Making Faces

Portland, Maine – On view at the Portland Museum of Art, two newly acquired portfolios by Berenice Abbott and Robert Doisneau, filled with portraits of famous artists and actors of the mid-20th century, prompted this look at the art of photographic portraiture. Drawn from the Museum’s growing collection of celebrity portraits, the exhibition of 35 works will examine the way in which appearance, poses, and props help to define the public perception of an artist’s work, whether it be on the stage or in a museum. Making Faces: Photographic Portraits of Actors and Artists is on view until April 8 at the Portland Museum of Art, Seven Congress Square, Portland, Maine.

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.

LES AMIES DE PLACE BLANCHE

Originally published in 1983, Les Amies de Place Blanche, rereleased by Dewi Lewis Publishing, focuses on the transsexual community living around the Place Blanche district of Paris in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The book established Christer Strömholm’s reputation as one of the leading photographers of the twentieth century. ‘This is a book about insecurity. A portrayal of those living a different life in that big city of Paris, of people who endured the roughness of the streets. This is a book about humiliation, about the smell of whores and night life in cafés. This is a book about the quest for self-identity, about the right to live, about the right to own and control one’s own body. This is also a book about friendship, an account of the life we lived in the place Blanche and place Pigalle neighbourhood. Its market, its boulevard and the small hotels we resided in. These are pictures from another time. A time when de Gaulle was president and France was at war against Algeria. These are pictures of people whose lives I shared and whom I think I understood. These are pictures of women – biologically born as men – that we call ‘transsexuals’. As for me, I call them ‘my friends of place Blanche’. This friendship started here, in the early 60s and it has been going on for 22 years.’ – Christer Strömholm, 1983. The book includes the original essays by Strömholm and publisher Johan Ehrenberg as well as newly commissioned texts by Jackie and Nana, two of the women who feature in many photographs in the book. The introduction is by Hélène Hazera, a leading French journalist, actress, director, and television producer who is also a transsexual. Available now in the UK and in the US next month.

The Collected Poems of Eugenio Montale

Eugenio Montale is universally recognized as having brought the great Italian lyric tradition that began with Dante into the twentieth century with unrivaled power and brilliance. Montale is a love poet whose deeply beautiful, individual work confronts the dilemmas of modern history, philosophy, and faith with courage and subtlety; he has been widely translated into English and his work has influenced two generations of American and British poets. Jonathan Galassi's versions of Montale's major works—Ossi di seppia, Le occasioni, and La bufera e altro—are the clearest and most convincing yet, and his extensive notes discuss in depth the sources and difficulties of this dense, allusive poetry. A new collection of poems by Montale, compiled for a new book, offers English-language readers uniquely informed and readable access to the work of one of the greatest of all modern poets. [purchase]

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.

ASVOFF Barcelona

Barcelona hosts the first-ever Spanish edition of A Shaded View on Fashion Film (ASVOFF) created by Diane Pernet. A Shaded View on Fashion Film (ASVOFF) is an event that gathers together celebrated personalities from the worlds of fashion, art and cinema. The Barcelona edition will be innovative in launching the world’s first MOBILE FASHION FILM COMPETITION where two prizes will be awarded to the best short films produced on a mobile phone. ASVOFF Barcelona will be held at CaixaForum Barcelona from 24-27, January 2012.

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.

Paris, Portrait of a City

Photography by Helmut Newton

Paris, Portrait of a City is Taschen publishers new, vivid history of the capital of love and photography. A city built on two millennia of history, Paris is entering the third century of its love story with photography. It was on the banks of the Seine that Niépce and Daguerre officially gave birth to this new art that has flourished ever since, developing a distinctive language and becoming a vital tool of knowledge. Paris: Portrait of a Cityleads us through what Goethe described as a “universal city where every step upon a bridge or a square recalls a great past, where a fragment of history is unrolled at the corner of every street”. The history of Paris is recounted in photographs ranging from Daguerre’s early incunabula to the most recent images – an almost complete record of over a century and a half of transformations and a vast panorama spanning more than 600 pages and 500 photographs. This book brings together the past and the present, the monumental and the everyday, objects and people. Images captured by the most illustrious photographers – Daguerre, Marville, Atget, Lartigue, Brassaï, Kertész, Ronis, Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson and many more – but also by many unknown photographers, attempt to bottle just a little of that “Parisian air”, something of that particular poetry given out by the stones and inhabitants of a constantly changing city that has inspired untold numbers of writers and artists over the ages. Available March 1st here. 

Guillaume Apollinaire's Little Auto

Guillaume Apollinaire – whose writings ranged from plays to experimental poetry, from art criticism to erotica – was at the heart of literary and artistic life in early 20th-century Paris. Both his work and his flamboyant personality had a defining influence on the development of Surrealism, Dadaism and other artistic movements. In late 1914 Apollinaire swapped the high life of avant-garde Paris for the mud and desolation of war in the trenches. But his poems of this period are wholly different from those that for English readers have come to define the genre of war poetry: exploding shells are compared to champagne bottles, and juxtaposed with the orgy of destruction are nostalgia for antiquity, impatience for the future, melancholy and exuberance. Apollinaire died in 1918. The new translations in this bilingual edition, entitled The Little Auto comprise mostly poems written after 1914, but include ‘Zone’ (in the first English version since Samuel Beckett’s to match the original’s use of rhyme) and some other pre-war poems. A century later, they remain as daring and alive as when they were written. [purchase]

Billy Monk's Nightclub Photography

A new book is available of Billy Monk's nightclub photography. Billy Monk worked as a bouncer in the notorious Catacombs club in the dock area of Cape Town, South Africa, during the 1960s. He originally began taking pictures in the club with the intention of selling the photographs to the customers – the people he was photographing. His aim was not to make a social statement, but his money-making scheme quickly turned into something else as he increasingly captured the raw energy of the club, its decadence and tragedy, its humanity and joy. As someone who shared the experiences of those club-goers he was trusted by them and was able to convey their world and their experience with great energy and honesty. As photographer David Goldblatt has written in the forward: “These are photographs by an insider of insiders for insiders. If inhibitions were lowered by the seemingly vast quantities of brandy and Coke that were imbibed, trust, nevertheless, is powerfully evident. Not simply in the raucous tweaking of bared breasts, or the more guarded but evident ‘togetherness’ of two bearded men, as well as the open flouting of peculiarly South African sanctions such as prohibitions on interracial sex. It is also present in the quiet composure of many of the portraits. People seemed to welcome and even bask in Monk’s attentions.” Monk stopped photographing at the club in 1969. Ten years later his contact sheets and negatives were discovered and in 1982 the work was exhibited at the Market Gallery in Johannesburg. Monk could not make the opening and two weeks later, en route to seeing the show, he became involved in an argument. A fight broke out, Monk was fatally shot in the chest and never saw his work exhibited. The book, Billy Monk: Nightclub Photographs, is now available.

Palm Springs Modernism Week

Today is the second day of the 2012 Modernism Week in Palm Springs, a 10-day festival that celebrates mid-century modern design, architecture and culture, and features over 80 events including home tours, films, lectures, fashion, and swank receptions at locations rarely-seen by the public. Modernism Week will commence on February 26.

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.

Catherine Deneuve Honored

Catherine Deneuve will receive the Film Society of Lincoln Center's 39th Chaplin Award on Monday, April 2, 2012 in New York City. The annual gala is the Film Society's largest annual fundraiser, benefiting the ongoing programs of the Film Society of Lincoln Center. At an Alice Tully Hall ceremony, an array of notable guests and celebrities will salute Catherine Deneuve. The evening will include films clips and a party to celebrate Deneuve's career in cinema.

Coming of Age in America

Coming of Age in America: The Photography of Joseph Szabo is the first museum retrospective of this Long Island photographer whose work presents a dual portrait of adolescence on Long Island and summers on the Island’s iconic Jones Beach. Szabo poignantly portrays teens on the cusp of adulthood, documenting his subjects in moments of uncertainty, reflection, longing, bravado, and exuberance. The restless teens and unselfconscious bathers seen in Szabo’s black and white photographs evoke timeless memories of our own, similar teenage years and summers at the beach. This exhibition opens tomorrow January 14 at the Heckscher Museum of Art in Huntington, New York and runs until March 25 (Heckscher Museum of Art 2 Prime Avenue Huntington, NY 11743).

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.