative and SASQUATCHfabrix are in another while in the third room Raf Simons sits alongside Lara Bohinc and Mawi.
There is a fourth ‘Celestial’ space full of rare art, fashion books and records. All the favourites are here and then some: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Phyllis Galembo, Maison Martin Margiela and Harmony Korine.
But it’s the details that set this boutique apart from other retailers. The brands are carefully handpicked, cleverly edited and curated so that the space feels more like a gallery than a boutique. Built-in benches encourage thorough perusal of the records and art books. Oh and did we mention the changing rooms are on wheels?
LN-CC is a shopping landmark in the making; book your appointment now.
Hair experts call it Ombre colour, and it’s the latest trend to grip trendsetters and celebrities alike since the pastel colour hair around about a year ago (first seen at Giles SS10). Basically it is dip dyeing hair and Nicki Minaj, Alexa Chung, Drew Barrymore and lots of others are having their ends dipped in a contrast colour. We love it.
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