This April, Aries opened its first ever store in Soho, London. Designed in-house and in collaboration with Brinkworth and Wilson Brothers, the Aries Soho store will showcase Aries in-line collections in full for the first time in bricks and mortar and will function as a curated concept store and art space.

The store will feature exclusive brand collaborations, brought to life with installation pop-ups, as well as a rotating concept trading with collaborators, friends and like-minded international partners, from clothing and music to books and art, allowing visitors to immerse themselves into the Aries world.

With its own entrance on Bridle Lane, Parisian-born coffee shop Paperboy will also open its first official outpost in London, exclusively serving the brand’s own signature sandwiches and coffees, in collaboration with Aries and Dark Arts Coffee.

It’s also announced that the store will be housing exhibitions, alongside seasonal collections and store exclusives. Its rails will be rotating between pop-ups by South London’s leading vintage re-sell brand, JerksTM and London-based luxury unisex jewellery brand, Bunney.

Founded by Italian-born Sofia Prantera of Silas and Holmes fame, Aries was born out of an ongoing love of trash culture, outsider art, graphics and illustration. Since graduating from Central Saint Martins in the early ‘90s, Sofia has been an integral part of the skate and streetwear community for over 25 years with three successful brands under her belt.

The Aries Soho store officially opened its doors Monday 17th April 2023.

Dior has announced Mumbai’s Gateway of India as the location of the fashion house’s Pre-Fall 2023 presentation on March 30. This will be the first time a European luxury maison stages an official calendar show in India. As part of Creative Director Maria Grazia Chiuri’s commitment to support and collaborate with Mumbai-based talent, the collection will feature pieces embellished with intricate embroidery by Chanakya, an atelier and craftsmanship school for women in Mumbai. 

The show plays tribute to the visionary spirit of Christian Dior and his successors who had a profound admiration for India. As the first-ever female creative director of Dior, Chiuri’s partnership with Chanakya evolves the brand’s feminine identity and values. The non-profit organisation was founded by Monica Shah and Karishma Swali and seeks to empower female artisans from low-income backgrounds with skills that enable them to earn a livelihood within the fashion industry -an ethos which resonates strongly with the feminist message that Chiuri has actively pushed forth through collaborations with female craftspeople, image-makers and artists within the fashion industry. 

Chiuri wrote in an Instagram post: “It was through this relationship with Chanakya that I was able to learn so much about the artisanal embroidery techniques, which are still found in each and every Indian region, and the unique ability of the Chanakya Atelier to put them in dialogue with the fashion industry.”

Under Chiuri’s wing, the presentation will showcase India’s rich technical knowledge within the field of craft and fashion. And with the luxury sector in India expected to explode over the next decade, the country is quickly becoming a destination for global brands looking to expand their footprint.

The collection will be available in stores from late April, featuring an array of evening coats, silk dresses and sari-inspired skirts.

@dior

#diorprefall2023

Born out of the earth photos series documenting Dartmoor and the Scottish Highlands, Terratypes is Tanoa Sasraku’s latest solo exhibition presented by Spike Island. 

Sheets of blank newsprint, hand-rubbed with foraged natural pigments, take on geological and geographical information in ochre, graphite and manganese. These Terratypes – inspired by the material structure of the Fante Asafo flags of coastal Ghana and geometric forms found in Tartan cloth, circuitry and pinnacles of rock – form the bulk of Sasraku’s work. These are then stacked, cut and stitched to form geometric compositions andthe paper is steeped in water then torn to reveal layers that expose and encrypt details about the materiality of the land. 

Paper, photographs, and bronzes build upon the artist’s ongoing research into hostile wildlands and themes of energy, mythology and memories stored within the British landscape. Torn pieces from the Terratypes are flattened, scanned and enlarged into Liths: monolithic structures that bring to mind Stonehenge and other standing stone formations. Giving and withholding, unknowing and mysterious, these structures seem as doorways to an alternate landscape. 

A series of cast bronzes complete the exhibition. Intense concentrations of pigment are held in their centres to reflect the energy flows of the land. Emotional memory runs through each of the works, dwelling on our understanding and connection to the rural environment. 

Tanoa Sasraku is a British artist whose practice shifts between sculpture, drawing and filmmaking. She graduated from Goldsmiths College in 2018 and is currently studying at the Royal Academy Schools. 

Terratypes is on display from Saturday 28 May to Sunday 17 July 2022 at Spike Island.

The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has reverberated across all areas of life, the art world included. Recognizing the risks and dangers Ukrainian artists now face, a group of international artists have come together to raise funds and support their peers through the sale of their works. 

Organised by Adam Broomberg, the initiative sees a group of contemporary artists donating an artwork each as an open edition print. Priced at €200, the profit from the sale will go towards emergency support for their peers caught up in the spiralling crisis. 

Originally launched in March 2022, another 60 artists have joined for the launch of the second round. In order to address the “hierarchy of empathy that this war has exposed” this round of proceeds will go specifically to BIPoC artists and their families. The non-profit organisations @eachoneteachone_official in collaboration with @savvycontemporary will help facilitate emergency travel, shelter, financial and longer-term support. At this point in the crisis, thousands have died, millions have fled, and uncertainty remains. 

Featured contemporary artists include Hito Steyerl, Pierre Huyghe, Nan Goldin, Isaac Julien, Thomas Struth, Tacita Dean, Rosemarie Trockel, Luc Tuymans, Elizabeth Peyton, Thomas Demand, Matthew Barney, Jeremy Deller, Laure Prouvost, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Lisa Brice, Julian Schnabel, Camille Henrot, Subodh Gupta, Sam Durant, Fiona Banner, Anne Imhof, Cyprien Gaillard, and Thomas Hirschhorn.

Since 2013 the non-profit organisation Artists at Risk has launched 26 residences for  persecuted artists around the world. Operating at the intersection of human rights and the arts, Artists at Risk is at the forefront of the refugee crisis as it affects artists and cultural workers. All artwork purchases will directly benefit artists fleeing war and persecution. 

solidarityprints.com

Typical art biennials take place in large urban centres. Considering forms of personhood in wildlife and landscapes, the Biennale Gherdëina is an exception to the rule, located in the unique setting of the Unesco World Heritage Centre of the Dolomites. Opening on 20 May 2022, BIENNALE GHERDËINA ∞ PERSONES PERSONS is a series of installations, performances, sculptures, sound pieces, textile works, walks and interactive experiences, all across and in response to the landscape. 

In its eight edition, the Biennale asks how artistic expressions contribute to the recognition of Earth’s rights and themes of migration, seasonal displacement and transhumance in the region and resonating landscapes. 

Doris Ghetta, founder and Director of Biennale Gherdëina explains, “we are living in what has been described as “the era of living creatures”….this means that, if we are to plan a sustainable society, we can no longer incline towards an anthropocentric worldview but need to centre our way of seeing reality around all living things: from air to plants, water, snow, animals and, of course, human beings”

The Biennale is curated by Lucia Pietroiusti, who works at the intersection of art, ecology and systems typically outside of the gallery format, and Filipa Ramos, Strategic Advisor for Ecology at Serpentine, London, and co-founder of the climate-justice focused non-profit, Radical Ecology. 

BIENNALE GHERDËINA ∞ PERSONES PERSONS features artists Etel Adnan, Chiara Camoni, Alex Cecchetti, Gabriel Chaile, Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balen, Jimmie Durham, Simone Fattal, Barbara Gamper, Kyriaki Goni, Judith Hopf, Ignota, Karrabing Film Collective, Lina Lapelyte, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Eduardo Navarro, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Angelo Plessas, Tabita Rezaire, Sergio Rojas, Giles Round, Thaddäus Salcher, Martina Steckholzer, Hylozoic/Desires (Himali Singh Soin and David Soin Tappeser), Ana Vaz and Nuno da Luz, and Bruno Walpoth.

A fly-on-the-wall peep into Martine Rose’s latest runway show, the SS23 digital experience continues the legacy of “What We Do All Day”. Conceived and created in collaboration with International Magic, the website extends the aesthetics of the new collection and runway show into the digital realm. The footage is a CCTV-inspired 12-CAM viewing experience captured on cameras hidden inside the physical show held inside a railway arch in Vauxhall, South London. 

Referencing nightclubs, after-hours bars, and dark rooms, the footage gives viewers a taste of virtual voyeurism. As for the clothes, Martine Rose once again plays with proportions offering shrunken silhouettes inspired by “the feeling of wedging yourself into something a bit too small.” This is paired with explorations of larger volumes, playing around with the drape of a coat on a peg, and tension explored through tailoring, referencing “awkward Friday-night-office-drink-doorway-gropes”.

“Martine Rose is always interested in the relation between fashion and our ordinary realities, and this season we began with the everyday, unthinking tussles we have dressing and undressing; Fighting to get into your own clothes, or trying to get into someone else’s. Theclothing accidents involved in urgent sexual encounters or hurried dressing afterwards. Investigating how garments are pulled against the body and their resulting shape or attitude” notes the SS23 collection press release.

A real-time experience, the footage can be found looping perpetually at ss.23.martine-rose.com.

Creativity emerges from countless perspectives. That is the central message of Process, a temporary installation at Alexander McQueen’s Mayfair store. Helming the British label since McQueen’s death in 2010, creative director Sarah Burton invited twelve artists to respond to the Pre Autumn / Winter 2022 womenswear collection. Each artist was selected for their unique approach to art and offered complete creative freedom. The result? A rich dialogue between the work and the chosen designs that takes the creative process as its focus. 

Chilean sculptor Marcela Correa responded to the McQueen polyfaille party dress with hand-crafted miniatures on papier-mache dolls with faces collaged from fashion magazines. Jennie Jieun Lee took inspiration from a red leather dress to develop a ceramic sculpture with a reflective palladium glaze. Interpreting three looks, Ann Cathrin November Høibo created a three-dimensional weave in tea rose satin and grain de powder, apricot polyfaille, ivory tulle, wool, cotton and rayon.

Other artists who contributed include Guinevere Van Seenus, a model and photographer who has walked in McQueen catwalk shows since 1996, Beverly Semmes, Bingyi, Cristina de Middel, Guinever van Seenus, Hope Gangloff, Marcia Kure, Jackie Nickerson, Judas Companion, and Marcia Michael. 

“I wanted to engage in a new creative dialogue with the collection this season and see how the artists interpreted the work that we created in the studio. It’s been very interesting to see how creativity has sprung from so many different perspectives, and the outcomes that have been varied and beautiful,” Burton stated in Alexander McQueen’s press notes.

To celebrate the launch of the collection a 160 page zine detailing each artist’s personal story and engagement with the designs will be available in stores worldwide. Process is available to view at the Alexander McQueen Old Bond Street store until 21 June.