A Better Mistake SS23 Debuts @ Milan Fashion Week

 
 

photographs by Spyros Rennt

Taking part for the first time at Milan Fashion Week, A Better Mistake presents a preview of their genderless Spring/Summer ’23 collection and their latest series of see-now-buy-now drops, which include “Influx”, a collaboration with visual artist Kushlet, “Aoi”, and the freshly launched “Persona.”

A Better Mistake “Eternal” explores the intersection of digital and physical worlds, and seeks to define the value of the digital as a whole within the installation “Alter Dimensions.”

For Spring/Summer ‘23 “Eternal”, the brand’s iconic Touch Me intarsia garments, made of high-end Italian viscose and techno yarn, appear in a new acid green variant. The silk twinset is crafted in an exclusive, thick silk fabric, in a diagonal structure. The “Eternal” print, created by NY-based artist Running File, appears across a variety of items: the quilted “Eternal” jacket with engineered print placement in the front and the back, the silk shirt with additional “Chromo” print on the chest, and the technical dress in a tight & short silhouette. The “Eternal” denim look is made of hand-sprayed organic cotton.

The “Hero” print from the collaboration with Running File is applied to hoodies and T-shirts, as well as a twinset of shirt and shorts in an ultra light fabric. The print quite literally sets the tone for the whole collection, merging the blues, lilac, and shades of purple in other looks. The “Gate” graphic was created by Milan-based artist Ultra Creature and morphs into the Modular earrings.

The brand’s best-selling pajama look now comes in two different fabrics — a striped gray and blue viscose version, and a monochromatic lilac jacquard in “Chromo” monogram — half matte, half satin.

Last but not least, a special collaboration with The End is Near, called “God’s Mistake” is presented, composed of two incredible handmade pieces, a custom-made dress and a sci-fi face mask.

Spring/Summer ‘23 marks the introduction of the “Artist Collection” conceived for collaborations on show pieces, which is kicked off with a true highlight — an acid yellow tailored look that features a “Chromo” transfer to the sleeve, and is finished by hand in aerosol shades of gray and black.
The presentation, in collaboration with queer creatives from Berlin, brings the German capital’s underground mindset to Milan. It takes place at A Better Mistake’s headquarters, a transdisciplinary creative space located on Via Fusetti 8, on the Naviglio Grande, one of the city’s most evocative and vibrant areas.

The collection is not presented on your regular model type. It comes to life on dancers and performance artists from a wide variety of backgrounds. Rather than a simple showcase of clothes, the presentation aims to express and embody its values with an unbridled, artful approach. Dancers hailing from Milano’s major international theater La Scala share the stage with the voguing and rave scenes in a firework of identities.

 
 

The installation “Alter Dimensions” completes the performance through sound. Two Berlin-based DJs, Alva and Raven, manifest the concept of warped dimensions as they perform in a futuristic and sound proof glass pod. “Alter Dimensions” explores and develops the different forms of artificial space, ranging between digital, physical and the metaverse. What is actually real, what isn’t? The interaction between the installation and the performers is integral to the presentation. A transdisciplinary approach forms the core of A Better Mistake, along with the creation of safe spaces where people are free to experiment, experience, and express.

The experimental spectacle is documented by the analog lens of internationally-renowned, Berlin-based photographer Spyros Rennt and distilled into a movie, as envisioned by A Better Mistake’s Creative Director Madame_Inc, and movie director Byron Rosero.

Ahmet Öğüt Presents "A:PPOINTED D:IRECTORS" @ A:D: Curatorial in Berlin

Jump Up! , 2022 Ahmet Öğüt

Ahmet Öğüt
Jump Up! , 2022 
Installation, with 3 selected works from the museum collection,  3 trampolines 

A:PPOINTED D:IRECTORS by Kurdish-Dutch artist, Ahmet Öğüt at A:D:Curatorial deals with institutional critique as well as a number of sociopolitical precarities, questioning the role of art institutions and artists themselves.

“A museum is a not-for-profit, permanent institution in the service of society that researches, collects, conserves, interprets and exhibits tangible and intangible heritage. Open to the public, accessible and inclusive, museums foster diversity and sustainability. They operate and communicate ethically, professionally and with the participation of communities, offering varied experiences for education, enjoyment, reflection and knowledge sharing.”

—International Council of Museums, August 24th, 2022

This recently approved new definition of the museum by ICOM is very aspiring, yet still, some objectives are far from reality. Therefore, it is the role of art professionals to find new strategies to achieve these objectives. How may we balance our roles between addressing urgent issues and not falling back into the complicit patterns of the art world? Sometimes smaller institutions can enable strategies to experiment with new formats more easily.

Topics such as museum collections, exhibition displays, public interactions, and institutional representations are addressed throughout the show, using both playful and challenging strategies. Visitors can immediately become part of the show with the installation Jump Up! by jumping on small trampolines to see selected works, which hang above eye level. Another work, No Institutional Abuse Zone, marks the area but also tries to put the same standards and parallels between human affairs and artist-institution relationships. Resulting from a google search, Appointed Curators is a collection of closely cropped portraits underscoring the prevalence of curators who choose to represent themselves with arms crossed. Those who assume this posture are often perceived as being angry, closed off, or feeling overwhelmed. This ironic take on self-representation reminds us of the importance of care, transparency, and a welcoming culture in art institutions. A:PPOINTED D:IRECTORS will be on view from October 9th - December 15th at A:D: Curatorial: Kurfürstenstraße 142, 10785 Berlin.

portrait by Ateş Alpar

Ahmet Öğüt
Appointed Curators, 2022 
250cm x 200cm 
poster 

A Rich, Somber Undercurrent: Read Our Interview Of Alannah Farrell →

Alannah Farrell — the sexual awakening to colors and hues, to kinks and dreams. This queer, trans-identifying artist from rural New York gracefully depicts the real bodies of their queer scene in atmospheric paintings, the magic of which stems from the shapely emotional nuances of each subject. Here, their struggles are visible, but so are the celebrations. Though currently represented by Harper’s and Anat Ebgi, they've had an enduring journey to their current career, beginning as a child yearning for a creative outlet, from babysitter, to cashier, to model, to dungeon domme, and later, Cooper Union graduate, allowing their art to leap from the confines of their bedroom to their first show at The Painting Center in New York. With the vibrant bodies and milky pigments enclosed in these works, Farrell expresses the multifaceted layers of their subjects’ queer identities, supporting the normalization of all expressions of beauty and power within the LGBTQI+ community. We see these queer bodies and faces through a lens unfocused on the taboo fascination that society perpetuates. It is one that instead centers the subject and how they wish to be seen and heard. Undoubtedly a New Yorker, Farrell pursues these intimate scenes and perseverances throughout the city with heart. They allow us, the viewers, into these blissful connections. We sat down with Farrell to discuss their expansive ideas surrounding queer identity in art, the fluidity of life, and their newest solo exhibition, I Want to Thank you, at Harper’s Gallery in New York. Read more.

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic Celebrates The Launch Of A Cigarette Lit Backwards

On September 22, Tea Hacic-Vlahovic and friends celebrated the launch of her second, brutally honest coming-of-age novel, A Cigarette Lit Backwards, at Ace Hotel in Los Angeles, following the smash success of her 2020 debut novel, Life of the Party. Hosted by Paper Work, the night included a performance by ZAESOTERIC aka Isiah Edwards, as well as CPR guidance and safe drug using instructions by Narcan Nate, who distributed fentanyl testing strips, Narcan, and business cards for neverusealone.com. The book is out now and can be purchased in select book stores and abramsbooks.com. photographs by Michael Krim

Theophanies Explores The Late Steven Arnold's Personal Mythologies @ Fahey/Klein In Los Angeles

Realized between 1981 and 1993, Steven Arnold’s tableau photography represents a confluence of his myriad other disciplines. This modality allowed him the freedom to fully realize his cinematic visions without outside influence or compromise. After sketching storyboards inspired by his dreams, a habit from his filmmaking days, Arnold would craft his tableaus using cardboard, seamless paper, metallic and patterned fabrics, cut paper, paint, and selections from his obsessive collection of antiques, costumes, makeup, and dime store finds. Finally, he would dress, paint, and pose his models within his tableau, bringing his vision to life, then captured with his Hasselblad, often utilizing multiple exposures. 

Theophanies is an exhibition of works curated as a limited retrospective of the late artist’s surrealist tableau photographs, supported by a small selection of drawings, paintings, sculpture, and films. A proud, prominent member of the LGBTQ community years before this moniker became part of our common vernacular, Arnold sadly died of AIDS in 1994. Most recently, he is the subject of a documentary, Steven Arnold: Heavenly Bodies, co-narrated by Anjelica Huston and Ellen Burstyn, which will be screened on September 21 at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with filmmaker Vishnu Dass, writer/editor Steffie Nelson, writer/filmmaker Jessica Hundley (The Library of Esoterica) and Nicholas Fahey of Fahey/Klein Gallery.

Theophanies is on view through September 24 @ Fahey/Klein Gallery 148 North La Brea Avenue

Jay Carlon's Novena Is A 9-Step Devotional Ritual For Grief


text by Summer Bowie
photographs by Angel Origgi


James Baldwin once wrote, “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” For rising choreographer and dancer Jay Carlon, the history and the colonial turmoils of the Filipinx experience is as heavy as a gunny sack of rice. As part of the REDCAT NOW Festival, Carlon presented his tender and prescient performance, Novena, at the CalArts Theater in Downtown Los Angeles with singer and sound artist Micaela Tobin. Historically, Novena—from the Latin word for nine—is a multi-day devotional ritual for grieving and healing, a transmutational practice of turning suffering into acceptance. Over the course of Carlon’s performance, this metamorphosis is slow, quiet and beautiful, like a lepidoptera emerging from a cocoon, body first, then legs, then wings, then flying into the unknown. Novena starts with the backstage wide open, lights on, fluorescent, exposed, the theater as a naked object. The first thing you recognize is someone riding an industrial floor polisher, the hooks, the ladders, the wires behind the stage symbolically exposed. A nod to the invisible workers, the culturally vanished. Carlon, in just a pair of boxing shorts, emerges with a sack of rice as Tobin gives her somber soprano chorus.

 
 

Shapes are shifting constantly before our eyes while our hero navigates the theater from stage, to catwalk, through the audience and back. His sack of rice at times resembles the ashes of an ancestor, exacting its weight on his shoulders with the entitlement of an exhausted elder. We are in the first stage of grief, penitent with the carriage of both our shame and pleasure simultaneously. In this state of self-flagellation one can imagine the superimposition of the stigmata and the ease of its colonial transmutation. He crawls on hands and knees, his lower back arched and buckling from the onus of inherited trauma. Transitioning into the second stage of grief, we dispose of Rudyard Kipling and his White Man’s Burden. A form of deliverance is attained in the realization that the savior we were awaiting is itself a false idol. The sack rolls effortlessly into his arms, held gingerly like an infant as he presses his cheek to it in a low squat. For a moment the putrefactive qualities of ash are indiscernible from the potential energy of harvested grain. He approaches a punching bag that has been sitting solitary at the center of the stage, waiting patiently to be filled. In our third stage, we discover that we are not empty vessels, and so begins the process of transference. The punching bag is at first filled one cup measure at a time like a loved one initially interred by a single fistfull of dirt. In an act of total unburdening, the remaining content of our sack is hoisted on one shoulder and emptied into the punching bag. The sack itself folded triangular like the folded American flag that drapes a soldier’s casket and is bequeathed to the next of kin after burial. 

Once filled, our punching bag is lifted off the ground, suspended by a heavy metal chain that our boxer hoists link-by-link, a repetition of prayer with a unique gesture of devotion committed to each and every bead of the rosary. This first prayer is one for the preparation of battle that is to come in stage V. The hands are ceremoniously wrapped and the bag spins like a pendulum. In a cycle of seductive Stockholm Syndrome dispelled by unforeseen acts of triumph, our warrior battles the true replacement theory behind white supremacy. It’s the one that bred the mestizos as a genocidal act against the indigenous populations of the islands. It’s the one that motivated US Army Officer “Howling Jake” Smith to order his soldiers to “kill everyone over the age of ten" and make the island of Samar "a howling wilderness." It’s the one that replaced 70% of the archipelago’s rainforests with a denuded wasteland in service and literal support of the American and Japanese architecture of the 20th century. This is also the 1521 Battle of Mactan, where Ferdinand Magellan was felled by a poisoned arrow to his unarmed thigh and an eventual stabbing to his other thigh with a kampilan. This is the battle that delayed Spanish colonialism by 44 years. This is 500 years of fighting for sovereignty and forgiving those who conformed as an act of survival. Punches are thrown, the bag is tossed, dodged, and left alone to submit itself to the forces of gravity. A prayer marks the sixth stage of grief and it is extended to family and institution alike. They are the sacrifices that are the subject of this seance. 

The chain is pulled tighter and the bag is lifted higher. Carlon hangs from a wrist leash attached to his sacrificial urn, tips of toes dragging along the floor beneath. The crucifixion of stage VII pulls our hero into a transcendent flight, spinning like a centrifuge of cultural distillation. Finally ready to be atoned, he returns to earth with feet firmly planted below the bag. He tears open a hole in the bottom of his vessel and stands, head back and chest lifted high in acceptance of his baptism. The punching bag becomes like an hourglass keeping the time of history’s ravages, the rice like infinity spilling onto the stage, another metamorphosis. He renews his sense of faith, trust, and love in his eighth stage of grief so that he can form a bridge to his ancestors in the ninth. A shower of rice pours down on Carlon as he kneels in solemn submission. His cleansing is scored by Micaela Tobin’s deconstructed reprise of “Sa Ugoy ng Duyan”, a Filipino lullaby sung in Tagalog that is as familiar as the national anthem. Lying supine in his growing mound of rice, Carlon offers his own song, this one a contemporary Visayan ballad called “Nalimot Ka Ba” about betrayal and loss of faith in the one that you love. It is a clarion call to his elders. Perhaps if we can share our grief in voice and gesture, we might enrich the detritus of a battle-scarred terrain with the nutrients necessary to support future generations. It is a prayer that they might one day be unburdened by the bondage of this shared history.

Brother's Breeze & Sister's Ease

Marlene
dress: Nimph 
Mathilda
full look: Filippa K.
bag: Lou de Betoly
Arthur
shirt: We Are Dagger
necklace: Tine Kozjak Paris


photography & art direction by Emma Ball-Greene
photography assistance by Bohdan Yermak
art direction & styling by Camille Naomi Franke
fashion assistance by Antonio Chiocca
hair by Wataru Suzuki using “Less is More Organic Haircare”
makeup by Victoria Reuter using Mac Cosmetics
makeup assistance by Eleonore Ising
set design by Stefanie Grau
casting by Lilly Meuser @ Neu_Casting

Beck
vest: Magliano
trousers: Arket
belt: Off-White
Mathilda
full look: Filippa K
bag: Lou de Betoly
Ohm
suit: Paul Smith
blouse: Prada archive
tie: models own 

Sarah 
dress: Rui
pants: Old Celine via Vestiaire Collective @reference studios
Masa
dress: Pucci
Richard
trousers: Hugo Boss
belt: stylist’s Own

dress: Rui
pants: Old Celine via Vestiaire Collective @reference studios

fake fur top: Filippa K.

dress: Katharina Dubbick

Ohm
cardigan: Filippa K.
jeans: Our Legacy 
Mathilda
dress: archive 
shoes: Balenciaga
turtle neck: Filippa K.
Arthur 
blue jumpsuit: Paul Smith
shoes: Puma

top: Calvin Klein

top: Rui

top: Rui

Masa
dress: Pucci
Mathilda
suit: Prada archive

Sarah
pink suede blouse: Magliano
Mathilda
pink ciao bella shirt: stylist’s own 
Beck
shirt: Magliano
trousers: Arket
shoes: Scarosso

Marlene
dress: Nimph 
Arthur
shirt: We Are Dagger

CHART Art Fair & Art Book Fair: Looking Back & Forward

text by Lara Schoorl
photographs by Niklas Adrian Vindelev

Last weekend (August 25-28) the Nordic art world gathered in Copenhagen for the 10th edition of CHART. For four days visual art, books, music, performance, architecture, talks, food and people filled the rooms and courtyard of Charlottenborg. The art fair was founded in 2013 by six cross-generational, Copenhagen-based gallerists—Claus Andersen, Bo Bjerggaard, Jesper Elg, Mikkel Grønnebæk, David Risley, and Susanne Ottesen—as a not-for-profit. This year they expanded their board with six new members hailing from tech, politics, business and cultural fields. The impetus behind the founding of the fair was to put an international spotlight on the region and to strengthen the local and Nordic art market; now, with the installation of these additional board members, the fair will be steered into a new non-traditional art world business model. 

Like all art institutions, CHART was also challenged to reconsider its format and question its purpose during these past years of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, the fair decentralized in 2020 and instead took place in galleries across the Nordic capitals Copenhagen, Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavík, and Stockholm. At that same 8th edition, 100% of the exhibiting artists were women; a collective response from the participating galleries to “highlight the structural challenge of gender imbalance in the art market.” This year’s fair was their “first fully gender-balanced art fair.” For the international audience that was unable to visit all these Nordic galleries, CHART organized a series of online talks and published a reader that is still available for free as a PDF. 

 
 

The following two years, the fair continued to expand its public programming with a focus on inclusivity and sustainability, introducing an Experimental section with artist-run and alternative art spaces as well as the CHART Art Book Fair in 2021. For this year’s CHART Architectural Competition the theme was Bio-Architecture, inviting architects, artists and designers to create symbiotic relationships between nature and architecture. Reaching wider or different audiences triumphed during this year’s fair. In addition to exhibiting work at Charlottenborg, CHART invited fifteen artists, among whom are Austin Lee, Jasmin Franko and Nanna Abell, to present work inside the Tivoli Gardens—one of the world’s oldest theme parks, which opened its doors in 1843. Rather than your fair ticket, a ticket to the rides at Tivoli will allow you access to these works. The expanse of visitors continues with The Museum of Nordic Digital Art (MoNDA), which launched at the fair with works by ORLAN, Sabrina Ratté, and Morehshin Allahyari that can be found in the foyer of Charlottenborg and with an AR sculpture garden in the courtyard. MoNDA’s first exhibition, “Flags of Freedom,” a solo NFT show by Mette Winckelmann, can still be visited via the QR code on their website. It quickly became clear that new initiatives were a defining imperative of CHART 2022.

Noticeably different from the past years is that about a dozen more spaces participated in the fair, thirty-eight in total. All of them located in the Nordic region, although some galleries have spaces or viewing rooms elsewhere, such as Carl Kostyal in London and Milan. Others collaborate or engage in projects in the US such as the Norwegian Galleri Brandstrup with Sean Kelly Gallery in NYC and Loyal Gallery as a NADA member respectively. While the fair is structurally and conceptually moving forward, many of the works in the fair still felt more traditional materially, in the sense that the majority were wall works. Some beautifully refreshing nonetheless. Such as Emma Ainala’s surrealist paintings in which fairytale and nightmare meet shown by Helsinki Contemporary, or Anna Tuori’s gestural canvases presented in a collaborative installation with Jani Ruscica’s wall painting and video work for Galleri Anhava. But also the solo presentation at Carl Kostyal of Camilla Engström’s warm paintings that leave us longing for a gentle end of summer—especially in the northern Northern Hemisphere. Remarkable as well was Tacita Dean’s ten-meter-long photogravure, Inferno (2021), at BORCH Editions. The print, inspired by the stage and costume design Dean made for The Dante Project, a ballet on the occasion of the 700th anniversary celebration of the poet’s death, asks you to follow Dante and Virgil, depicted as two dots, across eight parts through the circles of hell, in an upside-down landscape scattered with textual fragments from the Divine Comedy and occasional satanic references like 666—leaving us hover between punishment and play for ten big steps. 

 
 

The art book fair, equally manageable in size with twenty-seven tables, hosted publishers, (art) book and print makers also all based in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. And also ranging from 1980s staples such a Space Poetry to brand new initiatives such as Halden Workshop. Interestingly, however, several operate between various languages and continents. Kinakaal (Norwegian for Chinese cabbage), a multilingual press run by Ben Wenhou Yu and Yilei Wang, which exists alongside their art space Northing in Bergen, for example, fosters communication between Norway and East Asia. To facilitate dialogue and connection between these different cultures, their publications often have Norse, Chinese, and English texts presented together. Then, Halden Workshop, a new (residency) program for book arts, in Halden, Norway offers workshops and studio space with access to letterpress, bookbinding and paper making assistance. The program is organized by Radha Pandey, a letterpress printer, and papermaker, and scholar of paper and book arts, and Johan Solberg is also a papermaker and scholar, letterpress printer, and a bookbinder. While the workshop is located in Halden, they spend half of the year in Delhi, India where they both teach and continue (to share) their practice. 

Tacita Dean, Inferno, 2021. Detail. Photogravure with screen print in eight parts, 89,5 x 956 cm framed. Image courtesy the artist and BORCH Editions

 

Many of the publishers and presses are one, two or three-person endeavors, some are part of institutions, others run small art spaces alongside their publishing arms. Although definitely a labor of love—see CULT PUMP’s multi-color silk screen printed comic and art books and zines—these publications and their makers form a tight regional community that reaches far beyond the Nordic countries. Hour Editions, run by Kristina Bengtsson and Kevin Malcolm, came into being in 2013 out of the communal question “What is the artist’s work?” and the sentiment “If we can’t change the system, at least we can try together.” Malcolm also runs the exhibition space Vermillion Sands, for which Hour Editions has made poetic extensions of several of their shows, with the most appealing titles. Calling All Divas on the occasion of “Inside me with Incredible Intensity” with Martin Jacob Nielsen and Tyler Matthew Oyer is a beautiful and empowering tribute to many known, lesser known, and overlooked “queer artist mentors” who lost their lives to HIV/AIDS; and I like to stare at things that cannot be read. Only in that way can the present be remembered. I need a menu to wash my car. on the occasion of the eponymous show by Mikko Kuorinki brings together the poetry of Jenny Kalliokulju, Karl Larsson, Henning Lundkvsit and Amalie Smith.

For four days a lot was to be seen, listened too, talked about and tasted, but not too much. The size of CHART, including its new and additional programs and collaborations, invites you to linger, take time, and revisit. It is, after all, just a walk across the courtyard between Diana Al-Hadid’s sculptural wall panels (of which the layering and myriad of materials ask for multiple observations) and At Last Books to read Lindsay Preston Zappas’ text on David Risley’s watercolor series Against God. Against Guns. Against Energy. 

Diana Al-Hadid, In the Year AD 832 Large Stones Were Thrown From the Sky, Breaking the Copper Earth, Etc., 2019. Polymer gypsum, fiberglass, steel, plaster, copper, leafing, pigment. Dimensions: 160 x 210 x 10 cm. Image courtesy the artist and Galleri Brandstrup, Oslo

Dozie Kanu's World Building Tools: An Interview From The Biodiversity Issue →

 
 

text by Oliver Kupper
portraits by Parker Woods 

Dozie Kanu’s practice is a conceptual exploration of colonial and hegemonic politics, architecture, spatial narratives, and so much more. Born in Houston, Texas in 1993, and now based in Santarém, Portugal, Kanu’s investigation of cultural artifacts belies an America still grappling with not only its troubled past, but also its troubled present. Razor-sharp, anti-climb, raptor spikes, a visual and physical deterrent for vandals and undesirables, find their way onto one of his sculptures modeled as a baby crib, an emblematic nod to the countless divisions that are psychologically embedded at birth. There is something alchemical about Kanu’s reimagined objects of our urban visual landscape, like an ATM blasted with a thick layer of black epoxy sculpting clay, or a poured concrete chair in “crack rock beige” that sits on a spoked tire rim, that gives Kanu’s work a kind of authentic reclamation of power in a grief-stricken zeitgeist. We caught up with Kanu on a rare visit to Los Angeles, before the opening of his exhibition, to prop and ignore, at Manual Arts, to discuss tools for building a more socially equitable world. Read more.

FOOD For Thought: Gordon Matta-Clark’s Restaurant For Artists Changed The Culinary Discourse →

In 1971, artists Gordon Matta-Clark, Carol Goodden, and Tina Girouard opened FOOD, a landmark New York restaurant on the corner of Prince and Wooster Streets in SoHo. In the urban wilds of a not-yet-fully developed or gentrified Lower Manhattan of the early ‘70s, FOOD was a revolutionary laboratory for fresh sustainable cooking and unusual culinary collaborations. Artists like Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage created meals at FOOD. Although never realized, Mark di Suvero had plans to serve dishes through the windows via a crane—he would then instruct diners to eat with tools such as hammers and screwdrivers. As a hub for young artists in the nascency of their careers, the menu was affordable and simple, which created a unique atmosphere of camaraderie and community. Although FOOD, in its original incarnation, only lasted three years, the restaurant became a fabled institution and paradigmatic lesson for the possibility of food at the intersection of art.

Originally published in Autre’s Biodiversity Issue, FW 2021

[Review] Kaari Upson's Powerful Posthumous Exhibition At Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles

 

Kaari Upson “Kris’s Dollhouse” 2017-2019 (detail)

 

A pierced clit from beyond the grave—its folds and sensuous creases climb like a corpse flower too shy to bloom. A sheath covers something secret. A Christmas tree, covered in plastic, sutured closed forever by two rings. This sculpture, a detail from Kris’s Dollhouse (2017-19), is one of Upson’s many abstract and mysterious enlargements—part of a grander picture, a paroxysm of materiality, a puzzle piece from the infiniteness of memory. A hazy, drunken recollection of a family home in a dream. Profane, but holy, and nearly archaeological. In her posthumous exhibition, now on view at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles, Upson mines the psychosexual miasma and violent ecological grandeur of the Southern California suburbs and its surrounding environs, always tiptoeing on the edge of danger, which is even more haunting now in her mortal absence (Upson died after a long battle with cancer in 2021). Memory is both the canary and the lantern, guiding her into the carbonized cave of our deepest desires. She looks to Freudian and Lacanian analysis as a mirror and the obtuse chromium coating behind the mirror, which renders glass not as a window to peer through, but our reversed double. Walking through the exhibition is like walking through the ruins and artifacts of an artist rushing through the pangs of mortality like a flash flood. Each work is a notation on an emergency: paintings thick with the impasto of life’s sediments, sculptures tortured by unrecognizability and large-scale drawings become like maps of the artist’s psyche, now frozen in time.

Kaari Upson never, never ever, never in my life, never in all my born days, never in all my life, never is on view through October 8, 2022 at Sprüth Magers in Los Angeles

Read Our Interview Of Dan Colen From Issue 13: Biodiversity →

 
 

interview by Gideon Jacobs 
photographs by David Brandon Geeting  

 

Many urbanites dream about farm life. They sit in front of their screens, filling out expense reports or arguing with coworkers on Slack, the blue light slowly irradiating whatever constitutes their unique human spirit, and they imagine that digging their hands into soil and pulling out some kind of root vegetable might cure what ails them. That wasn’t Dan Colen. Colen, an artist who is very much a product of New York City, with a name synonymous with the downtown Manhattan art scene of the aughts, didn’t end up owning and operating Sky High Farm out of manifested romantic notions about the rural, agrarian lifestyle. In fact, as I learned over the course of this interview, when he purchased the forty-acre chunk of Hudson Valley land, farming wasn’t even part of the plan. Like much of his art, he allowed form to develop on its own, following some combination of instinct and medium until he ended up with his biggest project yet. Since its first growing season, Sky High has donated 90,000 pounds of produce and 20,000 pounds of protein to help fight food insecurity in New York State, and they are currently working on developing an agricultural training program to support self-empowerment among those affected by the carceral system. The farm is a nonprofit, a complex machine that straddles the complex ecosystems of upstate New York agriculture, food justice, the art world, and more. That Colen ended up here at this stage in his career, devoting his life to this mission, might come as a surprise to many, maybe even to Colen himself. But in a way, that’s what makes the whole endeavor somehow unsurprising. That’s what makes it make sense. Read more.

Watch the Premiere of "Ashes In the Water" by Julius Smack Out Now On Leaving Records

“Ashes In the Water” is a song from Julius Smack’s latest EP, Serenity, out now on Leaving Records. It is a track about grief and omnipresent life in both the waking and dreaming worlds. The lyrics emerged from the summer of 2020, when the artist was quarantining on a lake, following the death of his uncle after a fast decline from alcoholism. One afternoon, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer at the water’s edge, he recalls a dream in which a man, in a plaid shirt in a motel room, sliced himself open with an axe. Then his skeleton walked out of his body.

The video was made in collaboration with Smack’s dear friend Emily Lucid, on the roof of the now-defunct performance space PAM in Highland Park where the artist regularly hosted performances before the pandemic.

Hyperstitious Garments: A Treatise On Sartorial Immortality

 

earring: Tétier Bijoux

 

photography by Verity Smiley Jones
styling by Lea Wilbrand
art direction by Katharina Uhe
makeup by Alice Dodds
hair by Moe Mukai
casting by Oliwia Jancerowicz
set design by Jonquil Lawrence
production by Alina Kolomiichenko
modeling by Aworo Mayowa & India Grove @ Wilhelmina Models London
art by Elena Hoskyns-Abrahall, Lucy Page, Janina Frye & Sophie Cunningham
text by Julia Deutsch

photography assistance by Grete Tuberik
styling assistance by Katie Bishop
production assistance & on set production by Sarah De Larue

full look: MONCLER

earrings: Panconesi x KNWLS
necklace: Matilda Little Jewellery
vest: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE

earrings: Laruicci
top: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE
trousers: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE
shoes: IOANNES
rings: Matilda Little Jewellery

earrings: Panconesi
top: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE

artwork: Lucy Page

artwork: Janina Frye

dress: Dipetsa
armcuff: Laruicci

full look: MONCLER

dress: Olivier Theyskens

artwork: El Hoskyns-Abrahal




earrings: Tétier Bijoux

earrings: Panconesi, Matilda Little Jewellery
longsleeve: Pronounce

earrings: Tétier Bijoux
sunglasses: Gentle Monster x Coperni
dress: Goomheo

earrings: Panconesi, Matilda Little Jewellery

artwork: Sophie Cunningham

earrings: Panconesi
vest: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE
skirt: MYNOK
shoes: IOANNES
belt: Mainline:RUS/Fr.CA/DE

sunglasses: Gentle Monster x Marine Serre
dress: Laruicci
dress: MYNOK
boots: Nii HAi
bag: Sophia Webster

earrings: Panconesi, Matilda Little Jewellery
longsleeve: Pronounce

earrings: Tétier Bijoux
jumper: John Lawrence Sullivan
skirt: DIESEL
bag: DIESEL
shoes: Nii HAi

dress: Luis de Javier

What would happen if a black cat crossed your path? Would your superstitious mind calculate the time that you have left before bad fortune derails your life? Or would you walk away untouched by the symbolic doom, rather, dreaming about a salary raise that’s due, or a possible new sofa that you saw on Architectural Digest? Black cats, spilt salt, and their metaphysical implications might be ideas that never come to fruition. The impending salary raise, though, may already be around the corner. It’s manifesting itself in this very moment — that is what hyperstition does for you.

Hyperstition does not only affect individuals but also organizations and whole systems (comprised of individuals, naturally). Capitalist economics are especially sensitive to this modus operandi. It seems that the most cut-throat, radical players manifest wealth with ease. Their confidence is the magic ingredient in a recipe accompanied by rational thought and acute action that act together to shape our future. This, however, stands in stark contrast with the dominant Western belief system of Judeo-Christian morality, which is predicated on obligation and duty. Capitalism sells us the future, or at least produces the very future it has presented, for example, in the form of garments. Frederic Jameson states in his writings on postmodernism and the cultural logic of late capitalism that “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. We can now revise that and witness the attempt to imagine capitalism by way of imagining the end of the world.”

Imagining the future today, we see dystopian visions. They come in many forms and shapes but many would claim that envisioning utopia is inappropriate in times of doom. Not flying cars or nutritious meals in capsules, but rather, the colors of purgatory and the depths of the abyss. Are we collectively manifesting this through recursive thoughts? What we leave behind in an apocalypse are the products we used, garments we wore, and the knowledge we documented. William S. Burroughs argued that “You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative.” Time as a concept implies that we are always at the beginning and always at the end, every second that is. Therefore, the present is not only informed by the past but also by the future. The future hunts humanity in a sense, as Nick Land puts it: “The future is a better key to the present than the past.” But then, what is real in this moment besides the knowing that we must move forward?

The apprehension of the real is conceptually organized. This editorial we call “Hyperstitious Garments” derives from the question: What happens if clothes contain an emotional and affective capacity of their own? By relaying the perspective away from death, decay and documentation — garments have the ability to outlive the human body as the host and thereby change and overcome temporalities. Clothes are imbued with their own agency, therefore they emotionally unfold over time, and possibly live an infinite life. Also, the objects shown are not dependent on a body but exist untethered. Visual spatiality is created through the play with proportions, figurative and organic shapes — e.g. a static torso that wears a moving garment, or hair that behaves like sculpture. But the hyperstitious discourse does not end there, it also lives in how this very shoot was conceived, brought to fruition through production and is now accessible online through domain. It manifests itself as often as it is approached (clicked) and unfolds in front of our very eyes to be explored…

Elena Hoskyns-Abrahall (b. 1998, Edinburgh, Scotland) is a non-binary artist who lives and works in London. Elena's practice spans a wide variety of ideas and methods, however, they work predominantly in sculpture and performance, looking at themes relating to gender, identity politics and queer theory. Looking at the world through the lens of abjection, Elena uses this as a tool for exploring their human experience. Whether it be through objects or performance, the bodily and the repulsive become excellent tools for exploring the dysphoric nature of the human condition.

Janina Frye (b. 1987, Neuwied, Germany) lives and works in Amsterdam and Leiden. Frye studied at AKV St. Joost in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands and the Royal College of Art in London. In 2020, she was a participant at the EKWC (European Ceramic Workshop Center) in Oisterwijk, NL. Her work has been exhibited at Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam, among others; First Site, Colchester; Old Operation Theater Museum, London; Onomatopee, Eindhoven; P/////ACT, Amsterdam; Stedelijk Museum, 's-Hertogenbosch; Saatchi Gallery, London and South London Gallery, London. On the 17th of September, her upcoming solo show is opening at Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, Germany. Janina Frye’s sculptures and installations present a concept of the human – a transformative system with connections, overlaps, and entanglements linking the body to the outside world. Through the lens of new materialistic and systemic theories and personal observations, she posits that the human skin is not a border, but an interface with the outside world. Moreover, Frye is interested in 'the invisible,' where immaterial and imaginary entities, fictions, phantoms, and emergent processes influence our bodily cognitions and perceptions.

Sophie Cunningham (b. 1992, West Midlands, UK) is a London-based artist. Her work is an exploration of the irrational psychology behind the expediency and disposability of Western shopping habits. She creates sculptural arrangements using fast-fashion ordered online, which last the duration of the retailer's return policy. When the sculpture ends, she sends the clothes back with a photographic reminder of the sculpture placed in the return parcel to push her artwork directly into the supply-chain. She tries to communicate with the brands with an ‘irrational’ consumer response to start a dialogue. Often, works are not acknowledged by brands – for instance, in her video work ‘Papier-mâché Boots’ she swaps returned products for Papier-mâché versions and still receives a full refund. These absurd activities aim to raise questions about the impact of over-consumption. Recent exhibitions and talks include her ‘Systems at the Seams’ showcase at Goldsmiths MFA Fine Art Degree Show (2022) and being a guest speaker for the V&A Museum series ‘Live Conversations: Designed to Make a Difference’ (2021).

Lucy Page (b. 1995, London, England) studied Fine Art & History of Art at Goldsmiths University, and she is now developing her own sculpture practice from her studio in London. Lucy is interested in the ways that we inhabit the domestic space, from small daily gestures and routines to the motion of our bodies within this environment. Her work is bodily, exploring our use of this space. Lucy’s work centers around freezing movement and moments into tactile objects, bringing them into the home and transforming the domestic into purposeful design. In this way, the sculptor’s work bridges the gap between design and function; either meant to be kept as a piece of art, used to hold other objects, or sit on the wall. Lucy makes every piece by hand, using traditional casting and mold-making techniques. The process is very physical and each piece is unique. She works with a range of materials to create different designs including food, body parts, and clay.

Watch CELINE 15 "DYSFUNCTIONAL BAUHAUS" Men's SS23

CELINE 15
Palais De Tokyo
Paris, France
June 26th, 2022
DYSFUNCTIONAL BAUHAUS

Artworks by David Weiss, Alyss Estay, and Renata Petersen


Original soundtrack for Celine
“Design” Performed, written, and Arranged by Gustaf and produced by Chris Coady
Commissioned and co-produced by Hedi Slimane

Casting, Styling, and Set Design by Hedi Slimane

Hair Stylist
Esther Langham

Hair Colorist
Alex Brownsell

Makeup
Aaron De Mey

Curator Paige Silveria Presents "Daisies" Group Exhibition In Biarritz

After making massive waves in the New York art scene with her all-star lineup in the group show Daisies during the summer of 2019, Paige Silveria brought an international edition of the exhibition this summer, first to Paris and then Biarritz, the chic seaside town in the Basque region of Southwestern France. The show includes works from over twenty artists of varied disciplines, including Quentin De Briey, Apo Broche, Larry Clark, Pierre Touré Cuq, Efron Danzig, Beatrice Domond, Thibaut Grevet, Jeanette Hayes, Sang Woo Kim, Julian Klincewicz, Zakarie Melloul, Terrence Mongo, Jasmine Monsegue, William Strobeck, Seven Strong, Melchior Terson, and Graham Wiebe.

 
 

Watch Sofie Royer's New Video For "Feeling Bad Forsyth Street" From Her Forthcoming Album Harlequin

Sofie Royer’s new album Harlequin (available September 23 on Stones Throw) showcases the Viennese—and former-Los Angeleno—musician’s passion for her native city’s opera and ballet traditions as well as the baroque lyricism of cabaret, medieval performances and the court jester. Blended with nostalgia for early aughts reality television and American mall punk subculture, Harlequin presents a montage of peculiar characters, vernacular settings and mysterious chronologies that are as theatrical as they are musical.

“Feeling Bad Forsyth Street” shares a glimpse into a brief period in New York City where she was “trapped after trying to pay off a personal debt accrued at the racing track.” Sofie sets the scene: “I’ve lost my appetite I’ve messed up again, messed up big time and I don’t know how I’ve ended up in this state again but all I know is buckle up chin up tough it out because it’s me against me against the rest of the world baby.” The song is also accompanied by a video created by Sofie and cult filmmaker Eugene Kotylarenko (Spree, Wobble Palace), and stars actors Vishvam Velandy and Peter Vack, Curtis and KJ from the Ion Pack, model Dagsen Love and many others.

Ancient Futures by Lio Mehiel During Outfest Film Festival 2022

LA based actor, filmmaker and conceptual artist Lio Mehiel presents a new multidisciplinary project Ancient Futures at Outfest Film Festival 2022 in Los Angeles 15-24 July. Exhibited at the Directors Guild of America in West Hollywood, the three part pop-up art presentation is a celebration of trans beauty, expressed through a single-channel video installation, a photo essay, and a sculpture series brought to life by Lio Mehiel, a transmasculine, Puerto Rican and Greek actor, filmmaker, and artist. The centerpieces of the presentation are four stone sculptures of trans and gender non-conforming (TGNC) bodies, which will be featured atop plinths, cast by the talented, multidisciplinary artist Holly Silius. The models include Lio Mehiel (WeCrashed, Apple+), photographer and artist A. Klass, actor Sydney Mae Diaz (Generation, HBOmax), and Emmy nominated actress and creator Rain Valdez (Razor Tongue). photos by Liam Woods

A review of Cole Sternberg´s Exhibition "Departed for the curve" @ Praz Delavallade

 

Cole Sternberg
a boisterous stream in a boulder-choked channel, 2019
mixed media on linen

 

text by Stella Peacock-Berardini

Cole Sternberg scratches against the cheek of humanity, inviting the ideals of people in, while simultaneously belittling or questioning our existence, present and future. Sternberg's work provides a sort of kaleidoscopic effect veiling over images or winding paths and curves throughout the works, almost as if to represent the blurred lines and alternative routes our future plays as we grow in our society. It is not quite misanthropic, but provides skeptic views around human life itself, in examples such as the titles, but what may we say ourselves and the flock?,  and questions he proposes in other pieces. Within this show, he provides a distinct visual of how little we, as humans, really are, in which these curves of nature stand taller and stronger then we have been for centuries. We idolize these monuments throughout earth, while we simultaneously destroy them. This ironic analysis of nature's play within the avaricious mindset of the world today provides a start into deeper queries or fascination with the environment, especially considering current climate change worries. It proposes this idea, what if nature fought back, what if it already is? In, by reason of the high hills, the long green hills and thick wilderness juxtapose the wet, layered rocks that compete with the humans attention, the rocky wetlands win that battle, as the people consume nature's beautiful curves and ridges. The hard surfaces and towering landscapes devour the humans in, who stand miniscule compared to the surrounding land, enthralled by the natural entertainment of water rushing past, and the breeze through the rugged trees. A milky storm blue encloses this piece, as a film between the lives of the humans in the work, and the enjoyers of this piece. As the audience, we interrupt this moment between a family and the vast wilderness, becoming a part of the phenomenon once again, fascinated by the view we have been seduced by, unaware of our effect on the future of this landscape, or ignorant of our effects at the very least. The meandering and complex lines or curves in this show as well, which shape the pieces with its x-ray appearing layer in parts of the work, summons you in deeper, unsure if we are staring at a birds eye view of a lengthy canyon or the grips of a pterodactyls claws. The abstraction of the images provided in this show, allows Sternberg to reference and evolve common ideals and values of our cultural identity. It provides a memory you may relate with, or find yourself creating fictitious familial trips, yet also questioning the consciousness of people, and our ability to reflect on the intersectionality between the industrialization of the world, and the earth we have molded to our needs, for better or worse. How or will we depart from the trends of destruction we became attuned too? Sternberg pleases the eye with this work, and positively disrupts the human mind with fears we wish to avoid. Departed for the curve will be on view until July 30, 2022 at Praz Delavallade.