Thania Petersen Constructs A Cohesive Identity From Her Malay & South African Roots in ZAMUNDA FOREVER @ Nicodim Gallery

Thania Petersen, Cake, 2023. Image courtesy of Nicodim Gallery.

ZAMUNDA FOREVER is Thania Petersen’s first solo exhibition in the United States. The exhibition divides Nicodim Gallery in Los Angeles into three bodies of intricately embroidered narrative textiles, covering her family’s history, their present-day life as seen from the outside, then finally portrayals of their familial dynamic in more personal settings. Juxtaposed against one another, the three series are an honest depiction of how the journey that brought the artist’s people to South Africa resulted in a separation of selves that exist symbiotically to construct a new cohesive and contemporary identity.

Zamunda is the fictional African nation from which Eddie Murphy’s character hails in the 1988 film Coming to America. In these large-scale works, the artist reckons with the hyper-commercialization of her native continent, and the semi-truthfulness of the signifiers both Westerners and Africans use to market themselves to one another. ZAMUNDA FOREVER, like Petersen herself, embodies the plural histories, spiritualities, sonorities, and cultures of the Afrasiatic Sea. Also everpresent: the universal and readily identifiable signs of a family and community that lives, laughs, and loves with one another.

ZAMUNDA FOREVER is on view through September 9 @ Nicodim Gallery, 1700 S Santa Fe Avenue, #160, Los Angeles, CA 90021

The Act of Ornamentation is Centered in Adorned Self @ Sow & Tailor in Los Angeles

Alli Conrad

Adorned Self is Sow & Tailor’s first group exhibition of the summer, showcasing six emerging women artists of the same generation, whose work explores themes such as nature, sensuality, gender, and ornamentation. They share a unique perspective as artists who grew up in the 1990s: an epoch characterized by multiculturalism, globalization, self-reference, environmentalism, and technological advances. With these cultural, social, and political shifts, came new forms of self-fashioning.

Adorned Self explores ornamentation as an act, both outward and internal, that opens the self to enlivenment; how we fashion ourselves in order to attract others, make a statement, or express individuality. The artists probe the way our internal landscapes are expressed and communicated onto the world, even in things as banal as a tattoo, jewelry, makeup, or a luxurious fabric. Adornment can also be entirely internal—achieved through cultivating deep self love.

Adorned Self is on view through August 12 @ Sow & Tailor, 157 W 27TH ST. LOS ANGELES, CA. 90007

 
 

Everything is Alive: SHRINE Los Angeles presents Ross Simonini's "Tales"

Ross Simonini, The Ties, 2023, milk paint on muslin in walnut frame. Image courtesy of SHRINE.

Ross Simonini’s Tales is currently on view at SHRINE Los Angeles. In his work, Simonini completely intertwines art with life. He uses every body part to write, draw and paint—eradicating the divide that often lies between the artist and the canvas. It’s this corporeal process that begs the hidden unconscious to appear.

All of Simonini’s beings signify and relate to an understanding of the world through animism—a universal concept that every single thing is alive and animated. The confounding narratives that drift into focus in his paintings include virtually all beings from the animate to inanimate. Simonini sees and feels the life inside everything.

Tales is on view through August 19 at SHRINE, 538 N. Western Los Angeles, CA 90004

 
 

INSTA FAMOUS By Diego Cruz & Zion Dezm

 

Lisa is wearing earring 1CONCEPT, top MIU MIU, skirt and thong VALERIEVI, tights TYTM8.

 


creative direction, art direction and casting: Diego Cruz & Zion Dezm
photography by Diego Cruz
styling by Zion Dezm, assisted by Andrea Brown
makeup by David Gillers, assisted by Mialuca Backus
hair by Moe, assisted by Jennifer Chan
Models: Lisa from PRM Model Agency
Arual & Olivia from Milk Management
Bertie from Anti Agency


Arual is wearing earrings 1CONCEPT, necklace and skirt MIU MIU, top NII HAI.

Lisa is wearing earring HEAVEN BY MARC JACOBS, top DOLCE & GABBANA.

Lisa is wearing bag HEAVEN BY MARC JACOBS, earring 1CONCEPT, ring and jumpsuit VALERIEVI.

Bertie is wearing shoes MIU MIU.

Olivia is wearing top R & M LEATHERS, dress PRADA, bag GIVENCHY.

Lisa is wearing earring 1CONCEPT, top DOLCE & GABBANA, thong NII HAI, skirt HEAVEN by MARC JACOBS, trousers PACO RABBANE, shoes GIVENCHY.

Bertie is wearing dress CHARLES JEFFREY.

left to right: Olivia is wearing necklace and earrings ALESSANDRA RICH, top JORDANLUCA, tights MM6, shoes MIU MIU.
Arual is wearing earring 1CONCEPT, dress CHRISTOPHER KANE, tights R & M LEATHERS, shoes NII HAI.
Lisa is wearing earring 1 CONCEPT, top and tights DOLCE & GABANNA, dress PACO RABANNE, shoes PRADA.


What Will I Become By Gabriella Rowland & Nicolas Robin Hobbs

coat: RICHERT BEIL
shirt: Prada (stylist’s archive)
tie: Emporio Armani
bag: Celine


photography by Nicolas Robin Hobbs
photo assistance by Leo Köhler & Mengyu Zhou  
styling by Gabriella Rowland 
styling assistance by Bastian Hagn 
casting by Nicolas Robin & Gabriella Rowland 
hair by Bronwyn Stewart
makeup by Naomzz 
talent by MARIAM D @ MIRRRS, KARINA & JOANNA @ Tomorrow Is Another Day
Special thanks to Effi at TIAD



coat: RICHERT BEIL
shirt: Prada (stylist’s archive)
tie: Emporio Armani

LEFT
top: vintage (solastseason Archive) 
skirt: Gucci (solastseason Archive) 
shoes: Celine 
ring: JOHANNA GAUDER

RIGHT
top: Blumarine (solastseason Archive) 
skirt & bag: Diesel 
shoes: CAMPER

LEFT
jacket: Cottonade Paris (solastseason Archive) 
tights: Diesel
bag: Diesel
shoes: Balenciaga (solastseason Archive)

RIGHT
coat: RICHERT BEIL
shirt: Prada (stylist’s archive)
tie: Emporio Armani
tights: Falke
shoes: Bottega Veneta (NIGHTBOUTIQUE Archive)
bag: Celine

suit: Miu Miu
knitwear: Miu Miu
shoes: Diesel
rings: INA BEISSNER



Goodbye Playboy: Finnish Photographer Iiu Susiraja Talks About Bullying Herself With The Camera →

 
 

Iiu Susiraja isn’t simply challenging the modus operandi of how we understand and perceive beauty. The photographer, born near Turku, Finland, is a private performance artist, a secret exhibitionist using her body as a versatile dress form to experiment with everyday props, like ladles, vases, plungers and other flotsam of the mundane. In one image, Susiraja lays in bed with a whole raw chicken resting on a silver platter, creating a sort of quotidian surreality. Ghebaly Gallery presented the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, which included her strange autoerotic still lifes and video work. The following interview was published in our Fall Winter 2018 issue, featuring a selection of the artist’s diffident self-portraits. Read more

Rakeem Cunningham Presents Hero @ Ochi Projects In Los Angeles

 
 

In his first solo exhibition with Ochi Projects, Rakeem Cunningham plays and poses alone in his studio, exploring a multitude of selves informed and surrounded by a multiverse of niche subcultures. Each portrait is a declaration of subjectivity and existence—proof of self-validation and an ongoing healing journey that expands upon an outdated definition of hero.

Triggered by the designation of essential workers as heroes while being treated as disposable this past year, Cunningham paused to reflect upon his relationship to this loaded word. As a queer youth of color, he idolized heroes that didn’t look like him. Lazy metaphors—green or purple villains dressed in evil black—reinforced false dichotomies and ultimately white supremacy.

Hero is on view through June 26 through August 7 @ Ochi Projects 3301 W Washington Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90019

A Paris Fashion Week Diary From The Spring Summer 2019 Collections

photographs by Flo Kohl