M/M (Paris) Carpetologue

Commissioned from M/M (Paris) to celebrate both their twentieth anniversary and the publication of the definitive monograph of their work, the exhibition of elaborate rug designs acts like a condensed catalogue - or Carpetalogue - for M/M's practice. Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak originally established M/M (Paris) as a graphic design studio in 1992. Their close associations with the music, fashion and art worlds have led to their becoming one of the most distinctive and acclaimed creative voices of their generation, within graphic design and beyond. The hand-knotted wool carpets, specifically produced for the exhibition by Abhishek Poddar in Varanasi, India, will be sold as limited editions through the gallery. The monograph, M to M of M/M (Paris), written by Emily King, designed by Graphic Thought Facility and with a foreward by Hans Ulrich Obrist, will be published by Thames and Hudson and launched during the exhibition. M/M (Paris) Carpetologue 1992 to 2012 will be on view until December 15 at Libby Sellers Gallery, 41, 42 Berners Street, London.

[FIRST LOOK] Music Video for Casket Girls' Track Sleepwalking

Presenting the music video for Casket Girls' track Sleepwalking, shot and edited by Kevin Canavan entirely on a broken VHS camcorder. The Casket Girls are a new three-piece band hailing from Savannah, GA. Comprised of Ryan Graveface (Black Moth Super Rainbow, The Marshmallow Ghosts, Dreamend) who wrote and played all the song structures, and newcomers, Elsa and Phaedra Greene, who wrote and performed all of the vocals. On Sleepwalking, the band's first release, the unique collaboration bears to be more than the sum of its parts - as the girls' haunting and upbeat pop sensibility imbues Ryan's inspired instrumental musings with such a sense of purpose that you must wonder how one could exist without the other. But, The Casket Girls happened - as most things do - by accident. Ryan was visiting his future home, and in walking through one of the city's 22 squares, he happened upon two girls playing autoharp and singing bizarre songs. He watched from afar, eventually approaching them with the idea for the band. Ryan had been (and still is) obsessed with the Shangri-Las, and the sisters personified his desire of a far darker and more complex version of the 60s group. 

Shai Yehezkelli Forever Sweat-Beads on View in Tel Aviv

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Israeli artist Shai Yehezkelli's painting is busy, rhythmic and fast, wild and free. He works on various surfaces, some of which he finds in the street, and his paintings shifts from "bad painting" to subtle poetic touches. His palate is full of pinks and reds, as if leaping out of a painting by Mattisse. The images span a wide range of references and quotations, each of them disrupt or alter the source; the pitchers look like disrupted quotes of still life painting. Yehezkelli paints with and within art history, but also beyond it. Rough handwritten captions, sometimes written in Hebrew and sometimes in English, convey political and inter-textual messages. When all of those are displayed side by side, the aggregate of captions and titles turn into a discourse on art, which is as valuable as the language of the painting itself. An exhibition of new works entitled Forever Sweat-Beads will be on view from October 18 to November 24, at Julie M. Gallery, 10 Betzalel Yafe St, Tel Aviv, Israel

Walter Pfeiffer's Scrapbooks

Walter Pfeiffer’s Scrapbooks from 1969 to 1982 are a very unique Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities). Pfeiffer’s Polaroids and photographs alternate with miscellaneous objects – newspaper clippings, postcards, packaging, tickets – and brief punning notes. Pfeiffer assembles all of this into a large collage full of surprising references and comparisons that is both a visual diary and creative foundation of his artistic work. In his scrap books, Pfeiffer’s keen view of Eros, Zeitgeist and popular culture, his disrespectful humor as well as his appreciation for the poetry in the mundane and banal, are sharply revealed. They offer a view into Pfeiffer’s meandering and playful universe and are a contemporary document that captures the Zeitgeist of the 1970s and 1980s with ephemeral elegance. Walter Pfeiffer's Scrapbooks 1969-1985 is available here.

Jonas Mekas: Reminiscences of a Displaced Person

James Fuentes gallery presents an exhibition of photographs by Jonas Mekas. Images out of Darkness recounts the years that Jonas Mekas and his brother Adolfas lived in Wiesbaden, Germany , in a displa ced persons camp. In 1944, a rrested by the Nazi’s a s they fled Lithuania, the brothers were placed in a forced labor camp where they worked in a machine factory.The brothers escaped and were detained near the Danish border where they hid on a farm for two months until the end of the war. After the war, they lived in displaced persons camps first in Wiesbaden and then in Kassel/Mattenberg. Between 1946-48 Mekas studied philosophy at the University of Mainz, the brothers immigrated to New York City in 1949 with assistance from the UN. Two weeks a fter his arrival in New York Jonas borrowed money to buy his first Bolex camera and began to record brief moments of his life. Mekas is considered a pioneer of diaristic cinema and a "god father to American avant-garde cinemat, his commitment to life as subject continues to this day and he has had exhibitions in major cultural institutions across the world. Images out of Darkness marks Jonas Mekas’ first visual essay. Jonas Mekas: Images Out Of Darkness, Images of A Displaced Person, Post War Germany 1945 to 1949 will be on view until October 28 at James Fuente Gallery, 55 Delancey Street, New York

Mario Testino In Your Face

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A new book out now by Taschen entitled Mario Testino. in Your Face is an unorthodox collection of various images chosen by Testino from the span of his 30-year career reflects the diversity of his work, ranging from fashion and advertising shots to sexually-charged images and autobiographical photos. Full of color, life, and humor, this selection is a testament to the sheer brilliance of a tireless chronicler of fabulousness. This book is published in the occasion of the In Your Faceexhibitionat the MFA Boston (which opens October 17, 2012 and runs to February 3, 2013).

Thomas Bayrle on the Highline Billboard

As part of the High Line's continued monthly installations of artist's works on their billboard on West 18th and 10th Ave, this time they present conceptual artist Thomas Bayrle's American Dream, taken from a 1970 drawing by the artist, the image depicts a classic Chrysler sedan, generated through hundreds of warped stars featuring the car company’s iconic logo. On view until October 31, 2012.

Doug Aitken's Altered Earth On View This Month in Arles

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Incorporating film, literature, data visualizations and sound design, artist Douglas Aitken's Altered Earth invites the user to piece together fragments of the landscape of the region of Camargue France. The site-specific work has been developed into an application for the iPad by Meri Media.The films themselves, of which there are seven, are devoid of narrative or plot, showing Carmague's salt pans, wild horses, and decaying architecture. The LUMA Foundation, which commissioned the work, calls it "a work of land art for the electronic era." Altered Earth will be on view this month projected on the walls of an old train station in Arles, France. 

Jeff Koons : Humankind Before All

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Jeff Koons has had a busy summer. A troika of career-reaffirming exhibitions have just been taking place throughout Europe : the Fondation Beyeler in Basel has produced a retrospective of his works centered around three principal groups of works (“New,” “Banality,” and “Celebration”); the Schirn Kunsthalle and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, both in Frankfurt, have been focusing on the two major arteries of Koons’ artistic production : his painting, and his sculpture, exhibited simultaneously, but in two separate Frankfurt venues. Now, another impressive exhibition of Jeff Koons’ art is about to open: at Almine Rech Gallery in Brussels. This is an event for many reasons: this is the first Koons exhibition in Brussels since 1992, when Made in Heaven was revealed to the Belgian public. More importantly, the present exhibition crowns this summer’s harvest : it concludes, recaps, but also expands again, on this extraordinarily rich and fecund season of exhibitions of Koons’ oeuvre. Jeff Koons : Humankind Before All will be on view from October 10 to November 17, 2012 at Almine Rech Gallery, 20 Rue De L'Abbaye Abdijstraat, Brussels

Richard Hamilton's Late Works

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This highly personal exhibition by one of Britain’s most influential artists traces an intriguing path leading to his unfinished and unseen final work, Le Chef-d’oeuvre inconnu – a painting in three parts.Up until his death at 89, Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) was planning this major exhibition of recent works conceived specifically for the National Gallery and including work never before seen by the public. The exhibition as a whole encapsulates many of the significant directions Hamilton’s art had taken over recent decades, when his international reputation soared. Richard Hamilton: The Late Works is on view from October 10 to January 13, 2013 a The National Gallery,Trafalgar Square, London WC2N 5DN