Hussein Chalayan 'Fashion Stories'

The Arts Décoratifs has given ‘carte blanche’ to one of the most innovative and creative fashion designers of our time: Hussein Chalayan. Born in Nicosia in 1970, he moved to London as a child traveling back and forth between Cyprus and England until he went to university. He earned his degree from Central Saint Martins College in 1993. Following his own unique approach to design for seventeen years, he stands on the frontier of fashion, architecture and design. His work is characterized by an intellectual rigor and a quest for technical perfection that often defies fashion stereotypes. Chalayan stood out from the start of his career through his highly inventive exploration of various mediums, including sculpture, furniture, video and special effects, which he uses in his fashion shows, drawing inspiration directly from the political, social and economic realities of his era. Hussein Chalayan 'Fashion Stories' showcases this rich, complex world, in which clothing, installations, fashion shows, projections and research are shown by side to illustrate Chalayan’s distinctive process. www.lesartsdecoratifs.fr

POLLY MORGAN 'Burials'

....Polly Morgan is at the very forefront of modern taxidermy. She has contributed to a shift in public perception that has taken ‘the art of preparing, stuffing and mounting the skins of animals with lifelike effect’ to places never dreamed of by its original Victorian practitioners. The vitrines are still there but little else remains. Birds are taken out of their natural habitat and are reassembled, often in mass, creating sculptures of astonishing and often disquieting beauty. For ‘Psychopomps’ at Haunch of Venison last year, this theme of disintegration and recomposition was keenly explored. ‘Burials’ takes this idea to its logical end, interment and then potential rebirth elsewhere. ‘The coffin’ (Carrion Call), with its shrieking chicks, makes a welcome return, this time transported to the dimly-lit backroom of a Venetian palazzo; Count Dracula’s transportation of his own coffins from Transylvania to Carfax Abbey in London, performs an almost perfect reverse. A sense of imprisonment and the futility of escape dominates this exhibition, escape is actually, both metaphorically and physically, an unlikely possibility. Three new-style works adorn the walls, in the shapes of a spade, a coffin-lid and a headstone respectively. Other large-scale pieces that further celebrate the themes of rebirth and spring are also included in the form of an ancient (much twisted) maypole and a scorched flying machine held aloft by flame-orange finches and canaries. Polly Morgan 'Burials,' her first solo show in Italy, is on view until July 22 at the Workshop Arte Contemporanea in Venice - www.workshopvenice.com

Gabriel von Max: Be-tailed Cousins and Phantasms of the Soul

One of the most discussed, and perhaps controversial, artists of the late nineteenth century, Gabriel von Max (1840–1915) “set hearts beating violently” with his paintings of a somnambulant, crucified woman with a full-blooded swain at her feet and an anatomist pulling back diaphanous cloth from the alabaster corpse of a beautiful young woman. Max’s portrayal of the biblical tale of Jairus’ daughter being raised from the dead, his polemical depiction of vivisection, and his paintings of his beloved, yet melancholic, monkeys engaged in various humanlike endeavors stirred the emotions and public debates of his day. Yet, despite international acclaim, Max has not been the subject of a solo museum exhibition in America until now, with the Frye Art Museum’s Gabriel von Max, on view July 9 through October 30, 2011. www.fryeartmuseum.org

[ART IN THE DESERT] Holographic Heart

Curated by Maximilla Lukacs the Red Arrow Gallery in Joshua Tree hosts Holographic Heart: Images of Ecstatic Tradition and Ritual from the HERE and NOW. On view will be photography by Eliot Lee Hazel, Logan White, Alison Scarpulla, Adarsha Benjamin, Yelena Yemchuk, Todd Weaver, Galen Pehrson, Jena Malone and more.  July 9 at the Red Arrow Gallery from 7 to 9 p.m 61597 29 Palms Hwy Joshua Tree, CA.

Ai Weiwei's New York Photographs

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Asia Society Museum in New York presents an exhibition of 227 photographs taken by famed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of 1980s New York from his unique perspective. The exhibition marks the first time Ai Weiwei's New York Photographs series is being shown outside of China. On view until August 14. www.asiasociety.org

Glamour of the Gods

Leo (John Gilbert) kisses Felicitas (Greta Garbo) in Flesh and the Devil (1926)

Glamour of the Gods is a celebration of Hollywood portraiture from the industry's 'Golden Age', the period 1920 to 1960. From Greta Garbo and Clark Gable to Audrey Hepburn, James Dean and Marilyn Monroe, it is these portraits that transformed actors and actresses into international style icons. In many cases these are the career-defining images of Hollywood's greatest names and help to illustrate their enduring appeal. Featuring over 70 photographs, most of which are exquisite vintage prints displayed for the first time, the exhibition is drawn from the extraordinary archive of the John Kobal Foundation and demonstrate photography's decisive role in creating and marketing the stars central to the Hollywood mystique. Now on view at the National Portrait Gallery in London until October 23. www.npg.org.uk

[NOVELS] A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion

"Based on a real case whose lurid details scandalized Americans in 1927 and sold millions of newspapers, acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen's latest work is a tour de force of erotic tension and looming violence. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Ruth Snyder is a voluptuous, reckless, and altogether irresistible woman who wishes not only to escape her husband but that he die—and the sooner the better. No less miserable in his own tedious marriage is Judd Gray, a dapper corset-and-brassiere salesman who travels the Northeast peddling his wares. He meets Ruth in a Manhattan diner, and soon they are conducting a white-hot affair involving hotel rooms, secret letters, clandestine travels, and above all, Ruth's increasing insistence that Judd kill her husband. Could he do it? Would he? What follows is a thrilling exposition of a murder plan, a police investigation, the lovers' attempt to escape prosecution, and a final reckoning for both of them that lays bare the horror and sorrow of what they have done. Dazzlingly well-written and artfully constructed, this impossible-to-put-down story marks the return of an American master known for his elegant and vivid novels that cut cleanly to the essence of the human heart, always and at once mysterious and filled with desire." More...

TOM of FINLAND Original Drawings

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Tom of Finland’s real name is Touko – because he was born on 8 May 1920, on the south coast of Finland, and May in Finnish is “Toukokuu”. His homeland had been independent for just three years when Touko was born, and outside its few cities the country was still rough and wild. The men who worked in the fields and woods, the farmers and loggers, were true frontiersmen, every bit as rough and wild as the countryside. Touko grew up among those men but was not a part of their world. Both his parents were schoolteachers, and they raised Touko indoors in an atmosphere of art, literature and music. Obviously talented, by the time he was five he was playing the piano and drawing comic strips. He loved art, literature and music. But he loved those outdoorsmen even more. At that same age of five, Touko began to spy on a neighbour, a muscular, stomping farmboy whose name, “Urho”, means “hero”. Urho was the first in a long line of heroes to hold Tom’s attention while he memorized every flex of their lean muscles, every humorous twist of their full lips. In 1939, Touko went to art school in Helsinki to study advertising. His fascination expanded to include the sexy city types he found in that cosmopolitan port – construction workers, sailors, policemen – but he never dared proposition them. It was not until Stalin invaded Finland and Tom was drafted into a lieutenant’s uniform that he found nirvana in the blackouts of World War II. At last, in the streets of the pitch-black city, he began to have the sex he had dreamed of with the uniformed men he lusted after, especially once the German soldiers had arrived in their irresistible jackboots. TOM of FINLAND  Original Drawings now on view at the PHD Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri until August 6. more...

Geoffrey O'Connor "Vanity is Forever"

Vanity Is Forever, being released September 27th via Chapter Music, is Crayon Fields frontman Geoffrey O’Connor’s first album under his own name, and his most ambitious, dynamic and sophisticated work yet. O’Connor’s fractured romantic reflections and lustful tributes play out over vast synthscapes, colossal stadium drums and flanged orchestral sweeps, creating a world that is at once ethereal and strikingly vivid.With a combination of restraint and fearless abandon, O’Connor embraces the conflicts of modern love in a manner as ambiguous as it is blunt, and as shameless as it is generous. His songs indulge in ecstasy, love, pride, failure and all the glamorous contradictions they become. He is both an adult with a juvenile mind, and a geriatric in the body of a young man. Painstakingly refined over two years, Vanity Is Forever is O’Connor’s most fully realized album to date, an epic pop melodrama that shifts seamlessly between seductive high-production dance hits, suave funk joyrides and modern synthetic power balladry. Recently, O’Connor has mesmerized audiences with an extravagant live show of dueling synthesizers, lasers, light sculptures and hypnotic projections. His diverse solo output – under both his own name and previous solo moniker Sly Hats – has seen him handpicked to support the likes of Fleet Foxes, Jens Lekman, School Of Seven Bells, Andrew Bird and First Aid Kit. In addition, O’Connor will release a series of steamy clips to realize his soap opera dreams. View a taste of what’s in store with a trailer for Vanity Is Forever.

Harvey Stein: Coney Island 40 Years

"Coney Island 40 Years. spanning the years 1970-2010, is a meditation on time, history, persistence and longevity (of both Coney Island and Harvey Stein), fate and public social behavior. It is an important record of a passing way of life, of a Coney Island that is fast changing in the wake of its recent development. The book is important as a document of a time and of an iconic American place." More....