ALL CANNIBALS?

Francisco_de_Goya,_Saturno_devorando_a_su_hijo_(1819-1823)

Francisco de Goya - Saturn Devours His Son - 1819-1923

Goya's famous image of Saturn devouring his son epitomizes the lust the cannibal has for human flesh.  The painting depicts the myth of the greek god Saturn - fearing that his sons would overthrow him he would eat each one after birth. Male lions eat their cubs after birth in order to bring the females into heat.   Goya's image of the savage cannibal with its wide eyes and devious abandon, satiating itself on a child is also representative of Goya's fear of madness.  Saturn Devouring His Son was part of a series called the Black Paintings painted on the walls of his Spanish villa toward the end of Goya's life.  The series was never commissioned and exhibited only posthumously. The painting, haunting and dark in nature, are indicative of a man alone, deaf - confronting the harrowing possibilities of eternal nothingness.  

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Jérôme Zonder - Jeu-denfants n°1 2010

The myth of cannibalism seemed to have a very Jungian catharsis for Goya - it is as if through Saturn's consuming of a child brought Goya a transmutative feeling of youth.  Cannibalism though, the mere notion of a man eating another man brings back primitive visions.  Artists in one medium or another have confronted cannibalism  in society for centuries. Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, is quoted as saying, "“We are all cannibals. The simplest way to identify with others is still to eat them.” Really now? An exhibition at the Me Collector's room in Berlin begs a question in return - all cannibals?

The exhibition All Cannibals? at me Collectors Room explores the topic of cannibalism (anthropophagy) in art. "Anthropophagy can be found in the myths of all cultures and ages—with examples ranging from antiquity, the Bible, or folk tales to classicist authors and modern horror movies. The recurring motifs of desire and brutality can likewise be found in modern and contemporary art. The concept for the exhibition emerged from the observation that the theme of consumable flesh seems to be gaining in significance within many current art works."

The exhibition is being held in cooperation with the Paris exhibition venue “la maison rouge.” Presented in parallel in the art magazine ART PRESS is a special issue on cannibalism, including interviews with collectors Antoine de Galbert and Thomas Olbricht in French and English. On view May 29 to August 21, 2011. www.me-berlin.com

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Will Cotton - Consuming Folly - 2009

Walter Benjamin: A Reflection in Pictures

Architecture and art have played a particular part for Walter Benjamin, because the relation of the past to the present was not of a temporal but of a figurative nature for him. Thus, according to his conception, the past could converge with the present via a flashlike image to form a ‘constellation’ and produce a ‘profane enlightenment’. Just like a configuration can be seen in the bright spots of a starry sky, interpreted as an astronomical constellation, the past is captured in a ‘dialectical picture in a standstill’. The conceptual arguments are only the ‘reverberating thunder’. Not only works of the visual arts, like Paul Klee’s water colour ‘Angelus Novus’, but in particular buildings and cities provided such dialectical images for him, as a ‘past become space’, for instance with arcades, panoramas or interiors, which made him see through the dreams, ideals and phantasms of a collective. An exhibition at the Architekturmuseum in Munich, entitled Walter Benjamin: A Reflection in Pictures, explores Benjamin's complex relationship with architecture. On view until June 19. www.architekturmuseum.de

Neo Conquistador: Assad Mounser

Amanda Assad Mounser is a New York-based jewelry designer with a penchant for the prickly and ecclesiastical.  Her label Assad Mounser makes a bold statement. Assad Mounser's inspiration is "predominantly influenced by the gods of the Glam Rock Movement."  Aptly so.  Her Spring Summer 2011 collection "...focuses on a futuristic journey, one that many a rock star drenched in glitter might sing about. The collection, coined Neo Conquistador, follows a phoenix rising from the ashes of a catastrophic wave of destruction to a path of redemption and rebirth, creating a new world from the rubble. Groups within the collection follow these themes quite literally. Many pieces take on an appearance of an explosion, with shooting rods of metal juxtaposed against cracked rocks and glittering gems, meant to represent glass fragments. www.assadmounser.com

[MOSCOW] Sex:Female

In a buy me, sell me, fuck me world Lena Vazhenina's photography is an atonement for all our collective mediocrity.  Vazhenina thinks sex is cool, but don't be fooled - her photo project is named Sex:female just to grab your attention.  With its weirdly placed colon and poor English, the title is also confusing.  However, Lena Vazhenina just might be on to something, because this Moscow based photographer is on the rise. Vazhenina's intriguing images look like whimsical gender bending rape scenarios crossed with what the world would look like if you had a magic pair of glasses that made everything look like an MDMA trip.  

sexfemale.cc

Paul McCartney to Re-Release Two Eponymous Solo Albums

Paul McCartney is planning to reissue his solo debut, 1970’s McCartney, as well as 1980’s McCartney II in remastered, deluxe editions with extra tracks. McCartney is the first solo album by Paul McCartney. The album was performed the entirely by Paul McCartney himself, except for some backing vocals from his first wife, Linda McCartney. McCartney stated that he played "bass, drums, acoustic guitar, lead guitar, piano, Mellotron, organ, toy xylophone, and bow and arrow on the album. McCartney is quite possibly an one of his most underrated masterpieces. McCartney II is considered one of the earliest examples of electronic music and is a complete departure for Paul McCartney who by this time had broken up with two bands, The Beatles and Wings. The albums will be available starting June 13 and were remastered at Abbey Road Studios by the same team that worked on 2009’s Beatles reissues.

[Documentary] L'Amour Fou: The Legacy of Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent left a fashion legacy. He also left behind an extraordinary collection of art. In L'amour fou, Saint Laurent's partner in business and life, Pierre Bergé, made the choice to auction off the collection after Saint Laurent's death in 2008. It was considered "the auction of the century." Bergé talks about their relationship in both respects—from meeting Saint Laurent after his dismissal from Dior to starting up their fashion house and, of course, the art that they amassed. The collection started in the 1950s and included works ranging from Picasso and Matisse to Egyptian sculptures.

The art collection is impressive, but it represents more than just two collectors—they're the puzzle pieces that form a picture of a unique, half-century partnership. Carefully crafting a loving and well-deserved tribute, director Pierre Thoretton stunningly blends Bergé's interviews, rare archival footage, and incredible access to their homes to make what amounts to more than a biography. He captures a love story—a so-called crazy love—of art, fashion, and the two men who loved both and one another.

L'Amour Fou is currently being premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. www.tribecafilm.com

Text by  David Kwok

Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle

Chagall - Midsummer Nights Dream

As a symbol of culture, freedom, and modernity, the city of Paris held a magnetic attraction for artists from around the globe during the early decades of the twentieth century. Most painters and sculptors, as well as poets and writers, settled in a vibrant area of Paris known as Montparnasse, which was sprinkled with art galleries, artists’ residences, and cafés. It was here that Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, Moïse Kisling, Moïse Kogan, Jacques Lipchitz, Louis Marcoussis, Amedeo Modigliani, Chana Orloff, Jules Pascin, Chaim Soutine, and Ossip Zadkine established studios and discovered each other’s work.

Chaim Soutine, Girl in Green

An exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art includes more than 70 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by these émigré artists and their French colleagues, all of which were created in a unique atmosphere of mutual encouragement and support in Paris during the early decades of the twentieth century. Interwoven throughout is the story of Chagall’s formative years in the French capital during the 1910s, his return to Russia during World War I and the rise of the Russian Revolution, and the artist’s triumphant return to Paris in the 1920s as a leading figure of the city’s thriving avant-garde.

Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle is on view until July 10. www.philamuseum.org

Check out Dev Hynes's New Musical Endeavor, "Blood Orange"

Dev Hynes is an international man of mystery as well as the busiest musician on the planet. As if his extensive work as Lightspeed Champion and with Test Icicles or co-writing with Theophilus London and Solange Knowles or a note-for-note cover of Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star album weren't enough, Hynes is launching a new project: Blood Orange. To begin, Blood Orange is releasing a brand new 7" single, "Dinner" b/w "Bad Girls" on April 26th. Both tracks were recorded with and co-produced by Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear for release on his Terrible Records label. Blood Orange finds Hynes delving deeper into the fringes of '80s American musical culture, crossing elements of melancholy synthetic pop balladry with a twangy noir, composing songs exploring the harsh realities of romantic pursuits: longing, suspicion, jealousy, self-doubt and loneliness, to name but a few. This release will be followed by a full-length album which was recorded in Los Angeles with producer Ariel Reichstaid (Cass McCombs/Glasser) and will be released in the late summer on Domino.

Dinner
Blood Orange

Anton Corbijn - Inwards & Onwards

anthony kiedis west palm beach 2003 c anton corbijn

Anthony Kiedis, West Palm Beach, 2003

Dutch photographer Anton Corbijn has been a pivotal force in the visual landscape of music for the last three decades. Corbijn is the creative director for Depeche Mode, has taken some of the earliest photographs of the band Joy Division, as well as directed numerous music videos, including one for Nirvana's Heart Shaped Box.  Foam, Amsterdam, presents Anton Corbijn's most recent photographic project, in which he photographs of a few of his favourite artists, including Gerhard Richter, Alexander McQueen, Richard Prince, Iggy Pop, Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst, Tom Waits, Peter Doig, Bruce Springsteen, Lucian Freud and Karel Appel.

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Alexander McQueen, London, 2007

"Anton Corbijn is interested in how artists struggle with the creative process: the pain and the drama of the act of creation. His monumental black-and-white portraits blend austerity and aesthetics and attract attention because of the deliberate and exacting way they capture the character of the person being portrayed. The work shows Corbijn's concentrated gaze, his feeling for wonder and his ability to empathise with another. "

On view from June 23 to September 1 - www.foam.org

Ecce Homo: The Jewelry of Chris Habana

spring/summer 2011

If Jesus Christ were to be crucified today, Pontius Pilate would get his crown of thorns from jewelry maker Christ Habana. Custom made crown of thorns - he'd probably make a concession for the lord and savior. With a small, creeping trend in religious iconography popping up Chris Habana's eponymous label stays clear of the eternal flaw of most gothic inspired jewelry lines: taking it all way too seriously.

spring/summer 2011

There is a definitive, down to earth sensibility in all of Habana's creations. Spending his life in the Philippines and New York City, the 34 year old designer had a childhood "...rooted in fantasy and sci-fi...." and later "reveled in the 90s gay counter-culture..." - thusly merging the two worlds when Habana debuted his line in 2004. Habana's autumn/winter collection, entitled "Weird N' Kinky," is, well, weird and kinky.

www.chrishabana.com

Mick Jagger: Young in the 60s

Mick Jagger, 1966. Photograph by Gered Mankowitz

Portraits of Mick Jagger taken in the 1960s will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London from 3 May until 27 November 2011. Documenting the singer’s early rise to become one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the era, the display will coincide with the publication of Mick Jagger: The Photobook by Thames & Hudson.  www.mickjagger.com

I Love You When You Smile

Continuing with the great tradition of photographer duos, Rita Sousa and Ivano Salonia, who are "partners both in [their] professional and private life," started a website called I Love You When You Smile, a collection of their work created together. The images they capture are real and honest, almost like a lifestyle diary, mixing both fashion editorial and portraiture. I Love You When You Smile is based in Amsterdam. www.iloveyouwhenyousmile.com