Gered Mankowitz Retrospective

Prolific music photographer and documentarian Gered Mankowitz is to be the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the Snap Gallery in London. The exhibition features over 100 photographs from Gered’s entire career, spanning four decades of music photography. This is the largest collection of photographs Gered has ever exhibited, and it is his first career retrospective. Gered is best known for his 1960s photographs of The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, and both subjects feature in this exhibition. During the 60s he also photographed Marianne Faithfull, Georgie Fame, Chris Farlowe, The Yardbirds, Eric Clapton, Small Faces, Donovan, Spencer Davies group and PP Arnold to name a few, before moving into the progressive end of the decade with Free, Soft Machine, Traffic and The Nice. Gered Mankowitz: A Retrospective will be on view until June 16 at the Snap Gallery, 12 Piccadilly Arcade, London.

Schiaparelli and Prada

An amazing, rare pair of vintage Elsa Schiaparelli sunglasses will be on sale May 2 as part of a vintage jewelry sale timed to the opening of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's opening of Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations explores the striking affinities between Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, two Italian designers from different eras. Sunglasses like the ones above were made in 1957 for American Optical bear a resemblance to Prada's Spring 2012 collection which also includes pieces decorated with enamel roses. Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations will be on view starting May 10 at the Met in NYC.

Helen Shumaker @ The DeYoung

The tremendously talented actress and performance artist Helen Shumaker performing at the DeYoung Museum as part of a series of events called Our People curated by Monique Jenkinson (aka Fauxnique) with a group of performers, most of whom she knows through the queer club scene, to create a dance/installation inspired by the work of Jean Paul Gaultier—"his icons, his fetishes, and a light-hearted, humanistic irreverence." Photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper for Pas Un Autre. 

Takashi Murakami Opens Berlin Gallery

takashi_mirakami_gallery_berlin_manga_painting_event_Mahomi_Kunikata

Takashi Murakami opens a gallery in Berlin. The Japanese artist and his company Kaikai Kiki are calling the gallery Hidari Zingaro (named after the Edo period sculptor). The gallery opens in June, but is previewing the space tomorrow to coincide with Berlin's Gallery Weekend and will be marked by an all-day live Manga painting event by Mahomi Kunikata (picture above), known for her explorations of "the otaku culture of sexually explicit manga." Dieffenbachstraße 15, 10967 Kreuzberg, Germany

Liberatum Hong Kong

Liberatum Hong Kong International Festival of Culture opens today and runs through the weekedend. Participants include Khalil Fong, Daniel Wu, Rossy de Palma, Wing Shya, Nobel Laureate Sir VS Naipaul, Paul Schrader, Rosey Chan, Terence Koh, Pharrell Williams, Hong Kong New Music Ensemble, Mike Figgis, OMA Partner – Architect, David Gianotten and many others.

Nicolas Jaar's Prism of Music

The immensely talented Nicolas Jaar and his own record label Clown & Sunset label have released a compilation of music, entitled Don't Break My Love, in the form of an aluminum cube called The Prism. With music by Jaar himself,  Nikita Quasim, Vtgnike, Valentin Stip and much more. Designed by Jaar, the Prism format is meant to retain a physicality in music and promote connectivity, with two headphone jacks on either side of the rechargeable cube. Four buttons allow listeners to start, pause, and skip through tracks.

Ryan McGinley's Animals

Team Gallery in New York presents Ryan McGinley's Animals which consists of the artist's color studio portraits of live animals with nude models. The exhibition is his first made up exclusively of selections from this growing, and ambitious, body of work. The artist visited various sanctuaries, zoos, and rescue establishments across the United States, erecting a mobile studio wherever possible and working with a number of pre-eminent animal trainers. The animals are not mere props in photographs of people; on the contrary, McGinley considers them the subjects of these images. There exists both tension and tenderness between the models and wild animals, as they claw, clutch, nibble, and hug one another. These photographs are studies in animal bodies, their strangeness and seductivity. Animals will be on view concurrently with McGinley's Grid show both Team Gallery locations in NYC from May 2 to June 2, 2012.

Warhol in Flowers

American photographer William John Kennedy’s exhibition of newly published prints of Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana is believed to be the only such images in existence capturing the artists with their works, among them Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe and Indiana’s LOVE. After almost half a century in storage, a select number of the nearly forgotten images were carefully chosen, and are now being published for the first time as a collection. On view now until May 29 at Site 109 Gallery in NYC.

Santigold Kicks Off Transmission LA

Transmission LA, curated by Mike D of the Beastie Boys, is a multi-disciplinary festival that will be the meeting point for the Los Angeles art and music community. The sequel to the series of festivals that premiered in Berlin last year with curator and fashion designer Raf Simons, the 17-day collaborative festival includes work by Roy Choi, Benjamin Jones, Mike Mills,Tom Sachs, Public Fiction, and additional artists and musicians. Tomorrow night Santigold opens the festival tonight at The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Transmission LA will be on view until May 6.