Mike Kelley Dead From Apparent Suicide

Pictured above, Abbey Meaker photographs a piece by Mike Kelley at Art Basel Miami last December. Mike Kelley, who has reportedly ended his own life at 57 years old, was an artist with an outsider spirit who found himself not only on the inside of the art world, but on the top, and found it too hard a cross to bear. Kelley's work involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance and video. He often worked collaboratively and had done projects with artists Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler and John Miller. Kelley was often associated with the concept of abjection, "the state of being cast off." Photograph by Natalia Vuley.

John Cage Turns 100

Art by Daniel B. Sierra

American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist John Cage, who died in 1992, would have been 100 this year and there are a slew of events to celebrate the centenary – including EVERYDAYJOHNCAGE in the city of Rimini, Italy where every single day of 2012 from January 1st to December 31st a viral system distributes publicly and privately, fragments and materials related to John Cage, and  an exhibition entitled Things Not Seen Before: A Tribute to John Cage, a visual art exhibition at Tempus Projects, organized by Independent Curator Jade Dellinger. Inspired by a line from a letter the curator (as a student – in the late 1980’s) received from the late, great composer concerning the work of Marcel Duchamp, Cage noted: “I am not interested in the names of movements but rather in seeing and making things not seen before.” Visit www.johncage.org to see all events.

Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s

Richard Prince, 1980

The art produced during the 1980s veered between radical and conservative, capricious and political, socially engaged and art historically aware. This Will Have Been: Art, Love & Politics in the 1980s, an exhibition on view this month at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chigacago, provides viewers with an overview of the artistic production of these heady days, as well as impart the decade’s sense of political and aesthetic urgency by placing many of the decade’s competing factions in close proximity to one another. On view February 11, 2012 to June 3, 2012 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 220 E Chicago Ave, Chicago IL

Russell Young Retrospective

Perhaps Russel Young's most famous series, entitled Dirty Pretty Things, which includes the diamond dusted, silk-screened images of Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe crying, James Dean, Elvis, amongst others – along with his Helter Skelter series, painted after a near death experience after contracting the H1N1 virus – will be on view this March at the Goss-Michael Foundation Gallery in Dallas, Texas.  Russel Young Retrospective will be on view at a retrospective at the Goss-Michael Foundation Gallery from March 7 to March 31, 2012. Goss-Michael Foundation, 405 Turtle Creek Boulevard Dallas ,TX.

Aurel Schmidt: Reveries Of A Lost Life Mask

There's an old Turkish proverb: "like a butterfly on a donkey's dick" used to express the disdain of two objects which just don't go together or match.... If the proverb is taken literally and further illustrated by Aurel Schmidt, one might just think the two are a match made in heaven! Aurel's intricately drawn works merge flora, insects, beers, genitalia, condoms, cigarettes etc into delicately composed works. The individual components of the compositions are themselves traces and elements from a downtown life which seems to consist of endless nights! Artist Aurel Schmidt and poet Franz Wrights collaborative book Reveries Of A Life Mask is now available. The 68-page publication has been produced in a limited run of 1,000 by Morel Books.

Tom Poulton. The Secret Art of an English Gentleman

Thomas Leycester Poulton was an English magazine and medical book illustrator, born in 1897. Upon his death in 1963 it was discovered he was also a prolific and imaginative erotic artist who produced hundreds of sketches and finished drawings of women proudly and exuberantly displaying themselves in ways shocking to conservative post-war Britain. The archive remained hidden until the 1990s, when a collector of erotic artifacts passed it on to a fellow collector willing to share it with the world. Though Tom Poulton's work tells us much about English society between 1948 and 1963, there is a universal quality to these images of joyous, uninhibited sexuality that transcends time and place. A new edition of Tom Poulton: The Secret Art of an English Gentleman published by Taschen, the first of which was released by Taschen, will be available this March.

Intimate Stranger

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Intimate Stranger, an exhibition on view now Kunstmuseum Basel, presenting the body of work of photographer Karlheinz Weinberger, is rarely on public display. Shown together with magazines and a selection of vintage fashion, these pictures document a bygone youth culture in Zurich. The movement emerged after World War II, driven by the desire to undermine prevailing notions of "Swiss propriety." For most of his life, Weinberger worked in a warehouse at Siemens-Albis, Zurich. A self-taught photographer, he dedicated his free time to this art, portraying his lovers and other people he met in the street. Starting in the late 1940s, he frequently published his pictures in Der Kreis, a homosexual magazine that garnered international attention, signing his work with the pseudonym "Jim." In 1958, he launched a major project, for which he would follow a gang of "Halbstarke" (half strong) for an extended period of time. Intimate Stranger is on view until April 15, 2012 at the Kunstmuseum, Basel – Sankt Alban-Graben 16 4051 Basle, Switzerland.

War, Sex, Love

Illustration by Alberto Vargas

This timely exhibition, Love and War, drawn entirely from the Kinsey Institute’s art and library collections, features visual material from the American Civil War to the 21st century. Many of the items represent popular culture in America during World War II, as Alfred Kinsey and his colleagues spent those years traveling around the country collecting a variety of research material as well as data for their study of human sexual behavior. Cartoons, propaganda leaflets, postcards, photographs, magazines, pin-up calendars, drawings, prints, and a variety of novelty objects are featured, as well as a selection of contemporary images by Garrie Maguire, Len Prince, Herbert Ascherman, and other photographers whose work addresses war in the modern age. Love and War is on view at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, through April 6, 2012, Bloomington, Indiana.

LSD Song

Thierry Mouillé – "LSD Song", "Brass Space, Pavillon 1", "Archisong", "Opus froissé" and "Le livre des peintures, Partitions" From a geometrical analogy between the LSD molecule and an electronic battery to digital prints of crumpled musical scores, or even a musical sculpture of architectural proportions, The works of Thierry Mouillé belong to the art of scheming and aim to trap ideas and perceptions.  On view at Espace culturel Louis Vuitton's current exhibition entitled Anicroches — Variations, choral and fugue on view until February 19, 60, rue de Bassano 101, avenue des Champs-Élysées, Paris.

Never Mind The Pollocks

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James R. Ford

Suite Gallery in Wellington, New Zealand presents an evolving touring exhibition of male contemporary artists based in New Zealand, curated by James R Ford, Never Mind the Pollocks features artists who employ intellect, keen observation and a lightness of touch in their work. Their output suggests a number of current shifts: in scale and discipline, in the attitudes of and toward male artists, in the way artists now make and contextualize their work. The show is a response to these issues and, from curator James R Ford’s point of view, how he, as an artist now living in New Zealand, situates his own practice within these considerations. Never Mind The Pollocks will tour to venues in Gisborne and Auckland later in 2012/early 2013, with artists and works being added along the way. Never Mind The Pollocks will be on view at the Suite Gallery until February 6, 2012, 108 Oriental Parade, Wellington.

Anja Czioska 8mm Film Retrospective

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On view this month at the MMK Museum in Frankfurt, the short Super 8 films of Anja Czioska in a retrospective of the filmmaker's twenty-year career. "I will show bathing and shower filmportraits of me and my friends, experimental film visions on single-frame, performances, happening, portraits, me and my camera, scenes of daily art like filmed during my travellings to Amsterdam, Berlin, New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and home base diaries of a Frankfurt artist's life," says Czioska. On view January 25 at the MMK in Frankfurt Lecture Hall.

Banks Violette at Blum & Poe

Blum & Poe gallery in Los Angeles presents an exhibition of new work by Banks Violette, his first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles. Simultaneously rooted in Minimalist form and contemporary in its use of industrial materials, Violette’s artistic practice freely employs diverse media, such as neon tubing, powder-coated steel, glass, salt, resin, and aluminum. Violette draws inspiration from a variety of subcultural communities, including hardcore punk and drone metal bands like Sunn O))), political conspiracy theorists, both left and right-wing religious fanatics, and most recently NASCAR and the iconography which populates the sport’s predominantly southern fan base. As if arrested in time, Violette’s sculptural objects and installations function as elegant reminders of darker moments past and present. On view until February 11, Blum and Poe, 2727 S. La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to Last Week

sperone_westwater_marble_sculpture

Sperone Westwater gallery in New York presents an exhibition of white marble sculptures dating from 350 B.C. to the present day. This survey includes Greek and Roman antiquities, Neoclassical sculptures, and works by modern and contemporary European and American artists. The exhibition, entitled Marble Sculpture from 350 B.C. to Last Week, is on view until February 25, Sperone Westwater,257 Bowery, New York, NY.

Oliviero Toscani Launches New Calender

penis_calendar_by_oliviero_toscani

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.

Ai Weiwei: Interlacing

Ai Weiwei – Interlacing is the first major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei. It foregrounds Ai Weiwei the communicator – the documenting, analyzing, interweaving artist who communicates via many channels. Ai Weiwei already used photography in his New York years, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has incessantly documented the everyday urban and social realities in China, discussing it over blogs and Twitter. Photographs of radical urban transformation, of the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented together with his art photography projects, the Documenta project Fairytale, the countless blog and cell phone photographs. A comprehensive book accompanies this exhibition. Ai Weiwei – Interlacing is on view at the Jeu de Paume in Paris from February 21, 2012 to April 29, 2012.

Collage Culture

One of the coolest new publications of late–Collage Culture: Examining the 21st Century's Identity Crisis is a new book written by Aaron Rose and Mandy Kahn and designed by Brian Roettinger. Sure to spark debate, a pair of writers examines our century's identity crisis via two separate essays. In "The Death of Subculture," Aaron Rose (director of Beautiful Losers and co-curator of MoCA's record-smashing exhibit Art in the Streets) makes an impassioned call to arms, urging the next generation of artists to end the collage era by adopting a philosophy of creative innovation. And in her essay "Living in the Mess," Mandy Kahn (columnist, Foam magazine) considers whether the collage of references that surrounds us might negatively affect the way we feel. A companion recording of this incendiary work of non-fiction contains readings of the book's texts with an original score created by No Age. A box set edition of 100 is available which contains a cassette tape of a recording of a discuss between the two authors, books, postcards, an LP, and signed photographs by Autumne de Wilde. [Find a copy here]

Experimental Film in Los Angeles

Los Angeles Film Forum presents Alternative Projections: Experimental Film in Los Angeles 1945 - 1980, an exploration of the community of filmmakers, artists, curators and programmers who contributed to the creation and presentation of experimental film and video in Southern California in the postwar era. This website is the culmination of three years of research into the archives of film venues and organizations, the recording of 35 oral histories, and the creation of a database, the first of its kind, which catalogs the films, exhibitions, organization, and people active during this prolific era in experimental film and video making. Alternative Projections is part of Los Angeles' sweeping exhibition of art in Los Angeles called Pacific Standard Time. Upcoming screenings of note include Strange Notes and Nervous Breakdowns: Punk and Media Art, 1974-1981, a collection of rarely screened performances by punk bands of the era, performance art, and D.I.Y. works by the Screamers, X, Suburban Lawns, Black Flag, Los Plugz, Johanna Went, and more (MOCA Ahmanson Theater, MOCA, 250 South Grand Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90012) on view January 12 at 7 p.m.

Photo50 at London Art Fair

Found photograph by Julie Cockburn

London Art Fair presents Photo50, its  annual showcase of contemporary photography at the  Business Design Centre, Islington, from 18–22 January 2012. With the title The New Alchemists: contemporary  photographers transcending the print, curator Sue Steward  has selected 50 works by contemporary artists whose practice sees them adorn, transform, subvert or deface the  photographic print. They are: Veronica Bailey, David Birkin, Aliki Braine, Julie Cockburn, Melinda Gibson, Noemie Goudal, Joy Gregory, Walter Hugo, Lesley Parkinson, Jorma Puranen, Esther Teichmann and Michael Wolf.  This exhibition focuses on new techniques and approaches to re-presenting the photographic image and how artists are involving other media. Whether reclaiming traditional techniques, exploiting digital developments or employing other forms of craft and media, the work presented in Photo50 challenges our assumptions about what a photograph is, or can be. London Art Fair is on view at the Design Center in Islington, London, January 18 to January 22, 

NORMA MARKLEY: Yes No

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Y Gallery presents an exhibition of Norma Markley’s recent work—neon, silkscreen prints, and sewn drawings—inspired by the rhythm and language from literary sources and images from a film to explore the notions of sex, on the one hand, and the concept of answering questions with a yes or no, on the other hand. Yes, No is on view until February 5 2012.