NEW YORK: BOUNDARIES OBSCURED

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PATRICIA PICCININI, Silicon, fiberglass, human hair, clothing

Haunch of Venison Gallery presents New York: Boundaries Obscured which is on view now. Artists featured in Boundaries Obscured respond to the growing trend of globalization and the blurring of cultural and geographical boundaries as use of technology becomes more prevalent. Major cities and rural enclaves are no longer distinct entities that operate in opposite contexts. Thus the featured artists depict both urban and rural scenes, addressing universal issues such as war, violence, politics, sex and eroticism, drugs, class, science and technology, waste and excess. These works highlight the overwhelming difficulties and/or advantages of being an individual in a relentlessly encroaching mass of information and external pressure. The exhibiting artists represent the world’s global and diversified (yet interdependent) climate. The artists range in age from 32 to 76 years old and hail from a range of countries including Iraq, India, Sierra Leone, Germany and the United States. “By exhibiting a group of artists at different stages in their careers, who come from radically different backgrounds, we intend to create a dynamic dialogue between the artists,” said Steinberger. The exhibition will include a painting by renowned American artist Peter Saul, whose recent solo exhibition at Haunch of Venison received critical acclaim. Saul is celebrated for his politically charged paintings that comment ironically on current events and public figures. Another highlight of the exhibition is German sculptor Günther Uecker’s ‘Aschemensch (Ash Man)’, a seminal painting from the artist’s only figurative series. Uecker created the work in 1986 as a reaction to the Chernobyl catastrophe. The work features an ambiguous human figure engulfed in sporadic black drips of paint, alluding to the radioactive materials that invaded Chernobyl. New York: Boundaries Obscured is on view until November 3 at Haunch of Venison in New York – 550 West 21st Street. 

Hunky Dory

"Strange fascination, fascinating me," quoth David Bowie in his song Changes on the album Hunky Dory. Artist, photographer, online magazine editor, and purveyor of arts and culture Christopher Lusher, based in Huntington, West Virginia, is the progenitor of somewhat of an art scene in one of the oldest states and most forgotten states in America. Like the revolutionary abolitionist John Brown, a West Virginian who murdered slave owners and was ultimately hanged for treason, Lusher carries the same rough-hewn spirit of good old fashion men famous by the annals of American history who know the the true nature of freedom and liberty, and certain inalienable rights. Responsible for bringing Harmony Korine's film Trash Humpers to the 2010 Appalachian Film Festival, contributing to Purple Fashion Magazine's Purple Diary, and editing his own online publication Hillbilly Magazine, Lusher proves it is the power of the innate, inexorable, and mysterious spirit of creation that art can be born in any corner of any part of the world. On October 21 Christopher Lusher's solo art exhibition, entitled  Hunk Dory, will open at the Blank Gallery in West Virginia.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre

Pretty Girls Wander: The Photography of Raymond Meeks

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Portland, OR — Charles A. Hartman Fine Art Gallery presents Amwell | Continuum, the newest body of work by critically acclaimed artist Raymond Meeks. In evocative black and white and color images, Meeks explores ideas of home and stability against the backdrop of personal transition and larger socioeconomic upheaval. These quietly compelling, beautiful photographs of lost and troubled spaces, constant gardens, and portraits of his daughter, construct a narrative that posits a sense of loss while steadfastly asserting a belief in both resilience and hope. Meeks writes, "I've believed it was important to have a strong sense of place, to identify “home”, even as for us, home, family and place are ideals which have taken on a relative meaning. I photograph close to home as memory loses structure, its architecture; trying to make light speak from the fixed edges of rooms long vanished." Amwell | Continuum is one view October 5 – 29, 2011 at the Charles A. Hartman Fine Art Gallery - opening reception with the artist on October 6. A limited number of copies of Raymond Meeks' newest artist book, Pretty Girls Wander, are available from the gallery for $325. Created to mark the occasion of this exhibition, this fine volume reproduces a number of the works in AMWELL | CONTINUUM. 

FERNAND LÉGER: A SURVEY OF ICONIC WORKS

Known for his use of color, bold forms, geometric contrasts, and enduring interest in the working class, French painter Fernand Léger was an artist icon of the 1930s. An exhibition unto itself, a limited-edition volume to be published by Assouline features a curated selection of his most outstanding pieces, hand-glued to each page for a lasting keepsake of Léger’s extraordinary oeuvre.

[Coming Soon] Dukes of Chutney on Vinyl

Photograph of Dustin Lynn in Milan by Iris Humm.

Big ups to Dustin Lynn whose new brazilian dubplate, which is a collaboration with John Paul Jones (Tom Croose, Worst Friends), who together create brilliant musical masterpieces under the musical moniker Dukes of Chutney, is being pressed by Resista Records, a new imprint "dedicated to highly limited vinyl-only pressings of interesting edits & remixes from across the genre spectrum." Listen to Tom Croose - Cho Chua (Dukes Dub) here.

Abbey

Artist, photographer, and poetess of magic and light Abbey Meaker in San Francisco for a visit from Vermont. Abbey Meaker's first solo show Boudoirs & Landscapes is on view for a final weekend at the Palazzo Barsanti in Pietrasanta, Italy. Stay tuned to Pas Un Autre for a full interview coming soon. Photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. 

Lovers from the Hereafter

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Sculptor Jean-Marc Laroche shares with us his fantasy of eternal life with the installation, “Lovers from the Hereafter,” featuring intertwining skeletons embracing one another. The installation will be on view at the Museum of Sex in New York beginning October 5th, 2011 and includes two human-sized sculptures made of varnished resin and jointed with an invisible steel framework - an effect which resembles real bones. With regards to the "Lovers from the Hereafter" sculptures, Jean-Marc said, "They are themselves quite joyful and they thumb their noses at death and present the afterlife as a roll in the hay.” Throughout his career as a sculptor, he has created several erotic, sensual works, which have been brought together for this installation. Born in Paris in 1959, Jean-Marc Laroche began his career as a sculptor in the early 1990s.

Postmodernism: Style and Subversion

Vegas, Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, 1966

Wet Magazine, April Greiman and Jayme Odgers

Of all movements in art and design history, postmodernism is perhaps the most controversial. This era defies definition, but it is a perfect subject for an exhibition. Postmodernism was an unstable mix of the theatrical and theoretical. It was visually thrilling, a multifaceted style that ranged from the colorful to the ruinous, the ludicrous to the luxurious. What they all had in common was a drastic departure from modernism’s utopian visions, which had been based on clarity and simplicity. The modernists wanted to open a window onto a new world. Postmodernism, by contrast, was more like a broken mirror, a reflecting surface made of many fragments. Its key principles were complexity and contradiction. It was meant to resist authority, yet over the course of two decades, from about 1970 to 1990, it became enmeshed in the very circuits of money and influence that it had initially sought to dismantle. Postmodernism shattered established ideas about style. It brought a radical freedom to art and design, through gestures that were often funny, sometimes confrontational and occasionally absurd. Most of all, postmodernism brought a new self-awareness about style itself. Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 to 1990 is on view until January 15 at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

MANIAMANIA: THE THIRD MIND part 3

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MANIAMANIA’S Spring 2012 Collection, ‘The Third Mind’ channels the dreamlike spirit and unpredictable visual collisions of the surrealist age. Free from the constraints of rational thought, the collection is constructed in ways that allude to the Exquisite Corpse technique - whereby words and images are collectively assembled and relish an absence of control. The range moniker pays homage to The Third Mind, a 1978 book and concept by William Burroughs and Brian Gysin, which showcased the ‘cut ups’ technique originating from the Surrealists - a form later adapted to film making by Kenneth Anger and Maya Deren. In this mode, unrelated texts and images where literally cut up and rearranged to form radical narratives and vistas. The concept signifies a shared consciousness and creative output, only reachable by two or more people; a place neither could reach alone. In MANIAMANIA tradition, primary metals and natural stones are transfigured. ‘The Third Mind’ meshes Brass and Sterling Silver with Pyrite crystal stone, Amethyst and Tourmalinated Quartz in a series of exquisite forms and symbols to free ones self from time and convention. This fourth range fromMANIAMANIA expands with extensions on signature best sellers from the Immortals series, including a Limited Edition exclusive ‘Abbey Lee Ring’, inspired by modern muse Abbey Lee Kershaw. Collaborating with filmmaker, Elle Muliarchyk and featuring Abbey Lee for a second season, a three part series of short films and campaign images were created using artful techniques of the avant-garde. This included a set built of a life size kaleidoscope which created hypnotic repeat mirror imagery which looks as technical and modern as the digitally mastered alternative, but has tell tale realism of warped angles and beautiful accidents; elements also achieved within MANIAMANIA’s ‘Third Mind’ collection. View film after the jump.

Perfect Tits

"On most afternoons, the only way I can keep my armor on is to take my clothes off. I’m heartbroken but I have perfect tits, isn’t that enough?" Photography by Rita Lino