Aurel Schmidt: Reveries Of A Lost Life Mask

There's an old Turkish proverb: "like a butterfly on a donkey's dick" used to express the disdain of two objects which just don't go together or match.... If the proverb is taken literally and further illustrated by Aurel Schmidt, one might just think the two are a match made in heaven! Aurel's intricately drawn works merge flora, insects, beers, genitalia, condoms, cigarettes etc into delicately composed works. The individual components of the compositions are themselves traces and elements from a downtown life which seems to consist of endless nights! Artist Aurel Schmidt and poet Franz Wrights collaborative book Reveries Of A Life Mask is now available. The 68-page publication has been produced in a limited run of 1,000 by Morel Books.

The Shamanistic Photography of ALMAGUL MENLIBAYEVA

In the Steppes of her native Kazakhstan, Almagul Menlibayeva stages complex mythological narratives, rooted in the Zoroastrian ideology of former Persia, an ideology that is to this today spreading widely across Eurasia and influencing Western politicians and philosophers and the Tengriism (sky religion) of the Turkic tribes, and with reference to her own nomadic heritage and the Shamanistic traditions of the cultures of Central Asia. "I use specific ways of expression in modern and contemporary art as a vehicle to investigate my personal archaic atavism as a certain mystical anthropomorphism. In other words, I explore the nature of a specific Egregore, a shared cultural psychic experience, which manifests itself as a specific thought-form among the people(s) of the ancient, arid and dusty Steppes between the Caspian Sea, Baikonur and Altai in today’s Kazakhstan," says Menlibayeva. Menlibayeva will be exhibiting in a number of group shows during 2012, from The Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art in Israel this Fall to the 18th Biennale of Sydney.  Her works are currently on view until February at the  LASALLE College of Arts in Singapore for a show entitled East is West: Three Women Artists.

Tom Poulton. The Secret Art of an English Gentleman

Thomas Leycester Poulton was an English magazine and medical book illustrator, born in 1897. Upon his death in 1963 it was discovered he was also a prolific and imaginative erotic artist who produced hundreds of sketches and finished drawings of women proudly and exuberantly displaying themselves in ways shocking to conservative post-war Britain. The archive remained hidden until the 1990s, when a collector of erotic artifacts passed it on to a fellow collector willing to share it with the world. Though Tom Poulton's work tells us much about English society between 1948 and 1963, there is a universal quality to these images of joyous, uninhibited sexuality that transcends time and place. A new edition of Tom Poulton: The Secret Art of an English Gentleman published by Taschen, the first of which was released by Taschen, will be available this March.

Exemplar: Photographs of Joy Division

The world was intolerable and mean to Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, and he spit back with cruel, introspectively haunting lyrics in the hopes to close and heal the wounds that he so desperately tried and failed to lick clean.   In the end, love indeed tore him apart. On view now at the Manchester Photographic Gallery are 45 iconic images of life behind the legendary band Joy Division by photographer Kevin Cummings from their first gig in 1977 to Ian Curtis' suicide in 1980. Exemplar: Joy Division by Kevin Cummins, Manchester Photographic  6 January - 26 February, Manchester Photographic Gallery is at Tariff Street, Northern Quarter, City, 0161 236 2446.

Lovesody

Photographer, Motoyuki Daifu, has established himself as one of Japan’s brightest young talents. His chaotic diaristic style continues to evolve in his first monograph Lovesody a short print run of only 300 copies from new publisher Little Big Man. We see him in his twenties now having left home and seemingly over-his-head in a relationship with a young single mother of two.  To mark the release of the book, today Dashwood Books (33 Bond St  New York, NY) will be hosting a book signing and tomorrow will  be the opening of Motoyuki Daifu’s solo show of the same series at Lombard Freid Projects (518 West 19th Street, New York, NY) on view until March 3, 2012.

The Total Look

moca_the-rudi-gernreich-book-by-peggy-moffitt-and-william-claxton

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles presents The Total Look: The Creative Collaboration Between Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt, and William Claxton, on view from February 26 through May 20, 2012, at MOCA Pacific Design Center. The exhibition will celebrate the remarkable collaboration between the great fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, his model and muse Peggy Moffitt, and Moffitt’s late husband, the photographer William Claxton, who created the distinctive images of Moffitt activating Gernreich’s designs. The exhibition will feature selected looks from Moffitt’s definitive collection, with films and photographs by Claxton of Moffitt modeling the clothes.

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]

Intimate Stranger

Karlheinz_Weinberger_intimate_stranger

Intimate Stranger, an exhibition on view now Kunstmuseum Basel, presenting the body of work of photographer Karlheinz Weinberger, is rarely on public display. Shown together with magazines and a selection of vintage fashion, these pictures document a bygone youth culture in Zurich. The movement emerged after World War II, driven by the desire to undermine prevailing notions of "Swiss propriety." For most of his life, Weinberger worked in a warehouse at Siemens-Albis, Zurich. A self-taught photographer, he dedicated his free time to this art, portraying his lovers and other people he met in the street. Starting in the late 1940s, he frequently published his pictures in Der Kreis, a homosexual magazine that garnered international attention, signing his work with the pseudonym "Jim." In 1958, he launched a major project, for which he would follow a gang of "Halbstarke" (half strong) for an extended period of time. Intimate Stranger is on view until April 15, 2012 at the Kunstmuseum, Basel – Sankt Alban-Graben 16 4051 Basle, Switzerland.

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.