The Ballets Russes introduced an unprecedented freedom into the arts, influencing not only ballet and theater, but also fashion, visual arts, and interior design. An unprecedented, oversized special edition, out this November by luxury publisher Assouline, celebrates the explosion of creativity in Western Europe created by Serge Diaghilev and his collaborators—including Igor Stravinsky, Leon Bakst, and Pablo Picasso. Over 200 pages feature photography and drawings tipped on watercolor cotton paper. You can purchase the book here.
[fashion week] BLK DNM "Film 2"
Johan Lindeberg, designer of the BLK DNM label, premiered a new fashion film, entitled "Film 2", this week during fashion week with a private screening at the SOHO store in New York. Directed by Martin de Thurah – starring Raina Hammer.
[FASHION WEEK] WARBY PARKER Guerrilla Eyewear Show
WARBY PARKER eyewear invades the NY Public Library yesterday – models sat quietly reading the classics, but the covers were replaced with labels specifying the style of glasses the models were wearing, such as the Thatcher and Everett. Brilliant.
PATTI SMITH: Babelogue + Outside Society
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PATTI SMITH: BABELOGUE: The Hunter College Art Galleries present Patti Smith: 9.11 Babelogue – on view from September 8-December 3, 2011 – twenty-six works on paper by the esteemed poet, performer, and visual artist Patti Smith as a response to the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. The artist’s elegiac homage does not align the Twin Towers with one nation, religion, or race, but instead offers them as symbols of the universal resiliency of the human spirit. Smith’s “9.11” series was created between 2001 and 2002 and will be shown in its entirety for the first time in New York, in the Bertha and Karl Leubsdorf Art Gallery, to coincide with the tenth anniversary of 9/11.
PATTI SMITH: OUTSIDE SOCIETY: Patti Smith raises the curtain on Outside Society, a new collection of her signature songs on the Arista and Columbia labels. The landmark 18-song release marks the first single-CD collection to span Patti's entire body of recorded work. The chronologically arranged tracks move from 1975 (her debut album, Horses, with "Gloria" and "Free Money") through 2007 (Twelve, with her cover of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit").
Andy Warhol's Headlines
The first exhibition to fully examine the works that Andy Warhol created on the theme of news headlines will premiere at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from September 25, 2011, to January 2, 2012. Warhol: Headlines will define and present some 80 works—paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculpture, film, video, and television—based largely on the tabloid news, revealing the artist's career-long obsession with the sensational side of contemporary media. Source materials for the art will be presented for comparison, demonstrating the ways in which Warhol cropped, altered, obscured, and reoriented the original texts and images, underscoring his role as both editor and author. After Washington, the exhibition will be on view at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt from February 11 to May 13, 2012.
[BOOKS] Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles
In 1946, the tabloid photographer known as Weegee relocated from New York City to Los Angeles. Abandoning the grisly crime scenes for which he was best known, Weegee trained his camera instead on Hollywood celebrities, starlets, autograph seekers, and shop-window mannequins, sometimes distorted through trick lenses and multiple exposures. “Now I could really photograph the subjects I liked,” said Weegee of his newfound career in Los Angeles, “I was free.” Presenting approximately 200 photographs, many of which have never before been shown, the book, Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles, explores Weegee’s related work as an author, filmmaker, and photo-essayist. You can purchase the book here.
Joy-Art: Ladislav Sutnar
The Czech-American designer Ladislav Sutnar (1897—1976) created many internationally-acclaimed design icons. At the age of 65, he delved into painting. Now on view at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, U.S. Venus is the first independent exhibition of Sutnar’s art in forty years and presents his paintings of female nudes never shown before. Sutnar called these works Venus and exhibited them under the label Joy-Art. In this art manifesto, he formulated his concept of art for the 21st century – as vigorous, humanistic and joyful. His geometric figures rendered in contrasting colors reflect American painting of the time, namely Pop Art. U.S. Venus is on view until October 8.
[UPCOMING] David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers
David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers: Drawings on iPhones and iPads will be on view at the Royal Ontario Museum this October. "The Institute for Contemporary Culture presents the North American debut of this cutting-edge exhibition, which reveals David Hockney’s extraordinary use of this novel new artistic medium and its impact on shaping visual culture today. Hockney is one of the world’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, and Fresh Flowers is his first major show in Canada in over two decades. The exhibition features approximately 200 iPhone and iPad drawings displayed on 20 iPod Touches and 20 iPads." On view October 8 until January 1, 2012.
[MILAN] Boschi Di Stefano Private Collection
The Casa-Museo Boschi Di Stefano houses a small yet amazing collection of over 200 works that were acquired over the course of the lives of the patrons Antonio Boschi and Marieda Di Stefano. A trip through the house is well worth one's time with Marussig, Campigli, Manzoni and Mirandi covering the walls. Casa-Museo Boschi Di Stefano. Via G. Jan, 15 - 20129 Milano, Italia. Text by Lily Harris
William Etty: Art and Controversy
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William Etty: Dawn of Love, 1828
William Etty's art divided public opinion during the first half of the nineteenth century more than that of any other British artist, with the possible exception of Turner. During his 40-year career he produced a wide variety of landscapes and portraits, but is most famous for his repeated use of the female nude. Many believed that the splendor of his richly colored canvases was designed to disguise his underlying preoccupation with titillating forms of bodily display. Etty was repeatedly encouraged to 'turn from his wicked ways' and make his art 'fit for decent company'. At the same time, one critic declared Etty to be 'the greatest of all our history painters'. Another said the brilliancy of his colors were almost 'too much for human eyes to dwell upon'. He was described as the natural heir of the Old Masters; as 'rivaling Rubens and the great Venetians on their own ground'. An exhibition, entitled William Etty: Art and Controversy, at the York Art Gallery includes more than 100 of Etty's works from Tate, the Royal Academy, the Royal Collection, Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Southampton Art Gallery and Manchester Art Gallery, as well as many works from York Art Gallery. On view until January 22, 2012.
IO ECHO
JOANNA GIKA of IO ECHO at the premier of SAL at the Venice Film Festival in Italy. IO ECHO wrote music for CAPUT – a short film collaboration between JAMES FRANCO & HARMONY KORINE for REBEL which opens today on Isola Della Cortosa as part of the VENICE BIENNALE. Photography by ADARSHA BENJAMIN
James Franco at the Premier of Sal
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JAMES FRANCO at the premier of his film SAL, about the final hours of the life of actor SAL MINEO. Venice Film Festival, Italy. Photography by ADARSHA BENJAMIN
Selma Hayek at the Gucci Ceremony for Women in Cinema
68th Venice Film Festival – Tonight MADONNA presented the 2011 Gucci Award for Women in Cinema. Headed by Gucci's creative director FRIDA GIANNINI the jury consisted of the actress ROBIN WRIGHT, actress VALERIA GOLINO, JAMES FRANCO and film journalist GIULIA D'AGNOLO VALLAN. This years award was given to the Tree of Life actress JESSICA CHASTAIN. Photo by ADARSHA BENJAMIN
The Persistence of Collage
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Linder: Detail of Untitled, 1978.
The new Arts Council Collection touring exhibition Transmitter/Receiver traces some of the uses of collage in British art from the first influences of the Parisian avant-garde, in the early work of Ben Nicholson and British Surrealists Eileen Agar and Roland Penrose, through to present day practitioners such as Steve Claydon, David Noonan and Idris Khan. Bringing together over 50 works it includes traditional collage on paper, alongside painting, sculpture, film and slide projections, all drawn from the Arts Council Collection. Transmitter/Receiver: The Persistence of Collage is now on view at its first stop at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art in the UK until November 6.
Rebel: Behind the Scenes at Bungalow 2, Chateau Marmont
James Franco's Rebel opens September 4 on Isola Della Cortosa in Italy. Photo by Adarsha Benjamin
Under the Big Black Sun
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Film still from experimental filmmaker Bruce Connor's Marilyn Times Five. As part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time initiative, MOCA Los Angeles will present Under the Big Black Sun: California Art 1974–1981, on view at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA from October 1, 2011 – featuring works by more than 130 artists, this exhibition is the most comprehensive survey to examine the exceptional diversity of art practices in California during the mid- to late 1970s.
Ain’t Got No How Watchamacallit
On May 25th 1986, a nineteen year old Kurt Cobain was arrested for spraypainting “Ain’t got no how watchamacallit" on a brick wall in Aberdeen, Washington.
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 LÜTHI, 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.
Elite of the Obscure
Harry Gamboa, Jr, Cruel, 1975. Super-8 film. Showing Willie Herrón III
This September, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Asco: Elite of the Obscure, A Retrospective, 1972–1987, the first retrospective to present the wide-ranging work of the Chicano performance and conceptual art group Asco. Geographically and culturally segregated from the still-nascent Los Angeles contemporary art scene and aesthetically at odds with the emerging Chicano art movement, Asco members united to explore and exploit the unlimited media of the conceptual. Creating art by any means necessary — often using their bodies and guerilla tactics—Asco merged activism and performance and, in doing so, pushed the boundaries of what Chicano art might encompass. Asco: Elite of the Obscure includes nearly 150 artworks, featuring video, sculpture, painting, performance ephemera and documentation, collage, correspondence art, photography (including their signature No Movies, or invented film stills), and a series of works commissioned on occasion of the exhibition. Asco: Elite of the Obscure is on view at the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art September 4 to December 4.
Rebel on Certosa Island
