Read Our Interview of Mattea Perrotta on the Occasion of Her Solo Opening @ Praz Delavallade in Los Angeles →

Mattea Perrotta, Perdòno, 2023 oil on canvas57 x 77 in195.6 x 144.8 cm

Mattea Perrotta
Perdòno, 2023
oil on canvas
57 x 77 in
195.6 x 144.8 cm

Our primary means of conveying meaning is through spoken and written forms, as well as sign language. But what do we do when faced with language barriers, unable to verbally communicate with another/others? Google translate is one option, but what happens when we use our imagination? Or when we explore the imagination of others through our own unique lens?

The earliest civilizations used cave walls as canvases to share their knowledge, beliefs, and stories. For visual artist, Mattea Perrotta, art has become a way of conveying her secrets and vulnerabilities. It has also become a lexicon to connect with others, often from different countries and communities. During her time in Morocco, challenged with learning Arabic but keen to connect with her hosts, she started using drawings to engage with her companions. It was a familiar and natural way of interpreting the world around her. 

A diagnosis of synesthesia at an early age was the catalyst for Perrotta’s need to develop an individual language; mathematical formulas made sense when color coded, as did phone numbers. This subsequently translated into her art form, which began with abstract shapes, defining her earlier career. Perrotta’s practice evolved organically, and in recent years a figurative approach has occupied her canvases as she investigates, questions and challenges the canon of art history referencing the work of Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.

This May, Perrotta is exhibiting in her hometown, Los Angeles, for the first time since moving to Europe five years ago. Her solo show, In A Forgotten Tongue, at Praz Delavallade, signifies a turning point for the artist, harking back to an abstract style whilst continuing her investigation into art historical movements; Baroque, Renaissance and Cubism. Each shape within a canvas, or tapestry work, takes on its own vocabulary, distinguished by color and size. As this is Perrotta’s secret language, we are left with subtle signals and our imaginations to interpret the work.  

In the following interview, the artist explains why she describes her paintings as being similar to lasagna and what she will be researching during her residency this summer at the American Academy Rome. Read more.

Highlights from Frieze New York Celebrate Politically & Historically Centered Artworks

NAN GOLDIN Gold, 2016 Archival pigment print, in frame60 1/4 x 116 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (153 x 295.3 x 6.4 cm)Ed. 1/3© Nan Goldin Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

NAN GOLDIN
Gold, 2016
Archival pigment print, in frame
60 1/4 x 116 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (153 x 295.3 x 6.4 cm)
Ed. 1/3
© Nan Goldin
Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

text by Jennifer Pjieko

“It’s a lot of work, but I’m free now. I’m free!” Artist ektor garcia gestures to the logo on the T-shirt he’s wearing—a black staffer shirt with FRIEZE spelled out in white letters across the middle. garcia had taken some artistic liberty with the art fair-and magazine-branded top, blacking out the letters I and Z with marker, leaving only FREE legible. 

 
ektor garcia, cadenas perpetuas, 2023 (detail)Welded steel, hand bent, handmade steel hooks, found metal, glazed ceramic with copper wire, horseshoe nails, and crochet leather. Dimensions variable.

ektor garcia, cadenas perpetuas, 2023 (detail)
Welded steel, hand bent, handmade steel hooks, found metal, glazed ceramic with copper wire, horseshoe nails, and crochet leather.
Dimensions variable.

 

We were standing around inside Cedric’s, the top-floor café of Frieze New York, underneath garcia’s installation la llorona, a hanging mobile of mixed-metal woven teardrops that illustrated the indigenous Mexican mythical figure of La Llorona: The “weeping woman” drowned her hungry children after their father, a wealthy Spanish man, abandoned the family, and she sheds tears of mourning for them for eternity. Here, as part of Frieze’s curated program, her shimmering, coppery chains gathered into teardrops evade the heavy, matte black net that is there to catch them and float over us as we get together for cocktail hour (we’re not sure which one we are part of at that moment; the restaurant, like Day 1 of any VIP preview day of an art fair, hosts a cluster of many overlapping celebrations at once, bringing cheers and the pop of champagne bottles to crowds from opening to closing hours. 

garcia’s literal self-expressive wardrobe let everyone know his state of mind: After opening three concurrent presentations across New York City (here at Frieze; at the nearby NADA art fair, at the San Francisco gallery Rebecca Camacho Presents’s booth, and at Artists Space in Tribeca, as part of the group exhibition Clocking Out: Time Beyond Management in addition to the recently closed solo exhibition esfuerzo at James Fuentes on the Lower East Side, the artist was finally free to rest for a little bit. la llorona also comes into the fair along with a wave of other politically and historically centered artworks featured—and celebrated—in the commercial context of having lots of very expensive work on offer (or, even more likely, no longer available). While the past several years of global art fairs have been characterized by glossy abstraction and mirrorlike installations, the booths on view inside The Shed on the West Side’s High Line made space for more nuanced, sensitive forms of art. Company Gallery presented a trio of abstract paintings by Tosh Basco, which could have been an element of the artist’s poetic, fragile movement performance at the new Water Street Projects, a curatorial initiative in the Financial District, a few nights earlier; Michael Rosenfeld dedicated his gallery’s entire booth to works made in 1973, the seminal year when Roe v. Wade made its way through the U.S. Supreme Court; we are now living through the devastating consequences of its reversal. At Alexander Gray’s booth, Bethany Collins’s Antigone: 1998 / 2015 (2023), is a diptych of works on paper, which looks at race and language through handwritten parts of Sophocles’s ancient play. Tehran’s Dastan Gallery presents a survey of the past century of Iranian women artists, across a variety of challenging mediums and forms; Gagosian devotes its entire booth to Nan Goldin, who recently signed with the mega gallery; her heartbreaking images recall pain and loss as much as the golden sunlight that bathes her figures. Playful works, such as Jean-Michel Othoniel’s lustrous strands of pearls of every color at Perrotin offer moments of flirtation and light. 

As the sun started to give a little bit in the late afternoon-to-early evening hours, the multi-floored crowd began to contract up and down inside The Shed; soon it would be time for happy hour everywhere. ektor took a couple of Dobel-stamped poker chips (clever objects to be “cashed” as free-drink tickets) for his friends and collaborators outside the party. It was time to celebrate together. 

FRIEZE NEW YORK 2023, installation view Artwork © Nan GoldinPhoto: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano Courtesy Gagosian

FRIEZE NEW YORK
2023, installation view
Artwork © Nan Goldin
Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Courtesy Gagosian

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani Presents Choreography by Damien Jalet & Sharon Eyal @ Sadler Wells in London

text by Lara Monro

This weekend GöteborgsOperans Danskompani presented Skid and SAABA, the works of internationally acclaimed choreographers Damien Jalet and Sharon Eyal, at London’s Sadlers Wells. Both performances push the limits of contemporary dance through their daringly experimental approaches.  

Jalet’s Skid was first performed in 2017 at Gothenburg’s opera house. In 2019, it was named “Work of the Year” by the critical collective “Danse avec la Plume.” Its fitting title alludes to the relentless effort that the seventeen dancers endure to stay on the 34-degree tilted stage designed by New York artists Jim Hodges and Carlos Marques da Cruz. 

This experimental choreography is inspired by the laws of gravity, which forces the dancers to both struggle against and surrender to its natural forces. One by one, the dancers emerge over the top of the stage, which they slip and slide down before falling into the dark void at the bottom. More often than not, it is unclear as to whether they are improvising, carrying out a choreographed movement, or in the midst of losing their grip. Jalet creates a landscape of endless possibilities that is both moving and slapstick. The dancers, adorned in playful and multi-functional costumes by fashion designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard, are in an exhausting dialogue with the inhospitable terrain. Split into three sections, the first is a gentle introduction to the dancers and their graceful attempts at navigating their descent. The second is more dramatic as they challenge gravity by ascending the stage; showing off their physical strength and agility in unified choreography. In the final piece, a solitary figure appears, suspended in a beige sack—alluding to an amniotic sack or a perhaps a big pair of tights—and breaks free from their clothes and the womb-like space. Spectacularly framed by the harsh white lighting, the naked body walks slowly to the top of the stage and jumps off into what we can interpret as the precipice of the universe.  

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

It’s safe to say the best performance was saved for last. Eyal’s distinct style is effortlessly carried off by the hypnotic dancers in SAABA who spend most of the performance on demi-pointe, pulsating power. Each contorted movement exaggerates Eyal’s uncomfortable, abstract, and totally unique language. The androgynous body suits, made by Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, leave little to the imagination. We are left in awe as we observe the capabilities of the human body when pushed to its physical limits. There is an alien-like quality in the way the dancers carry themselves; an unnerving beauty as each and every muscle throbs and protrudes. Their wild, jarring movements prompt a visceral reaction. You are in awe and repulsed all at once. Favoring unison, Eyal keeps her dancers connected, or at least in close proximity to one another for the duration of the performance. Yet, they manage to maintain their individual conviction and sass throughout.

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

Rita Maikova's "Bones and Ribbons" @ Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

 
RITA MAIKOVA, THE DOVES ARE HERE, COPYRIGHT © 2023 KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE

RITA MAIKOVA, THE DOVES ARE HERE, COPYRIGHT © 2023 KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE

 

Tiny pairs of eyes stare out from drooping, coral-like, fuzzy and ghoulish creatures that appear gathered together in theatrical formation against hazy skies. This is the surreal and magical world of the Ukrainian artist Rita Maikova, Bones and Ribbons, the artist’s first solo exhibition with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, explores what Maikova describes as ‘the duality of existence’ that not only Ukrainians and other nations living with conflict must negotiate on a day-to-day basis, but millions of other people whose worlds have been torn apart by personal, social or political circumstances. In these works, the divide is drawn between the body (bones) and ribbons (the soul). In each painting we can locate both modes of existence – light and dark, despair and hope – but rather than setting up opposites, the compositions gesture towards a kind of resolution or as Maikova puts it ‘the party after the battle’, a time of healing and celebration.

Maikova was abroad when Russia invaded Ukraine and has not been able to return to her home country since. Finding herself caught in a limbo state, she has had to find new ways of existing in the world that involves the compartmentalisation of her emotions, in other words ‘choosing to leave behind the pain in order to leave the house.’ In some ways, this is the experience that these paintings capture, though for Maikova the act of making art is also a form of healing and freedom – it allows her to access her unconscious mind, to dream again. We see this in the fluidity of forms that populate her compositions – hybrid characters appear, often simultaneously, as rock-like formations, rivers, undulating bodies and huge, anthropomorphic beasts against an otherwise bare, desert-like landscape that is inspired by Maikova’s upbringing in the vast, open steppe of southern Ukraine. In this show, the landscape is also sometimes the sea or the beach, defined by the line of the horizon and the changing of light that imply the passage of the day but also, and more importantly for the artist, creates shadows which, she says, ‘express our dark side that is necessary to our existence.’

Bones and Ribbons is on view through June 3rd at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery 533 Old York Road, London (Wandsworth)

 
 

Herman Miller x Vitra Announce A Limited Edition Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat

Vitra and Herman Miller have partnered with the Eames Office to launch a limited-edition Eames Fiberglass Chair that is hand-painted with the artwork of renowned mid-century artist and Eames friend, as well as cover artist for the New Yorker for nearly six decades, Saul Steinberg. Sanctioned by Steinberg Foundation, each chair will feature the hand-painted cat originally sketched by Steinberg in the 1950s, following the debut launch of the Eames Shell Chair in 1950, which saw the world’s first industrially mass-produced chair with the seat and backrest formed from a one-piece shell. The chair will launch on June 14th 2023 in a limited edition run of 500 chairs, 180 of which will be available in North America through Herman Miller. Click here to sign up for early access.

A modernist white armchair with a black line drawing of a cat on the seat a la Saul Steinberg.

Larry Achiampong's "And I saw a new heaven" @ Copperfield London

Courtesy of the Artist and Copperfield, London. Photo credits: Reece Straw. Larry Achiampong's work, gallery view.

Courtesy of the Artist and Copperfield, London. Photo credits: Reece Straw.

Referencing the unlikely trinity of HBO, video games and Christianity, the exhibition title, which is drawn from dialogue within the video game-turned-series The Last of Us and ultimately from the Bible, encapsulates the references for Larry Achiampong’s second solo show at Copperfield. From computer games to church, the cast of faces represented there has almost always been white. The already problematic status quo that church is high culture and gaming is low or pop culture breaks down here when one references the other, but the exhibition brings real game play for visitors into direct dialogue with Achiampong’s collaged paintings.

“Video games have had huge influence on my art work and the reality of their sophistication and cultural referencing is ignored by the rest of the creative sphere. It’s time for video games to take their place as context in the gallery while I work on my ultimate goal; a playable artwork. At its core, gaming is storytelling, world building, fantasy, exploration and human culture in one.”

What is missing still, trailing behind even film and TV, is minority representation in games. What scant references there have been to people of color or the queer community, for example, have almost always been negative or derogatory with just one or two recent exceptions, like Bayonetta. Why though when nearly half of game players in the US alone are people of color? While the mechanics differ, the cause and effect of this uncomfortable fact can ultimately be connected to a similar peculiarity in religion.

Larry Achiampong’s “And I saw a new heaven” is on view through June 17th @ Copperfield Gallery 6 Copperfield Street, London

"Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes" @ Rele LA

oil paintings on the wall of Rele Gallery for Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes

COPYRIGHT © 2023 RELE GALLERY

Rele Gallery Los Angeles presents Facing South: Mythical Mindscapes, the first in a series of group exhibitions featuring works by artists from Southern Africa. Exploring ideas of hybridity, spirituality and the metaphysical as well as critiquing entrenched forms of Western ideology, the exhibition — running from May 6 to June 3 — presents works from the Tendai Mupita, Quamani Bangani and Kay Gasei. 

8215 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles CA 90046

Opening The New Cassina Store With Creative Director Patricia Urquiola In Los Angeles

Luca Fuso and Patricia Urquiola, CEO and Art Director of Cassina respectively, together with Stephanie De Oliveira and Philippe Rousselin, Founders of Diva, presented the opening of Cassina’s incredible new store in Los Angeles. Two floors full of Cassina’s most iconic, desirable objects and new design pieces and collaborations with the likes of the late Virgil Abloh. A champion of modernism over the past almost 100 years, Cassina continue to cement its status as a leader in the field. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Tom Wesselmann's "Intimate Spaces" Opens @ Gagosian in Los Angeles

A large painting of lips smoking a cigarette. Smoker #8, 1973 © The Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by ARS/VAGA, New York, Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, Courtesy the Estate and Gagosian

Smoker #8, 1973 © The Estate of Tom Wesselmann/Licensed by ARS/VAGA, New York, Photo: Jeffrey Sturges, Courtesy the Estate and Gagosian

A defining artist of American Pop Art, Tom Wesselmann produced innovative mixed-media paintings that brought the energy of commercial culture to still lifes, interiors, landscapes, and nudes. The exhibition—Intimate Spaces—concentrates on the artist’s primary subject, the female nude, with key works from Great American Nudes (1961–73) and subsequent series. With a nod to both the great American novel and the American dream, Great American Nudes also refers to Wesselmann’s affinity for the scale of Abstract Expressionist paintings, billboards, and movie screens. Inspired by Henri Matisse’s odalisques, Wesselmann employed a saturated palette, clearly defined contours, and interlocking positive and negative shapes. The paintings are set in domestic interiors and often incorporate collage and assemblage elements, appearing highly contemporary in their provocative discontinuities of style.

Wesselmann’s nudes became icons of the 1960s sexual revolution. Wishing to avoid portraiture, the artist frequently deemphasized facial features, foregrounding both abstraction and overt eroticism. “The figures dealt primarily with their presence,” he wrote (as his pseudonym, Slim Stealingworth). “Personality would interfere with the bluntness of the fact of the nude. When body features were included, they were those important to erotic simplification, like lips and nipples. There was no modeling, no hint at dimension.”

Intimate Spaces is on view through June 16 @ Gagosian 456 North Camden Drive
Beverly Hills

Tim Brawner Presents "Glad Tidings" @ Management in New York

 
A close-up portrait of a blue, blurry face, panicked behind a steering wheel. Tim Brawner, The Escape III, 2023 © Management, New York City

Tim Brawner, The Escape III, 2023 © Management, New York City

Tim Brawner’s Glad Tidings —featured at Management— is equally motivated by a documentarian impulse and the submission to the fantastic and weird, where saturated psychedelia defamiliarizes the compositional playing field.

Brawner’s extreme interest in portraiture yields exaggerated, almost humorous depictions of faces and objects alike, through which affect is pushed to the point of alienation.

When discussing the content of his paintings, Brawner refers to concepts of “the weird” and “the eerie,” specifically in the way Mark Fisher invokes Lacanian jouissance in his discussion of H.P. Lovecraft’s brand of weirdness, where the sublimation of negativity is accomplished through the transformation of “an ordinary object [which causes] displeasure into a Thing which is both terrible and alluring, which can no longer be libidinally classified as either positive or negative.” This serves as a basis for Brawner’s subjects as he pursues content with ongoing consideration for the failure of empathy. 

These images pulsate, stirring a bizarre drama where the audience confronts painted subjects that almost become real. There are passages where Brawner selectively pushes maximalist details, overexplaining the formal aspects so that they become hypnotic.

Text by Reilly Davidson

Glad Tidings is on view through June 18 at Management 39 E Broadway, 404

 

Sara Suppan's "Sweet Potato" Exhibition with Micki Meng

 
An oil painting of a foot wearing a brown loafer show and yellow floral socks, arched and raised from the ground. Pop’s Socks, 2023 © Sara Suppan and Micki Meng, San Francisco

Pop’s Socks, 2023 © Sara Suppan and Micki Meng, San Francisco

In the artist’s debut solo presentation with Micki Meng, Sara Suppan’s Sweet Potato (April 27 - June 9, 2023) collection of new paintings brings sincere attention to commonplace absurdities. Generating a good-humored tension between formal and casual modes of picture-making, scenes that seem spontaneously captured by a phone camera are painted with diligent precision. The paintings’ lush and tenacious realism, executed in the slower medium of oil on panel, gives a strange gravity to passing moments of levity.

Selected subjects display themselves like proof that novelty can be found laced throughout slices of daily life. Finding joy in boredom and delight in simple pleasures, the works encourage us to notice the small miracles that show up if we’re looking for them, defusing the humdrum austerity of chore and routine.

 

Pacific Standard Time "Art & Science Collide" Exhibition Program Revealed

A person in a futuristic suit of coils and metals is in profile in front of a wall of TVs with blue, empty screens.

Katherine E. Fleming, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, today joined more than 50 partner organizations to reveal the mind-expanding exhibitions they will present in the next Pacific Standard Time, Art & Science Collide, opening in September 2024. Grants from Getty for the latest edition now total $17 million, with more organizations to be added as the collaboration grows. Getty also announced plans to make the landmark regional collaboration a regularly scheduled series on a five-year cycle under a new name, PST Art. See all programming here.

CLAMP's "My Velvet Shadow" Presents 3 Gen X Painters

 
An expressionist oil painting of a disembodied torso wearing green velvet shorts. © John Brooks; “In a Room Where You Do What You Don’t Confess,” 2023; Oil on canvas; 48 x 36 inches; Courtesy of the artist and CLAMP, New York.

© John Brooks; “In a Room Where You Do What You Don’t Confess,” 2023; Oil on canvas; 48 x 36 inches; Courtesy of the artist and CLAMP, New York.

On May 11, CLAMP will be releasing “My Velvet Shadow” which presents three Gen X painters—John Brooks, Anthony Goicolea, and Kris Knight—whose work exemplifies queer time and queer style. These artists came of age with the residual fear that sex, intimacy, and love could likely lead to death.

The work in “My Velvet Shadow” seeks to bridge the gap between two queer generations that were disconnected by the invisibility the AIDS epidemic bestowed upon an entire generation. Presented alone in the devastating aftershock of a gay plague, the subjects of these works exist/survive in unguarded vulnerable states surrounded by a host of disparate appropriations that act as a twisting road map for the preservation of queer culture. Instead of radical sexualization or earnest intimacy, the work adopts revelatory beauty to salve the scabs and scars of inherited trauma.

 
 
 

Luis Alberto Rodriguez's New Book "O"

 
Black and white photograph of a shirtless man with one white eye and hands clasped over his chest.
 

In O, Dominican-American artist Rodriguez explores the free-fall of life, the construction of identity, and their connections with spiritual destiny. Using a cast of different bodies, ages, backgrounds and identities, Rodriguez challenges his subjects to let go: bodies contort and collapse while returning to poise, lifting to grace, and reaching into purity. How much control do we have over the direction we are headed? How soft is the landing?

The book's title – the letter O – speaks to the transcendence Rodriguez seeks in his evocative portraits: between a noise, a gasp, an exhale, a cycle, all sounds, an open symbol, a zero, a reset. These deep, soulful black-and-white darkroom photos attempt to capture a feeling in our contemporary moment: a loss of control and a search for dignity and pride.

O will be released by Loose Joints in early May with launches in New York, Berlin and Paris.

O. by Luis Alberto Rodriguez is published by Loose Joints.

 
 

all images © Luis Alberto Rodriguez 2023 courtesy Loose Joints

CELINE Women Summer 23 La Collection de Saint-Tropez Collection Customized Vintage Mini Moke

For the Women Summer 23 La Collection de Saint-Tropez, CELINE presents a customized a vintage Mini Moke vehicle. the small summer beach convertible car originally designed for military purposes, which first appeared in 1964 and quickly became a symbol of freedom and pleasure in many seaside towns, especially in Saint-Tropez where the car was famously driven by French actress and myth Brigitte Bardot. For this special project, the car has been customized with a Triomphe wooden steering wheel, a Triomphe canvas hood, and a dashboard featuring tan leather elements, wicker seats, and spare wheel protection. a golden Triomphe signature appears on the wheels and gear shift. photographs by Hedi Slimane.

Kate Parfet Debuts Unique Coffee Table Poetry Art & Photo Book

Milking a Duck is a casebound poetry, art & photography coffee table book by Kate Parfet, printed by die Keure. Available today, via publisher pois é and in select bookstores worldwide including Arcana Books on the Arts, Casa Bosques, Claire de Rouen, Mast Books, Librarie Yvon Lambert, McNally Jackson and Skylight Books. This book is a representation of the female experience, and more specifically motherhood, recognizing all mother stories as both universal and singularly unique. Parfet’s deep exploration of (and at times outrage for) the ways in which politics, medicine, and society shape the motherhood experience inspired her to create this book. Click here to order.

Discover AMAZONICOIL: The New Ethnobotanical CBD Serum by Makeup Artist and Director Marco Castro

MARCO CASTRO® is the new beauty and skincare line created by renowned makeup artist and beauty expert Marco Castro. As a Peruvian immigrant, Castro draws inspiration from his love for Latinx culture, which he explores in both his makeup work and films. With work that has been recognized at over thirty film festivals, he has collaborated with respected artists such as Pedro Almodóvar and Nan Goldin, and his client portfolio features prominent names in the fashion space such as Luar, Calvin Klein, and Cartier.

In the development of his brand, Castro is committed to providing sustainable and mind-reawakening skin solutions using ethnobotanical ingredients sourced from the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, including sacha inchi, wild buriti, and hemp-derived, full-spectrum CBD extract. With its mission to decolonize beauty standards and provide a platform for future generations to embrace their unique identities, the brand celebrates and promotes Latinx culture by spotlighting the ancestral Latinx language of beauty and placing it on a global stage. In an effort to create a better future for better humans, the brand has also become Leaping Bunny certified, testing all products on humans rather than animals.

For its initial offering, MARCO CASTRO® has launched AMAZONICOIL®, a beauty serum that can be used both topically for lightweight moisture that soothes the skin and reduces signs of aging, age spots, and acne scars, and orally to help with anxiety, stress, and pain relief while boosting the immune system with revitalized antioxidants and macronutrients. It is the result of years of research into Peruvian ethnobotany and the myriad health properties of its ingredients.

Bottega Veneta & Gaetano Pesce Present 'Vieni a Vedere' @ Salone del Mobile in Milan

The Humanist architect-designer-artist Gaetano Pesce is a towering figure in each of his fields; a true multidisciplinarian with an iconoclastic agenda who, despite a career spanning seven decades, still refuses to be cowed or quantified. In numerous public and private works realized globally, in the fields of architecture, town planning, interior design, industrial design and exhibition design, the constant experimentation of an artist who refuses repetition infuses all.

Following the commission given to Pesce to create a temporary site-specific artwork as show space for the Summer ’23 Bottega Veneta fashion show, the dialogue continues and a further stage is explored. Once again given creative carte blanche, and this time situated in the brand’s Montenapoleone store, Pesce creates a unique installation called ‘Vieni a Vedere’ (Come and See). Spanning the store, the immersive installation utilizes resin and fabric to create a unique experience that the visitor travels through. It frames an edition of handbags realised by Bottega Veneta for the artist according to his designs.

Embracing figuration and stories of the personal rather than the purely functional, Pesce’s bags utilize the idiosyncratic both in terms of handcraft and creativity. Based on mountains and prairies, the handbags echo his early life in Italy growing up near the mountains in Este, and the prairies of America, a reflection of where he lives today.

“This is my first design of a bag and it is figurative – two mountains with a sunrise or a sunset behind. I wanted a bag with an optimistic view. There is a capacity to realize anything at Bottega Veneta and this bag opens up a way to express future design. The design of the future has to be figurative and it has to communicate – such an object has to tell a story.” Gaetano Pesce

The installation is on view through April 22, where the artist’s edition of handcrafted handbags can also be purchased. Look out for an interview of Pesce in our forthcoming SS23 Utopia issue, also available for preorder April 22.

 
Stone Building with windows covered with green watercolor style art and "BOTTEGA VENATA" across the front of the building.
 

Hotel Fancì by Sharon Angelia, Camille Ange Pailler, and Alina Larissa

A model on top of a table with a glass and wood panel behind her. The Model is wearing strappy heels with a flower as the heel, and a black ruffle skirt with a pink top that has a ruffle across her chest.
 

creative direction by Alina Larissa
fashion styling & art direction by Camille Ange Pailler
photography by Sharon Angelia
casting by Suhadi Budiman at Bumi Faces
models Hani at Persona Bali & Alya at Bali Starz
makeup by Annika 
hair by Angelina Sherba 
stylist assistance by Gloria Stephanie
photo assistance by Safri Ndruru 

all clothing by Fancì club
shoes by Valeria De Lacerta
jewelry by Baggira

 

Based in Vietnam, twenty-four-year-old Duy Tran sculpts bodies with frilled dresses that are contrasted by sexy, see-through fabrics. Earlier this winter, the precocious designer invited us to explore his new Fancì collection in an extravagantly expansive hotel called The Rich Prada in Uluwatu, Bali.

Currently under renovation, the seemingly abandoned resort is well-frequented with each room boasting its own unique, thematic design. The stark contrast between luxurious materials and dirty construction sites offered a space for unbridled imagination. It was like being in an abandoned, life-sized Barbie house, teeming with dust and dirt years after its child had outgrown it.

 
A model sitting on her knees on a table witrh a white flower ruffle scarf anf flowery netted tights and a black top. A small flower vase sits next to her.
A Model lounges half-up on a intricate hotel carpet beneath her. She wears a pink flowering tank top with ruffles and black underwear.
 
 
A model lounges on a glass and wood patterned panel/room seperator with red pants, a blue flower placed on her hip and a long flowing black dress with ruffles on top.
 
A model lays on blue/green intricate hotel carpet with a red ruffle top and blue skirt with a flower on the bottom hem.
A model propped up against a wood table with a glass and wood pannel background, She places her hands on chairs next to her, and a part of her pink ruffle top runs along her left hand. She wears a black ruffle skirt with fishnets and strappy heels.
 
A flower arch is placed behind the model, who is wearing low-rise teal pants with a flower on the hip. This is paired with a wrapped flower ruffled top. The background appears to be placed like a wedding day, with a white chair and paintings.
A model wears a white sheer dress with ruffles on the edges of the bottom, and pink sheer tights as she leans against a beige wall in a empty room.
 
who is wearing low-rise teal pants with a flower on the hip. This is paired with a wrapped flower ruffled top. The background appears to be a flower arch.
Two models appear in the frame, with one walking out of a room with a pink dress with frills on the bottom and strappy heels, and the other against a spiral patterned wall with a hot pink dress with flower details and purple tights.
 
A model posing on purple ground with her hand stretching out to grab her ankle. She is wearing a pair of strappy heels and black shorts wit a corseted top which dons a pink bow in the middle.
 
A model stands in front of a biege wall with purple floor wearing a light pink dress with frills hanging below and a flower at the hip. She also wears purple tights and black and brown heels.
Mutiple Models appear lounging on the floor, all focused on a model in the middle. One takes a pictures of the model, who wears a red ruffled top and a blue skirt with frills alying around her connected to the skirt.
 
A model lays on the floor grasping her legs, showing her strappy heels with a flower design as the heel and a pink dress with a flower on her shoulder.