Walking Piece, 1966 / Image courtesy: Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo / © Yayoi Kusama, Yayoi Kusama Studio inc.Yayoi Kusama in one of her performance art pieces entitled Walking Piece. Stay tuned for an interview and more photos of Yayoi Kusama in the upcoming issue of AUTRE - out this week. Be sure to sign up for the newsletter to find a copy!
Inspired by Yayoi Kusama, photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
In 2003 Ruff produced the first nudes, culling images from internet pornography, then digitally processing them—enlarging them as far as possible—so as to cloud the crude clarity of the original images. For a new exhibition, currently on view at the Gagosian Davies Street Gallery in London, Ruff has created a series of unique monumental works, enlarged to an imposing scale while, conversely, the rawness and carnality of the original images is blurred to an innuendo. Images such as nudes dr02 (2011) become painterly illustrations of vague desire in which anonymous women sport and pose, their erotic power modified by a muted palette and hazed resolution, while in nudes ar09 (2011) the fetishistic power of the female subject is all but reduced to lush formal qualities—a cascade of thick blonde hair, the curve of pink thighs, the glossy black of a stiletto heel. Thomas Ruff 'Nudes' is on view at the Gagosian, until April 21, 2012.
Money, sex, luxury, power – a retrospectiveof over 200 photographs and other artifacts of the photographer Helmut Newton will be on view at the Grand Palais in Paris from March 24 to June 17, 2012.
Photography by Perry Shimon
On view March 28 at the Clic Gallery in NYC featuring photographers Skye Parrott, Agnes Thor, Alexander Binder, Jordan Sullivan, and Hannah Godley. The Wild & The Innocent juxtaposes portraits of bodies and landscapes culled from various photographers' personal archives. How do these pictures of the human body and natural landscapes relate to one another? How do the two, when shown together, affect our perceptions of nature and ourselves? The Wild & The Innocent seeks to complicate the modern oppositional relationship between the body and nature in order to explore the truths of our own transience and infinitude -- our dual limitlessness and powerlessness -- as reflected in the wilds of nature and the slopes of the human form. The Wild & Innocent is on view from March 28 to April 16, 2012 at the Clic Gallery, 255 Centre Street, NY, NY
Adarsha Benjamin, photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Bob Dylan With Top Hat Pointing In Car, Philadelphia PA 1964 © Daniel KramerAn exhibition on view at the Cité de la musique in Paris retraces the important moments of Bob Dylan between the years of 1961 to 1966, during which Dylan radically changed his artistic approach and sparked a musical revolution. Created by the Grammy Museum of Los Angeles, Bob Dylan, Rock Explosion presents, through previously unpublished photos, objects, rare documents and audiovisual archives, the astonishing story of a personal evolution that marked a societal earthquake. On view until July 15 at the Cité de la Musique.
Photograph by Lena Vazehenina
Adarsha Benjamin reading Fitzgerald in the bay window, Autre Headquarters. Photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Over the past ten years, Cass Bird has established herself as one of the foremost portraitists of contemporary America. Her photographs of young women and men casually draw attention to the fluid expression of gender roles and androgyny in today's youth culture, and to what she has described as the convergence of alternative lifestyles with accepted conceptions of motherhood, nurturing and family. In the summers of 2009 and 2010, Bird traveled to Sassafrass, Tennessee, with a group of young women, a wardrobe of diaphanous dresses and a camera. These women - studio assistants, friends, or women cast from the streets of New York - had been selected by Bird for their ease with their sexual identities, but also for their relative awkwardness in front of the lens. The result was Rewilding, published by Damiani, a joyous portrait of modern femininity and a frolicking celebration of women's camaraderie. Book signing this Thursday at Leadapron Gallery in Los Angeles, 8445 Melrose Place Los Angeles, CA
Grimes, photograph by Hedi Slimane
Photograph by Adarsha Benjamin. Los Angeles, California.
Shadow Land is a major exhibition of work by internationally-acclaimed photographer Roger Ballen whose work offers a powerful social critique and an extreme, uncanny beauty. The exhibition explores three decades of Ballen’s career, charting the evolution of his unique photographic style and demonstrating the contribution he has made to contemporary photography. One of the most important photographers of his generation, Roger Ballen was born in New York in 1950 but for over 30 years he has lived and worked in South Africa. In his work from the early 1980s to mid 90s he gained world recognition and critical acclaim with his powerful and controversial images of those living on the margins of South African society. Shadow Land: Photographs by Roger Ballen 1983-2011 is on view from March 30 to May 13, 2012 at the Manchester Art Gallery.
“What do I see in Picasso that makes him Picasso?” wondered Edward Quinn, who took a large number of pictures of the Andalusian artist. Besides Quinn, many other photographers – some of whom were great names in the history of photography – Man Ray, Brassaï, Robert Doisneau, Dora Maar, Irving Penn, Edward Quinn, Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Michel Sima, Richard Avedon and André Villers – also shot portraits of the famous artist, offering their own angle on his work and personality. The result is a profusion of portraits of Pablo Picasso that have become part of our collective imagery and which have contributed to building up a myth around the artist, his life and his work. MemyselfandI, Photographic Portraits of Picasso has been jointly organized by Museo Picasso Málaga and Museum Ludwig, Cologne and will be on view until May 10. After its run at MPM, it will travel to Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, where it will be on display from 2nd August to 28th October 2012.
Photograph by Kurt Prinz
The Rose Gallery in Los Angeles is currently presenting two exhibitions of photographs by Paris based Lise Sarfati. On view now until March 26, a series of photographs, entitled On Hollywood, is a unique and intimate survey of women in and around Hollywood and starting March 31, another series that explores the identity of women in a post-modern suburban landscape, entitled She, will be on view until May 8, 2012. Visit the Rose Gallery to learn more.
This amazing image was sent to us from photographer Destiny Mata who says, "I take pictures with whatever camera I can get my hands on. I've never owned a camera of my own and I like it that way. It pushes me to take advantage of having a camera that a friend has lent me to shoot with for a couple of weeks and document and capture a piece of my life or anything else that tell a story. I grew up in New York City the city was my playground. I grew up homeless with my single mother sleeping in shelter homes and subways." The above photograph is of her friend Eatso who is heading to jail for a graffiti charge – "I took photos of him naked on a couch....we set fire in the woods expressing his emotion and life obstacles to come." To see more of Destiny Mata's la vida loca and photography visit her blog Clan of Monkeys.
Photograph by Hedi Slimane
Photograph by Christopher Lusher, West Virginia