SELF EVIDENT TRUTHS

Last Tuesday The Hole Gallery in New York City presented the one night only photo exhibition by iO Tillett Wright entitled Self Evident Truths hosted by Terence Koh with a performance by CocoRosie. Prints on the wall sold for $10 each to support the continuing efforts of Self Evident Truth project. In 2010, Tillett Wright began a project titled Self Evident Truths, photographing anyone that felt like they qualified to fall on some part of the LGBTQ spectrum, from bisexual, to transgender. Shot in simple black and white, in natural light, with no makeup or styling, the photos emulate Avedon’s In The American West and August Sander’s People of the 20th Century, and are intended to humanize the very varied face of gays in America today.

Ellen von Unwerth - Do Not Disturb

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Michael Hoppen Gallery in London presents an exclusive, new body of work from Ellen von Unwerth entitled Do Not Disturb!. Straight from the camera to the wall, this latest series of photographs has all the sexy motifs of Ellen’s signature style. The Madonna Inn, LA, sets the scene for these highly stylised and richly coloured images of women, who range from the delicate coquette to robust dominatrix. Each of the rooms in this renowned LA hotel features imaginative and fantastical interior design, as individual as the characters that occupy them, lending to the seductive fantasy narrative of a wild weekend away. Ellen von Unwerth – Do Not Disturbwill be on view from June 21 to August 31, 2012 at the Michael Hoppen Gallery, 3 Jubilee Place, London

Teen to Release Debut Album

Been listening to this track on repeat. Teen is set to release their debut full-length, In Limbo, on August 28th via Carpark Records. Brooklyn's Teen came together when Teeny Lieberson, formerly of Here We Go Magic, left her post in the latter band in order to make music with her sisters Katherine and Lizzie and their good friend Jane Herships. Forgoing girl-group gimmickry and fervor, the band’s digital-only debut EP, Little Doods, fleshed out a sound of languid, lo-fi psyche pop redolent of Paisley Underground bands like Opal and Rain Parade. Since releasing the EP in April 2011, the band have steadily honed their sound around New York and readied their first long-player, In Limbo. Recorded in summer 2011 in a barn in rural Connecticut and engineered by Jen Turner of Here We Go Magic, In Limbo keeps the band grounded in their own world of psychedelia while heightening fidelity and giving songs the room to take shape. The first half of the record puts pop at the fore with opener Better, a Suicide-esque march toward euphoria through repetition. In Limbo was mixed and produced by Spacemen 3's Sonic Boom, and his influence subtly makes itself known throughout the album.

Patty Smith @ The DIA

The DIA (Detroit Institute of Art) will present the first American museum exhibition to focus on the photography of artist, poet, and performer Patti Smith. Smith's photographs are infused with personal meaning and highlight the rich relationships between art, architecture, poetry and the everyday. This selection of images from the past decade reveals the artists, poets, authors, family and friends from whom Smith draws inspiration. The exhibition includes 70 black and white gelatin silver prints and a small selection of original Polaroids and items from Smith’s personal collection. Patti Smith: Camera Solo will be on view from June 1st to September 2, 2012 at the DIA, 5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan

[FIRST LOOK] M83 'Reunion' Official video

Directed by Fleur & Manu and Produced by DIVISION, Reunion is part two of the story that commenced with Midnight City. Together, these two tracks are the soundtrack for a pack of gifted kids with telekinetic powers who escape from an institution and run wild through a desolate cityscape. In the first video we witness their liberation, with Reunion we experience their defiance. Reunion is the second single off of the massive sixth M83 album Hurry Up We’re Dreaming. 

CRUELLY, MADLY, DEEPLY

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Between 1969 and his death at age 37 in 1982, brilliant enfant terrible German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder made 30 films and numerous television productions, including the 15-hour mini-series BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. Even as he averaged two to three films per year, his work maintained a meticulous, rigorous style, marked by stunning shot composition, laser-precision blocking and deep characterization ranging from bitterly crystal clear to hypnotically allusive. Fassbinder returned to the same themes and fixations again and again: money, sex, pride and cruelty. Postwar Germany is often his cinematic landscape - the place of drained, falsified dreams where his characters make the most of things and act with their own best interests in mind. Fassbinder himself was plain, drug-addicted and gay, and had much in common with the outsiders he created. He was notorious for the same cruel nature seen in his films, and behaved heartlessly toward those who loved and surrounded him. Still, over the course of his short, astonishing career, he collected a team of dazzling recurring players, including cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and actresses Hanna Schygulla, Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira and Irm Hermann. Whether the strain of working with the director was worth the staggering output is hard to say - Ballhaus “burned out” after The Marriage of Maria Braun and went to work with Martin Scorsese. But, as film critic and ardent fan Roger Ebert wrote, “Fassbinder was a genius. That much everyone admitted.” On the 30th anniversary of his death, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles unveils a 16-film retrospective of the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder from May 31 to June 14.

PICASSO AND FRANÇOISE GILOT

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Gagosian Gallery is presents Picasso and Françoise Gilot: Paris–Vallauris 1943–1953, the fourth major exhibition in an ongoing series on the life and work of Pablo Picasso at the gallery. This exhibition is a departure from its precedents in that it has been conceived as a visual and conceptual dialogue between the art of Picasso and the art of Françoise Gilot, his young muse and lover during the period 1943–53. The result of an active collaboration between Gilot and Picasso’s biographer John Richardson, assisted by Gagosian director Valentina Castellani, Picasso and Françoise Gilot celebrates the full breadth and energy of Picasso’s innovations during these post-war years. On view until June 30, 980 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10075

Ari Marcopoulos: Wherever you go

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Marlborough Chelsea is pleased to present Wherever You Go, a solo exhibition of new work by Ari Marcopoulos. Often atmospheric and abstracted, the works comprising Wherever You Go by renowned photographer, filmmaker and artist Ari Marcopoulos include grandly-scaled pigment prints and smaller photographs on rice paper that, through the processes of multiple printings of the same image, result in lush surfaces of densely textured black and white. On view until June 15, 2012. Marlborough Chelsea, 545 West 25th Street. Photograph by Austin McManus

Beauty Is Embarrassing

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Beauty Is Embarrassing is a funny, irreverent, joyful and inspiring documentary featuring the life and current times of one of America’s most important artists, Wayne White. Raised in the mountains of Tennessee, Wayne White started his career as a cartoonist in New York City. He quickly found success as one of the creators of the TV show, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which led to more work designing some of the most arresting and iconic images in pop culture. Most recently, his word paintings, which feature pithy and often sarcastic text statements crafted onto vintage landscape paintings, have made him a darling of the fine art world. Beauty Is Embarrassingis currently screening is select cities.

Silhouettes by The Julliene Brothers

"Play it loud & enjoy." The Jullien Brothers have released a new video featuring the music of Niwouinwouin, aka Nicolas Jullien. The video is directed by Jean Jullien and his brother Nicolas who together make up the creative duo. The video features illustrations from Jean Jullien's book Silhouettes published by Lendroit.

Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun

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These are the last few days to catch Claude Cahun's firs retrospective in the states. Born Lucy Schwob to a family of French intellectuals and writers, Claude Cahun (who adopted the pseudonym at age 22) is best known for the staged self-portraiture, photomontages, and prose texts she made principally between 1920 and 1940. Rediscovered in the late 1980s, her work has not only expanded our understanding of the Surrealist era but also serves as an important touchstone to later feminist explorations of gender and identity politics. In her self-portraits, which she began creating around 1913, Cahun dismantled and questioned preexisting notions of self and sexuality. From her university years until her death, Cahun was accompanied by her partner and artistic collaborator, Suzanne Malherbe, a childhood friend and stepsister. They surrounded themselves with members of the Surrealist movement and created work that embraced leftist politics. Cahun, with assistance from Malherbe (under the pseudonym Marcel Moore), produced photographs, assemblages, and publications from the 1920s on. The photograph Entre Nous (Between Us), featuring a pair of masks embedded in sand, gives the title to this show and is emblematic of their multifaceted relationship. The first retrospective exhibition in the United States of Cahun’s work, Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun, is on view now at the Art Institue of Chicago, brings together over 80 photographs and published material by Cahun and Moore, including several photomontages from their 1930 collaborative publication Aveux non avenus (Disavowals), and the only surviving object by Cahun, which is in the Art Institute’s permanent collection. On view until June 3, 2012.