Cocktail Celebration and Signing For Autre's Fall/Winter Citizen Issue At The Stone Island Flagship In NYC

November 7th, Autre Magazine took over the Stone Island flagship in Manhattan to celebrate our FW24 “CITIZEN” Issue and a 166-page supplement by @sicknethi generously supported by the cult luxury outerwear brand. Sethi signed copies and two large lightboxes of the covers greeted guests at the door.

Ocean&Climate Village Offers Ecological Expansions to Maritime Tradition in Barcelona

Students, citizens, tourists and sailing enthusiasts who flocked to Barcelona for the final stages of the 37th America's Cup welcomed the opening of the Ocean&Climate Village traveling exhibition at Port Olimpic in the Catalan capital with great enthusiasm.

UNESCO Director General Audrey Azoulay visited the Ocean&Climate Village exhibition at the Olympic Port in Barcelona and the Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli base, where she met the Luna Rossa Women’s and Youth teams. The Director General was welcomed by Lorenzo Bertelli, Prada Group Head of Corporate Social Responsibility, Max Sirena, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli Team Director together with the Italian Consul in Barcelona Emanuele Manzitti. Azoulay warmly congratulated the Youth team for their recent victory and wished the best to the Women and the whole team for the upcoming regattas. 

The exhibition, which welcomed around 1000 visitors in the first six days of its opening and hosted 500 scientific workshops, allows visitors to explore the complex relationship between the ocean and the climate through educational tools such as infographics, photographs, interactive virtual reality installations and haptic experiences, with a focus on the ocean's crucial role in regulating the climate.

This special edition of the Ocean&Climate Village is part of the partnership between UNESCO and Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, created to highlight the importance of sustainability in maritime sports and the contribution that the sailing world can make to marine scientific research through the collection of valuable data.

The First UN Conference Dedicated to Ocean Literacy Meets in Venice for World Oceans Day Organized by Prada Group & UNESCO

On June 7th and 8th, for World Oceans Day, the first United Nations conference dedicated to ocean literacy entitled “Ocean Literacy World Conference” took place in Venice. The event, organized by the Prada Group and UNESCO's Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission represents an important milestone in the partnership between the two organizations which, since 2019, have been working side by side to develop the SEA BEYOND educational program aimed at raising awareness among the younger generations on the health and protection of the ocean.

This included the presentation of the first SEA BEYOND Ideas Box, the result of a collaboration with the international NGO Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, which aims to facilitate access to education for children and young citizens in vulnerable communities. Designed by Philippe Starck in 2014, the Ideas Box is a mobile multimedia center of over 100 square meters, equipped with internet connection, tablets, laptops and over 250 books and games, as well as hundreds of training materials. To celebrate the Ideas Box’s tenth anniversary, Philippe Starck and Patrick Weil, Founder and President of Bibliothèques Sans Frontières, told the story of its inception in a dedicated conversation. The contents of the media center were curated by UNESCO's ocean literacy team in collaboration with Bibliothèques Sans Frontières and a selection will also be integrated into those already operating in metropolitan France and overseas regions (8 Ideas Boxes), Burundi (4 Ideas Boxes) and Ivory Coast (6 Ideas Boxes). The teams responsible for managing the individual Ideas Boxes will be trained by UNESCO’s ocean literacy team.

The conference brought together 131 delegates from UNESCO Member States and ocean literacy experts from around the world to contribute to the “Venice Declaration for Ocean Literacy,” a collective document that in ten points contains concrete recommendations to rebalance the relationship between the ocean and human beings. The declaration will be shared with UN Member States on July 2nd in New York to help shape the agenda for the UN Ocean Conference to be held in Nice, June, 2025.

Mercedes-Benz Premieres the All-New Electric G-Class In Los Angeles

Last night in Los Angeles, the all-new G-Class was released with a star-studded world premiere with a surprise performance by Travis Scott. Few other vehicles have influenced pop culture like the Mercedes-Benz G-Class with its instantly recognized silhouette. First launched 45 years ago, the G-Class, which takes its name from Geländewagen meaning off-road vehicle, formed its worldwide reputation as a sought-after brand icon. With its long-lasting durability, 80 percent of all G-Class’ ever built remain in use on or off–road. Learn more here.

SPLAT: A Sensory Play Party & Performance By Bobbi Salvör Menuez @ Performance Space New York

“Sometimes performing, leaking always, together” reads the subheading of Bobbi Salvör Menuez’s SPLAT, a sensory play party at Performance Space New York, where the multidisciplinary artist also gave a private performance. Guests had their tongues painted by Early Shinada in quori theodor’s gnaw installation, brought towels for “slime hour” in the “splash zone,” were offered beverages and a place to communally shower in the bathroom before engaging in some dry, quiet play in the “soft zone,” and documented themselves while traveling through the “liminal zone.” All guests had stickers placed over their phone cameras, so the only documentation of the night came from within an interactive, live-feed macrophilic installation resembling a giant mouth titled I’m Big, You’re Small. All attendees were asked to take rapid Covid tests before attending and encouraged to engage in consensual cruising and play. A house manager could be found on site to support in all ways necessary and voyeurs were received with a warm welcome.

Autre Magazine Co-Hosts A Fog Art Fair Dance Party In San Francisco With On Approval and Friends

Last Friday, AUTRE magazine cohosted a hot and sweaty late night dance party to celebrate Fog Art Fair in San Francisco with On Approval, Altman Siegel, Value Culture and Exhibited.At. A mix of tech and art worlds collided with locals at the Lions Den Lounge in Chinatown with music by Eugene Whang and Jeremy Costello. photos by Oliver Kupper

Nike Women Celebrates Style, Self-Expression and Movement for Her in Los Angeles

Nike Women’s Stud Country Event. Image by Simone Niamani Thompson.

Nike Women hosted a weekend imbued with innovative movement and style as an homage to the power that can be derived from community-focused experiences.

On Friday, December 8, Nike Women hosted an intimate dance class with Stud Country at The Paramour Estate. Guests were encouraged to hit the dance floor wearing pieces from Nike’s holiday 2023 collection, selected by stylist Keyla Marquez, paired with favorite pieces from their closet. Stud Country was born from the legacy of queer dance spaces and honors the rich history of LGBTQ cowboy culture.

The next day, on Saturday, December 9, Nike hosted a day-long immersive experience called Nike Style Studios Neuehouse West Hollywood. Hosted by world renowned talent such as Honey Balenciaga, Sienna Lalau, Storm DeBarge and Courtni Poe, guests participated in a range of unique workshops that inspire different forms of self-expression through style, dance, creativity, and community. 

Nike Women celebrated the power of community in Los Angeles with this special weekend of programming that honors a new era of democratized fashion, prioritizing style, self-expression and movement.

 

Stud Country Portraits by Carlos Eric Lopez.

 

Park Nights Return @ Serpentine Galleries In London, Featuring Live Music, Performance, Dance, and Poetry

Serpentine was thrilled to announce it’s returned of Park Nights this August. Its experimental, interdisciplinary, live programme sited within the annual architectural commission, the 22nd Serpentine Pavilion designed by Lina Ghotmeh.

Bringing together multi-disciplinary artists, and featuring rave music, performance installations, poetry and dance, the exciting live programme invites audiences to engage, reflect, and connect. Park Nights runs from August to October, featuring The Living and the Dead Ensemble; Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro; Bambii and Christelle Oyiri.

Catch it’s final evening on October 8th, where Christelle Oyiri/CRYSTALLMESS will present a live iteration of her upcoming record with invited collaborators and musical guests.

The events will run through early October at Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens, London.

Bold Tendencies Is A Cultural Hub in London That Exemplifies the Dream of Urban Adaptability

text by Lara Monro

Bold Tendencies is a cultural community hub located within the rooftop spaces of a multi-story car park in the heart of Peckham. Established in 2007 by contemporary art gallerist Hannah Barry, the not-for-profit organization has rooted itself within the bones of the local community and is recognized for taking culture and civic values seriously through a mix of standalone education and community initiatives. 

What was initially a bold arts project has turned an unlikely structure into one of the city’s most exciting public spaces. With breathtaking panoramic views of London and an accompanying (and very popular) bar, Frank’s, Bold Tendencies exemplifies the dream of urban adaptability. Sitting somewhere between pop-up and permanence it has harnessed a thriving cultural presence in a once dead, dark space. 

Sharon Eyal and L-E-V perform OCD LOVE at Bold Tendencies in 2019. © Susan Bingham

Over the past sixteen years, the hub’s cultural program has attracted 2 million+ visitors. It has commissioned 128 artworks to date, including Richard Wentworth’s silvery curved floor painting, Agora (which comes from the Greek term for a gathering place) as well as the gaping ghoulish fairground-style painted mouth of artist Matt Copson. Bold Tendencies also boasts award-winning live programs of music, dance, opera and readings, including performances by the internationally-renowned choreographer Sharon Eyal. And, let’s not forget to mention the car park’s bubblegum-pink, Instagram sensation, stairwell; an artwork in itself by Simon Whybray. 

Bold Tendencies’ 2023 Summer program, Crisis, includes artworks by Emory Douglas, Jenny Holzer, Kahlil Robert Irving, Sandra Poulson, and Abbas Zahedi. The live program opened with the Philharmonia Orchestra performing The Planets by Gustav Holst, and after the success of the award-winning production, The Endz, The Multi-Story Orchestra’s Young Creatives performed Routes. Set in Peckham, Routes is inspired by the musicians’ personal experiences of growing up in the borough. It is directed by Abi Falase, with music led by singer-songwriter Frances Lobo and composer Kate Whitle. The Multi-Story Orchestra is made up of a group of exceptionally talented young musicians renowned for their innovative and boundary-pushing approach to music-making. 

Manchester Collective, known for their innovative and daring collaborations, presented a one-off, double program of German composer and conductor, Richard Strauss’ final masterpiece, Four Last Songs, paired with Metamorphosen, a haunting work of rhythmic and melodic complexity for string orchestra written towards the end of the Second World War in 1945. To accompany the mesmerizing scores leading soprano, Ruby Hughes, beautiful (and haunting) voice reverberated off the car park’s exposed concrete frame, leaving hairs standing on the back of necks. 

Most recently, Bold Tendencies welcomed Irish chorographer Oona Doherty to their public programme for the first time with Hope Hunt, an ode to strength and vulnerability, hitting and swerving at extreme stereotypes of cultural and social class. Based in Belfast, Oona studied at London School Of Contemporary Dance, University of Ulster and Trinity Laban (BA Honors and Postgraduate in Contemporary Dance Studies). Doherty’s distinctive, visceral, and intense performances highlight her rare ability to connect a gesture with the web of emotions that sustain it. She explains, “my work attempts to play with the barrier between the flesh and the soul, the audience and the stage; to share a kinetic experience. I’m motivated to explore states of pure metaphysical honesty. To bring the sex, the punk, the romance and the chi back into the body, the black box, the white cube, and Ireland.’’ 

Still to come, Caleb Femi will present Stone Seed, an immersive live performance that celebrates the power of Peckham to rebuild and reclaim what has been lost in a rapidly changing socioeconomic landscape. Finally, the 21-year-old Swedish-Norwegian violinist, Johan Dalene will perform four pieces—chosen specially for performance in the concrete space—alongside his regular performance partner, award-winning British pianist Nicola Eimer. With music by Arvo Pärt, Francis Poulenc, Sam Wu, Edvard Grieg, Dalene’s program explores the crises of our time with extreme virtuosity and sensitivity. 

Book tickets for all up coming events via the Bold Tendencies website.

Air Afrique Launches With Bottega Veneta To Celebrate Afro-Diasporic Creativity and Conversation

Bottega Veneta has initiated a new partnership with Air Afrique magazine, a fresh platform for Afro-diasporic art and conversation. The magazine, conceived by a young collective in Paris and inspired by the pan-African magazines of the 20th century, launched with an event at the Centre Pompidou in Paris on 23 June 2023. Air Afrique is named after the pan-African airline Air Afrique, co-owned by Senegal, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Benin, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger, Congo, and Chad, and operational between 1961 and 2002. An important expression of recently independent countries and of a certain pan-African ideal, the airline became a major patron of arts and culture, as well as a means of cross- border transportation. Published in both French and English, Air Afrique is led by the airline’s cultural vision, and by the logic of its in-flight magazine Balafon, which was distinguished by its ability to celebrate the cultural and historical diversity of the African continent. Air Afrique will combine this ethos with a sharp, precise aesthetic to transmit African cultural heritage and inspire cross-border creativity and discussion. Each issue of the magazine will include both archival material from the airline’s cultural patronage, and contemporary cultural expression from French, French-Caribbean, and African artists and writers.

The Air Afrique collective consists of Founder and Creative Director Lamine Diaoune, Editor-in-Chief Amandine Nada, Co-Founders Djiby Kebe and Jeremy Konko, Editors Zhedy Nuentsa and Ahmadou-Bamba Thiam and Graphic Designer Axel Pelletanche.

In its partnership with Air Afrique, Bottega Veneta will provide its brand name and platforms, as well as tailored events, to support the magazine launch and help build and connect engaged communities of readers. The brand will also release a limited-edition series of blankets by Franco-Sudanese designer, Abdel El Tayeb, a designer in the Bottega Veneta studio. Specially commissioned by Matthieu Blazy to mark the launch of Air Afrique, each blanket is a unique composition of the finest wool, silver leather, and shearling from the Bottega Veneta archive. Under his own label El Tayeb Nation, El Tayeb combines Sudanese craftsmanship with Western tailoring in an aesthetic that mixes couture and ease. The label aspires to create a space for Afro-descendents to express their multicultural identity. The Air Afrique Afro-futuristic blanket designs are inspired by the vibrant patterns of the traditional toub dress worn by El Tayeb’s mother.

A model looks into the camera behind the words Bottega Veneta wrapped in a plush textile blanket.

Kate Parfet Debuts Unique Coffee Table Poetry Art & Photo Book

Milking a Duck is a casebound poetry, art & photography coffee table book by Kate Parfet, printed by die Keure. Available today, via publisher pois é and in select bookstores worldwide including Arcana Books on the Arts, Casa Bosques, Claire de Rouen, Mast Books, Librarie Yvon Lambert, McNally Jackson and Skylight Books. This book is a representation of the female experience, and more specifically motherhood, recognizing all mother stories as both universal and singularly unique. Parfet’s deep exploration of (and at times outrage for) the ways in which politics, medicine, and society shape the motherhood experience inspired her to create this book. Click here to order.

AMEN Picasso: A Night @ The Picasso Museum in Paris

AMEN Candles celebrates the launch of AMEN Picasso with Diana Picasso, Haider Ackerman, Ellen Von Unwerth, Delphine Arnault, Giambatista Valli, Marco Ribeiro, Willy Cartier, Sinichiro Ogata, Prince Wenzeslaus of Liechtenstein, Pauline Ducruet, Quentin de Briey among many others.

Maison AMEN is a Paris-based candle brand that was established by Uruguayan-born designer Rodrigo Garcia in 2020. Pioneers within the market, they create high-end candle and light sculpture designs that are handmade in Grasse, the world capital of perfumery, just minutes away from Pablo’s Antibes Studio. On a mission to create a world free of plastic, AMEN’s products are entirely sustainable, made from vegetal wax that is free of toxic paraffin. They are poured into a reusable porcelain jar and packaged in plastic-free, mushroom containers that are carbon negative. The launch of their new collection of candles took place at the Musée national Picasso-Paris in collaboration with Diana W. Picasso, curator of the exhibition Maya Ruiz-Picasso: Daughter of Pablo.

With the aim of bringing together a significant ensemble of fourteen portraits, the exhibition asks us to reexamine a part of Picasso’s oeuvre through the prism of their filial relationship to highlight the bond that unites father and daughter and to emphasize how Maya’s presence nourished and amplified the artist’s fascination for childhood. Through the presentation of major works from the 1930s — portraits of Maya and Marie-Thérèse — sculptures, paper cut-outs, and memorabilia such as letters, poems, and personal objects, the project seeks to illustrate this chapter of Picasso’s intimate history. Completed by an important selection of photographs, some of which hitherto unseen, the exhibition will, more generally, question the relationship between Picasso and his children, notably during his years in Cannes during which the artist shared happy moments with his four children gathered together. It is the first of many Picasso exhibitions that will take place at museums around the globe throughout the year of 2023 in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death.

The scented candles were selected by Rodrigo Garcia and Diana Picasso. As curator of innumerable Picasso exhibitions, she combines paintings with feelings and memories from her life as the artist’s granddaughter. “I felt strongly that the scent for Figure (1927) was Naranja y Canela, a Mediterranean summer in the south of France. Acrobate (1932) became the strength of the Ginger and Nu couche (1932), which translates to ‘Lying down naked’ is the sensuality of Amber. For Guitar a la main blanche (1932) with the letters MT, I remembered a love letter of my grandfather Pablo to my grandmother ‘You are always on me, Marie-Thérèse, mother of sparkling perfumes pungent with star jasmines.’ To me, it's been the most exhilarating experience to add sense to all these profoundly emotional works. I immediately responded to the beliefs behind AMEN: to add soul to the scents and to cherish our Mother Earth.”

scribbles of writing on a piece of paper.

The collection is available to purchase at the Musée National Picasso, Paris Dover Street Parfums Matket, the Met Museum New York, Gagosian’s galleries in New York & London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Selfridges, Antonioli Milan, Moda Operandi, and globally through amencandles.fr. Maya Ruiz-Picasso: Daughter of Pablo is on view through December 31 at the Musée national Picasso-Paris 5 rue de Thorigny, 75003.

Donate to CIELO This Giving Tuesday to Provide Critical Language Services for Indigenous Angelenos

Comunidades Indígenas en liderazgo (CIELO) is an Indigenous women-led non-profit organization that works jointly with Indigenous communities residing in Los Angeles. One of their key priorities is to fight for social justice through a cultural lens. The fight for social justice includes ending gender-based violence, providing language access rights, cultural preservation, and reproductive justice. CIELO is a link, a resource, and a liaison for migrant Indigenous communities residing in Los Angeles. You can learn more about CIELO and its matriarch, Odilia Romero, in our current FW22 issue, which is available for purchase in our online store.

Click here to make a donation today.

Watch Both Teasers Of "MIASMA", A Live Installation By Hannah Rose Stewart and Blackhaine @ Trauma Bar und Kino In Berlin

Drawing from Ligottian horror, MIASMA takes place in an unnamed seaside town in the artists’ home region of Northern England where a blackened volcanic hole opens below an abandoned car park. The work incorporates 3D design, neo-noir film, and the Japanese dance theatre of Butoh to unearth sensations of dread, mourning, and alienation.

MIASMA autopsies the corpse of post-industrial urbanity, carving out its wounds in unparalleled catharsis: an encounter with darkness that oscillates between the solemn and abrasive.

In Thomas Ligotti’s The Shadow at The Bottom of The World, a strange profusion surfaces and exhausts itself into the atmosphere, afflicting the air, vegetation, and people in a nearby town—ultimately turning a familiar place into an estranged version of itself. This duality becomes the subject of Hannah Rose Stewart and Blackhaine’s (Tom Heyes) debut audio-visual installation, MIASMA.

These uncanny dispositions frequently appear throughout MIASMA, within crowds of twisted and curled faces, as characters and dancers stagger past illegible signs of defunct businesses—a gesture to Mark Fisher’s Ghosts of My Life: “You suppose that you could be in familiar territory … few landmarks. The tracks have numbers, not names. You can listen to them in any order. The point is to get lost.”

Live and recorded Butoh alchemize MIASMA’s provocations into a visceral, unnatural domain, forcing viewers to take part in the mutative rift that opens, not only across the towns, but also within the minds of its inhabitants and visitors.

Through the virtual and choreographic, MIASMA conducts its autopsy on the town’s post-industrial corpse, carving out its wounds in the act of unparalleled catharsis: an embrace and respondent transformation to darkness characterised by its balance of the intimate and abrasive.

Text by Matt Dell

MIASMA will be on view this Saturday, October 22 at 21:00 @ Trauma Bar und Kino Heidestraße 50, 10557 Berlin

Video by Hannah Rose Stewart
Graphic design by Jordi Theler
Ue5 development by Filip Setmanuk Soundtrack by Blackhaine, Croww, Rainy Miller

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Tea Hacic-Vlahovic Celebrates The Launch Of A Cigarette Lit Backwards

On September 22, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic and friends celebrated the launch of her second, brutally honest coming-of-age novel, A Cigarette Lit Backwards, at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, following the smash success of her 2020 debut novel, Life of the Party. Hosted by Paper Work, the night included a performance by ZAESOTERIC aka Isiah Edwards, as well as CPR guidance and safe drug using instructions by Narcan Nate, who distributed fentanyl testing strips, Narcan, and business cards for neverusealone.com. The book is out now and can be purchased in select book stores and abramsbooks.com. photographs by Michael Krim

CHART Art Fair & Art Book Fair: Looking Back & Forward

text by Lara Schoorl
photographs by Niklas Adrian Vindelev

Last weekend (August 25-28) the Nordic art world gathered in Copenhagen for the 10th edition of CHART. For four days visual art, books, music, performance, architecture, talks, food and people filled the rooms and courtyard of Charlottenborg. The art fair was founded in 2013 by six cross-generational, Copenhagen-based gallerists—Claus Andersen, Bo Bjerggaard, Jesper Elg, Mikkel Grønnebæk, David Risley, and Susanne Ottesen—as a not-for-profit. This year they expanded their board with six new members hailing from tech, politics, business and cultural fields. The impetus behind the founding of the fair was to put an international spotlight on the region and to strengthen the local and Nordic art market; now, with the installation of these additional board members, the fair will be steered into a new non-traditional art world business model. 

Like all art institutions, CHART was also challenged to reconsider its format and question its purpose during these past years of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the fair decentralized in 2020 and instead took place in galleries across the Nordic capitals Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavík, and Stockholm. At that same 8th edition, 100% of the exhibiting artists were women; a collective response from the participating galleries to “highlight the structural challenge of gender imbalance in the art market.” This year’s fair was their “first fully gender-balanced art fair.” For the international audience that was unable to visit all these Nordic galleries, CHART organized a series of online talks and published a reader that is still available for free as a PDF. 

 
 

The following two years, the fair continued to expand its public programming with a focus on inclusivity and sustainability, introducing an Experimental section with artist-run and alternative art spaces as well as the CHART Art Book Fair in 2021. For this year’s CHART Architectural Competition the theme was Bio-Architecture, inviting architects, artists and designers to create symbiotic relationships between nature and architecture. Reaching wider or different audiences triumphed during this year’s fair. In addition to exhibiting work at Charlottenborg, CHART invited fifteen artists, among whom are Austin Lee, Jasmin Franko and Nanna Abell, to present work inside the Tivoli Gardens—one of the world’s oldest theme parks, which opened its doors in 1843. Rather than your fair ticket, a ticket to the rides at Tivoli will allow you access to these works. The expanse of visitors continues with The Museum of Nordic Digital Art (MoNDA), which launched at the fair with works by ORLAN, Sabrina Ratté, and Morehshin Allahyari that can be found in the foyer of Charlottenborg and with an AR sculpture garden in the courtyard. MoNDA’s first exhibition, “Flags of Freedom,” a solo NFT show by Mette Winckelmann, can still be visited via the QR code on their website. It quickly became clear that new initiatives were a defining imperative of CHART 2022.

Noticeably different from the past years is that about a dozen more spaces participated in the fair, thirty-eight in total. All of them located in the Nordic region, although some galleries have spaces or viewing rooms elsewhere, such as Carl Kostyal in London and Milan. Others collaborate or engage in projects in the US such as the Norwegian Galleri Brandstrup with Sean Kelly Gallery in NYC and Loyal Gallery as a NADA member respectively. While the fair is structurally and conceptually moving forward, many of the works in the fair still felt more traditional materially, in the sense that the majority were wall works. Some beautifully refreshing nonetheless. Such as Emma Ainala’s surrealist paintings in which fairytale and nightmare meet shown by Helsinki Contemporary, or Anna Tuori’s gestural canvases presented in a collaborative installation with Jani Ruscica’s wall painting and video work for Galleri Anhava. But also the solo presentation at Carl Kostyal of Camilla Engström’s warm paintings that leave us longing for a gentle end of summer—especially in the northern Northern Hemisphere. Remarkable as well was Tacita Dean’s ten-meter-long photogravure, Inferno (2021), at BORCH Editions. The print, inspired by the stage and costume design Dean made for The Dante Project, a ballet on the occasion of the 700th anniversary celebration of the poet’s death, asks you to follow Dante and Virgil, depicted as two dots, across eight parts through the circles of hell, in an upside-down landscape scattered with textual fragments from the Divine Comedy and occasional satanic references like 666—leaving us hover between punishment and play for ten big steps. 

 
 

The art book fair, equally manageable in size with twenty-seven tables, hosted publishers, (art) book and print makers also all based in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. And also ranging from 1980s staples such a Space Poetry to brand new initiatives such as Halden Workshop. Interestingly, however, several operate between various languages and continents. Kinakaal (Norwegian for Chinese cabbage), a multilingual press run by Ben Wenhou Yu and Yilei Wang, which exists alongside their art space Northing in Bergen, for example, fosters communication between Norway and East Asia. To facilitate dialogue and connection between these different cultures, their publications often have Norse, Chinese, and English texts presented together. Then, Halden Workshop, a new (residency) program for book arts, in Halden, Norway offers workshops and studio space with access to letterpress, bookbinding and paper making assistance. The program is organized by Radha Pandey, a letterpress printer, and papermaker, and scholar of paper and book arts, and Johan Solberg is also a papermaker and scholar, letterpress printer, and a bookbinder. While the workshop is located in Halden, they spend half of the year in Delhi, India where they both teach and continue (to share) their practice. 

Tacita Dean, Inferno, 2021. Detail. Photogravure with screen print in eight parts, 89,5 x 956 cm framed. Image courtesy the artist and BORCH Editions

 

Many of the publishers and presses are one, two or three-person endeavors, some are part of institutions, others run small art spaces alongside their publishing arms. Although definitely a labor of love—see CULT PUMP’s multi-color silk screen printed comic and art books and zines—these publications and their makers form a tight regional community that reaches far beyond the Nordic countries. Hour Editions, run by Kristina Bengtsson and Kevin Malcolm, came into being in 2013 out of the communal question “What is the artist’s work?” and the sentiment “If we can’t change the system, at least we can try together.” Malcolm also runs the exhibition space Vermillion Sands, for which Hour Editions has made poetic extensions of several of their shows, with the most appealing titles. Calling All Divas on the occasion of “Inside me with Incredible Intensity” with Martin Jacob Nielsen and Tyler Matthew Oyer is a beautiful and empowering tribute to many known, lesser known, and overlooked “queer artist mentors” who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS; and I like to stare at things that cannot be read. Only in that way can the present be remembered. I need a menu to wash my car. on the occasion of the eponymous show by Mikko Kuorinki brings together the poetry of Jenny Kalliokulju, Karl Larsson, Henning Lundkvsit and Amalie Smith.

For four days a lot was to be seen, listened too, talked about and tasted, but not too much. The size of CHART, including its new and additional programs and collaborations, invites you to linger, take time, and revisit. It is, after all, just a walk across the courtyard between Diana Al-Hadid’s sculptural wall panels (of which the layering and myriad of materials ask for multiple observations) and At Last Books to read Lindsay Preston Zappas’ text on David Risley’s watercolor series Against God. Against Guns. Against Energy. 

Diana Al-Hadid, In the Year AD 832 Large Stones Were Thrown From the Sky, Breaking the Copper Earth, Etc., 2019. Polymer gypsum, fiberglass, steel, plaster, copper, leafing, pigment. Dimensions: 160 x 210 x 10 cm. Image courtesy the artist and Galleri Brandstrup, Oslo

Read Our Interview Of Dan Colen From Issue 13: Biodiversity →

 
 

interview by Gideon Jacobs 
photographs by David Brandon Geeting  

 

Many urbanites dream about farm life. They sit in front of their screens, filling out expense reports or arguing with coworkers on Slack, the blue light slowly irradiating whatever constitutes their unique human spirit, and they imagine that digging their hands into soil and pulling out some kind of root vegetable might cure what ails them. That wasn’t Dan Colen. Colen, an artist who is very much a product of New York City, with a name synonymous with the downtown Manhattan art scene of the aughts, didn’t end up owning and operating Sky High Farm out of manifested romantic notions about the rural, agrarian lifestyle. In fact, as I learned over the course of this interview, when he purchased the forty-acre chunk of Hudson Valley land, farming wasn’t even part of the plan. Like much of his art, he allowed form to develop on its own, following some combination of instinct and medium until he ended up with his biggest project yet. Since its first growing season, Sky High has donated 90,000 pounds of produce and 20,000 pounds of protein to help fight food insecurity in New York State, and they are currently working on developing an agricultural training program to support self-empowerment among those affected by the carceral system. The farm is a nonprofit, a complex machine that straddles the complex ecosystems of upstate New York agriculture, food justice, the art world, and more. That Colen ended up here at this stage in his career, devoting his life to this mission, might come as a surprise to many, maybe even to Colen himself. But in a way, that’s what makes the whole endeavor somehow unsurprising. That’s what makes it make sense. Read more.

Ancient Futures by Lio Mehiel During Outfest Film Festival 2022

LA based actor, filmmaker and conceptual artist Lio Mehiel presents a new multidisciplinary project Ancient Futures at Outfest Film Festival 2022 in Los Angeles 15-24 July. Exhibited at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood, the three part pop-up art presentation is a celebration of trans beauty, expressed through a single-channel video installation, a photo essay, and a sculpture series brought to life by Lio Mehiel, a transmasculine, Puerto Rican and Greek actor, filmmaker, and artist. The centerpieces of the presentation are four stone sculptures of trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) bodies, which will be featured atop plinths, cast by the talented, multidisciplinary artist Holly Silius. The models include Lio Mehiel (WeCrashed, Apple+), photographer and artist A. Klass, actor Sydney Mae Diaz (Generation, HBOmax), and Emmy nominated actress and creator Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue). photos by Liam Woods

A Forsaken Place: Andrea Zittel's A-Z West Is A Laboratory For The Future →

Andrea Zittel
A-Z Wagon Station customized by Giovanni Jance
2003
Powder-coated steel, MDF, aluminum, Lexan,cushions, iPod Nano, headphones, solar iPod chargers
91 x 82 x 57 inches
© Andrea Zittel, Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles


The desert is an unforgiving, but magnetic landscape. Agnes Pelton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and many more artists have all been drawn to the desert of the American West. Its barrenness, its potential, its raw heat, its solitude, and liquid mirages all provide a contemplative and hot combination of all the right ecosystemic ingredients for artists to experiment and conceive of cosmic ideas. Even the word desert is alluring: it comes from the ecclesiastical Latin root desertum, which means a “forsaken” or “abandoned” place. Lately, though, the desert has become less a quirk of America’s multifold topography and more a frightening, but beautiful prelude to an arid, lifeless future on Earth. 

Andrea Zittel fits into the historical canon of artists lured to these forsaken and abandoned landscapes—abandoned by time and most botanic nature—but she isn’t so much a land artist as she is an artist of the land. Like the late artist and sculptor Noah Purifoy before her, Zittel is not a visitor—she is a guardian of the desert’s inexplicable potential as a testing ground for future civilizations who might live in a world that is going through a rapid process of what geologists call desertification.  According to scientists, over a third of the world is going through this process, and every year 120,000 square kilometers of land turns into an actual desert. Studies show that if global carbon emissions aren’t curbed, much of the Earth will become a desert by 2050. Read more. Originally published in Autre’s Biodiversity Issue, FW 2021