Afrodite: A Celebration Of The Variegated Female Essence In Contrast To The Standardization Of Beauty

 

gloves ANASTASIA BULL, earrings model's own

 

photography, casting & set design by Erika Denis
photography assisted by Mimi Dey
styling by Daniela Benaim
styling assisted by Victoria Maldonado & Ana Flores
makeup by Mari Kuno
hair by Aya Kuraoka

LEFT: trousers ANASTASIA BULL, bikini panty HUNZA G
RIGHT: dress COSTAIIA, necklace WAIVORI

LEFT: earring ANASTASIA BULL
RIGHT: total look (bag, earrings and shoes) BURBERRY

LEFT: coat SIMONE ROCHA, shorts stylist's own
RIGHT: dress VELVET GLOVE, earrings ESPELETIA, shoes JOHN LAWRENCE SULLIVAN

LEFT: dress BY EFRAIN MOGOLLON
vest VINTAGE EMANUEL UNGARO, trousers VELVET GLOVE

LEFT: dress SONG FOR THE MUTE, bag ANASTASIA BULL
RIGHT: total look (top, miniskirt, bag and shoes) PAULA CANOVAS DEL VAS, socks stylist's own

 

total look (dress and bodysuit) BURBERRY , earrings model's own

 

models: Florence @ MILK Models , Vakare and Precious @ ANTI Agency, Yiling, Willow, & Altagracia

Paola Pivi "Project for Etchigo-Tsumari" Opening at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, Italy

Contemporary artist Paola Pivi interacts with Renaissance architecture, with a surreal and colorful inflatable staircase over 20 metres tall in the courtyard of Palazzo Strozzi. The celebrated Italian contemporary artist will be invading Palazzo Strozzi with a monumental installation entitled Untitled (Project for Etchigo-Tsumari). The installation will be on view until February 28, 2016 at Piazza degli Strozzi, 50123 Florence, Italy. photographs by Beatrice Lontani

Andrea Kvas CAMPO @ Museo Marino Marini

Thin, uniform slabs of painted wood lean against the corners of Museo Marino Marini's Sacello (underground Chapel). Splotches of vibrant and saturated colors betray the skill of a lackadaisical fence painter who couldn't be bothered to finish his work. Or maybe he decided to import his leftovers. Applications of paint have been built up in layers and each fragment stands on its own as a sliver of a painting, each hinting at their individual grand potential. At eye level, a section laid diagonally between two walls blocks passage and demands attention. The impressions of paint create an interchangeable visual rhythm. Though immobile, the slabs emanate stoicism in their collective involvement: "United we stand, divided we fall", they seem to say. In the adjacent altar room where thick polyurethane and wooden branches have been piled up on a windowsill, we're left no choice but to imagine a post-catastrophic world - one where vestiges of culture are kept on hand only for fuel and heating purposes. Unable to afford the luxury of optimism in our time of economic turmoil, where historic buildings have been sold off to banks and museums have shuttered their doors for the lack of resources, Kvas's sculptures map out a desolate landscape. At least we're given the choice to rid ourselves of the remnants or participate in regeneration. Andrea Kvas's Campo, curated by Barbara Casavecchia, will be on view until April 6, 2013 at Museo Marino Marini, Piazza di San Pancrazio, Florence, Italy. Text and photography by Yanyan Huang 

Quadri da una Collezione @ Sensus

A selection of work curated by Claudio Cosma and Pier Luigi Iazzi. Artists include Tracy Emin, Fabrizio Corneli, Alighiero Boetti, James Lee Byars, Han Bing, and others. Available by appointment or on Saturday evenings from 6-8. On view until Feb 28 2013 at Sensus, Viale Gramsci, 42. Florence, Italy. Text and photography by Yanyan Huang 

Oliviero Toscani Launches New Calender

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Italian shock photographer Oliviero Toscani has released a new calendar at an unveiling in Florence, Italy -- a calendar featuring 12 penis close-ups in an ad for a group of companies that make naturally-tanned leather. The flamboyant photographer launched the calendar at an event in Florence also attended by famously well-endowed Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi, who said that people should "de-dramatise" sex and put an end to "bigotry". Toscani last year focused on women's genitalia for a calendar for the same Vera Pelle consortium, which brought censure from Italy's advertising watchdog.  Toscani is best known for his controversial ad campaigns for the Italian clothes maker Benetton, which itself courted controversy last year with a series of photo montages of rival world leaders kissing each other.

Rodarte: Fra Angelico Collection

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RODARTE: Fra Angelico Collection, on view starting tomorrow at the LACMA's Italian Renaissance gallery, features a group of extraordinary gowns by Kate and Laura Mulleavy. The collection is inspired by Italian art, specifically the Renaissance frescoes in the monastery of San Marco by Fra Angelico in Florence, Italy, as well as the Baroque sculpture, Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598โ€“1680) in Rome. Rodarteโ€™s signature dressmaking techniques and sculptural details can be seen in each of the gowns. Silk fabrics (including chiffon, georgette, lamรฉ, organza, satin, taffeta, and tulle) are draped and manipulated to give form, texture, and tonal variety to the color palette inspired by the frescoes. The gowns are customized utilizing a variety of materials such as feathers, swarovski elements, sequins, and custom-made silk flowers. Hand-forged gold metallic accessories such as a headpiece, breastplate, and belts dramatically complete the look of several key gowns. The Fra Angelico collection will enter LACMAโ€™s Costume and Textiles Department, which houses over twenty-five thousand objects, representing more than one hundred cultures and two thousand years of human creativity in the textile arts.

Art Meets Rock

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RICHARD KERN, Nirvana, Courtney Love
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left: WILLIAM ENGLISH, Vivienne Westwood in Sex, 1975, courtesy of Maggs Brothers, London right: URS LรœTHI, Un'isola dell'aria, 1975, particolare, 28 fotografie, cm60x50 cad, Collezione Fabio e Virginia Gori
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IAIN FORSYTH & JANE POLLARD, A Rock'N'Roll Suicide, 1998, Live performance, Photo: David Cowlard courtesy Kate MacGarry, London

Museo Pecci di Prato in Florence, Italy presents an exhibition entiled LIVE! Art Meets Rock. The exhibition, curated by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini, adopts a suggestive perspective to show how the history of contemporary art and of rock music have followed parallel paths to contribute to the construction of the cultural universe of the last forty years. Music and the visual arts have crossed and overlapped, over time, engendering a unified and consistent landscape; what draws them together is the performative dimension, articulated according to the specific occasion within an exhibition or a concert. LIVE!offers a parallel and original reading of historic events by exhibiting paintings, sculptures, installations, video clips, artworks, LPs, graphic works, photographs, magazines and films. Artists include Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, William English, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, David LaChapelle and more. The exhibition will be accompanied by Live!, a book published by Rizzoli with contributions by Luca Beatrice and Marco Bazzini. LIVE! Art Meets Rock view at the Museo Pecci di Prato until September 16.  

The Erotic World of Harri Peccinotti

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Harri Peccinotti, who is nearly eighty years old and looks almost exactly like a wizard, is most well known for his erotic images of womenโ€“often cropped and close up focusing in on the delicious details, instead of giving away the whole picture. Peccinotti also has the distinction of shooting the Pirelli calendar two years in a row and is oft credited with upping its raunch factor to the level it stands today. This June 14 marks the opening of an exhibit at the Tethys gallery in Florence, Italyโ€“the exhibition will run until July 4 2011. www.tethysgallery.com

Angry Young Men: the Birth of Modernity

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A new exhibition at the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, dedicated to the early work of Picasso, Mirรณ and Dalรญ, which played a decisive role in the beginning of modern art in Spain, is opening next week. The exhibition concentrates on Picassoโ€™s pre-cubist period 1900 โ€“ 1905, whilst Juan Mirรณโ€™s works of 1915โ€“1920 are presented along with Salvador Daliโ€™s from 1920โ€“1925, both artists painting in the period before the discovery of surrealism. Each artist will be represented by 25 โ€“ 30 masterpieces selected to show aspects of the three artists in their earliest periods, works that are rarely shown in mainstream catalogues and exhibitions. For instance, Picassoโ€™s early work was often colored by his strong political convictions. Picasso, Mirรณ, Dalรญ. Angry Young Men: the Birth of Modernity is showing from March 12 to July 17, 2011. www.palazzostrozzi.com