For Autre's 7th Friday Playlist, Indulge in the Extreme Sound of Second Wave Black Metal →

Before I continue, I should mention that I really don’t listen to extreme music with the same regularity that I once did. When I was about 20 to 22 years old (2009 to 2011 or so) I was living in Tucson, studying creative writing, and carrying a major chip on my shoulder. I was wearing black exclusively (even in punishing Arizona heat), watching horror films, reading Anton Lavey, using hard drugs, and listening to the most extreme forms of music that I could find: harsh noise, death metal, power electronics, power violence, dark ambient, and lots and lots of black metal. It was fun for a while, but I lacked the pervasive sense of unhappiness to really commit to that lifestyle. So I moved on, or back, to other forms of music that I loved: hip-hop, dance music, psychedelic rock, jazz, punk, etc.. But an appreciation for the explorers of extreme sound has persisted. Click here to listen to the playlist.

Read Our Convo With The Devilishly Brilliant Marc Horowitz On Being The Weirdest Kid In School, Scatalogical Antics and His First Solo Art Show →

Marc Horowitz is a genius, but he may also be the devil. His work is satanically brilliant. Over the last ten years, Horowitz has performed riotous pranks that have taken on the form of conceptual art and mad marketing schemes that seem at times Bernaysian, but always dementedly creative. He has taken a mule to run errands in San Francisco, he started a semi-nudist colony, he has tried to convince the board of the Golden Gate Bridge to build giant fans to blow away the fog so tourists could take pictures and he spent an entire year of his life trying to have dinner with 30,000 people after he wrote his name and number on a whiteboard in a Crate & Barrel catalogue. And that is only a sliver of his antics. When the stock market crashed, he tried to bail out the banks with his artwork. Today, Horowitz will see the official opening of his first solo show at the Depart Foundation in Los Angeles. Click here to read the full interview. 

Private Unveiling of The Album Art For Rihanna's Eighth Studio Album @ MAMA Gallery In Los Angeles

Rihanna celebrated the unveiling of her album art, by Israeli-born New York based artist Roy Nachum, at a private gathering held at MAMA gallery in Los Angeles. The album name, Anti, was also revealed, but there is no set date for the record release.  photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Go See Rebecca Dayan's Exhibition "Assumption" @ Catherine Ahnell Gallery In New York

Catherine Ahnell Gallery presents Rebecca Dayan's first solo exhibition as an artist. Painting is a talent that Dayan has been quietly pursuing throughout her years of loudly displaying her on-screen and on-the-page abilities. A native of the South of France, Rebecca started out as a young model and designer in Paris with the likes of some of the industries most acclaimed role players such as Karl Lagerfeld, Peter Lindbergh and Sonia Rykiel. In 2009 Dayan relocated to New York to pursue a career as an actress. Her acting career has grown rapidly since that year, giving Dayan an impressive collection of features that most recently includes a lead role in the much-acclaimed indie film H, which made its world premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Her current exhibition comes from her research for a film role playing a nun in the film Novitiate - she found it interesting the way nuns would talk about god much the same way that a woman might talk about her first love. This intrigue led Dayan to further explore the parallels that can be found between passions of religion and passions of eroticism, giving her the idea for the series of watercolor portraits she produced for her solo exhibition. Rebeca Dayan Assumption Will Be On View Until October 11, 2015 at Catherine Ahnell Gallery in New York.  photographs courtesy of the gallery. 

Watch The New Music Video For Yelle's Track Moteur Action Off Their Album Complètement Fou

Over the summer, we premiered Yelle's track Ba$$in from their current album Completement Fou, or Completely Crazy. This time around, we're presenting the equally strange video for the short track Moteur Action. Go see Yelle at the Casino de Paris on October 10. 

Highlights From The Tom of Finland Art and Culture Festival 2015 In Los Angeles

The Tom of Finland Foundation hosted the Tom of Finland Art + Culture festival at TOM House in Echo Park, Los Angeles. This year's festival featured more than 30 artists, both emerging and established. The weekend showcased live performance, poetry readings, short films, and erotic art spanning sculpture, photography, paintings, sketches, digital renderings, and more. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Artist Dan Levenson Creates A Fake Swiss Art School In His First Solo Exhibition @ Susanne Vielmetter Gallery In Los Angeles

In Dan Levenson's first solo exhibition, he has created a fictional and immersive narrative about a community of Swiss artists at the now-defunct State Art Academy, Zrich (SKZ). In one room, a set of paintings represents the results of a single composition exercise assigned to one class of students. The paintings appear to have suffered from time and neglect; their surfaces are cracked and discolored. In an adjacent gallery, an installation of storage racks, student lockers, paint-splattered studio floors and modular art school furniture collapses the imagined space of the art school with the real space of the gallery. The sculptural furniture serves a practical function in Levenson's studio so that the accretions of his process create the impression of many years of use. Traces of the lost culture of the art school abound, particularly in Levenson's use of standardized international paper sizes, which dictate the scale and composition of every painting and object he produces. Each painting fits inside a storage box recovered from the ruins of the art school. The boxes fit together with classroom furniture: a desk, flat files, work tables, and drawing horses. Dan Levenson "SKZ Painting Storage" will be on view until October 10, 2015 at Susanne Vielmetter Gallery, 6006 W Washington Blvd, Culver City, CA. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Read Ryan Ridge's Timely Short Story Selections from ECHO PARK →

Ryan Ridge's short stories carry a sort of essence of the 21st century. His brief prose style parallels with our abrupt, social-media-driven way of communicating in the modern world. The following tales--centered around the recently gentrified  community of Echo Park in Los Angeles--capture the dark tensions behind everything from climate change to Charlie Chaplin tramp stamps. Click here to read the selections.

For Autre's Sixth Friday Playlist We Invite You To Fire Up The Biggest Spliff You Can Roll and Listen To These Dub Tracks →

Once in a while I find myself pulling out my dub and reggae records: Lee “Scratch” Perry’s ‘Ape-ology,’ The Congos’ ‘Heart of the Congo,’ Augustus Pablo’s ‘King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown,’ and even that glory hogging egomaniac Bob Marley, who just couldn’t live without the toe (I’ll quantify soon). I don’t listen to these records for the same reasons that hippie stoner burnouts do, which is primarily for the sake of wearing Birkenstocks and drug rugs to more occasions. I have always loved the music’s textures: the melodies swirling into one another all tied together through one very simple and elegant beat. It is very heady music, indeed, but it’s also very musical music. Click here to listen to the playlist.

Read Autre's Favorites from Milan Fashion Week

Oh, Italy. The land of luxury behemoths. Young fashion people scoff at Milan, but Milan is planting itself once more at the forefront of conceptual fashion. Versace and Prada will always be doing their thing. Damir Doma decided to leave the herd of Paris and create his architectural garments in Italy. Arthur Arbesser is injecting youth and idea-driven fashion into the city revitalizing Iceberg and launching his own brand. And, less we forget, Alessandro Michele is the hottest designer in fashion at Gucci. It feels like people are ready for Italian fashion again, and they certainly want Gucci to be relevant again. We’ve had so many years of “cool” and “arty” brands out of Paris and London that maybe the coolest thing to do right now is to pay heed to the luxury giants of Italy. It’s hip to be square, motherfuckers. Click here to read the full review.

Sharon Stone Hosts The Photo15 AIDS Monument Benefit and Photography Auction at Milk Studios In Hollywood

Last night at Milk Studios, Photo15 a live auction benefit, was held for the creation of the West Hollywood AIDS Memorial. For the benefit, dozens of the most iconic photographs from the past 50 years were donated by some of the art world’s greatest juggernaut photographers. Works by Jack Pierson, Herb Ritts, Olivier Zahm, Ellen von Unwerth, Katherine Opie, and many more were represented, and some of the most philanthropic buyers were there hoping to take home a piece of the action. Preceding the live auction, Sharon Stone gave an emotional and sobering speech about the AIDS epidemic and what it has taught us about humanity. In it she says, “This is not a lesson we’re just learning in the AIDS community – it’s a lesson we are learning about humanity. When we judge, when we turn our backs on each other, when we turn away from anyone in need, we have a global crisis.” Indeed, for this event to happen on the same day as a mass shooting in Oregan, we are once again reminded of the obligation we have to band together and put an end to our most deadly manifestations. Last night, hundreds of Angelenos came together to build awareness and honor those who have suffered from the tragedies of the AIDS epidemic. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Kamil Franko "Love & War" @ The New Release Gallery in New York

"I wanted to create an existence that is located at the balancing tip of this razor. The very borderline that divides love and violence. To paint joy and harmony with a cast of a shadow; a dawning horror." Click here to read our full review of Kamil Franko's Love & War, which is on view now until November 7, at the New Release Gallery, 60 Mulbery Street. 

Macho Mel: Read Our Convo With the Endlessly Fascinating Mel Shimkovitz On Trans Vampires, Meeting William Burroughs, and Making It In Hollywood →

In the following interview, we have a long chat with Mel Shimkovitz about Trans vampires, her Zelig-like position in the music, art and Hollywood worlds, and the media’s sudden shift in focus toward the lives and rights of the LGBTQ community. Click here to read the full convo. 

Fish and Chicks: See Photos Of London Club Performer Imma Mess Shot by Daniel Peace for Maison Des Fous →

Imma Mess is a little bit of a legend in the underground London club scene. In our new editorial, Daniel Peace captures the performer for a special club night called Maison Des Fous, aka House of Crazy. Maison Des Fous will offer a space for performance and partying where artists of all variety come together to show off their unique skills. With freakshow, drag, neo burlesque and circus performers. Click here to see the full editorial. 

Jacob Kassay At the Beautiful Fitzpatrick-Leland House In Los Angeles Presented By 303 Gallery

Last weekend, 303 Gallery presented Jacob Kassay's presentation of new work at R.M. Schindler's Fitzpatrick-Leland House at the peak of Mulholand Drive in Los Angeles. Commissioned in 1936 as a model home by developer Clifton Fitzpatrick, the Fitzpatrick-Leland house underwent numerous modifications by previous owners until being acquired by Russ Leland in 1990, who restored much of its original design. In a site layered with a history of iterations and mixed uses, Kassay presents a group of raw stretchers from his ongoing series of irregularly shaped remnant paintings, which emerge from the residual textiles leftover from the production of other paintings and from the studios of fellow artists. While Schindler's house was originally built solely for display, these works take shape from excess material typically omitted from use and view. These discards are recouped as blueprints for paintings, where each remnant is given a wooden support that follows its discrete profile and contours, reversing the conventional procedure of producing paintings where surface is trimmed to fit its substrate. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Alona Rodeh "Safe and Sound" @ Grimmuseum in Berlin Is A Dark Ode to Israel's Iron Dome

For her solo show at Grimmuseum, Alona Rodeh is presenting the fourth and final episode of her exhibition series Safe and Sound. The first was a large-scale sound and light installation linking club culture and safety regulations in architecture, presented at Künstlerhaus Bethanien; the second presented a variation on the same project at Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art. The third episode—currently on view—is a multichannel sound work and a monumental homage to the notorious Israeli "Iron dome” at Petach Tikva Museum of Art. The last episode, at Grimmuseum, is the most abstract of them all. Issues of vandalism, security and law enforcement were present in the artist’s previous works but, since moving to Berlin two summers ago, she has been closely following the local (as well as general) boost in various audiovisual methods of safety and security in the city, and their adaptations into popular and subcultural aesthetics. Taking an informal path, her investigations reached deep into questions of involuntary reactions to origin and skin tone, the nature of being alarmed, the unwritten borders of authorities’ control, effectivity of pro-active self protection, social hierarchy of personal safety and more. Safe and Sound will be on view until October 17, 2015 at Grimmuseum in Berlin. 

We Love Dutch Hip Hop Group De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig's Music Video For the Track Manon

Created by Amsterdam based creative powerhouse Lernert & Sander, the genius music video for Dutch hip hop group De Jeugd Van Tegenwoordig's single Manon goes for pussy power with a bevy of cats playing against a stark pink background – veiled innuendo or not, we love it.