“The future of art is light,” said Henri Matisse. These words are the starting point for Illuminations the inaugural exhibition of Coldharbour London. Here curator Aretha Campell explores the phenomenon of artificial light.

It’s a dazzling line-up. Lighting-cameraman turned installation artist Adam Barker Mill turns the gallery into a space devoid of light for one of his famous light experimentations.  Kirstie Macleod, whose work deals with issues of identity and the passage of time, showcases her large-scale textile work.  Sculptor Molly Smyth, whose art can be both minute and monstrous, references both urban landscapes and the human form.  While Luke Montgomery straddles the line between abstraction and realism.

Elsewhere, artist, architect and musician Lawrence Lek unveils Twins, a collaboration with industrial designer Onur Ozkaya which explores the boundaries between sculpture and architecture.  The result in Lek’s words is, “an enclosed world composed of both structure and light.” Matisse would no doubt approve.

Until 3rd July at Coldharbour London 30-34 Southwell Road, SE5 9PG
Coldharbourlondon.com

Tags: Adam Barker Mill, Aretha Campbell, Coldharbour London, Henri Matisse, Illuminations, Kirstie Macleod, Lawrence Lek, Luke Montgomery, Molly Smyth, twins

When Polaroid collapsed in 2008 it was the death of a Twentieth Century icon. The instant film, beloved of artists and image-makers for decades, allowed photographers to not only record the party, but be part of it too.

A casualty of the bankruptcy was The Polaroid Collection, a 4,400 strong collection taken by 800 artists from around the world; started in the Sixties after Polaroid’s founder and inventor Edwin Herbert Land decided to provide artists and photographers such as Ansel Adams and William Wegman with free cameras and film to experiment with.

In the liquidation carve-up a chunk of the collection was auctioned off by Sotheby’s. Luckily the WestLicht Museum in Vienna managed to acquire the European part of the collection. Now the WestLicht has put together POLAROID (IM)POSSIBLE, featuring over 350 photographs from their stash, with shots ranging from a self-portrait by Andy Warhol to a Helmut Newton nude.

Running alongside the exhibition is a pop-up shop by The Impossible Project. The collective, made up of former Polaroid employees, managed to save the last Polaroid production plant from closure. Since then they’ve continued to produce Polaroid products so that the world can still get its quick photographic kicks. The exhibition even includes new photographs by contemporary artists shooting on Impossible film. It’s an analogue revolution.

POLAROID [IM]POSSIBLE is at The WestLicht Museum, Vienna until August 21.
westlicht.com

Tags: Ansel Adams, Chuck Close, Edwin Herbert Land, Polaroid, Sotheby's, The Impossible Project, The Polaroid Collection, Vienna

As part of the Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project, the French fashion house has launched REcreative, an online community for the young, lean and art hungry. Careers advice for the digital age, it’s a gold mine of advice and an opportunity for creative minds to gain an insight into the lives of leading artists, curators and designers.

Interviews online already include Tracey Emin discussing her Hayward Gallery show, Love is What You Want and Dazed and Confused founder Jefferson Hack on how to establish your own magazine and voice.  REcreative users can also upload their own work and have it seen by those at the top of their creative tree. Developed by Louis Vuitton in collaboration with London’s leading art institutions: the Hayward Gallery, the Royal Academy of Arts, the South London Gallery, Tate Britain and the Whitechapel Gallery, REcreative is set to put the wheels of a whole new generation on the right creative track. Spread the word.

recreativeuk.com

Tags: Dazed and COnfused, Hayward Gallery, Jefferson Hack, Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton Young Arts Project, Love is what you want, REcreative, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Tate Britain, tracey emin, Whitechapel Gallery

Photographer Nan Goldin’s work is inextricably bound up in her own life. Her most famous book The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy documented her surrogate family of misfits and the Manhattan scene they belonged to, before the immolation of the Eighties. Over the years she has remained faithful to her idea of taking photographs in order, “to retain memory and make a record against revisionism”, by using natural light to capture an image that, if not quite figurative, is pure in the essence of the moment.

The newly opened Sprovieri Gallery are kicking off with Goldin’s seventh slide-show exhibition. Fire Leap features images of her friends and family’s children from 1972 to present, as well as a series of landscape photographs taken during her travels since the late Seventies. While the former feeds from Goldin’s fascination with childish innocence and freedom, the latter are more than simply expansive visions of beauty. They are a meditation on her own emotional experience.

As Goldin says, the images: “have been my secret metaphors for loneliness… I was trying to break the glass between the outside world and me. I had lived in a dark space for 15 years so the landscape was unfamiliar to me, a fascination with an unknown world outside.”

While dancing children and moonlit trees might seem a world away from the gay bars and whorehouses with which Goldin made her name, they are, with their raw intimacy and muted entropy, unmistakably her visions.

Nan Goldin, Fire Leap, 24 June – 8 August at the Sprovieri Gallery, W1B 4BQ.
sprovieri.com

Tags: Fire Leap, nan goldin, Sprovieri Gallery, The Ballad of Sexual Dependancy

Richard Avedon was as luminous as the stars he photographed. A titan of Twentieth Century art, he gave the world lasting images of its icons. Starting with his first sitter, the Russian pianist-composer Sergey Rachmaninov, who then lived in the same New York apartment building as his grandparents, he went on to create the definitive portraits of a whole constellation of celebrities, including Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.

It’s no surprise that his legacy includes photographs of many literary greatest too, and a new exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery in Paris spotlights his portraits of Truman Capote, Jorge Luis Borges, Henry Miller, Jean Genet, Ezra Pound and the poet Marianne Moore. But while their words were each uniquely their own, their image was all Avedon’s.

Avedon: Writers is at the Gagosian Gallery, Project Space, Paris until July 28.
richardavedon.com
gagosian.com

Photograph courtesy of The Richard Avedon Foundation.

Tags: Audrey Hepburn, Avedon:Writers, Gagosian Gallery, Henry Miller, Jean Genet, Jorge Luis Borges, Marianne Moore, Marilyn Monroe, Richard Avedon, Truman Capote

Twin contributor Mari Sarai shoots the

world’s coolest celebrities and models. So what happened when the Japanese photographer asked some of them to pose for a book of nudes? Playful, slick and downright hot, Naked is a girl’s own take on Helmut Newton’s glamazons.

Twin asked Sarai to tell us a bit about the project:

How did the book come about?
One very famous Japanese editor, Masa Sugatsuke approached me to make an all-nude book in June 2009. That’s how the project started.

A lot of the women in the book are models – how did shooting Naked feel different to a normal fashion shoot?
Shooting subjects naked is very different from a normal fashion shoot. There’s no clothes anyway. I shoot with a very minimal team when I shoot for Naked. I focused on our privacy and intimacy for this project.

How did being a female photographer affect the kind of nude images you ended up with?
Just adding one more spice for my style and name, that’s all.

A lot of the photos are in black and white and project a strong and tough take on femininity, was that on purpose?
It is on purpose and it’s my style.

How did you go about approaching people like Alice Dellal and Twin’s own Celestine Cooney?
I have shot with Alice Dellal before and we knew each other. Same with Celestine Cooney. We are friends and so it’s a very comfortable situation.

What’s been most people’s reaction to the book?
People just love it. And so many people want to take off their clothes for me now. It’s brilliant!

Is there going to be a follow-up to Naked?
Yes, I have already started shooting for Naked II. I have photographed 10 people including Janice Dickinson.

Mari Sarai’s Naked goes on show at the Blackall Studios, EC2A 4QS from September 14 – 20 and at Doors Showcase, EC2A 3DU September 21 – October 13.

marisarai.com
blackallstudios.com
doorsshowcase.com

Tags: Alice Dellal, Blackall Studios, celestine cooney, Doorse Showcase, Helmut Newton, Janice Dickinson, Japan, Mari Sarai, Masa Sugatsuke, Naked

Laurie Simmons has been playing with dolls for longer than most women. Over the past 30 years they’ve been a reoccurring obsession for the photographer. From ventriloquist dummies to household objects on legs, dolls have been her way of reflecting the narrow identities available to women. Homemaker or femme fatale, which are you?

For her latest exhibition at the Wilkinson Gallery, early photographs from Simmons’ career are being shown alongside her most recent work. Starring a new, life-sized playmate who’s as fake as they come, The Love Doll: Days 1 to 30, is a photographic study in the real and unreal.

While working in Japan Simmons picked up a silicone sex doll. A perfectly formed vision of femininity clothed in a transparent slip and accompanied by a separate box containing an engagement ring and her female genitalia. A plastic play object, but one not intended for little girls. By photographing her sex doll in a series of everyday scenes, Simmons has created a fantasy life that is far-removed from its seedier original purpose. From her box fresh arrival, she’s slowly transformed into a wholesome young girl, who reads books, hangs out with friends and enjoys her own fairy-tale wedding day. But despite her blow-job lips and vacant expression, she looks almost as misplaced in the role of compliant sex-slave as any real flesh and blood woman.

Laurie Simmons The Love Doll: Days 1-30 and Early Black and White Interiors is at the Wilkinson Gallery from June 9 to July 10.
wilkinsongallery.com

Images copyright the artist, courtesy Wilkinson Gallery, London.

Tags: Laurie Simmons, The Love Doll, Wilkinson Gallery

Photographer Lina Scheynius delves into her past for her third book, 03, to a time when her photographs were intended for her eyes only.

While Scheynius is increasingly in demand as a fashion photographer, her personal photographs are, in contrast, a hypnotic hymn to sex, love and uninhibited freedom. Although the photographer’s previous books have been visual diaries detailing her recent life between London, Paris and Sweden, this time around she’s compiled a book of images taken between 1991, when she was just ten-years-old, and early 2007, just before her first magazine commission.

It’s an embryonic collection of pictures, revealing the same ethereal beauty, light and intimacy for which she has become known.  Another chapter in her book of life.

Lina Scheynius’ 03 is available here
linascheynius.com

Tags: Lina Scheynius, london, Paris, Sweden

Multi-disciplinary design duo Kai and Sunny have worked with everyone from Alexander McQueen to Apple.  A year after their Return to the Wild exhibition at StolenSpace Gallery, they’re back at the Brick Lane space.

Taking the 2010 exhibition to the next level, this year’s The Flower Show sees the pair zoning in on all manner of blossoms to produce intense, monotone abstractions.  Reminiscent of Bridget Riley’s severe graphic palette, these large-scale, glittering silver silkscreen prints celebrate the intricacy of naturally-occurring patterns and formations.

Alongside the show an A3 limited edition box set containing five letter-pressed images is available to buy.  Included in the set is a new short story The Gardener by award-winning author David Mitchell, written exclusively to accompany the works.  Gardening has never been so multidisciplinary – or quite so cool.

The Flower Show by Kai and Sunny is at StolenSpace Gallery, The Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London E1 6QL until June 26.

Tags: Kai and Sunny, StolenSpace Gallery, The Flower Show, The Old Truman Brewery

The problem with success is that once you have it it’s almost impossible to avoid being typecast by it. One of the biggest misconceptions about Tracey Emin is that her work is all about sex.  In fact, as Emin’s first major London exhibition shows, it’s about far more than her sex life. It’s about intimacy. It’s about love.  This is a love that takes no account of gender, race, or even – as we discovered via a video starring a bullmastiff – species. It appears many things go on in a bed besides sex.

Tracey Emin seems to take a lot of flak in this country.
Maybe the kind of poignant statements her work is littered with are a bit too close to the bone:

“You stop me from feeling anything”
“I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone”
“Every time I feel love I think Christ I’m going to be crucified”
“I whisper to my past, do I have another choice”

But for all the vapidity she’s accused of, this is strong stuff.

Tracey Emin: Love is what you Want spans the artist’s entire career to date, and includes many specially commissioned and previously unseen works.  This show opens the eyes to the vast expanse of Emin’s oeuvre.  She’s prolific – working successfully in many media.  Add to that she’s feisty, controversial and fun. We don’t care if some love to hate you Tracey. We love to love you.

Tracey Emin : Love is what you Want is at the Hayward Gallery until August 29.

Images by David Levene. Words  by Beverley Knowles

Tags: Beverley Knowles, Hayward Gallery, Love is what you want, tracey emin

It takes 98 seconds for artist Richard Phillips to transform troubled actress Lindsay Lohan into a modern Hollywood venus. In his intensely poetic film portrait, Lohan emerges from a sparkling blue Malibu mansion pool dripping sex, vulnerability and glamour. A modern Bardot in a white bikini, whose image is bigger than ever. The film is a love-letter that transcends the tabloid drama and turns her into an untouchable star.

Richard Phillip’s Lindsay Lohan premieres June 1 in Commercial Break until June 5, as part of the 54th Venice Biennale.
gagosian.com

Tags: Bardot, Gagosian, lindsay lohan, Richard Phillips, Venice Biennale

Artist Taryn Simon’s work is a fascinating blend of photojournalism and art photography. Often taking the form of a visual inventory, she’s famed for her meticulous research and crisp photographic execution.

Among her projects, the 2007 book, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar delved into America’s secret places such as a nuclear waste storage facility in Washington State to a cave where a sleeping black bear and its cubs are monitored by biologists studying hibernation,

Her new show at the Tate Modern is no less obscure, or engrossing. A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters is a complex genealogy of family histories. Four years of research that took just two to photograph, the installation traces a series of 18 family bloodlines, each with its own individual story.

The opening chapter centres on a living Indian man who gives the project its title, having been declared dead in official records. Other real life characters include an Iraqi man who was apparently employed as Saddam Hussein’s son’s body double and a member of the Druze religious sect in Lebanon who believes in reincarnation and re-enacts remembered scenes from previous lives. It’s a magnum opus that’s not to be missed.

A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters is at Tate Modern, London, 25 May to 6 September.
tarynsimon.com

Caption: Excerpt from Chapter IV, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters
a. Gold-plated Iraqi Al-Kadissiya sniper rifle seized by members of the American Defense Intelligence Agency during a search of Uday Huessein’s palace in Baghdad. The inscription on the gun transalted from Arabic reads: “A gift from the president of the republic, Mr. Saddam Hussein.” Saddam Hussein produced gold-plated weapons for use on ceremonial occasions and as gifts. Defense Intelligence analysis Center, Bolling Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.
b. Latif Yahia impersonating Uday Hussein. Undisclosed location, Ireland.

Caption: Excerpt from Chapter VI, A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters
51. No. 326, 27 May 2009. Inglewood, Queensland, Australia.
52. No. 327, 27 May 2009. Inglewood, Queensland, Australia.

Images Courtesy Gagosian Gallery.

Tags: A Living Man Declared Dead and Other Chapters, An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar, Gagosian, Taryn Simon, Tate Modern, twin, Twin magazine, Twinfactory

It’s easy to misjudge quite how fertile Britain’s current crop of women sculptors is. Rather than headlining shows, female sculptors are more often side-lined by the art establishment in favour of big name male ‘blockbusters’. In the world of sculpture, figures like the late and great Louise Bourgeois are rare.

Clearly things need to change. And so, the Pangolin gallery have stepped forward and organised an all-female show, Women Make Sculpture, that celebrates the UK’s raw and polished sculpting talent. With pieces from established names like Sarah Lucas to emerging ones like Polly Morgan, known for her fragile taxidermy. The aim of the show isn’t to lump women into one easy gender category, but to give them the room to showcase their diversity.

As the Director of Pangolin London, Polly Bielecka says, “The exhibition is not intended to tackle gender superiority; rather it hopes to question whether female artists bring something different to contemporary British sculpture.”

From Almuth Tebbenhoff’s intricate steel wall pieces to Deborah Van der Beek’s horse head – sculpted from the detritus of war – there’s a wide enough mix of ideas and materials to prove that when women make sculpture it has everything and nothing to do with their sex.

Women Make Sculpture is at Pangolin from May 19 to June 18 2011.
pangolinlondon.com

Tags: Almuth Tebbenhoff, Deborah Van der Beek, Louise Bourgeois, Pangolin, Pangolin London, Polly Bielecka, Polly Morgan, Sarah Lucas, Women Make Sculpture

With Twin‘s imminent fourth edition all about rebellion, the time couldn’t be riper for Flash Projects’ latest pop-up photography show, Street Fighting Man: Fifty Years of Youth Protest. Recent months have seen an electric surge in youthful uprising, as the young and angry have taken to the streets in a way not seen for over a decade. From the top up fees protests in London to last week’s riot against Tesco’s in Bristol, a new generation is asserting itself in ways reminiscent of the Sixties’ student protests.

Taking its name from The Rolling Stones‘ track, Street Fighting Man, which was inspired by Mick Jagger’s experience of an anti-war demonstration in 1968, the celebrates how youth culture and media have conspired to create historic moments over the past fifty years. Bands like The Rolling Stones, whose concerts were often accompanied by riots, and The Clash were mouthpieces for fans. While photographer Caroline Coon’s pictures of punk bands The Sex Pistols and The Slits not only record a seminal scene but asserted the right to individual identity. Today, these images of the Brixton and Poll Tax riots are a reminder of how difficult times breed discontent and dissidence. Often change doesn’t come quietly, it resounds on the streets.

Street Fighting Man. 50 years of youth protest is on at Flash Projects, 5 Savile Row, W1S 3PD until the 4th June 2011.
flash-projects.co.uk

Tags: Brixton Riots, Caroline Coons, Flash Projects, Mick Jagger, Poll tax, Sex Pistols, Street Fighting Man, Tesco, The Clash, the rolling stones, The Slits

Nowhere else does fashion collide with art more vividly right now, than at the M.O.P Shop, the temporary residence of  Maia Norman’s clothing line, Mother of Pearl. The designer’s Spring/Summer 2011 collection has hijacked her husband, Damien Hirst’s publishing outlet-cum-gallery, Other Criteria.

The art link doesn’t stop there – each season Maia works with an artist to create prints from existing artworks, forming the basis of her collections.  This season it’s the turn of Jim Lambie, whose vibrant installations work hard in leathers and silks.

Californian surfer, Maia also infuses Mother of Pearl with a heavy shot of sports.  Utilitarian pieces like the Havana and Toro jumpsuits and the Ortis anorak encourage effortless dressing.

The Mother of Pearl M.O.P shop is at Other Criteria, 36 New Bond Street, London W1S 2RP until 11th May 2011.
motherofpearl.com

Tags: Damien Hirst, Jim Lambie, Katie Rose, M.O.P Shop, Maia Norman, Other Criteria, twin, Twinfactory

The sun may be shining but we can’t help but lust after so the Autumn/Winter collections. One of the stand-outs was Sophia Kokosalaki’s collection for Diesel Black Gold. Since taking helm of the brand’s high-end line in 2009, Kokosalaki has brought her knack for mixing hard tailoring and soft feminine draping to the street-wear label, designing clothes that are cool, sexy and eminently wearable.

This time around, there wasn’t a blue denim jean in sight. Instead, raw shearling, glossy chestnut leathers and dark denim in Byronic tailoring were matched with oil-slick side-partings to create a look that was pure alt-opulence. It’s dress-up for the effortlessly self-assured.
dieselblackgold.com

Tags: diesel, Fashion, Gold, sophia kokosalaki

It”s your last chance to see Charlie Anderson”s pop-up gallery show in collaboration with Urban Outfitters. Anderson’s paintings are a visual mash-up of popular culture. Trashed posters, bottle labels and nightclub flyers are layered to form the rhythm of contemporary life. Running until Saturday at The Royal Opera Arcade play pokies online for Gallery the Edinburgh based painter”s work is the perfect match for Urban Outfitters” eclectic mix of youth fashion, kitsch and music.

Pop Art On Pall Mall is at The Royal Opera Arcade Gallery until 2 April, 2011.
roa-galleria.com

Tags: Charlie Anderson, The Royal Opera Arcade Gallery, Urban Outfitters

Guilt too often goes hand in hand with a spending spree. This Sunday though, the marvellous Wah Nails are hosting a huge sale where every pound spent equals good karma. One hundred per cent of the money raised will go to the British Red Cross, in aid of those affected by the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami.

As organiser Grace Ladoja says, “It’s difficult to know what the best way to donate is when disasters like this happen. Especially when it affects people you know. Donating online doesn’t often feel real because you are just pressing a button and you never know how much to give.”

As a result, Grace has called upon her artist and designer friends to donate the items on sale, as well those who simply have wardrobes stuffed full of clothes they don’t wear. Ranging from lables such as Moschino, Nike and Cassette Playa to old records cakes and art, it’s a white elephant stall like no other. And on top of wordly goods on offer, Wah Nails will also be offering a discount on nails and dip dye hair.

I liked the idea of doing a physical sale at WAH because it brings people together,” says Grace. “As well as buying stuff, they can hang out, listen to music, get their nails done and just have a fun Sunday, all knowing they are part of something that is helping people.”

Japan Relief Fund Blowout Sale, Sunday March 27 · 12-6pm at WAH NAILS, 420 Kingsland Road, London E8 4DG London.
To donate items, drop them at Wah Nails, 12-8pm Sat.

Tags: British Red Cross, Cassette Playa, Grace Ladoja, moschino, Nike, Wah Nails

Over the past six years, immersive theatre experience, You Me Bum Bum Train, has been a runaway train gathering speed; each new show sells-out faster than the last and every passenger gets off having had the ride of their life.

The concept is far from simple, with each performance consisting of an audience of one performed to by a cast of close to 200. The viewer is hurtled through a picaresque series of intimate scenes and surreal situations. However with the details of each show a closely guarded secret, it’s left to the posters to sum up the spirit of the night.

Over the years, Bum Bum Train creators Kate Bond and Morgan Lloyd, who met while studying illustration at Brighton University, have cooked up the brilliant posters themselves and an exhibition of the best is currently at the Drawers Gallery in East London.

Conjuring Toulouse Lautrec’s paintings of the Moulin Rouge, drenched in a wave of sea-side ribaldry, each poster is a rollicking, riot of colour that doesn’t so much hint at what might be in store, but rather whacks one over the head Punch and Judy style. You have until Saturday to enter the world of You Me Bum Bum Train.

You Me Bum Bum Train Poster Exhibition is on until March 26 at The Haggerston, Drawers Gallery, 438 Kingsland Road, London, E8 4AA.

Tags: Drawers Gallery, Kate Bond, Morgan Lloyd, theatre, You Me Bum Bum Train

Some statistics are calculated to make blood boil. For the women behind London’s Bird’s Eye View Film Festival in particular, it’s the fact that only six per cent of directors and twelve per cent of screenwriters are women. But instead of getting mad, Bird’s Eye View is getting even.

Following a host of screenings and events featuring prominent women in the film industry, this year’s festival is closing with the UK première of a film that socks it to the boys.

Tiny Furniture is the award winning début of 24-year-old writer-director-actor Lena Dunham. Wryly autobiographical, Dunham plays 22-year-old Aura, a film graduate going through a quarter life crisis after returning home to her artist-mother’s TriBeCa loft. According to Lena, it’s about a girl in transition and the women who love her: “I set out to tell an honest story that incorporated aspects of my own life, but knew my life had parallels with many others”. Shot in her own home on a minimal budget and with her family as co-stars; Dunham’s film is a stirring call to arms.

Tiny Furniture closes the Birds Eye View Film Festival, at BFI Southbank on 17th March.
birds-eye-view.co.uk

Tags: Bird's Eye Film Festival, Lena Dunham, Tiny Furniture