AN OBSCENE DIARY: THE VISUAL WORLD OF SAM STEWARD

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"An Obscene Diary The Visual World of Sam Steward" chronicles the extraordinary visual world of a talented and largely unknown, writer, artist, photographer, and sexual outlaw. The edition, limited to 1,000 copies presents a diverse and powerful collection of drawings, paintings, sculptures, decorative objects, illustrations and photographs that are remarkably varied in style, and often quite contradictory in mood and tone. Bound and slipcased, the collection presents more than 750 images, many of which are reproduced in color. This edition complements the forthcoming biography by Justin Spring, entitled "Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade" and presents a wealth of previously unpublished material, including a quantity of highly erotic and sexually explicit polaroids taken in the early 1950s.  www.antinouspress.com

All Utopias Fell

Artist Michael Oatman's All Utopias Fell sits atop the rafters of the old transistor factory in North Adams, Massachusetts–now home to the Massachusetts Museum of Modern Art.   Constructed from an old airstream trailer and parachutes as if it just dropped in from outer space. "...1970s-era ‘satellite’ that has crash-landed at MASS MoCA. This beautifully reflective, repurposed Airstream trailer – with large parachutes and active solar panels – is inspired by an earlier era of pulp aeronauts like Buck Rogers, Tom Swift and Tom Corbett: Space Cadet, as well as the works of Giotto, Jules Verne, NASA, and Chris Marker’s 1962 film La Jetée. Visitors will be allowed to climb a staircase and enter into the craft where they will encounter The Library of the Sun. Hybridizing a domestic space, a laboratory and a library, it has the feel of a hermitage, where the occupant will ‘be right back’, only it is 30 years later. www.massmoca.com

Text and Photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

Falos y Vaginas

In honor of Eros, the University of Antioquia, Colombia hosts an exhibition, entitled Falos y Vaginas (Phallus and Vaginas) which explores organs of pleasure represented in painting, ceramics, sculpture and photography, in a historical review of eroticism and as well as an encounter with science.  Falos y Vaginas is on view until November Medellin's University of Antioquia Museum (MUUA) Calle 67 #53-108 TEL: (574) 263-0011

Basquiat + Le Book

Le Book, the international reference for the creative industry, announces the release of its 2011 New York edition, curated by Tamra Davis (director of the recently released film tribute to Basquiat, The Radiant Child), art direction by Shepard Fairey’s Studio Number One, and dressed by one of the most recognizable artists of the twentieth century, graffiti artist and neo-expressionist painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 – 1988). www.lebook.com

Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project

"The Tarot deck is many things: revered diviner of knowledge, feared revealer of hidden secrets, and critiqued promoter of quackish myth. Regardless of one's take on Tarot card reading, it is certain that the history and imagery of these mysterious cards is ripe territory for contemporary artists to come up with their own interpretations of the 78 personas that make up the standard Tarot deck. And that is exactly what my divine colleague Stacy Engman set about doing as she assembled a group of some of today’s most dynamic artists and asked them to submit a new work based on a tarot card personally assigned by her. The resulting images are just as whimsical as the readings that emerge from an actual reading of the cards. The amazing group of artists included in the project created cards in a range of media (photography, painting and collage) and each infused an additional sense of allure and magic into this already heavily charged lam of mystery. Not only may viewers enjoy the actual works in the exhibition of the original cards, but they may also take them home in this unique catalogue in the form of a deck of Tarot cards in and of itself!" On view at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburg, PA until August 7th –www.warhol.org

A Celebration of the Poet Anna Akhmatova

If you happen to be in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Russian Cultural Center of Science and Culture jointly with the Literary Club “Parichay Sahitya Parishad” is holding a literary evening dedicated to the birth anniversary of the 20th century Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.  "She wrote with apparent simplicity and naturalness and her rhyming was classical compared to such radical contemporary writers as Marina Tsvetaeva and Vladimir Mayakovsky." June 23, 2011, 5:30 p.m RCSC, 24, Ferozeshah Road, New Delhi, India

The Caillebotte Brothers' Private World

From 25 March to 11 July 2011, the Jacquemart-André Museum is presenting The Caillebotte brothers’ private world. Painter and photographer. An encounter between Impressionism and photography, this exhibition evokes the artistic and private world of the Caillebotte brothers. www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com

WES LANG Sittin' on a Rainbow

Sittin’ on a Rainbow, is a one-evening presentation at the Chateau Marmont, of Wes Lang’s intricate drawings, each executed directly onto the Hotel’s stationery. These pieces, all produced during the artist‘s month-long “residency” in room 34 at the infamous Hollywood hotel, provide a visual journal of his experience there, and reveal the contemplative effect this sojourn had on his work. Thursday, June 23, 2011, 8 PM Chateau Marmont, 8221 Sunset Blvd.

The World Belongs to You

Boris Mikhailov

Boris Mikhailov

The World Belongs to You, an exhibition presented by the François Pinault Foundation, at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy, brings together works by artists from different practices, generations, and backgrounds, exploring artists’ relationships to history, reality and its own representation. "The exhibition revolves around major themes of contemporary history: from the breakdown of symbols, to the temptation of self-withdrawal and isolation, the attraction of violence and spirituality in a troubled and globalized world.” (Caroline Bourgeois) www.palazzograssi.com

[AMERICAN ART] The Early Paintings of Eric Fischl

Eric Fischl's early paintings are haunting and erie impressions of a uniquely American landscape charred by the hopeless fire of the American dream–stoked by the delusion that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is free and ours for the taking. A boy masturbating in a plastic waiting pool and another boy standing in front of a woman sprawled out naked in a darkened room with one hand behind his back in a purse are visual metaphors are our own depraved, amoral, and homicidal predilections–we're capable of anything.

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Eric Fischl's early paintings, mostly painted in the early 80s, are on display till the end of the this week at the Skarstedt Gallery in New York.  www.skarstedt.com

 

 

Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics

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Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 is the first New York exhibition surveying the extraordinary diversity of Punk and Post-Punk graphic design. The exhibition showcases a wide range of American and British artistry, with influences that include the Bauhaus, Futurism, Dadaism, Pop Art, Constructivism and Expressionism. The exhibition presents features over 150 rare posters, along with fanzines, flyers, clothing, badges and stickers. Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, 1976-82 will be on view from July 14th through August 19th, 2011 at the Steven Kasher Gallery.

Fellini, La Grande Parade

A new exhibition at the Musée de l’Elysée reveals the sources of Fellini’s inspiration. Focussing on Fellini’s work through his obsessions by presenting the images that inspired him, those of which he dreamed and those he brought to life, Fellini, la Grande parade provides a new point of view on the maestro’s work. www.elysee.ch

The Color of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art

portrait of GIORGIO DE CHIRICO

On view now at the Vancouver Art Gallery, The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art features 350 works by leading Surrealist artists, including André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Leonora Carrington, Brassaï, André Masson, Man Ray, Edith Rimmington, Wifredo Lam and many others. On view until September 25, 2011 www.vanartgallery.ca.bc

AMIE DICKE: Infinitely Suffering Thing

Dissolving floors of memory, 2007

Artist Amie Dicke, from Rotterdam, transforms magazine pictures into intriguing works of art and so much more. On view now at the Venice Bienalle see close to 27 gallons of foundation get dumped and sprayed over an environ specially constructed by the artist. 

Detail Destruction of Memory, Infinitely Suffering Thing, 2008

Violent Contradiction, 2008

Effacement, 2008

Infallible, Close-Up

"One hundred liters of foundation (make-up) is going to be sprayed automatically by spray-guns that hang above an interior I have set up in the middle of the industrial environment of the former AkzoNobel factory. This room mirrors my private memories. Most of the objects which I have (re-)used would normally be thrown away, but some stuff just tends to stay, because you keep carrying them with you either mentally or physically. In a way they have become physical reminders of our inability to let go of life. The many layers of foundation will cover up the original colors or patterns of the objects and eventually the whole room will be in one tone, concealed under a thick layer of foundation, like a strange make-up. The interior will be changed into a skin colored "flesh", like a radical makeover that will turn the dead objects into a self-portrait."

www.amiedicke.com