Read Our Interview Of Artist & Curator Mieke Marple On Bridging the Digital & Traditional Worlds of Art →

November 18, 2023

Alida Sun, *Southern Gothic Love Letters to My NSA Agent*, 2023, courtesy of the artist, bitforms gallery, and PR for Artists. Image by Joshua White

NFT Tuesday LA co-founder and former Night Gallery co-owner, Mieke Marple is a Los Angeles-based artist and writer determined to navigate what she calls the “insurmountable chasm” between the physical and digital art worlds.

In her passionate mission to reconcile both the analog and the digital, Mieke has recently curated an impressive exhibition titled Interreality, showcasing 35 artists from the pioneering digital space mixed in with traditional established artists. Produced by Steve Sacks, founder of bitforms gallery and Aubrie Wienholt, founder of PR for Artists, Interreality is simply a tour de force.

A kindred spirit and peer curator, I was thrilled to interview Mieke to speak about the exhibition as we tackled notions of provenance, embodied experiences, collecting art and feminism. Read more.

Meriem Bennani's Guided Tour of a Spill @ François Ghebaly In Los Angeles

March 16, 2021

Meriem Bennani
Sidewalk Stream (detail), 2021
Steel, monitors, media players, epoxy resin coated foam Nine channel 4K digital video
85.5 x 143 inches / 217 x 363 cm
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Installation view, Meriem Bennani, Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Meriem Bennani
Quartier Cuba, 2021
Charcoal powder, crushed pastel and pencil on paper in artist’s frame
52.5 x 85.5 inches (framed) / 133.5 x 217 cm (framed)
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Meriem Bennani
Routini Zip, 2021
Charcoal powder, crushed pastel and pencil on paper in artist’s frame
52.5 x 93.5 inches (framed) / 133.5 x 237.5 cm (framed)
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Meriem Bennani
Umbrella Slap, 2021
Steel, flatscreen monitors, media players, motor, epoxy resin coated foam, pleather, plastic coated cord
4K digital video
1 min 21 sec
42 x 42 x 72 inches / 107 x 107 x 183 cm
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Installation view, Meriem Bennani, Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Meriem Bennani’s Guided Tour of a Spill acts as an interlude between her groundbreaking Party on the CAPS (2018), her pseudo-documentary set in the Moroccan quarter of the CAPS, and a narrative sequel set to debut later this year at the Renaissance Society and Nottingham Contemporary. The exhibition consists of the titular multi-channel video projected and displayed on sculptural, kinetic screens alongside new drawings of scenes from the world of the CAPS. One screen, broadcasting what could be an A.I.-generated children’s video, is topped by helicoptering ropes that slap the gallery walls. Inspired by the compilation structure and synesthetic drive of Disney’s Fantasia (1940), Guided Tour of a Spill centers less on overt narrative and more on the visceral and sensorial pleasure of music, dance, athletics and humor. Throughout the exhibition, Bennani playfully blends humor and critique, weaving an expanded allegory for how media circulates through channels of digital and geopolitical power, both online and in the real spaces we inhabit.

Guided Tour of a Spill is on view by appointment through May 1 @ François Ghebaly 2245 E. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles

Installation view, Meriem Bennani, Guided Tour of a Spill, 2021
Photograph: Paul Salveson
Courtesy of the Artist and François Ghebaly, Los Angeles

Digital Mourning: A Solo Exhibition By Neïl Beloufa @ Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan

February 25, 2021

Neïl Beloufa
Screen Talk, 2020 (detail)
Website with a mini-series, from video Home is whenever I am with you, 2014
Courtesy the artist, Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza, Kamel Mennour, Paris/London, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, Mendes Wood DM and ZERO…, Milan

Neïl Beloufa
Kempinski, 2016
Mixed media installation; video Kempinski, 2007, 13 mins (Courtesy Bad Manners, Paris / Miami / Ibiza)
Installation view, Kunstmuseum Luzern, 2017 Courtesy the artist, Balice Hertling, Paris, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, Mendes Wood DM and ZERO…, Milan
Photo: Jonathan Muzikar

Neïl Beloufa
Superlatives and Resolution, People Passion, Movement and Life, 2014 (detail)
Mixed media installation; steel, plexiglass, aluminum, paper, motor, computer, speakers; video People's passion, lifestyle, beautiful wine, gigantic glass towers, all surrounded by water, 2011, 10 mins 59 secs
(Courtesy Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza)
Courtesy the artist and Balice Hertling, Paris
Photo: Andrea Rossetti

Neïl Beloufa
Party Island, 2012 (video still)
Video, color, sound, 8 mins 48 secs
Courtesy Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza

Neïl Beloufa
La Morale de l’Histoire, 2019
Mixed media installation
Installation view, Kamel Mennour, Paris, 2019 (detail)
Courtesy the artist and Kamel Mennour,
Paris/London
Photo: Kamel Mennour archives

Neïl Beloufa
World Domination, 2015
Mixed media installation; video World Domination, 2012, 19 mins (Courtesy Bad Manners, Paris / Miami / Ibiza)
Installation view, ZERO..., Milan, 2015
Collection Sandra and Giancarlo Bonollo, Italy
Courtesy the artist, Balice Hertling, Paris, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, Mendes Wood DM and ZERO…, Milan
Photo: Roberto Marossi

Neïl Beloufa
World Domination, 2012 (video still)
Video, color, sound, 19 mins
Courtesy Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza

Neïl Beloufa
Monopoly Podium, 2017 (detail)
Mixed media installation; video Monopoly, 2016, 13 mins (Courtesy Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza)
Installation view, Pejman Foundation, Teheran, 2017
Courtesy the artist, ZERO…, Milan, and Pejman Foundation, Tehran

Neïl Beloufa
Occidental, 2016 (video still)
Feature film, color, sound, 90 mins
Courtesy Bad Manner’s, Paris / Miami / Ibiza

Neïl Beloufa
Screen Talk, 2020–ongoing
Installation view, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2021
Courtesy Bad Manner’s Paris/Miami/Ibiza, kamel mennour, Paris/London, François Ghebaly, Los Angeles, Mendes Wood DM, ZERO…, Milan and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Photo: Agostino Osio

Neïl Beloufa
Exhibition view, “Digital Mourning”, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2021
Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Photo: Agostino Osio

Neïl Beloufa
La morale de l’histoire, 2019/2021
Installation view, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2021
Courtesy the artist, kamel mennour, Paris/London, ZERO…, Milan and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Photo: Agostino Osio

Neïl Beloufa
Exhibition view, “Digital Mourning”, Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2021
Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
Photo: Agostino Osio

The French-Algerian artist, Neïl Beloufa, is one of the leading voices of the past decade and a keen observer of our times, offering vivid representations of the world through films, videos, installations, and sculptures.

Avoiding direct judgments and forceful declarations, Beloufa successfully conveys a reality that, in its subtlety, is often awkward to behold, focusing on highly topical issues such as power relationships, the technological control, the perils of data collection, as well as on a possible collapse in the management of a pandemic.

Digital Mourning is on view through July 18 @ Pirelli HangarBicocca Via Chiese 2 20126 Milan

Petra Cortright Presents CAM WORLS @ UTA Artist Space In Los Angeles

March 1, 2018

CAM WORLS features fifty of the artist’s videos, made between 2007 and 2017, including eighteen never-before-exhibited artworks. Take a walk around the gallery to trace the evolution of Petra's online presence and take a seat on one of the many beanbags to view the works simultaneously from a distance, then make your way to the back gallery to view her 2015 piece, mind_candy_pfaffs, a collection of life-sized sexy girls in motion pulled from VirtuaGirl, one of the many technologies that the artist has employed in her work, its broader purpose is to give its users the impression that the sexy woman of their choice is trapped and living right within their own computer screens. CAM WORLS will be on view through April 7 at UTA Artist Space 670 S. Anderson Street Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper and Lani Trock

Read Our Interview With Tabita Rezaire The Johannesburg-Based Artist And Healer →

March 20, 2017

Rezaire is in the business of identifying sicknesses we carry within us everywhere we go—our histories, our implicit and explicit prejudices, our language. She is able to see through the veils of the “free, open Internet” to its capitalist underbellies, using the very tools of the Internet to undermine it. Rezaire is calling us out on the spread of colonial viruses—on our computers, in our history books, in our words. click here to read the rest of the interview.

CATEGORIES: ART / FASHION/ CULTURE / MUSIC / FILM

Daily Journal

Doc Fortnight 2025: Breaking Reality, One Frame at a Time

about 5 days ago

A Meier St/ Installation During Frieze Los Angeles 2025

about 6 days ago

The Los Angeles Confidential: Read Our Interview of Devin Troy Strother

about a week ago

Instagram: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Just announced Barry Jenkins teams up with @a24 for “Be My Baby” on the life of Ronnie Spector to star @zendaya . In 2017, @mrpharmacist72 interviewed Ronnie for the pages of AUTRE. They talked about EVERYTHING, including their iconic hairdos: “We were healthy and had all this thick hair, we didn’t know what to do with it. I love Bridget Bardot, so I would try to put it up and tease it. Some things were you wanted to look like certain people, at least I did. All three of the Ronettes, whatever I would do they would do. It’s like the Cleopatra eyes. Everybody went nuts when we started wearing the eyeliner. We slowly got into our own groove.” #zendaya #ronniespector #bemybaby #a24

We are very saddened and shocked to learn of the passing of @laeyeworks founder and designer Gai Gherardi. She was a transformative creative force among the sprawling fabric of Los Angeles, but her influence spanned the world. She was an unwavering champion of LA artists and queer rights. Her office was an incubator—not only of eyewear, but also turtle eggs, proving her love for the more than human world. Her bright simile and enthusiasm for life made everyone feel loved and welcome. Her bold and playful designs made her eyewear instantly recognizable without the need for a forward facing logo. Her frames were worn by the impaired who wanted to be seen with crystal clear vision. She and l.a.Eyeworks have been major supporters since issue one. We wouldn’t exist without Gai’s support and influence. Their legendary ad campaigns, many of which were featured in interview magazine and later Autre, featured burgeoning icons like Peewee Herman, Sharon Stone, Andy Warhol, and more. For the 40th anniversary of LAEyeworks we devoted 40 pages to exploring the history of this seminal brand. In a conversation with @greggormanphoto , who photographed most of their most iconic ad campaigns, Gherardi told us, “We were seeing this huge array of faces. And, you know, it was goodbye ‘70s! And off came the hair, and out came the face. All kinds of things were happening.” She also told us that the campaign, which later focused on LA artists with an inventive sense of worldbuilding, wasn’t about celebrity, but “interrogating celebrity.” Everything was an intellectual exercise in rebellion and resistance. She will be deeply missed. #laeyeworks #gaigherardi

DOOM (and hope) on PARK AVENUE. @anne_imhof ‘s largest performance to date on view at @parkavearmory the until March 12th. “For me, there are no boundaries between life and work. The biggest dream is to be together in a space and have the most exciting time you can—that’s the universe. This is why I am doing the live work.” @anne_imhof in conversation with @nadya for AUTRE FW24 Citizen Issue #anneimhof #doom

Last week, friends and collaborators from the global creative worlds gathered at Sunset, the subterranean nightclub beneath The West Hollywood EDITION for Autre Magazine and Jeffrey Deitch’s annual Frieze Week kickoff. DJs Mr Pharmacist and Saturn Risin9 got guests dancing beneath hundreds of glittering disco balls while rising Franco-American duo Faux Real played a brief but energetic set. Special thanks to @omgregory Photos Oliver Kupper #friezeweek2025 #friezela #losangeles #artweek #dance #nightlife

Autre Magazine and Jeffrey Deitch Gallery kicked off Frieze Week in Los Angeles with an intimate dinner at Ardor in The West Hollywood EDITION, followed by an afterparty at the hotel’s subterranean nightclub, Sunset. Guests enjoyed luxury sipping mezcal Perro Verde paired with a vegetable-forward menu. 🔗 in bio Special thanks to @omgregory and @purplepr #autremagazine #jeffreydeitch #sharonstone #honeydijon

Today is the day. The legendary @bjork releases her powerful and immersive concert film Cornucopia on @appletv 7PM PT “From the jagged, volcanic, icy fjords of Iceland, Björk Guðmundsdóttir—known simply by her stage name Björk—has descended on the world of popular music over the past five decades with a sensual, otherworldly presence. Her music is constantly of the moment but also seemingly years ahead of its time with a starkly alarming prescience, especially regarding the human impact on nature and the climate. Today, she presents Cornucopia, streaming on Apple TV, a cinematic encapsulation of a “digital theater” tour extravaganza that is the culmination of dozens of shows across multiple continents.” #bjork #cornucopia

“Two weeks before my home was destroyed by the Eaton Fire, I created a video of a man racing through fire. At the time of its creation, I was not concerned about fire, and yet only days later, I would be racing through a fiery landscape of my community. Fire has since defined my life. I believe art comes outside of time, from the place of dreams, where experiences occur outside the tedious march of causality. It can be divinatory, but I do not care to burden it with this kind of heavy meaning. I prefer to make and enjoy art without the technology of meaning, remaining in a liminal state as I work. Living in this state, however, has been one of the greatest challenges of my life.” @rosssimonini on autre.love #eatonfire #losangeles #wildfire

For David Lynch, cinema was a magic lantern with which to project all our darkest dreams and desires. His ambition wasn’t fear, but transcendence using the endless possibilities of sight and sound provided by the celluloid medium. Only a few auteurs have tapped into this psychological live wire. Each scene was a high voltage testament to his cinematic vision: violent, desirous, mysterious hallucinations come to life on the silver screen. The audience becomes a ghost watching down or up or into the characters who haunted us as much as we haunted them. His films were mirrors facing mirrors facing infinity in a tunnel of dreams. We were the shore and he was the ocean bringing us relics of our subconscious; artifacts from our id jutting up from the sand dunes of our memories. We loved David Lynch because we could peer over the precipice without falling. And if we did fall, we fell in love, lust, heartache. The pangs of death were palpable. We were lost in the smoke. Lost in the revery. There was no way out but through. #davidlynch

“Keep your eye on the donut and not on the hole.” David Lynch enters the ethereal realm to join Angelo Badalamenti. Photographed together in 2016 #davidlynch

We are alive and safe from what will likely be one of the most destructive fire events in modern history. Vesuvian in its enormity and historicity, but also in its lessons on living close to the proverbial volcano, these fires have impacted everyone we know. Our psychic wounds will last forever. Beyond the misinformation and politics, it is important to understand that the era of the pyrocene is at our doorstep. There is no more pontificating, no more waiting, no more what ifs, no more when. The megafires are here. It is only: what now and why? Yesterday, we experienced the devastation firsthand. We broke through multiple barriers to reach the Pacific Palisades only to find the neighborhood entirely in ruins. A family home gone forever. We sifted through the ashen remains of books still smoldering, the ghosts of hundreds of homes glowing toward an orange horizon, burned to the studs. Most everything was unrecognizable. A few flames were burning what was left. In 2019, we spoke to fire ecologist and world authority on chaparral brushfire, Richard Minnich, who spoke to us in depth about how and why these fires have become so massive and so destructive. Rapid changes in climate are part of the equation, but so is one hundred years of fire suppression policies and our collective delusions of ecological grandeur. This fire event was decades in the making. Ecologists, scientists, climate predictors all saw it coming. To live in paradise is to know all things eventually come to an end; to enjoy the memories. Now is the time to heal, to be with family, to help those in need. “Everything goes, everything comes back; eternally rolls the wheel of being” #lafires #palisadesfire #eatonfire

Starting off 2025 with LOVE. 🔗 in bio. Over the last few months, @stefswoods and @ryanmolnar visited five couples in and outside of Berlin, each “each living their own unique love story” to explore what love means to them. Here are Roman and Norman at their home in Brieselang. Their romance started nearly two decades ago when Norman, a spiritual guide and healer, had a last minute cancellation and Roman filled the slot. When their eyes first met, they both experienced what they describe as a “loud silence” accompanied by an “intense flow of intimacy.” Direction & Styling by @stefswoods Photography by @ryanmolnar Words by @cameronworsley Producer by Austin Huq Casting by @camerondavid__ Hair by Noriko @norinorinorikohair Make up by @anri_omori @erika_leadbeater

In our latest culture war, Pippa Garner was already a decorated veteran, fighting both church and state with biting wit and whiplash ingenuity. Discussing her gender reassignment surgery in Brussels in 1993 with @hansulrichobrist in AUTRE SS23 Utopia Issue: “For me, the sex change thing was a material act. I never had a sense of being born in the wrong body. I had what they call a vaginoplasty. Now, part of me is European [laughs].” Philippa Venus Garner (May 22, 1942-December 30, 2024) #pippagarner

PIPPA VENUS GARNER (May 22, 1942-December 30, 2024). Appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson demonstrating the Half-Suit. 1977. #pippagarner

PIPPA VENUS GARNER (May 22, 1942-December 30, 2024) Revolutionary, ahead of her time, and beyond prescient—she saw the world before it happened. We were lucky enough to feature her in our SS23 Utopia Issue. An interview with @hansulrichobrist : “You know, I’m just at an appliance, like that radio over there, or the car sitting outside. The body that I was assigned to, I didn’t pick it. I didn’t say I want to be white, middle class, and heterosexual. So, if I am nothing more than another appliance, why not have some fun with it?” Photographs by @jesperdlund at her home in Long Beach, California #pippagarner #utopia #rip

Goodbye 2024… Hello 2025 #newyear #newfear