French Gaule wave band FAIRE just release another video for Laisse Lucifer, featuring french burlesque dancer Maud Amour and directed by Lucie Bourdeu. Their first EP โLa Vieโ is available on every streaming platform. Read our previous interview with FAIRE here
An Interview With Multidisciplinary Artist Jรณnsi On The Occasion Of His Exhibition @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery In Los Angeles
In a series of three new gallery-based works, Joฬnsi riffs on the invocation of sensory inversion in Goetheโs fifth Roman Elegy in which the Romantic poet makes a connection between the experience of a loverโs body and a classical marble sculpture with the phrase, โsee with a feeling eye, feel with a seeing hand.โ In Joฬnsiโs remix, Goetheโs advice to experience the world in a different way is given a sonic update that might read as follows: โhear with a feeling ear, feel with a hearing hand.โ Seeing, hearing, feeling โ each of these senses collapse upon one another in Joฬnsiโs work as sound takes a concrete form and the tactile and the auditory merge into a surprising synesthesia. While one might read these works within the lineage of bombastic noise experiments harkening back to those of the Italian Futurists who championed the revolutionary aspects of noise in opposition to formal music, Joฬnsiโs approach is far more interested in exploring the phenomenological complication and extension of the senses as an antidote to a world in which we are constantly confronted by the agitated white noise of contemporary civilization. In his work there is an overarching attempt to assert the primacy of the auditory, the tactile, and the visual in helping the human organism navigate its way through this unmoored and volatile world. Jรณnsiโs solo exhibition is on view through January 9, 2020 @ Tanya Bonakdar Gallery 1010 N Highland Avenue. photographs by Jeff Mclane, courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York / Los Angeles
Click here to read our interview with Jรณnsi
To Exalt the Ephemeral: Alina Szapocznikow, 1962 โ 1972 @ Hauser & Wirth New York
In a brief but explosively inventive career, Alina Szapocznikow (1926 โ 1973) radically re-conceptualized sculpture as a vehicle for exploring, liberating, and declaring bodily experience, from the ecstatic, to the harrowing, to the uncanny.
Through her material experiments, Szapocznikow generated a series of lamps, exemplified here by the โLampe Bouche (Illuminated Lips)โ (1966) works, functional sculptures of glowing female lips extending from elongated stem-like bases. Although the artist lived and worked in Paris at the time, her focus on malleable material as a proxy for the body firmly positions her among contemporaries practicing in the United States, including Eva Hesse, Hannah Wilke, and Lynda Benglis, as well as noted friend Louise Bourgeois, to whom Szapocznikow dedicated and gifted two of the lamps on view.
An integral component of Szapocznikowโs practice was her mastery of new materials and techniques. Thus, she produced most of her work in her own studio rather than outsourcing fabrication to a factory. By focusing on an intimate, tactile relationship with her mediums, Szapocznikow was able to push the experimental boundaries of artistic gesture, resulting in such works as Souvenirs. On view on the galleryโs second floor, these sculptures, radically integrate polyester resin, glass, wool, and photographs that capture both personal and collective histories โ images ranging from a picture of Alina as a child, to a photo of a female victim of a concentration camp, to a portrait of โ60s icon Twiggy. The Souvenirs suggest mementos โ or memento mori โ for an ambiguous new era.
To Exalt the Ephemeral: Alina Szapocznikow, 1962 โ 1972 is on view through December 21 @ Hauser & Wirth 548 West 22nd Street New York.
Mike Kelley: Timeless Painting @ Hauser & Wirth New York
Over the course of his four-decade career, Mike Kelley generated a remarkably diverse oeuvre in an array of media, conflating so-called high culture and low culture, critiquing prevailing aesthetic conventions, and combining traditional notions of the sacred and the profane. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts, features paintings from different series created over a 15-year period, between 1994 and 2009, spotlighting the breadth of the artistโs engagement with the medium of painting.
The Timeless Painting exhibition and publication contribute new perspectives to the discourse around the artistโs work, challenging conventional readings by exploring Kelleyโs own meticulously documented intentions as a point of departure; resituating these works within the larger formal context of his oeuvre; and expanding traditional definitions of painting.
Mike Kelley: Timeless Painting is on view through January 25, 2020 @ Hauser & Wirth 548 West 22nd Street
New York
Chung Sang-Hwa: Excavations, 1964-78 @ Levy Gorvy in New York
Chung Sang-Hwa: Excavations, 1964โ78 is an exhibition of paintings from a formative era of Chungโs five-decades-long career. It includes works from a crucial period in which the Korean master was immersed in the international avant-garde milieus of both Asia and Europe. The paintings illuminate the conceptual and technical trajectories that led Chung to the profoundly original, finely honed approach that defines the art of his mid and late career. By highlighting the eclectic transnational influences in which Chung was immersed throughout the 1960s and โ70s, the exhibition provides rare insight into the progression of his practice, in order to galvanize discourse surrounding Chungโs singular approach to the medium.
Excavations, 1964โ78 is on view through January 18, 2020 @ Levy Gorvy 909 Madison Avenue New York. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Rashid Johnson: The Hikers @ Hauser & Wirth New York
The Hikers unfolds through five rooms in a formal arrangement that echoes the fragmentation and accumulation of Johnsonโs mosaics and collaged works on display. The viewer is first greeted by three monumental mosaics, each comprised of myriad materials familiar from the artistโs practice: multi-color ceramic and mirror tile, oil stick, black soap, wax, and branded red oak flooring. These works evolved out of Johnsonโs Anxious Men and Anxious Audiences (2015 โ 2018), earlier series in which frenzied, abstracted faces were rendered in black soap and wax on a grid of white tiles. Here, his images of Broken Men and their fellows explode in a storm of bold hues, errant drips of wax, splashes of paint, and splintered surfaces.In these new works, Johnson pushes the anxiety of his figures to a breaking point, both metaphorically and physically. Whether portrayed alone or in groups, as in โBroken Crowdsโ (2019), on view in the exhibitionโs second room, these broken figures speak to collective and individual identities caught in the midst of shifting social realities. As injustices and racial conflicts in the US have continued to flare, Johnsonโs works have likewise become more charged and dystopian than their earlier Anxious counterparts.
Rashid Johnson: The Hikers is on view through January 25, 2020 @ Hauser & Wirth 548 West 22nd Street
New York
Cara Delevigne And Olivier Rousteing Team Up For Puma x Balmain Campaign Directed By Philippa Price
An unlikely partnership takes the form of two limited-edition capsule collections, both designed by BALMAINโs Creative Director Olivier Rousteing and his good friend and muse, the English actor and model Cara Delevingne. This is PUMAโs first-ever collection with Cara Delevingne, who has been working with PUMA since 2016. Standing at the intersection of sport and fashion, this new collection features pieces inspired by traditional boxing gear that are infused with Parisian couture. Bra tops, boxing shorts, and sneakers are elevated with a stark color palette, hits of gold, and design elements straight out of BALMAINโs atelier.
The campaign for the line, directed by Philippa Price and produced by MAAVVEN is a boxing-inspired, interactive campaign starring Delevingne. The campaign is not a literal interpretation of boxing but a dynamic and visceral interpretation of the timeless tale of human connection, identity, tragedy and triumph, love and hate, and the universal duality of โthe fight.โ In addition to Delevingne, the cast is rounded out by an incredible group of โreal people,โ who personify this idea of the fight.
In addition to the campaign, Price produced the live launch event, which took place here at Milk Studios in Los Angeles.
"Translating the campaign into the show concept was a lot of fun. We wanted the whole event to feel like a fight club. I worked with Jasmine Albuquerque (who also did all the choreography for the campaign) to create a 20 minute performance piece that evokes the duality of emotions behind any fight, whether it be physical or emotionalโanger vs. empathy, defeat vs. perseverance, endurance, truth, forgiveness, and most importantly, love. Love for the self and love for all humans.โ -Philippa Price
Big Pictures Presents Holding Space, Their Final Show On Washington Blvd
The term holding space is often used when referring to supporting another persons emotional needs by being present for them. It can also mean creating a safe and contemplative context where sacred ceremonies can be performed. Here thoughts and emotions can be more deeply explored and appreciated. Both of these definitions describe important aspects of what Big Pictures Los Angeles has been about. The gallery has functioned as a safe place for art to be seen in real life. Always striving to be a beautiful space that uplifts the art and unifies it with the community in an attempt for all parties involved to learn and grow. Artists include: Scott Armetta, Eric Ashcraft, Matthew Arnone, Michael Assiff, Alison Blickle, Spencer Carmona, Manny Castro, Chris Collins, Brian Cooper, Joachim Coucke, Matthew Craven, Doug Crocco, Tom Delaney, Helen Rebekah Garber, Steve Gladstone, Eben Goff, Dan Gratz, Ethan Greenbaum, Kady Grant, Robert Gunderman, Aramis Gutierrez, Joshua Hagler, Julie Henson, Alvaro Ilizarbe, Samantha Jacober, Shaun Johnson, Kara Joslyn, Aaron Elvis Jupin, Lauren Spencer King, kyttenjanae, Alice Lang, L, Tyler Lafreniere, Matt Lifson, Megan Lindeman, Susan Logoreci, Brendan Lynch, Grace Mattingly, Jake Kean Mayman, Max Maslansky, Joshua Miller, Hugo Montoya, Aaron Morse, Nikko Mueller, Daniel Newman, Laurie Nye, Annie Pendergrast, Manny Prieres, Alex Jacob Reed, Alyssa Rogers, Maja Ruznic, Aaron Sandnes, Ben Sanders, Marty Schnapf, Alex Sewell, Kira Maria Shewfelt, Tosha Stimage, Erik Torregroz, Erin Trefry, Lani Trock, Dani Tull, Laura Watters, Paula Wilson, Hayley Quentin, Nelly Zagury, and Mathew Zefeldt.
Holding Space in on view through November 23 @ Big Pictures Los Angeles 2424 West Washington Blvd. photographs by Lani Trock
Maya Fuhr & Janet Levy Present Twisted Two @ Merchant Gallery In Los Angeles
In Twisted Two, Janet Levy creates new sculpture works using references to snakes mating and Bender-Gestalt Test, she carves seductive alabaster and onyx sculptures including hanging alabaster work in combination with rope. Maya Fuhr explores her relationship between technology and material. A jpeg rolling through a printing process. Photographs presented as soft carpets pull you in with their complex algorithms. Psychological interpretations of her own fascination with textures and shapes. Like the Rorschach test which resonates with both Levy and Fuhr.
Twisted Two is on view through December 1 @ Merchant Gallery 3004 Lincoln Blvd. photographs by Kate Berry
2019 LAXART Benefit Celebrates The Discovery Of Art As A Gateway Drug To Culture
LAXART celebrated its 2019 Benefit on Friday, November 8 in Hollywood, bringing together major figures in Los Angelesโ contemporary art community to celebrate the nonprofit art space founded in 2005. Beginning the evening at LAXART on N Orange Dr, guests were presented with a reception and discussion between Director Hamza Walker and artist Phil Peters whose exhibition Outside/In, done with Karen Reimer, presents an audio installation derived from microphone recordings of fracking sites in West Texas, with Reimerโs quilted hand dyed fabric hanging above throughout the space. The showโs audio component also pays homage to the history of the building that houses LAXART as the legendary former recording studio Radio Recorders. photographs courtesy of Jojo Karsh/BFA.com, courtesy of LAXART
LA Is On Fire @ Wilding Cran Gallery In Los Angeles
This is the thrust of L.A. On Fire, a multimedia group show curated by Michael Slenske at the newly expanded space of Wilding Cran Gallery . The showโs title derives from a photo series, featured in the exhibition, by French artist Michel Auder. Along with the work of more than 50 emerging and established LA artists, this titular work investigates the possibility that LA has gone from Tomorrowland to an ever burning Bacchanalia. And in this moment of Nero-esque nihilism, we canโt look away as we watch our house(s) burn down: LA is on fire. The exhibition will be on view through January 11th at Wilding Cran Gallery 1700 South Santa Fe Avenue, Los Angeles. photographs by Lani Trock and courtesy of the gallery
Florine Dรฉmosthรจne: Between Possibility And Actuality @ Mariane Ibrahim In Chicago
Florine Dรฉmosthรจneโs contemporary take on the body, in the form of multi-media paintings and collage, represent otherworldly dystopian characteristics, furthering the artistsโ study of our divine spirit. Dรฉmosthรจneโs heroines criticize beauty canons through the narrative of her self-made feminine heros. In this new body of work, the artist questions, โHow do we connect to our inner essence? How do we connect to our โself,โ while disconnecting from stories and religions we have been taught?โ
The duality of her figures consider stereotypical and two-dimensional notions of the black female body. The artist presents her adulation for duplicates by portraying her own body, often duplicated. The existence of twins has provoked curiosity and veneration amongst numerous societies, particularly in West African and Haitian sacred cultures. Between Possibility And Actuality is on view through December 21 at Mariane Ibrahim 437 N. Paulina St, Chicago. photographs courtesy of the gallery
Making Mammy: A Caricature of Black Womanhood, 1840โ1940 @ CAAM In Los Angeles
One of the most pervasive stereotypes constructed during the post-Civil War era, and arguably the most enduring image from the days of Jim Crow, the mammy was a staple caricature in the romanticization of the Antebellum South. Popularized into the twentieth century by characters such as โMammyโ in MGMโs hit film Gone with the Wind (1939), this archetype of black domestic servitude was often depicted as good-natured, overweight, and loud. Presenting an ahistorical view of black womanhood within southern plantation hierarchies, the mammy not only embellished the realities of black life in the American South, but it also denied African American women their femininity, beauty, and strength.
Making Mammy: A Caricature of Black Womanhood, 1840โ1940 explores how the mammy figure was produced in an effort to temper the atrocities of enslavement and serve southern interests domestically, economically, and politically. Bringing together films, photographs, and artifacts, it examines the legacy of the institutionalized stereotype, considering a century of complex manufacturing of black femininity, power dynamics, and mass-media messaging that still affects black womenโs body image, lack of agency, and sense of self. Making Mammy uncovers the nuances behind this figure and illuminates the vestiges of Americaโs role in enslavement through the mammyโs appearance in literature and cinema. Making Mammy: A Caricature of Black Womanhood, 1840โ1940 is on view through March 1, 2020 at CAAM 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of CAAM
The Medea Insurrection: Radical Women Artists Behind the Iron Curtain @ Wende Museum in Los Angeles
Working under the radar of the authorities that defined acceptable art, radical women artists in the former Eastern Bloc challenged both socialist and bourgeois ideals and power, as well as a male-dominated canon. Their work was innovative, and the sheer act of making it was a risk. Yet even today, little is known about these courageous and critical artists.
The Medea Insurrection introduces viewers to multifaceted, multifarious work by artists including sculptor and textile artist Magdalena Abakanowicz (Poland); photographers Sibylle Bergemann (East Germany), Evelyn Richter (East Germany), Zofia Rydet (Poland), and Gundula Schulze-Eldowy (East Germany); mixed-media artists Orshi Drozdik (Hungary) and Anna Daucฬiฬkovaฬ (Czechoslovakia); painter and graphic artist Angela Hampel (East Germany); sound and performance artist Katalin Ladik (Hungary); conceptual artist Natalia LL (Poland); and painter and graphic artist Karla Woisnitza (East Germany).
The Medea Insurrection is on view through April 5, 2020 at the Wende Museum 10808 Culver Boulevard. photographs by Dany Naierman courtesy of the museum.
The Intimacy Of No Wrong Holes "Thirty Years of Nayland Blake" @ Institute Of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
From pop culture to corporal humor, Nayland Blakeโs exhibition No Wrong Holes, currently on display at LAโs Institute of Contemporary Art, plays with intimacy from every angle. Pieces like Starting Over (2000), which features Blake in a 147 lb bunny suit tap dancing to Michael Jackson, put Blake's body and its capacities on display to consider cultural belonging. Engaging with their own White passing, Blake interrogates how the bonds of culture are both formed and broken along the fault line of cultural expectation.
Blakeโs consistent use of kitsch icons like Bugs Bunny asks what kind of intimacy pop culture gives us; How do recognizable figures stand in as avatars for human expression and escapism? Blake also evokes pop culture to interrogate cultural bias, pointing to the racial and homophobic stereotypes that Brโer Rabbitโoriginally an African folk taleโand Bugs Bunny are imbued with.
In a number of pieces, Blake cultivates historical closeness. Through works like Magic (1990) and Joe Dallesandro as Augustin (1994), Blake serves as a kind of queer biographer, archiving the contributions of overlooked queer icons such as Wayland Flowers, Hans Bellmer, and Ethyl Eichelberger. Blake's 30-year engagement with the HIV/AIDS crisis speaks to the closeness that tragedy brings.
The exhibition ends with a focus on Blake's current community-based practice. This work is aptly paired with Bay Area artist Sadie Barnetteโs iridescent and arresting installation piece The New Eagle Creek Saloon, a replica of the first black-owned queer bar in San Francisco, founded by her father.
No Wrong Holes "Thirty Years of Nayland Blake" will be on view at ICA LA until January 26, 2020. text by Rosa Boshier, photographs by Oliver Kupper
Al Freeman's Cubicle @ 56 Henry NY
Cubicle, an exhibition of new work by Al Freeman, presented at 56 Henry NY. On view in the gallery is a series of wall-hung soft sculptures that represent objects associated with the material culture of corporate offices. Chosen in part for the ubiquity of their presence, the sculptures variously depict a standing water cooler, a yellow internal mail envelope, and a desktop computer monitor, among other objects. Made of stitched pleather forms loosely stuffed with polyester fill, the works enlarge the scale of their referents, replacing rigid structures with sagging forms.
The sculptures also consider the office as a site where oppression, repetition, bad taste, and humor coalesce. A miniature basketball hoop attached to a garbage can suggests an aging fraternity brother advertising his glory days to the chagrin of his coworkers. A computer monitor features the recognizable layout of the Pornhub website, and the shattered screen of a rose gold iPhone supports four lines of cocaine, suggesting the presence of illicit activities in a shared public space. Highlighting the continuities between fraternity culture and corporate politics, the exhibition mines the genre of office pranksโnot dissimilar from fraternity hazing ritualsโand features one of these practical jokes, which can be viewed upon request.
Cubicles is on view through Dec 22, 2019 at 56 Henry 56 Henry St. NY. photographs courtesy of 56 Henry
Rodney McMillian Brown: Videos From The Black Show @ The Underground Museum In Los Angeles
Three years ago, Rodney McMillian presented The Black Show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Using a collection of large-scale paintings, sculptures and videos he formed a vision of the United States scarred by its long history of racialized oppression. Many of the videos were created in South Carolina, where McMillian was born. Others were filmed around Dockery Farms, an infamous plantation in Mississippi where some claim the Delta Blues was birthed.
McMillian transformed these places, along with moonlit fields and buzzing swamps, into stages for the performances you have just witnessed. The performances use song lyrics, political sermons and childrenโs stories deeply rooted in our American vernacular. His characters wear costumes like armor that serve as warning signs ofโand protection fromโa lush Southern landscape turned hostile by propaganda and laws. Taken together, McMillianโs videos create a mythic universe that mirrors our own, full of abundant brown earth and other suns in its skies, where we might plant the seeds of a more accurate story.
Videos From The Black Show are on view through February 16, 2020 at the Underground Museum 3508 W. Washington Blvd. photographs courtesy of the Underground Museum
Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection @ CAAM In Los Angeles
Featuring the largest selection of works by Southern vernacular artists ever displayed at the California African American Museum, Dust My Broom: Southern Vernacular from the Permanent Collection examines the remarkable reach and legacy of arts traditions from the American South. The regionโs vernacular manifests itself in assemblages and quilts, as well as sculptures, paintings, and drawings, executed from found or repurposed objects by largely self-taught artists who spent their careers excluded by the mainstream art world. Reflecting themes associated with spirituality, social justice, folklore, and daily life among common folk, works by artists such as Sam Doyle, โMissionaryโ Mary Proctor, and Purvis Young mirror the ingenuity, creativity, and deep sense of community among African Americans.
The exhibition showcases numerous recent acquisitions and places them in the context of other works from the permanent collectionโspecifically, alongside those connected to the California assemblage movement, including by Noah Purifoy and John Outterbridge, Los Angeles artists who were born in the South. In this regard, Dust My Broom explores the affirmation, continuity, and innovation of African American southern vernacular aesthetics brought into the West through several waves of migration. Complemented by additional loans from local collections, these compelling works illustrate the breadth of approaches practiced by artists from the South, as well as by contemporary artists, including Dominique Moody, John T. Riddle Jr., and Betye and Alison Saar, who absorbed southern influences through personal experience, family ties, and their peers. Dust My Broom is on view through February 16 at 600 State Drive, Exposition Park, Los Angeles. photographs courtesy of CAAM
Malcolm Gladwell in Conversation with Flea @ The Palace Theater In Los Angeles
For the first-ever live version of the popular KCRW podcast, Malcolm Gladwell and Flea discuss his new memoir, Acid for the Children, to be released on November 5, 2019, by Grand Central Publishing. Malcolm and Flea will journey through the rock starโs childhood love of jazz, punk, and funk, what it was like working with Rick Rubin on the classic Red Hot Chilli Peppers albums of the โ90s and โ00s, how he became the signature rock bassist, and other riveting topics. Malcolm Gladwell will be in Conversation with Flea on Wednesday, November 13 at the Palace Theatre 630 S. Broadway Los Angeles. For more information and to purchase tickets please visit: kcrw.com/brokenrecordlive
Ibrahim Mahama: Living Grains @ Fondazione Giuliani In Rome
Embedded within the specific cultural and socio-political history of Ghana, the work of Ibrahim Mahama addresses issues of globalisation, labour, the exchange of materials and community building, ultimately bringing to the fore a more universal social condition. Mahama is perhaps most well known for his wrapping of architectural structures with jute sacks. Originally made in Southeast Asia and imported to Ghana to transport cocoa beans, these sacks eventually become multi-functional objects reused both by local goods sellers, and for various needs in the home. Both material and commodity trajectory โ with its textured skin that retains the imprint of its own history โ exemplify the crux of Mahamaโs practice: the investigation of the memories and decay of history, cultural fragments, the discarding and future transformation of objects gathered from the urban environment. Through his examination of the history of these objects, Mahama underlies how their evolution over time denotes the developments and changes in contemporary society. Living Grains is on view through December 21 at Fondazione Giuliani Via Gustavo Bianchi, 1, 00153 Roma. photographs courtesy of Fondazione Giuliani