[FIRST LOOK] Louis Vuitton Presents Luxury Bike Polo

To introduce the launch of the new bike polo, Louis Vuitton presents an new action packed short film starring Jonathan Leder and starring Britany Nola (Playboy's Miss November 2012) as a sexy referee during a bike polo match. One of Louis Vuitton’s ongoing projects is the “sport objects” series, represented here with an elegant fixed gear, polo bike made up of elements of steel, aluminium, leather, canvas, and high-density plastic (the front wheel is closed with damier graphite canvas to prevent the ball from passing through or to get a mallet mingled in the wheel). These state of the art - not for sale - unique pieces are also highly functional equipment, designed by Louis Vuitton and produced in collaboration with the most renowned craftsmen in their respective field. Faithful to its innovator origins, this luxury Bike Polo perfectly embodies the exclusive sport objects produced by the House. With the film, director Jonathan Leder introduces his highly aesthetic vision of bike polo, an elegant back-lit choreography where all the players glide into a film noir scenery; a hazy staging featuring the “Louis Vuitton Boys”, not without a touch of irony.

Adarsha Benjamin's Kurt Premiers at Art Basel Miami

kurt_cobain_adarsha_benjamin_gusman_theater_art_basel_miami_2

Adarsha Benjamin's experimental short film, entitled Kurt, which is an abstract portrayal of the myth and personality of the late Kurt Cobain, featuring different actors and performers including Henry Hopper, will see its premier at the historic Gusman Theater as part of Art Basel Miami 2012.  There will also be a performance by Ryan Heffington and music by Guy Blakeslee and Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth). Kurt will premier on December 6, 2012 at 7 P.M at the Gusman Theater, 174 E. Flagler Street, Miami, FL

John Baldessari New Exhibition at Marian Goodman

baldessari_john_animal_crackers_marian_goodman

Marian Goodman Gallery in New York presents an exhibition of new works by John Baldessari titled Double Play which is on view now. The exhibition consists of a new series of paintings on canvas in which Baldessari engages us in his strategic and diverse practice of selection and montage, removal and assembly, ‘taking an image to make an image’. In this series, he draws on the art historical canon, rather than photography and film, to juxtapose the part and whole, to contrast and weigh language, image, and color, and to interrupt context in order to arrive at new relationships, narrative allusions, or an enigmatic totality. “I am always looking to invert priorities, to make the unimportant important, leaving images out and letting [us] fill in the blanks”, says Baldessari. Double Play will be on view until November 21, 2012 at Marian Goodman Gallery, 24 West 57th Street, NY, NY

Michelle Williams Stars in New Wild Nothing Music Video

Shot in LA, New York, St. Maarten & Niagara Falls, the video chronicles travel by plane and the paradise found just beyond the window. Three-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Williams was brought onboard by director Matthew Amato who explains: "I loved Wild Nothing the moment I heard Gemini and I jumped at the opportunity to make a video for the new record, Nocturne. My instinct told me to send Michelle the three tracks they were considering for a video and she chose Paradise." The video was shot on Japanese Harinezumi cameras and features a new edit of the song, with Michelle Williams reading from Iris Murdoch's A Word Child. It was recorded for the video by Jack Tatum at the Rare Book Room in Brooklyn, NY, where Nocturne was also recorded. 

Sandy Kim at The Hole Gallery

Curated by Kathy Grayson and Tim Barber a new exhibition entitled Attachments brings together a group of young artists who explore the depths and boundaries of the photographic medium. Widely varied in their practices, these artists add unique perspectives to their ever-expanding and mutating photographic dialog. Photographers include Sandy Kim (above), Tim Barber, Asger Carlsen, Jason Nocito and more. Attachments is on view through November 3, 2012 at The Hole Gallery, 312 Bowery, NY, NY. photograph by Ona Rygelis

Art Show Aboard Historic Sunken Ship

An art show featuring new works by David Murcko (above), Derek Skorupski, Grace Lumpkin and Philip DiWilliams will be on view October 25 aboard the historic lightship "Frying Pan," an old US Coast Guard ship built in 1929, abandoned for ten years and sunk in the Chesapeake Bay for 3 years and brought back to NYC in 1989. The Frying Pan is at Pier 66, West 26th Street and Hudson River (near Chelsea Piers).

Johannes Wohnseifer's Water From A Melted Ice Sculpture

Johannes_Wohnseifer_Water_From_A_Melted_Ice_Sculpture

Johann König, Berlin presents Water From A Melted Ice Sculpture that will mark Johannes Wohnseifer's sixth solo exhibition in the gallery. In a conceptually rigorous, yet poetic manner seven new series of works address the spheres of politics, production, publicity and privacy. Wohnseifer is able to melt these areas together while their supposed discernment is not gone lost in favor of mutual reflection. On view from October 27 to to December 22 at Johann König, Dessauer Straße 6-7, 10963 Berlin

Poet John Tottenham by Actor Adam Goldberg

British-born, Los Angeles-based poet John Tottenham photographed by actor Adam Goldberg (Dazed and Confused, Saving Private Ryan). John Tottenham's new book of poetry, entitled Antiepithalamia & Other Poems of Regret and Resentment, is out now on Penny-Ante Editions. Tottenham writes hilariously savage, self-lacerating verse about the artistic ego that always slyly implicates his audience. His readings have been a staple at literary readings in the Los Angeles area, and he is well known among the town's art and literary circles. In performance, at least, his literary voice comes across as a pitch-perfect channeling of the Dostoevsky character from Notes From Underground. And his truth hits always have his audiences doubled over with laughter.

Jeremy Kost's Fame Paintings On View in Paris

Jeremy Kost’s celebrity paintings–silkscreened on large-scale canvases from Polaroid images–are paired here with Polaroid facsimiles by Andy Warhol from the 70s and 80s. Both artists share an inquisitive lust to understand fame in all its dramatic guises and extravagant poses. Occasionally they share a subject–Liza Minnelli, Dolly Parton, Keith Richards–though Kost approaches these iconic individuals from a very different perspective. In some cases they are obscured or abstracted; occasionally disembodied, as with Madonna’s head, which appears to float on a sea of silver, or Grace Jones, who dissolves into a beautiful haze of flowers and tapestries. By translating his original photographs into these slick yet gritty canvases, Kost has given his unique vision a new sense of monumentality. In these works, which came from his Polaroid photographs, celebrity is both celebrated and complicated. We see the mobs of paparazzi themselves, clamoring for a shot, and the polarized finish of the paintings themselves is simultaneously glamorous and anti-glamor–just as Beyonce here appears both as a superstar and a sort of monster, caught in the camera’s flash. Like his forbearer Warhol, Kost is a participant in the world he depicts and also somewhat of a voyeur, diligently capturing all the madness and the romance of celebrity, all the while translating a sense of intimacy and access. Jeremy Kost: Always The Center of Attention will be on view until November 18 at Galerie Nuke, 11 Rue Saint Anastase, 75003 Paris, France