After news emerged that Freddie Gray, Jr. had broken his spine and died while in the custody of police officers – a literal straw that broke the camel's back after countless public deaths of unarmed black men and women at the hands of authorities – riots and protests erupted in Baltimore; it soon spread to New York City. Mike Krim of subversive, cult publishing imprint Paperwork NYC and model Alex Papa grabbed their cameras and found themselves in the center of the action. "Alex Papa and I decided to grab some film and join in. Not knowing what to expect, we jumped in the crowd and started taking photos. That lasted roughly twenty minutes until we found ourselves chanting "No Justice No Peace Fuck The Police" and fully engaged in the protest, which took over city blocks and highways. As voices echoed loudly, we ran to fill in gaps, walking interlinked to shut down intersections, and marched forward. At times losing people to small pockets of raw emotion that took place. I'm not sure what the exact term of "peaceful assembly" is but I feel it was accomplished last night. Was anything achieved besides screwing up all the traffic in NYC? I'm not sure. I will tell you one thing, though, it felt fucking awesome approaching Times Square with that many people and taking over what some call the center of the universe." Click here to see the full photographic essay.
6 Booths You Have to Visit On The Last Day of the 2015 NADA Art Fair
1. See Elizabeth Jaeger's awkwardly beautiful sculpture - entitled "Maybe We Die so the Love Doesn't Have To," 2015 at Jack Hanley Gallery (Booth 2.30) 2. See artist Janson Stegner's erotic and sinuously lengthened portraits of cheerleaders and female cops at the Sorry We're Closed booth 3. Like Fragonard on too many tabs of acid, see Irish painter Genieve Figgis's works on view at the Half Gallery booth (404) 4. See artist Betty Tompkins' pussies, pearls and penises on view at the Louis B. James gallery booth (booth 2.26) 5. Perhaps the most exciting and thrilling booth belongs to the Oslo, Norway based gallery Rod Bianco with a solo presentation of work by artist Vaginal Davis, entitled “Flirtation Walk (The Ho Stroll)," which explores homosexuality and male prostitution through a long prose poem that is juxtaposed against hunks of Hollywood's golden era 6. Wall sculptures by artist Sara Rahbar combines religion's sanctifying iconography and man's tools of trade - shovels, rifle butts and crucifixes – in primitive, neo-Dadaist assemblages on view at the Carbon 12 booth. The 2015 NADA Art Fair will be on view until May 17, 2015 at at Basketball City, located at 299 South Street on the East River.
Sean Knibb Presents Gorgeous Carrara Marble Tables At ICFF, Read Our Exclusive Interview With the Designer →
Designer Sean Knibb (Knibb Design) - known for decking out the The LINE Hotel in Los Angeles - creates unique Carrara marble tables with t-shirts and jean shorts meticulously carved into the marble surface - the process takes over 700 hours by highly skilled Italian artisans. The series of functional tables will be presented ICFF in New York. Read our exclusive interview with Knibb here.
Read Bruce Licher's Remembrance of An Amazing Adventure In Calexico with the Late Chris Burden →
photograph by Bruce Licher
Chris Burden, who passed away a few days ago at his home in Topanga Canyon, California at the age of 69, was known for his performance art pieces that bordered on terrorism, like the time he took a pistol and fired several shots at a passenger airline taking off from LAX. In another piece, entitled Coals to Newcastle, which is a British idiom for doing something stupid or pointless, Burden sent a toy rubber-band model airplane with marijuana strapped to it over the border into Mexico. In the following eulogy of the late groundbreaking artist, Bruce Licher - a former student and founder of the LA post-punk band Savage Republic - describes his adventure in Calexico with Burden during the preparation and making of Coals to Newcastle. Read the whole story here.
Renzo Piano's Triumphant Architecture for the New Whitney Museum Location in New York
photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Angela Bulloch 'New Wave Digits' @ Simon Lee Gallery In London
Simon Lee Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of new sculptures by acclaimed artist Angela Bulloch. Stacked columns of polyhedra, formed in steel, corian or MDF, populate the gallery space. Conceived and designed within a digital imaging program, this new body of sculptures, with their stylized geometry, electronic glow and manufactured surface sheen, might seem to channel New Wave Science Fiction - a genre typified by its imaginative, futuristic and often inaccurate notions of science and technology. Just as that genre’s writers accelerated the age’s visions of modernism, these geometric stacks suggest Brancusi’s Endless Column as if refracted through vector graphics, reinforcing a sense of ‘retro-futurity’. The temporality is confusing. Today, when much sculpture seems to be looking back toward the purity of minimalism, these works seem to refer to a later moment, when culture took imaginative leaps forward, postulating a world of stark angles and sawtooth synthesizers. Angela Bulloch 'New Wave Digits' will be on view until May 30th at Simon Lee Gallery in London.
Playboy Calendars At The Harper's Books Pop Up at the Carlyle Hotel in New York
Harper's Books Anti-Fair will be on view until Friday, May 15 at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Harper Levine of Harper's Books At His Anti-Fair Pop-Up At the Carlyle Hotel In New York
Harper Levine of Harper's Books at his Anti-Fair Pop-Up, which takes up a double room suite at the Carlyle Hotel. Get your hands on beautiful rare art books, art by the likes of Eric Brown and Brad Phillips, and other ephemera. On view until Friday, May 15 at the Carlyle Hotel in New York. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Part Two: Highlights from the Private Opening of Frieze Art Fair New York 2015
Autre made its way to Randall's Island Park to see the Private View opening of Frieze Art Fair New York 2015, situated on the chilly banks of the Harlem River and it was more than worth it. Some standouts from Part Two of our coverage include a few of the international booths, like Sultana Paris' solo exhibition of Swiss artist Walter Pfeiffer and São Paulo based gallery Casa Triangulo's solo presentation of works by Eduardo Berliner. Then there are the classics, like Cheim & Read, that had a brilliant large scale portrait on display of Little Richard by the artist Jack Pierson, who is known for his text based work using neon lettering from discarded signage. SEE PART ONE HERE. The Frieze Art Fair New York will run until May 17th, 2015. text and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Part One: Highlights from the Private Opening of Frieze Art Fair New York 2015
Autre made its way to Randall's Island Park to see the Private View opening of Frieze Art Fair New York 2015, situated on the chilly banks of the Harlem River and it was more than worth it. Some standouts from Part One of our coverage includes British Gallery Payne Shurvel's display of artist radical feminist artist Margaret Harrison and a slightly disturbing piece by artist Patrick Walsh, a.k.a JPW3, which involves a cluster of metal chains being dipped in wax over and over again - presented by Los Angeles based Night Gallery. SEE PART TWO HERE. The Frieze Art Fair New York will run until May 17th, 2015. text and photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Artist Bjarne Melgaard on His Upcoming Show 'Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees' @ Sammlung Friedrichshof
We here at Autre have a bit of fascination with New York based, Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard. His art is brutal, poignant, poetic and always adventurous. After his controversial show at the Munch Museum in Oslo - entitled 'Melgaard & Munch: The End Of It All Has Already Happened' - Melgaard is paying a strange homage to Viennese Actionist Otto Muehl. The show, entitled 'Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees,' also explores his relationship with his lover, who is nearly 30 years his junior. Here is what Melgaard says about his upcoming exhibition, "This show is about the failure and synthesis of a sculpture I made some 15 years ago called Light Bulb Man.The genesis of the show was to take that sculpture and simply wash it out into new models of materialization, mixed together with several collaborations as random references to my fashion collection about disappointment and the pleasure attendant to that whole concept. All the fabrics in the exhibition have been designed by Babak Radboy of SHANZHAI BIENNIAL, specifically incorporating images of my boyfriend, David Oramas, me and of Light Bulb Man.The fabrics then were given to the designers to dress nine new sculptures that are remakes of the Light Bulb Man. The show also clearly references MDMT and LSD as a significant inspiration for the show and looks at the healing aspect of these substances and how they can open up consciousness and how psychedelics can be, if one is open to it, a tool to enter your inner core. The "Bad Daddy" aspect of the show takes into consideration and contextualizes the fact that I am 48 and my lover is 21 and with all the different mechanics inherent in that attraction. It’s also a show based on seduction and intrigue along matters of age and time, themes that were fundamental to the original Light Bulb Man. The balance of the show will feature an improvised pop-up shop, soundtracks, and new paintings that will infiltrate the permanent collection of the Sammlung Friedrichshof." Daddies Like You Don't Grow On Palm Trees will be on view from May 16 to November 30, 2015 at Sammlung Friedrichshof, Zurndorf.
See Our New Editorial by Raquel Pellicano Shot In An Architectural Gem in Brasília →
Located in the Brazilian Highlands - Brasília was developed by urban planners and architects Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer in 1956 in order to move the capital from Rio de Janeiro to a more centralized located. Downtown proper is filled brilliant examples of midcentury splendor and some of the greatest masterpieces belonging to Costa and Niemeyer - along with landscapes by Roberto Burle Marx. In the this editorial, shot in one of the beautiful modernist homes in the suburbs by photographer Raquel Pellicano, the model's beauty is matched perfectly against the beauty of the architecture with its steel, wood and concrete accents. Click here to see the full editorial.
A Mechanic Falls In Love With A Porsche in New Lapalux Music Video directed by Nick Rutter
Having previously collaborated with incredible results not once, but twice - on Lapalux's “Without You" music video and Nick's short film Chrysalis in 2013 - Lapalux and Nick Rutter have joined forces once again to create a music video for "Puzzle (feat. Andreya Triana)" from Lapalux's second album Lustmore (recently released via Brainfeeder). Starring James Eeles (Peaky Blinders, My Big Fat Diary) and a 1989 Porsche (model 944) it's a tender and warped love story of a mechanic called Leon who is possessed by love, but no ordinary love . . . he has mechanophilia (the love or sexual attraction to machines, including cars). In an enclosed and surreal world where his dreams, hallucinations and visions feel wholly real, Leon tries to make sense of his spiralling emotions. And when the penny drops, can he make the right choice?
#RAWHIDE co-Curated by Dylan Brant & Vivian Brodie Opening At Venus Over Manhattan In New York
#RAWHIDE is an exhibition - co-Curated by Dylan Brant & Vivian Brodie - of paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs from the nineteenth century to present that together chronicle the cowboy’s rise to omnipresence in art. He has long been a vehicle through which artists are able to interpret and articulate their relationship to American identity. For that reason, the cowboy’s portrayal at any given time is both a critique and a reflection of our nation’s values and desires. This icon is a testament to the artist’s ability to recognize the universality, longevity and potential of this American symbol. #RAWHIDE will be on view until July 11, 2015 at Venus Over Manhattan, 980 Madison Ave, New York. photographs by Eric Morales
Kelsey Lee Offield of Gusford Gallery Shares Her Highlights and Adventures from the 2015 Venice Biennale
Kelsey Lee Offield, art collector and owner/director of Los Angeles based Gusford Gallery, shares with Autre her highlights and adventures from the 2015 Venice Biennale, which include the multi-room international pavilions to smaller satellite exhibitions - some that literally float on the canals, like Maurizio Cattelan's gigantic cactus, which is flanked between two white eggs (see if you can catch it in the distance of one of the photographs above). photographs by Kelsey Lee Offield
Read Max Barrie's Tale of Fear and Loathing in Malibu and Mainlining Rainbows →
"I almost drowned in SoCal’s sea of superficial diarrhea… and I’m not out of the deep doo yet. The fact that I haven’t blown my brains out— is well… not really that miraculous. I’m a big pink muffin and I’m afraid that if I make my exit too soon, I’ll just be shit out someplace worse… like Sylmar." Writer Max Barrie describes fear and loathing in Malibu and mainlining rainbows in this rabid tale of materialism in Lost Angeles. It's an important and cautionary tale that all should take heed. Read the short non-fiction story here.
Private Opening of Rob Pruitt's 50th Birthday Bash at the Brant Center in Connecticut
Rob Pruitt and friends celebrated the opening of 'Rob Pruitt's 50th Birthday Bash' - an exhibition that is one part art exhibition and one part flea market on view at the Brant Foundation in Connecticut. Pruitt is an American post-pop artist who explores American youth and consumer culture. Working in painting, installation, and sculpture, he does not have a single style or medium. His pieces are humorous but seductive; critics debate whether he celebrates or critiques commercial culture. While he uses pop culture imagery, his work is intensely personal and biographical. The Brant Foundation Art Study Center is located 941 North Street, Greenwich Connecticut. photographs by Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan
After & Again with Betsabee Romero: Public Art Installation Launch @ The Hollywood Forever Masonic Lodge
After & Again, a new contemporary art platform celebrating the craftsmanship of textiles, presented their inaugural artist collaboration with Betsabeé Romero, one of Mexico’s leading contemporary artists for three days only at the Hollywood Forever Masonic Lodge. Known around the world for creating inventive installations influenced by literature and diverse cultures, Romero’s "Skull of a Thousand Faces" edition and installation - curated by Sylvia Chivaratanond (read our interview here) –for After & Again is inspired by pre-Columbian iconography, colonial imagery, and popular culture. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Inge Morath 'Masquerades' & Enoc Perez 'Cut Shapes' @ Danziger Gallery In New York
Danziger Gallery presents a two-person show of photographs by Inge Morath and photo collages by Enoc Perez. Created half a century apart, both works share a sense of humor, an interest in concealment, and a delight in cutting and making shapes out of paper. Autre's New York correspondent Adam Lehrer caught up with Perez at the opening of “Cut Shapes” to talk about the show, his excitement about technology and why he loves portraying the auras of women. Click here to read the enlightening interview. photographs by Adam Lehrer
R.I.P. Chris Burden, Extreme Performance Artist (1946-2015)
Chris Burden, an artist known for his extreme performance art in his youth - with performances that included shooting himself in the arm with a rifle and crucifying himself on a VW Bug - has died at the age of 69 in Los Angeles. Later in his life, Burden became more well known for his sculptural works, like the famous streetlamp installation outside of LACMA and Porsche with Meteorite, which is on view now at Gagosian Gallery in Paris. Burden has made an indelible mark on the history of art and he will be an enduring symbol and spirit of how far bravery, imagination and a little pain can take the artist.