Art-pop provocateurs Xiu Xiu have shared a new animated video for “Jenny GoGo,” a song from the band’s upcoming 11th collection of original music, Forget. Evoking Throbbing Gristle circa 20 Jazz Funk Greats and the dark pop of classic coldwave, “Jenny GoGo” merges Dada-esque absurdity, brooding atmosphere, and infectious earworms. The video was directed by Victor Belozerov. It is out Febuary 24th on Polyvinyl Record Company.
Jack Smith was an American filmmaker, actor, and pioneer of underground cinema. He is generally acclaimed as a founding father of American performance art, and has been critically recognized as a master photographer, though his photographic works are rare and remain largely unknown. Smith's works and ephemera will be on view for one more week for a special exhibition, curated by Leo Fitzpatrick, held at Marlborough Chelsea's Reading Room in New York.
In military parlance, the terms asymmetrical and symmetrical are employed to refer to political provocations and diplomatic démarches, escalation and tension, and power dynamics of the highest order. Not specific to war, these terms also refer more generally to a set of relations that define our connections to power. On the eve of Y2K, Russian-born Olia Lialina—who is among the best-known participants in the 1990s net.art scene—first met American artist Cory Arcangel. Ever since, the artists have been deep in dialogue about the social and cultural impact of the Internet’s historical shift from a tool for military communication to an “information superhighway” promising open and equal exchange, and, finally, the increasingly asymmetric “content delivery system” we experience today. In this first collaboration, Arcangel and Lialina present complex bodies of work that arose through their continuing conversation. Cory Arcangel and Olia Lialina "Asymmetrical Response" will be on view until February 18, 2017 at The Kitchen NYC. photographs by Adam Lehrer
CES Gallery presents Bright Resolutions, a group exhibition featuring works by Tanya Brodsky, Jonathan Chapline, and Megan Stroech. Our senses are saturated, near collapse, overloaded. Endless media consumption is more exhausting than liberating, but if you lower your screen brightness your battery can last longer. Resolution is the act of breaking down complexity into constitutive parts, as in infinite Rs, Gs, and Bs, but to have resolve is to be determined and resolving is diplomatic. We like hi-res, which we associate with the professional, the incorporated, authenticity, truth, but we feed on and stream with lower resolutions, the type that clogged digital arteries can handle, fuzzy copies of copies. Through down-rezzed re-production new entities are formed, abstracted from originals; new contexts created, meanings recoded, resolutions shifted. "Bright Resolutions" will be on view until January 22, 2017 at CES Gallery in Los Angeles. photographs by CES Gallery
Blum & Poe presents Build Therefore Your Own World, an exhibition of new work by Los Angeles-based artist Sam Durant. The title is excerpted from a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay. Durant continues his excavation of marginalized American histories, unearthing counter storylines to the historical canon. In this exhibition he proposes a hybridized cross-pollination between the iconic nineteenth century transcendentalists like Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Louisa May Alcott, with African writers such as Phillis Wheatley and Lucy Terry Prince, along with abolitionists like Frederick Douglass. Further developing his theses from a recent three-month long public art project in Concord, MA entitled The Meeting House, Durant transforms relics from this politically loaded site of American history into a prescient presentation of culturally charged artworks. Sam Durant "Build Therefore Your Own World" will be on view until February 18, 2017 @ Blum and Poe Gallery in Los Angeles.
The video for "Rock Pool", finds Cate Le Bon reunited with director Casey Raymond for a fantastical experimentation in neo-Technicolor, La Nouvelle Vague and a locale that could be a dead ringer for Led Zeppelin's Houses of The Holy. Click here to preorder the 12" which is due out January 27 on Vinyl.
During January and February the George Adams Gallery, New York will present an exhibition of paintings and drawings by Peter Saul at CB1-G in Los Angeles. The exhibition will feature 20 works made between 1957 and 1967 covering his development as an artist from the late 1950s through his transition from Pop in the early 1960’s to a politically engaged, topical artist whose works tackled the most pressing issues of the day in the later half of the decade. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
For her Los Angeles gallery debut, artist Tallulah Willis presents a suite of new line drawings featuring charming and peculiar creatures that defy taxonomy and present a timely commentary on millennial ennui. Tallulah Willis "Please Be Gentle" will be on view until March 6 at Eric Buterbaugh gallery in Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
To mark what would have been David Bowie‘s 70th birthday, a new EP of music has been released along with a video for ‘No Plan’ directed by Tom Hingston.
Between the drinking and the acting out sexually I was dually addicted. I felt I didn’t have control over either. I would be in my car coming from someplace and my car literally headed for the Bijou Theater for instance. I honestly couldn’t decide not to go. I could be dead tired or not feeling well; it didn’t matter. I was driven to have sex or to drink. Click here to read more.
The black whores in tight body stockings hang in doorways, prowl outside bars, snarl like wolves defensive of their territory, lip gloss glowing in the fluorescence of the city night, teeth bared. The smell of lust in the air. Click here to read more.
photograph by Adarsha Benjamin
When Tenants Of The Trees descended upon a relatively quiet nook of Silver Lake, no one really knew what to expect; not the inhabitants of Silver Lake or denizens throughout the glittering, panting sprawl of Los Angeles. While the world raged outside, the venue, particularly Out Of Order (the private club within Tenants), would become an oasis – an island in the middle of an existential desert. Like the name suggests, a perch was given to creative artists and musicians around the world – not just locally – who used the venue to debut and announce albums, put on secret performances and cathartically scream and dance their hearts out after the death of Bowie, Prince, Vanity, Cohen, Michael and many more. Tenants of the Trees’ gave the space to Autre on countless occasions for their iconic Friday Artist Take Over (FAT). Instead of doing the typical “best of” year end list, we decided to take a look back at one of the most mythic and fabled years of nightlife within the hallowed walls of Tenants Of The Trees, and Out Of Order. Click here to see more
The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica and Sotheby's Institute Of Art will present Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Robert Irwin, Ed Moses, and Ed Ruscha on stage in Artists Talk: LA Legends - A Conversation With California Art Icons, on January 18, 2017, the first of a series of talks with influential California-based artists, established to explore the living legacy of Los Angeles' vibrant contemporary arts scene. Click here to purchase tickets. photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Lubricants & Literature is the first solo exhibition at Tenderpixel of represented artist Richard Healy. Including a series of new sculptures and a video installation accompanied by a limited edition publication, the show explores a moment of true magic in the tension between stasis and transformation. Lubricants and Literature will be on view until December 31 at Tenderpixel in London.
VFILES and Mountain Dew are teaming up to release a collection for Spring/Summer 2017. The camouflage heavy collection, featuring Mountain Dews' iconic green, elevates outdoor gear through innovative wearable tech like body-cameras and personal-audio system technology. Titled "Camo Out," the range includes track suits and jackets that play music, baseball caps that are fitted with cameras, and backpacks that are fueled by solar power. A party was held at VFiles in SoHo to celebrate the collection drop. text and photographs by Adam Lehrer
