No one needs an excuse to come to Vienna – as the portfolio of talents in the current issue of Twin proves. Vienna Art Week each November grew out of the contemporary art sales at the Dorotheum, the second oldest auction house in the world. It is essentially a celebration of exhibitions and events across the city is chance to see some stunning work – much of which is still on view for the rest of 2018. Here are five highlights of works to see in Vienna right now.
Giorgio Griffa
This painting on raw jute was the highlight of the auctions at the Dorotheum, amongst work by Lucia Fontana, Maria Lassnig and Egon Schiele. The Turin-based abstract painter, who is getting some serious attention in his later years, has helped redefine abstraction with a dose of quantum physics and emphasis on process. See Dorotheum.com
Spitzhaus Mummy in a coffin and other treasures from the Kunsthistoriches Museum
Film director Wes Anderson and his illustrator-art historican partner Juman Malouf have raided all the museums of Vienna to create this delightful cabinet of curiosities grouped together thematically. If you wanted to see what it feels like to walk into a Wes Anderson film, visit here.
Donna Huanca
Bolivian-American artist Donna Huanca, who works with Berlin’s Peres Projects, has been given carte blanche to fill the classical surroundings of the Belvedere museum with her large scale paintings and performance works, where bodies covered in paint give a much needed injection of life into the history of sculpture and classicism. For more info check out Belvedere.at.
Pieter Breughel
This is the biggest Breughel exhibition you will ever see in your life is also on at the Kunsthistoriches and the work is on another level. One special highlight is this very strange countryside fantasy and sci-fi politics and reinforces how truly incredible the 16the century artist really was. Visit khm for info.
Chadwick Rantanen
Project space Guimares has a brilliant exhibition of small works entitled Schmaltz on until January 19. It includes this very weird and very wonderful twitching pulsating kinetic sculpture made from a hacked battery powered toy by American artist Chadwick Rantanen, alongside works by Thomas Jeppe, Ken Kagami and Urara Tschuiya. Visit here for info. A
The annual RCA postcard sale starts today, offering supporters the chance to bid on anonymous postcard-size artworks. Contributing artists this year include Sadie Williams, Celia Hempton, Maggi Hambling, Grayson Perry and Richard Malone, alongside emerging talents from the RCA.
Each donation goes towards supporting the RCA fund, and helps to foster the next generation of artists, designers and illustrators. And you never know, you might end up with a major miniature masterpiece.
Richard Malone debuts his first exhibition at NOW Gallery on the Greenwich Peninsula this week. Inside the space Malone, a star of the London womenswear scene, will explore the relationship between fashion, art and movement. Visitors can experience and explore the designer’s processes and inspirations in the tactile installation.
From flicking through Malone’s sketchbooks and listening to transcripts from private appointments, to trying on clothes by the designer, the experience is one that will forge new creative bonds between visitors and the designer. Meanwhile large scale images will help to further immerse visitors inside Malone’s architectural and imaginative world.
Richard Malone’s exhibition ‘Rinse, Repeat’ will be at NOW Gallery for free from 28th November 2018 to 27th February 2019.
Miu Miu Women’s Tales 16 – The Wedding Singer’s Daughter
A few years ago in, Italian womenswear label Miu Miu initiated an ongoing series of short films featuring all female directors using the platform to tell captivating and pertinent stories from a female perspective. Each year, the brand commissions and releases two films for both their summer and winter collections. This year, for their 16th installation of the series, the brand has tapped Saudia Arabia’s first female filmmaker Haifaa al-Mansour to direct their freshly-released film entitled “The Wedding Singer’s Daughter.” The film is set during the 1980’s in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and speaks on the strict gender segregation rules of Saudi Weddings.
The storyline features a cast of women draped in their traditional black abayas driving to the hall of the wedding location, and reveals the sparkle of the glamorous heels, dazzling dresses and wild hair once they arrive and are in an all female presence. As they prepare for this celebration, all eyes are on the wedding singer to keep it going until the electricity suddenly cuts out. Mumbles begin and guests start to complain, the singer experiences a slight panic until she is saved by an unlikely heroine: her young daughter who manages to save her mother’s dignity. “Weddings are the actual mirror of society in Saudi Arabia: segregated, fragmented, along gender and class. I wanted to tell the story of those people and capture that tenderness,” says the director, “It’s very important for women to tell their stories, and sometimes it’s hard. In the film, the daughter uses her nimble mind to quickly solve the problem just like an independent film-director. For me the little girl represents the future, and the future belongs to the outsiders.” The film can currently be seen along with the brand’s repertoire online MiuMiu.com.
As the ultimate antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday consumption, over the weekend Filippa K presented the results of their two year sustainable research project ‘Circular Design Speeds’, in collaboration with Mistra Future fashion, at an exhibition at UAL.
2018 has been the year that fashion finally woke up to its responsibilities. And as fast fashion, and the waste produced by the fashion industry more widely, have come under increasing scrutiny, Swedish brand Filippa K has worked to find a solution.
The results of the project are not only exciting from an environmental perspective, but also in terms of style. Both the 100% recycled and recyclable coat and the biodegradable dress maintain Filippa K’s classic, timeless aesthetic and high quality, while taking the conversation forward.
Crucially this new research comes from a major fashion brand rather than an experimental and emerging designer. The learnings and results show that when companies choose to put their resources into sustainable innovation, the results can be truly impactful and redirect the standardised path.
These first creations, as well as the research process, were shown at the ‘Disrupting Patterns’ exhibition at the University of Arts in London, alongside a series of talks and lectures aimed at sharing the findings of their projects with the larger fashion community.
In order to transform the linear (thinking) production cycle into a circular system we need understandable and simple examples, role models. Upcycling waste into beautifully naturally dyed dresses is just one of many fruitful ways of doing it – hopefully it will plant a seed to transformation,” explained Marie-Louise Hellgren, Designer at Heart & Earth Production at Filippa K.
As the fashion industry is forced to address the mounting crisis that its practice is contributing to, championing brands that embrace cyclical production is no longer a nicety, but a necessity.
This week The Denver Art Museum (DAM) opens its doors to one of it’s most recent exhibitions entitled Dior: From Paris to the World. The exhibition is in celebration of the legacy of French fashion house Christian Dior and it’s influence on the industry since its inception over 70 years ago. It includes a collection of over 200 haute couture dresses, accessories, photographs, original sketches and runway videos which showcases the visual evolution of the house throughout decades. The exhibition not only highlights the founding father Christian Dior, but also profiles the work of artistic directors Yves-Saint Laurent (1958–1960), Marc Bohan (1961–1989), Gianfranco Ferré (1989–1996), John Galliano (1997–2011), Raf Simons (2012–2015) and Maria Grazia Chiuri (2016–present). “Dior: From Paris to the World will give our visitors insight into the House of Dior’s creative process and inspirations that contributed to its unparalleled impact on the fashion world, which continues to reverberate today,” said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM. “This exhibition encourages audiences to think differently about the boundaries of fashion as art, and advance the museum’s commitment to taking viewers behind the scenes to reveal Dior’s imaginative and innovative endeavours.” Curated by Florence Müller, DAM Avenir Foundation Curator of Textile Art and Fashion, the exhibition will be open from Nov 19, to March 3, 2019.
Visual artist Susanne burner recently launched an exhibition at the Lajevardi Foundation at the Karim Khan, Tehran, Iran which explores the topic of the dissolution of self as a gesture of empathy. The exhibit, titled MIMICRY — EMPATHY, opens visual and oral conversation on the visual adaptations of different life forms in humans and general biology to secure survival. It touches on the topic of teenagers’ attempts of blending into a prevailing society in different ways to ultimately develop their own identities or soldiers who during wartime opt to make themselves invisible in camouflage gear for obvious reasons. These are forms of mimicry — an evolved resemblance between an organism and another object or organism. This process requires a level of empathy from one or both of the parties involved in order to achieve a complete form of similitude by blurring the boundaries between the imitator and model. The Mimicry — Empathy exhibition negotiates these emotionally uncontrollable aspects of adaption and challenges the contract of cultural identities. It showcases a panel of seven artists which includes names such as Bless, Ulla Von Brandenburg, Susanne Burner, Berta Fischer, Sofia Hultén, Annette Kelm and Jochen Lempert. It also includes a screening of films curated by Anne-Sophie Dinant and Amirali Ghasem. The exhibition will run until November 30 and is set to travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Isfahan next year, for more information, check out http://lajevardifoundation.com/
A few days ago Italian designer Stefano Pilati debuted a collection under his name with a runway show in Montréal. The collection, and label titled Random Identities, is the designer’s first independent venture since he parted ways with Ermenegildo Zegna in 2016. A few days prior to the collection’s debut, the designer took to the internet to release a photo series of intimate images shot by photographer Luis Rodriguez. These images featured male bodies shot in black and white wearing nothing but black caps and boots from the collection. This was a series of photographs that at first glimpse on a timeline would instantly capture one’s attention, it felt as if Pilati had something to relevant to say, and this was one’s cue to listen carefully.
The fact that the designer chose to debut in Montreal as opposed to one of the European fashion capitals well within his reach enforced that he was not aiming to continue or tell a story of Yves Saint Laurent, Ermenegildo Zegna, or any of the previous houses he was associated with, but instead, this represented the flip of a blank page for a completely different type of fashion story.
“An honest statement is necessary: fashion at high prices no longer means exclusivity. My response is to produce moderately priced clothes — ‘the low’ — and present them in a high fashion context, creating limited edition items which by quality of design will justify the proposal — ‘the high’.’ The collection was menswear oriented and featured several looks of separates combined and styled to create silhouettes which were genderless. Dominated mainly by shades of black and olive green, the designer describes the pieces as forms of protective wear — constructed from twill and nylon and offers a presence which is both friendly and secure, providing a feeling of power whether during the day or clubbing at night. Following such a powerful debut of the brand, it will be interesting to see what next he has to offer, as one who seems to have a different voice with an interesting perspective and story to back it.
“The Amount of Love You Have to Give is More Than I Can Stand.”
Phoebe Collings-James’ first solo show in Cologne opens today. The new exhibition at the Ginerva Gambino gallery presents three wall-size pieces that create an overall frame, with smaller drawings and paintings displayed in between these works.
“In most of Collings-James’ work, violence and beauty coincide.” The gallery says of the new exhibition, noting the complexities and nuances of Collings-James’ work that have seen her reputation skyrocket in recent years. The exhibition addresses dualities and contrasts – “feelings of familiarity and distance. This cacophony relates to her exploration of identity. Her personal (being a queer, British-Jamaican woman) and the historical – the present day and the ancestral.”
Since she graduated from Goldsmiths in London in 2009, Phoebe Collings-James has become one of the most exciting new voices on the scene. Now Brooklyn-based, the artists has had major shows in London, New York and Antwerp. With such a capacity to produce works that make an impression, that are both intense and delicate, it’s easy to see why. The new exhibition is on until the end of January.
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.
American author Chris Kraus, culture critic Carlo McCormick and visual artist Fab 5 Freddy have all recently joined forces on the embarkment of a new hardcover creation titled Jane Dickson in Times Square. The book tells a tale of the artistic, seedy and criminalistic night-time world of Manhattan in the 70’s and early 80’s through the eyes of renowned painter Jane Dickson. As a distinct creative voice of this period, Dickson has made her marks within the legacies of downtown art, punk rock and hip hop through her involvement with the Colab art collective which included her work in iconic exhibitions such as The Real Estate Show (1980) and Times Square Show (1980). Throughout this all, the artist has lived her success from her apartment of 43rd street while raising two children in a time where the neighbourhood experienced it’s most crime-infested period. Through her journey, the artist has photographed, drawn and painted scenes of life in Times Square. In this book, many of these art works are reproduced for the first time along with candid shots, sketches and paintings. The book tells the visual tale of a wild, manic, beautiful New York City with a foreword by Chris Kraus, afterword by Fab 5 Freddy and an interview by Carlo McCormick. This is the first first time Dickson has chosen to place her personal speech alongside her finished work as unfiltered personal memories. “I was a flâneur, documenting this crazy scene: A painter, using the camera to take notes, trying to get some grip on what the hell was going on.. One of my main goals is to leave a record of how the world looked and felt, in this place, at this time, to this woman. The female gaze is not disembodied — it is very much embodied and grounded within the fame form and experience, here in my experience.” The book, published by Anthology Editions, is now on shelves in select stores in the US, UK and Australia, for more information on where and how to purchase, check out the official site.
Imagery courtesy Jane Dickson In Times SquareImagery courtesy of Jane Dickson In Times Square
The National Museum of Women in The Arts x Rodarte
The National Museum of Women in The Arts (NMWA) in collaboration with American luxury fashion house Rodarte is hosting the museum’s first fashion exhibition at their headquarters in Washington, DC this month. The exhibition which started last weekend, showcases the works of the designer-duo sisters Kate and Laura Mulleavy within the industries of contemporary art and fashion. From an archive of 13 years, composed of nearly 100 looks, each one will be presented as they were on the runway which will highlight selections of the brand’s most pivotal collections. With themes of high fashion and modern femininity, Rodarte has drawn critical acclaim from both the art and fashion worlds since its launch in 2005. “Rodarte continually prompts a dialogue between the worlds of contemporary art and fashion” says NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “This exhibition will continue that discussion with new insights, illustrating the Mulleavy sisters’ highly creative practice and sources of inspiration.” Early Rodarte collections have made critical acclaim for their use of unconventional material which fused dressmaking and art together with strong influences from Vincent Van Gogh, nature, films etc. “We are honoured to be the first designers to have a fashion exhibition organized by the NMWA,” said the Mulleavy sisters. The exhibition will conclude on February 10, 2019, do ensure to catch a glimpse before it ends.
Emerging Italian brand A-LAB MILANO, conceived by Milanese designer Alessandro Biasi is a mark which plays on the lexicon of modernity and contemporaneity through the outlet of fashion design. For his Spring/Summer 2019 collection, Biasi cooks up a mixture of his signature 2-D graphic prints combined with Japanese themed iconography and techniques reworked in an innovative manner inspired by street style from the Harajuku district of Tokyo. Varsity jackets, graphic printed t-shirts and oversized raincoats give direct references to contemporary street style while the designer pays homage to the Japanese culture by the use of things such as the Furoshiki — a traditional Japanese cloth, often with a unique pattern used to wrap bento boxes, gifts and other objects for enhanced presentation using knotting techniques. With this technique, Biasi has created a fashion story around the collection of which the protagonist is the art of knotting, used in both functional and decorative ways throughout wrap dresses and blouses. The collection is also accompanied by an accessory line which features fabric Japanese pinstriped bags with leather handles, pouch bags, silk scarves, and shoulder bags.
Gentlewench Boutique Opening: A fusion of Elegance & Flamboyance
On the East End of London, somewhere along Chance Street, Shoreditch this weekend launches a boutique which caters to the likes of a fashion lovers minimalist and maximalist tastes all in one store. Its name: Gentlewench, owned by Chinese personal stylist Wei Yue, is a collaborative effort which includes his expertise of international retail shopping and buying director Tijana Djordjevic’s mass experience in the fashion industry. “It was important to find a memorable name, the meeting of a gentle educated and refined lady with the saucy, outgoing personality of the wench encapsulates the dual character of the store,” says Djordjevic. The boutique will carry a wealthly catalogue of global designers and under the radar designers which will include the likes of French label Lemaire, hybrid Japanese label Facetasm, Georgian designer Lado Bokuchava, and specialist brand founded by a former Comme des Garçons pattern cutter Hed Mayner and Overcoat. “ Our vision is to combine gentle subtle design alongside exuberant fashion and explore the affinities between the two,” says Djordevic. The store interior, created by Fred Rigby and Dunstan James of Projects & Design, offers an intimate luxurious experience while underscoring the industrial heritage of the area. A section of the space will also house a selection of home ware items including wooden kitchenware by Grain & Wood and ceramics by a Jude Jelfs. The store’s aim is to create an artistic space with hints of surprise in its design where consumer can explore, talk and relax. Doors open to the public this Sunday, be sure to stop by and have a look yourself.
Pink: The History of A Punk, Pretty, Powerful Colour
In celebration of Mark Kay’s 55th anniversary, the American beauty brand has recently teamed up with The Museum at FIT New York to present a special exhibition called Pink: The History of A Punk, Pretty, Powerful Colour. For years the brand has held a strong association to the colour pink, from makeup palettes to pink Cadillacs, and now after 55 years in the business they’ve made this partnership to honour the multifaceted colour in several ways.
“Since our inception in 1963, our brand has inspired and empowered millions of aspiring entrepreneurs across the globe. In that time, Mary Kay has become synonymous with the colour pink, and this exhibition shows the world what we’ve known for years, that pink is a symbol of power passion and purpose,” said Sheryl Adkins-Green, Chief Marketing Officer for Mark Kay. The exhibition features a collection of clothing from present day to pieces which date as far back as the 18th century. It includes looks from designers such as Alessandro Michele for Gucci, Christian Dior, Elsa Schiparelli, Yves Saint Laurent, Jeremy Scott for Moschino Rei Kawakubo for Comme des Garçons and several others. The exhibition extensively explores the history behind the colour and also how it has been used in Western Cultures. How for example in Mexico, the colour called Rosa Mexicano is associated with national identity, or in India it is worn by both genders. It also speaks to reason behind the colour’s erotic connotations, and its role in political protest and pop music culture in association to rebellious youth. The exhibit is currently open to the public The Museum at FIT New York , and will run until January 5, 2019. If you’re in town, be sure to catch a glimpse.
Want to know how to annoy the establishment? Mess around with grammar. Her Stories decision to name the female artist contributors to that charity auction as womxn created a furore earlier this month. But this is a total Daily Mail-style distraction from the main issue – an auction, party and ongoing charity supporting women. The focus this year is those seeking asylum and refuge in UK.
‘Fresh Flowers’, Gabriele Beveridge, 2018, Courtesy of the artist
Their annual auction is killer – almost a who’s who of emerging British artists (who happy to be female and/or non binary) including Florence Peake, Phoebe Collings-James, Elouise Hawser, Juno Calypso, Maisie Cousins and Gabriele Beveridge – alongside more established iconic names like Linder and Polly Morgan. The works go on view November 8 at Protein Space and go up for sale on the 13th, but you can view and bid them all online here.
Fantasy 1, Florence Peake, 2018, Courtesy the artist and Bosse & Baum, London
For those who haven’t got the budget to shout for a piece by Faye Wei Wei or Marianne Spurr, but want to support providing vital, underfunded services for women, there is a party Friday night with Boiler Room with music curated by CAMPerVAN at Protein Studios. You can get tickets here.
The new Tangle bag from Jil Sander has us in a twist. Functional and versatile, the minimal, compact design is served in spring green and sienna, as well as primary black and white. You’ll find they inspire a fervent desire to collect them all.
The crisp body is contrasted with a knotted, barely-there strap – just enough to garner a double take from admirers.
It’s another playful offer from creative directors, husband-and-wife duo Luke and Lucie Meier. The pair have evolved the famous signature of the brand without losing its past. Understatement and the unexpected are blended with confidence and ease.
Italian contemporary art gallery Gagosian in collaboration with American artist Sarah Sze presents her first gallery exhibition following the artist’s participation in the Biennale di Venezia in 2015. The exhibition which is being hosted at the Gagosian headquarters in Rome, features a collection of Sze’s works which unites intricate networks of objects and images across several dimensions and mediums, from sculptings to paintings, drawings, printmakings and video installations. Sze’s Timekeeper series, a video installation which began in 2015, transforms the oval gallery of the Gagosian into an immersive environment that is part sculpture and part cinema. The exhibition acts as a form of Plato’s Cave, which confronts the viewer from simultaneous points of view and includes people, animals, scenes and abstractions in motion, flickering and orbiting randomly. In the paintings, her nuanced sculptural language adapts to the conditions of the flat support. In delicate yet bold layers of paint, ink, paper, prints, and objects, the three dimensions of bricolage are parsed into the two dimensions of collage. Here, colour draws its substantive energies as much from the innate content of found images from paint and ink. The artist is set to add her first outdoor stone sculpture to the exhibition in November, which will feature a natural boulder split open like a geode. Each of the two revealed cuts will have a sunset sky embedded in its surface, alluding to both the images perceptible in gongshi and the heavenly subjects of renaissance paintings. The exhibition will end it’s course on January 12, 2019.
God Can’t Destroy Streetwear (GCDS) – The Bag Essentials
Italian streetwear label GCDS recently embarked on a new venture of branding introducing their first beauty line called The Bag Essentials. The line is set to feature a collection of products which hints at the brand’s playful ironic aesthetic while still minting it’s high end Italian quality. The first drop of items which launched at the beginning of November included a series of four lip products: Hype — a fresh mental transparent lip balm with deep idratation, Blinghoe — A flirty sparkling pink lipstick with a plumping effect, Marijuana — A green ph reagent that turns into a blushing tint with a natural cherry shade when applied on the lips and Velvet D.I.C.K — a rough red lipstick with a matte finish. The beauty line is set to expand on a wider scale in 2019 with a series of launches always to be accompanied by the brand’s twist of irony.
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.
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