RIP Ellsworth Kelly (1927 - 2015)

Ellsworth Kelly was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker associated with hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing simplicity of form, He lived and worked in Spencertown, New York and died there at the age of 92. photograph by Michel Grinberg

A Belgian Artist Makes His Big Break In America: Read Our Interview With Musician and Artist Joris Van de Moortel →

Joris Van de Moortel, 31, has intrusive bluish-gray eyes. They are unsettling; despite the subdued kindness that surrounds them. Looking in to them one realizes Moortel doesn’t see the same boundaries most of us do, the boundaries that most of us construct our lives around. Moortel smashes, sometimes literally, the line between art and music. He is both musician and artist and the two feed off one another. Moortel makes mixed media pieces that often incorporate elements of his musical performances; a guitar he smashed on stage the night before, panels from a stage he played on. Sometimes the work comes after a performance; sometimes it’s made during. Read our interview with the artist here. 

The Days of Bubblegum Pop Are Over: The Best Pop Records of 2015 →

10 years ago, when the phrase “pop music” conjured associations of Backstreet Boys and Britney, I would have never even thought to make a pop music list. But we are well into the Internet age at this point (it feels like just yesterday when I was on the Shoutweb message boards, discussing the excellence of KoRn and Slipknot with other pimply faced malcontents, but in reality it was 15 years ago), and the artists that grew up watching TRL and then reading Pitchfork on their desktops have come of age. Pop music has mutated into a variety of forms, only connected through an accessible, danceable, and sing-along quality. You can have the retro-psych R&B of Miguel, the post-modern alterna-pop of Bjork, or the British dancefloor celebration of Jamie XX, and it is all pop. Sub-culture has thoroughly been erased, and that isn’t a bad thing. It just means that individual taste has come to the forefront. You will have a much harder time finding someone who is only into black metal these days, but you might find a girl who has Grimes playing on her headphones sitting at the coffee shop wearing a Darkthrone t-shirt.

The point is, the artists making pop these days are very much artists, and not corporate drones. They by and large love music and are acquainted with at least some form of music history. In the words of Future and Drake, “What a time, TO BE ALIVE!”

Click here to listen to the full playlist...

Watch The Music Video for Dent May's "I'll Be Stoned For Christmas"

Just in time to soundtrack your own disillusionment with Christmas week, Dent May shares the music video for his Holiday classic-in-the-making, "I'll Be Stoned For Christmas." The video follows a former Hollywood It Girl named Cherry who visits her small hometown for the holidays and gets stoned to deal with the whole ordeal. It was expertly directed by Robbie Hillyer Barnett, who has two exciting forthcoming projects in the form of a stereoscopic 3D short film starring Kate Lyn Sheil entitled Talk About Your Dreams and the feature film Tears of God with Kate Lyn Sheil and Samuel T. Herring. Dent May is currently working on a new LP, and spending his Christmas in Jackson, MS.

Filthy Gorgeous Explores A Half Decade of Wild Nights In Camden Town, London

Self taught photographer Robert Lang grew up in Durban, South Africa, but moved to Camden Town, London, in 2001. With his day job, er, night job, as a fashion photographer and correspondent, he started to spend a lot of wild nights out on the town where he began to photograph some of the locals. Never intending for the series to become public, what would become Filthy Gorgeous was a photographic diary of sorts to laugh at the next day – perhaps as a cure to alleviate the impending hang over. Lang says he calls the series Filthy Gorgeous "because all of us ran wild living, working and partying in Camden and we had no inhibitions." He also says, "These women represented everything about our period at that time in London and were smart, fashionable and witty." Bruised, bloody and bloody bruised, the characters in these photographs – many of them friends of the photographer – have moved on from their party life, which makes these images all the more indicative of a rare and special moment in time. 

Takuroh Toyama "Float" Photography Exhibition At Kata Gallery's Ebisu Liquid Room in Tokyo

Takuroh Toyama is a photographer based in Tokyo and my good friend. He actually has a lot to do with how I started taking photographs and continue doing it now. I had never encountered photography that moved me before, but the first time I saw his photos it felt like they were somehow different from anything I'd seen up to that point, and I still can clearly remember how excited they made me. It doesn't matter if the subject is fashion or a band, his pictures have a consistency and are full of his own thoughts and viewpoint. That isn't a negative thing, it's in every way positive, and there is a chaotic blend of a longing gaze that isn't offensive, and a warmth overflowing with humanity. He introduced me to the work of amazing photographers like Ryan McGinley and Peter Sutherland. He always walks around with his camera and is always taking pictures. He never does anything stupid like going to hip parties and only taking pictures of cool people. He knows those kinds of pictures aren't any good (they just get consumed), and he is well aware the "cool" generally talked about is a persona. I really feel like I learned a lot from that attitude of his and his work which is full of it. His exhibition ended just the other day. I helped out and just because I was free I went there many days, and there were always only good people there. The mood was always good, and even though it's too bad that it ended, you can see his photos online too, so definitely take a look. text and photographs by Yuki Kikuchi. Translation by Bowen Cassey

Leading The Hip-Hop Renaissance: Read Our Conversation With Viper Magazine Publisher Lily Mercer Who Is Keeping Her Finger On The Pulse of The New Hip-Hop Golden Age →

AL: Do you remember the moment you fell in love with hip-hop?

Lily Mercer : Yeah. There were two songs. One was “Wishing on a Star” by Jay-Z. Weirdly, that’s the Jay-Z [track] that no one thinks of. My mum had grown up playing Motown, so there was a soul connection. It was hearing a song that was accessible but also quite deep. To me, those songs were quite profound at eight years old. After, when [rap] became an obsession, was when Eminem came out. That was a gateway drug. He’s a white rapper with middle class parents. I was a middle class kid, so it was the kind of hip-hop that was acceptable.

Click here to read the interview. 

For This Week's Friday Playlist, We Look At Some Of The Best Experimental Electronic Noise Records of 2015 →

"There are no excuses. If you don’t like what you’re reading about in Spin and Pitchfork, then you need to search engine that shit, harder." Click here to listen to the playlist and read our review of the best electronic-experimental noise records of 2015. 

Stoned Immaculate: Read Our Interview With Azalea Lee, A Minimalist Crystal Healer Who Makes Metaphysical Fine Jewelry →

Speaking to Azalea Lee is like talking to that wise aunt who has all those otherworldly insights that she wraps in easily accessible metaphors so that you don’t have to work too hard to arrive at the answers. Whether you actually have that aunt, or you always wished you had that aunt, when you walk into her crystal shop, you immediately feel that sense of comfort and familiarity. Her space is in an old building in the fashion district of Downtown Los Angeles. There’s a weird old elevator that you take to the 9th floor, walk down a short dark hallway, ring the bell and the door opens to a bright, white room with a sweeping landscape of the city and a friendly woman who asks you to take off your shoes. Entering Place 8 Healing is like walking through the pearly gates in a dream where you know you’re not dead, and this isn’t eternity, but somehow you feel lighter and more at ease. There’s a cubby station next to the door with a cushion that you can sit on where we eventually held the interview. She explains that we spend so much time wearing shoes and clothes that we lose our grounding; that removing that barrier between our feet and the ground is an essential part of rooting ourselves with the Earth. Click here to read more. 

A Peek at A23 Volume One "The Mysticism Of The Female" Published By Kristin Prim

A23 articulates a vision of contemporary art through a prism of acute individualism. Published biannually in limited edition hardcover volumes by Kristin Prim, A23 invites ten prolific fine artists to contribute original work to each edition, providing a platform to directly engage the viewer with their personal ethos and spirit. Entitled after the divination of the Aces, Twos, and Threes of the Minor Arcana, A23 seeks to espouse the collective truths of each artist, showcasing their personal ideologies, experiences, and dogmas in an archival visual manner. Click here to purchase Volume One, with contributions by Theo Adams, Luciano Castelli, Mary Beth Edelson and more. 

Read Autre's Top 10 Picks For The Best Gallery Exhibitions Of 2015 →

Click here to read Adam Lehrer's top 10 picks for the best art exhibitions of 2015.

Autre Exclusively Premieres The Short Film "Small Tits Big Dreams" By Tea Hacic and Milan Based Art Duo No Text Azienda

SMALL TITS BIG DREAMS is a story about impostor syndrome. It’s about finding yourself in a new country, situation, job or curse you can’t find your way out of. You don’t know who you need to be so you violently push yourself to the limits in order to find out. It’s about dating an illiterate drug dealer only so he’ll invite you to parties and then hating all of your clothes so much that you take them off once you get there. It’s about having a goal and doing whatever you must to reach it, even if “whatever you must” means stealing your best friend’s wallet. It’s about Milan, a city that was sleeping until noon, spending all its money on shoes and falling into k-holes by midnight. But the city is changing … ! Click here to read more about Small Tits Big Dreams

Watch The Music Video For Beach Baby's Track Limousine

Beach Baby, a musical foursome from London with the surprisingly un-London name of Beach Baby, have released their music video for the recent single Limousine.  Directed by Lily Rose Thomas, she mentions that "...the aim was to mirror the warped and surreal lyrical subject matter so with the band, we arrived at the idea of two young boys preparing for a Mexican stand off, with a love interest standing by."