Mick Rock: Remembering Bowie and Alejandro Iñárritu: The Revenant Double Exhibition @ Taschen Gallery in Los Angeles

Mick Rock: Remembering Bowie features photographs of the late and legendary David Bowie by his once official photograph Mick Rock. In the other room of Taschen gallery in Los Angeles, behind-the-scenes of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s The Revenant. A selection of photographs from Kimberley French are on display alongside props and relics from the film, charting the making of this critically-acclaimed epic through arresting visuals of the film’s extreme conditions and serene settings. The exhibit will be an exclusive first look at material for an upcoming Tascene Collector’s Edition book, The Revenant, signed and limited, with a portfolio of prints. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to a charity supporting Native Americans. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper 

Watch The Premiere of Lail Arad's Music Video For the Track "Lay Down" In The Form of A Late Night Photo Diary by Flo Kohl

Singer-songwriter Lail Arad has premiered the video for new single Lay Down, which is released on April 15th along with her second album The Onion, through The Vinyl Factory. She has also announced a London album release show at Chat’s Palace on 17th May, presented by Parallel Lines. The video for Lay Down is a stylish photo diary of Lail on a late night walk through London, shot by photographer Flo Kohl. The song plays out like a soundtrack to her thoughts as she navigates through the alternately hectic and serene city scenes. “We shot the photos for the video one freezing Saturday night in central London. It was surprisingly beautiful, walking the city without a real destination, noticing details you wouldn't usually stop for. A tourist in your own town." 

Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 @ MoMA In New York

New Photography, MoMA’s longstanding exhibition series of recent work in photography, returns this fall in an expanded, biannual format. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, New Photography is expanding to 19 artists and artist collectives from 14 countries, and includes works made specifically for this exhibition. Probing the effects of an image-based post-Internet reality, Ocean of Images examines various ways of experiencing the world: through images that are born digitally, made with scanners or lenses in the studio or the real world, presented as still or moving pictures, distributed as zines, morphed into three-dimensional objects, or remixed online. Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015 will be on view until March 20, 2016 at MoMA in New York. 

Bjarne Melgaard "Psychopathological Notebook" @ Karma Gallery in New York

Entering Bjarne Melgaard’s solo exhibition, currently on view at Karma gallery in New York, means entering a psychologically charged space. After passing through the curtain of quilted and stuffed sausages, printed with Melgaard’s drawings, and past the obstacle course of penises in the hallway the viewer is confronted with a large wall curtain made out of prints, stuffed pillows, and string. The adjacent walls are covered with Melgaard’s paintings, which he did as a response to Karel Appel’s Psychopathological Notebook (1950). Appel created his notebook after visiting the L’Art Chez les Fous exhibit in Paris, the International Exhibition of Psychopathological Art at the Sainte- Anne psychiatric hospital. Dissatisfied with the pamphlet that accompanied the exhibition Appel decided to draw over the published text. Melgaard’s paintings are the result of the artist’s own hand manipulating and covering Appel’s original drawings. The already highly expressive and charged drawings become further abstracted and frantic. Bjarne Melgaard "Psychopathological Notebook" will be on view until February 28, 2016 at Karma Gallery, 39 Great Jones Street, New York. text and photography by Adriana Pauly

A Cinematic Portrait of Chanel’s Paris in Rome Métiers d’Art Show at Cinecitta with Spoken Word by Jean-Luc Godard

If all roads lead to Rome, then which roads lead to Paris? For Chanel’s 13th Métiers d’Art show, Karl Lagerfeld took to the back lots of the famous Cinecittà film studios in Rome to show the luxury brand’s pre-fall 2016 collection. Since Lagerfeld’s reign at Chanel, his Métiers d’Art shows have become legendary:  a rodeo in Dallas (Paris in Dallas), a barge in Shanghai (Paris in Shanghai), a hotel in Salzburg (Paris in Salzburg) – the list goes on. The shows aren’t just bombastic gestures of wealth; their intention is also to celebrate the artisans around the world that contribute to the work of Chanel’s collections, from lace to buttonry to embroidery. But Lagerfeld’s decision to create a vintage Parisian set on Teatro No. 5, replete with bistro tables, a boulangerie, a cinema, a metro station, three weeks after the terrorist attacks in real Paris, had a deeper, more poetic and darkly coincidental meaning. The show, planned well before the attacks, was a cinematic love letter to Paris. Lagerfeld remarked: “I wanted to create a homage to Paris. The best Paris, the most romantic Paris and to nostalgia for an idealized version of the city that never really existed.” The Cinecittà, otherwise known as Hollywood on the Tiber, was built by Benito Mussolini in 1937 in a scheme to revive the Italian film industry – later, such classics as La Dolce Vita and Satyricon were filmed there. In Dustin Lynn’s own cinematic portrait of Métiers d’Art show, set to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd and a spoken word piece by film legend Jean-Luc Godard, a modern Rome and a modern Paris clashes with a make-believe, Charles de Gaulle-era Paris. Then there are the models walking the runway, the high fashion, and the after party – just to remind us that it is all just fantasy. 

Friday Playlist: A World Where Goth Is Funky and Noise Is Fashion and Anti Fashion Is Art →

The best new record I heard this week, aside from The Life of Pablo obviously, is the newest release by London-based producer Brood Ma, Daze. A volatile collision of funk, noise, house, and techno, the album sounds viciously contemporary, indicative of the evolution of London and New York-based label Tri Angle. Never in my life have I seen a label that has almost as much influence on the underground as it does on the mainstream. Click here to read the full playlist.

X: Sex And Dying In High Society @ These Days LA Gallery in Los Angeles

This exhibition is a celebration of the seminal and quintessential Los Angeles punk band X. Formed in 1977 at the dawn of the DIY punk movement in Los Angeles, X was a definitive sound in the first wave of the Los Angeles punk scene. Playing relentlessly, they graced the stages of all the legendary clubs of the times—The Masque, The Hong Kong Café, Cathay de Grande, The Whiskey a Go Go, Club 88, The Starwood, and Madame Wong’s. In 1979 their song Los Angeles was released on the Dangerhouse compilation YES LA and immediately became a city-defining anthem. Thirty-seven years and countless classic songs later, X continues to play shows to devoted fans around the world. X: Sex And Dying In High Society will be on view until March 26 at These Days LA Gallery, 118 Winston Street, 2nd FL Los Angeles, CA

Nine Morbid Songs About Dying: Read Our Interview With New Zealand Soul Singer Marlon Williams Whose Self-Titled Debut Album Is Out Today →

Marlon Williams, the New Zealand born soul crooner whose self-titled breakout album drops today, isn’t just a throw back. Sure, his slicked back hair, tight fitting Brando style tees and general ruggedness may suggest a yearning for 1950s Americana, but this vocal prodigy from the Southern Hemisphere is merely singing from the heart, which can transcend time and space and musical genres. In his voice and vocal style, there are also strains of religious spirituals that can be tied to his family’s Maori upbringing (his father was a Maori punk singer) and singing in church choirs. Click here to read more.