Art collective SALON (LONDON) have staged exhibitions in vacant Regent Street offices and dilapidated buildings in Clerkenwell. Now, after toying with the idea of holding the third show in her own flat, curator Crystal Bennes has chosen another unusual location – a Georgian mansion that has been converted into offices.
Bennes love of unusual spaces and desire to rip up the art exhibition rule book, stems from her concerns about the over-commercialisation of art. “I find it peculiar that as a society, we seem to have become far more comfortable with the idea that art is for everyone, yet still confine it largely to commercial galleries and museums,” she says. “I’m interested in questioning accepted spaces for the display of art.”
The art on show in Not for Sale cuts across the disciplines of painting, graphic design, science and poetry and true to the exhibition’s name, none of the works will be available to buy.
Bennes is also shunning the traditional private view in favour of a series of invitation-only dinner parties that will revive the spirit of the Symposium. Guests from across the art, academic and scientific worlds, will discuss the works on show, all while being fed by experimental food design group Blanch and Shock. “Private views are about generating publicity or selling works,” says Bennes. “This show is about ideas, but not about ideas from the top down; rather, I want the ideas to come from the people who attend the dinners and the people who see the work.” This rebel show is sure to be the hottest meal in town.
Not for Sale, runs from the 14th March – 3rd April by appointment only at Dalby House, 398 City Road, London EC1V 2QA. Email salonlondon@gmail.com for an appointment. salonlondon.co.uk
Teo Connor (No Days Off) and Loren Platt (Work It) have lined up a legion of female creatives to mark International Women’s Day with The W Project. In their words, “As women working within the industries and thinking about International Women’s Day, and the wider issues of the position and representation of women in our society, we felt that providing a spotlight for creative women would be a suitable way to mark the day and nurture the budding and blossoming of creative talent throughout our society. We want to be part of building a better creative community for the future.”
The Barbican’s latest exhibition Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970’s brings together the work of three of SoHo’s artistic anarchists – Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown and Gordon Matta-Clark.
The trio were collaborative vigilantes amidst escalating economic turmoil, with Manhattan’s industrial wasteland providing the creative playground for their territorial endeavors.
Laurie Anderson seems the most trusting of New York’s badlands, cataloging dreams induced by sleeping in various locations across the city in the Institutional Dream series, including a nap on the beach at Coney Island. In another room you come across her attempts to reverse the street’s code of conduct with a photo series recording the men of SoHo who made seedy comments to her in the street. Two young guys leaning out of a Chevrolet who moments before had cat-called Let’s go for a ride cutie are snapped along with a man near a fire hydrant who had muttered, “I’d like to screw you baby.”
If Anderson’s concern is the social or intangible effects of New York’s wild downtown district, Matta-Clark’s reaction is much more invasive. Blurring boundaries of sculpture and architecture, MC went as far as dissecting chunks of the city’s rooftops in a bid to catalogue his ‘anarchitectural’ view of unusable properties in Staten Island and Queens.
The interactive and exhibitionist kinship between the three artists is maybe best illustrated by the work of the second female artist, performer Trisha Brown, who teetered on the surface of this disturbed cityscape; taking her medium of dance off the stage and onto the rooftops.
This is a rare and revealing survey of New York’s recent history in the shady era before high rents and fashionable quarters. And it’s bound to inspire some very modern admiration for their original brand of daredevil urban creativity.
Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s is at the Barbican Art Gallery, until 22 May 2011.
“I have always been fascinated by photography produced by women,” says Damien Poulain, the designer and art director behind POV FEMALE (Oodee), a limited-edition monograph of the work of five London-based female photographers. Future editions will feature female photographers from Paris, Tokyo and New York, each limited to 100 copies (£12) and 20 limited edition bookcases, including signed copies of all five monographs and an archival-quality print from each photographer (£300).
This London issue of POV FEMALE features:
Bronwen Parker-Rhodes
A graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art, Bronwen has made films for Vivienne Westwood and Rihanna, among others. Her photography is a subjective glimpse into individual lives through routine. “Through filming I discover a little of the world through someone elseâs eyes and hopefully reveal that world to others.” bronfilms.com
Briony Campbell
Briony’s photographs seem to intrude on a moment, they take you fully inside. The Dad Project – “work in progress and I hope it always will be” – is a photographic journal and coping mechanism for her father’s terminal illness. Now she launches her achingly personal monograph A Year On. brionycampbell.com
Rasha Kahil
Born in Beirut, Lebanon, Rashaâs photography experiments with the meaning behind the female body: âThe body becomes a means for investigating displacement, social identity and its manifestation through everyday performanceâ. Often exploring the sexualised female body and the gaze, she also deals in self-portraiture to appropriate spaces for herself and for her art. rashakahil.com
Charlotte Player
Gypsy Gold is a photographic documentation of the relationship between gypsies and their horses. The proud bond that even the youngest of the community display is testament to their traditional rituals and provides a fascination for Player and a leitmotif for her work. charlotteplayer.com
Tara Darby
Tara is a prolific and interdisciplinary photographer: she has worked for Aubin and Wills, Levis, Timberland, Adidas, among others, contributed to such publications as AnOther, Vogue, W magazine, The Independent and has collaborated on two books with art director David James. The common denominator is her personal approach that imbues her images with warmth and hope. taradarby.com
POV FEMALE is at KK Outlet, 42 Hoxton Square, London kkoutlet.com/art
The East End’s newest gallery, French Riviera 1988, opened its doors last night to a packed house. Behind this otherwise inconspicuous neon-lit shop front is the latest project space by the artist duo Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski. Their spacey inaugural show, Horizon Hypnotique features an ambient collection of distorted photographs, holographic and video works by artists including Alex Ressel, Beatriz Olabarrieta, Lucy Woodhouse and Richard Parry. In-between the crowd, blurred silhouettes of red-hued figures almost dance across the downstairs rooms of the house. The spirit of hazy nights out and their seductive, reckless female stars floods the gallery, and it’s hard not to sway to their invisible beat.
Horizon Hypnotique runs from the 18th February – 13th March 2011 at French Riviera 1988.
Open Friday – Sunday, 12 – 6 pm and by appointment.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
Since the Seventies artist Cindy Sherman has successfully used her own image as her canvas without revealing her true identity. Though the artist is her own sole subject, her photographs are a world away from atypical self-portraiture.
A consummate performer, over the years Sherman has cast herself across the gamut of female identities – from Playboy centrefold and clown, to ageing American socialite and B-movie star.
For her latest turn at Spruth Magers in London, Sherman’s image is again central, but hidden. This time under a fresh array of bizarre costumes and ridiculous personas. Departing from her usual framed photograph format, she has embraced digital techniques, casting her eccentric characters onto large toile style murals, reminiscent of French parlour wallpaper.
Sherman’s surreal universe is populated by dowdy middle-aged women with broken ankles, and naked female warriors whose comedic appearance is at odds with the bucolic backdrop. Disturbing AND funny. This show is not to be missed.
Cindy Sherman is at Spruth Magers London from 12 January- 19 February spruethmagers.com
When Allen Ginsberg first performed his epic hallucinatory poem Howl in 1955, it was seen as the desolate cry of an awakening counterculture. A 3600 word hymn to drugs, jazz, love and lust that defined the Beat Generation.
“Angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night, who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz.”
Ginsberg evoked the atmosphere of William S. Burroughs’ Junkie and laid the perceptual path for Jack Kerouac’s On The Road (picture above). But long before their literary apotheosis these Fifties radicals were for him, simply, “a bunch of friends looking to get published.” During those early days Ginsberg often photographed his contemporaries – young dispossessed men that would go on to define the subterranean era.
This January, a selection of Ginsberg’s images will be exhibited at the National Theatre in London. While the exhibition charts the infaltration of the Beats into the mainstream literary consciousness, it’s also a healthy reminder of the potency of youth.
Angelheaded Hipsters: Images of the Beat Generation is at the National Theatre from 24 January – 20 March 2011 nationaltheatre.org.uk
It’s your last chance to see Graham Little’s virtuoso drawings at the Alison Jacques Gallery this weekend. His pencil on paper portraits inspired by old fashion magazine shoots are beguiling and romantic. Taking inspiration from the pages of vintage Vogue and Harpers, Little breathes a painterly quality into what were once glossy photographs. In doing so, he transforms fashion models into timeless beauties.
Little’s muses are all about muted colours and thoughtful gazes, proving that even in our crowded visual world we can still unearth new stories and narratives from archival images. These softly feminine women live in a world outside of fashion and time. Catch them before they disappear.
After high profile fashion pairings such as Lanvin for H&M and Valentino for Gap, perhaps it was only natural that beauty companies too should want a piece of the collaborative action. Cult and cultured Aussie beauty brand Aesop were one of the first – teaming up with clothing brand A.P.C to create a special hand washing detergent earlier in 2010. Then came Marchesa and Le Metier De Beaute who produced a capsule collection of palettes and lipglosses; subtle and subliminal, the perfect accompaniment to a Marchesa evening gown.
Now, there’s Marcel Wanders for MAC, a capsule collection, only available online (maccosmetics.co.uk) that takes make up packaging design to the next level. The beautiful baroque curvilinear packaging stands in marked contrast to the minimalist Nineties design of regular MAC products. These items look like glossy black chess pieces rather than an aesthetes’ make up arsenal.
Wanders claims he was inspired by Vermeer and, Girl With a Pearl Earring and as a result some of the colours are curiously naturalistic. For example there are light gold and golden nude lipglosses that add very lucent party season sparkle to your face. “Designing beauty packaging immediately made me think of the painterly connection,” says Wanders of his work. Indeed the suitably artistic brush roll (£60) is one of the standout items.
Whilst we love Wanders for MAC – it’s doing something truly innovative with product design, more collaborations are on their way. February 1st sees Milly for Clinique hit counters (a palette designed by the cutesy floral NYC brand), and later in spring there’s Tibi for Bobbi Brown, another niche fashion brand allied to a beauty monolith. For now, December, it’s all about Marcel Wanders for us.
Photographer Bridget Fleming spent the summer of 2009 on her bike, cruising downtown Manhattan with friends, camera in hand. What started as a series of video clips destined for a short film reel, became the project Downtownfrombehind.com – stills of cyclists, shot from behind.
“Shooting from behind gives both street and subject the opportunity to share the limelight,” says Fleming. “I guess it’s a less self-indulgent portrait for the subject and an opportunity for the audience to see and feel the New York streetscape.” All of her shots are planned and many of her subjects are friends,or, as the project grew, friends of friends, chefs, designers, architects, musicians and stylists.
She continues: “In most cases subjects are driven by time of day, and light, as I work my way through downtown. More recently I’ve had people ask to be included in the project, that, and I’m working on several bigger group shots with larger organisations.” Fleming, it seems, is The Sartorialist on wheels.
As promotional stunts go, Nike’s Destroy to Create campaign rules. Corralling a whole gang of contributors – many of them (like Harry Malt) from the Twin family – to be a part of a special merger of art, sport, music and mayhem marking the launch of their Destroyer jackets. Lucky for those who weren’t there to see the chaos unfold on the night, Niall O’Brien filmed the proceedings.
The ‘Destroy to Create’ artworks are currently on show at 1948, Arches 477- 478 Batemans Row, Shoreditch now.
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