Aryana Minai's Roses in a Garden of Ruins @ Allen & Eldridge in New York

 
 


text by Hannah Sage Kay

Pulped paper bricks chart a haptic course between Aryana Minai’s eight Life Forms (all 2023) on view at James Fuentes’ lower-level project space. This rather soft, somewhat squishy pathway opens onto the wall under each Life Form for a reflective pause—during which their material simplicity and repeated compositional structure nevertheless conjure a mysterious world of color, and texture, that enshrines, within decay, seeds of new life. 

When pressed into a thick mess of pulped paper on a wire screen, a discarded textile woodblock from Tehran produces the architectural configuration undergirding Minai’s intimately scaled vignettes. In a rich array of browns, oranges, muddy blues, purples, and an unexpected chartreuse, the water-based dyes that Minai mixes with recycled paper in a blender to create pulp rise to the surface with an effervescent luminosity that remains even after the water has evaporated and the paper dried. Amongst the low-relief pattern left behind by the woodblock, a central archway frames the translucent skeleton of a rubber plant leaf from the artist’s mother’s garden. In the hollow pocket of this orifice are remnants of torn paper collected from the floor of Minai’s studio—the veritable seeds of her work; predicated on use and reuse, growth and decay, they take on a dual significance. Not only reflective of the binary cycles of her material processes, the seeds also allude, however subtly, to family, home, and the charged state of women’s rights in her native Iran. The exhibition’s title similarly speaks to a slogan adopted by the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement: You may have burned our gardens but we kept the seeds! 

These visual and metaphorical allusions may be evident to some and obtuse to others, so it is rather Minai’s poetic material configurations, her imbrication of architectural and illusionistic space, her threading through of specific cultural morphologies into broadly accessible and yet deeply personal terrain that proffer an ensnaring mystery and, as such, sustained investigation.

Roses In A Garden of Ruins is on view through October 14 at Allen & Eldridge (James Fuentes project space).

Young-jun Tak Queers Religious Artifacts and Disassembles Mechanical Masculinity in His Exhibition @ JS Foundation in Berlin and Düsseldorf

At both the Düsseldorf and Berlin locations of the Julia Stoscheck Foundation, Berlin-based artist Young-jun Tak presents two recent films, Wish You a Lovely Sunday (2021) and Wohin? (2022), which will play in a loop in the galleries. Both shot in Berlin, these works consider how place, architecture, movement, and belief inform community and queerness.

 Wish You a Lovely Sunday (2021) juxtaposes two locations in Berlin: the church Kirche am Südstern and the queer club SchwuZ. Invited by the artist, two choreographers and two dancers were paired to create a new choreography for each space and assigned a different Bach piano piece for four hands. After days of rehearsals and once the choreography was complete, their originally designated venues were swapped for the filming. The participants therefore had to adapt their choreographies spontaneously according to the architectural features and atmosphere of the other space. By setting these two sites in dialogue, Tak proposes an improbable coexistence of religious practice and club culture. Tak is intrigued by the similarities between churches and clubs because they both involve specific rituals, behavioral norms, and attitudes closely linked to the space and its role. Over the course of Wish You a Lovely Sunday, the combination of the characters’ bodily presence and their navigation of their respective surroundings starts to shift the meaning of each location, eventually revealing tensions that were not apparent on the surface. In the church, the pair’s game of looking or not looking at one another while roaming around the columns and altar expresses unmistakable sensations of longing and desire, denial and prohibition.

In the film Wohin? (2022)—“Where to?” in German—the camera focuses on the rearview mirrors of cars that are driving on the Autobahn near Berlin. Throughout the film, various objects hung from the mirrors of each car become visible in the frame, from Christian rosaries and Buddhist prayer beads to a typical German air freshener, Wunderbaum. The rearview mirrors also reflect situations taking place on the back seat: a man gazes out of the window, checks his phone, or dozes off; two men kiss romantically. Prior to filming, Tak spoke with the actors about the many facets of the German Autobahn—an ideological project of the Third Reich and a feat of national infrastructure, as well as a playground for the projections of hypermasculinity, and a significant site for gay cruising. These mixed aspects are reinforced by the soundtrack, which pairs organist Andreas Sieling from the Berlin Cathedral with British countertenor Tim Morgan, who together reinterpret Kraftwerk’s legendary song “Autobahn” from 1974. While Sieling is peddling away at his huge organ with over 7,000 pipes, some of which are thirteen meters long, Morgan repeats the simple lyric “autobahn” in his fluid, high-pitched song, in contrast to the organ’s mechanical and militaristic rhythm.

Double Feature: Young-jun Tak is on view through December 17th at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Strasse 60, D-10117 Berlin, and JSF Düsseldorf, Schanzenstrasse 55, 40549 Düsseldorf.

Subjects Rebel Against the Confines of the Camera in Unbound: Performance As Rupture @ JS Foundation in Berlin

The group exhibition Unbound: Performance as Rupture examines how different generations of artists have called upon the body in relation to the camera to refuse oppressive ideologies, disrupt historical narratives, and unsettle concepts of identity.

The exhibition traces various intersections of performance and video art from the late 1960s to today, focusing on how they create specific forms of rupture, fracture, and pause. In contrast to Peggy Phelan’s definition of performance as a live art characterized by its immediate disappearance, Unbound centers the use of the camera and its apparatus to record and direct the performance itself. By willfully conflating the presence of performance and the virtuality of the image, the artists question a fundamental paradox—or representational gap—between the performing subject, whose complex identity can never be depicted fully, and the camera as a violent tool that tries to capture, contain, and classify them. Many of these works expose and negate the colonial gaze perpetuated by the camera, while simultaneously utilizing time-based technologies, in order to create otherwise impossible connections across spaces and temporalities. In addition to performance documentation and performance-for-the-camera, the exhibited artworks offer investigations into contemporary image economies that draw attention to how bodies move through or evade physical and digital spaces.

Unbound: Performance as Rupture is on view through July 28th, 2024, at the Julia Stoschek Foundation, Leipziger Strasse 60, D-10117 Berlin.

HODAKOVA Spring Summer 24

 

Ellen Hodakova Larsson presented her highly anticipated SS24 collection at the Théâtre of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The show opened with a dance performance that explored desire, disgust, and the search for authenticity.

 The collection was an exploration of self-expression in an ever-changing world. It featured garments made from unconventional materials like belts, dried flowers from the Swedish countryside, and over 2000 pens. These creations bridged the gap between the permanent and the ephemeral, the eternal and the transient.

 Hodakova reimagined everyday objects, focusing on the question of finding one's unique identity in a digitally obsessed society. The pen symbolized the transition between the suspended and the defined, with models sporting handwritten notes, pens in their hair, and even garments made entirely from pens.

 Ellen Hadakova’s focus was to challenge societal norms, especially in office attire, aiming to stand out in a world of conformity. Hodakova's designs transformed office wear into extraordinary pieces, like using jacket linings as dresses and merging multiple pairs of pants to create intricate skirts. This collection also played with the concept of time and transformation, using materials like deadstock bras turned into dresses and vintage watch wristbands for shoes. It conveyed a narrative of searching for purpose and perfection, with each piece repurposed from previous garments, questioning the idea of an object achieving its ultimate form.

 

A First Step in Paris Fashion Week for the Balinese Brand Isa Boulder

 
 

On October 3rd, ISA BOULDER showcased its debut runway collection, "Hardcore Handmade," at Paris Fashion Week in the Marais. This collection reflects the brand's deep commitment to craftsmanship and emphasizes the beauty of taking one's time to create unique pieces. Inspired by Bali, where the brand is located, it draws from the sounds of waves and the transition from beachside casual to evening sophistication. The collection features elegant eveningwear dresses, versatile layer-able pieces, and the brand's signature satiny swimwear.

The brand's signature argyle pattern is prominent in various garments, and each season, they focus on a new knitwear technique, with SS24 featuring macramé. The satiny fabric is cleverly woven to create an armor-like texture in dresses, skirts, bodysuits, gloves, and sandals, inspired by Balinese woven palm leaves. "Parachute" fabric in pale green, beige, and black adds a sense of lightness, contrasting with the handwoven materials. The earth-toned color palette includes browns, grays, ecru, and khaki, with hints of colors reminiscent of the brand's popular swimwear.

ISA BOULDER also introduced a range of accessories, such as shoes and bags, seamlessly integrated into the overall look rather than as external additions. The satiny fabrics shine in small shoulder bags and macramé low and tall sandals.

Highlights From Balenciaga's Summer 24 Collection During Paris Fashion Week

 
 

A tribute to crafting the garment. A personal expression.

Balenciaga presents Summer ’24 from a red velvet-lined theatrical setting. Friends, family and colleagues are key influences. There is personal resonance. This show is a reflection of Demna’s world, and the identities that comprise his community.

It is scored by BFRND and explores a premise of sonic couture. The soundtrack features 3 aural elements – orchestra, piano and electronica – and a voiceover by Isabelle Huppert reciting instructions on how to make a tailored jacket from the manual La Veste Tailleur Homme, which was reformatted for the show invitation booklet. The audio was produced by Damien Quintard at Miraval Studios. Look 1 features Ella, the designer’s mother and first style inspiration, wearing an upcycled car coat. This piece is made of 3 deconstructed and repurposed vintage garments.

Tailoring consists of signature techniques and attitudes. A 2D effect is applied to create a flattened, straight shoulder without shoulder pads. Cuts are wide. Creases are added. Items are engineered in English wool with a couturier’s precision.

Daywear spans home to public settings. Long A-line skirts have removable panels that can be interchanged and removed for a shorter silhouette. Terry cloth bathrobes are used as coats. Jacket necklines are widened and dismantled so they can be worn off the shoulder and dropped on the arms with a nonchalant demeanour. A biker jacket is built of recycled deadstock leather panels. The clothing is presented as fundamental, pragmatic and stratified.

Eveningwear closes. Vinyl printed circle dresses in retro tablecloth floral schemes progress to upcycled gowns made of pieces sourced from vintage shops around Europe and the United States. The finale look features BFRND (the designer’s husband) wearing an amalgam of 7 wedding dresses from the pre-2000’s. They have been cut, tiered and piled together anew.

The collection holds sustainability innovations. Primarily, a lower-impact leather alternative called LUNAFORM™ is used in the construction of a floor-length bathrobe. It is the first time the material has been applied in fashion. It was specifically designed for Balenciaga. The animal and plastic-free textile is grown from fermented nanocellulose.

Accessories include the Rodeo, a new bag with a built-in open flap that gives the illusion of a classic leather carrier. Some are styled with heavy decorative chains. Stilettos and classic derbies obtain the function of a clutch. Other introductions include: textured leather Antwerp shoppers and a bag series imagined as soft and deconstructed luggage. A wallet takes the likeness of a passport, with inset leather boarding passes.

Footwear offers exaggerated proportions, tennis socks on heels and at-home comfort. Each shoe will be offered in a full range of both women’s and men’s sizes.

The new Cargo sneaker has oversized dimensions. 1,000 limited edition pairs – microfiber and mesh version – will be available directly after the show in an exclusive release.

This show represents what fashion is to Demna in its most personal way.

Read An Interview of Nina Hartmann by Leo Cocar on The Occasion Of Her Exhibition at Silke Lindner →

 

portrait by Alexander Rotonodo

 

Nina Hartmann navigates a diverse array of artistic mediums, seamlessly weaving her connection to music into her creative endeavors. Her work serves as a bridge, melting the divide between mysticism and critical thought. Within her conceptual pursuits, one encounters a unique blend of archival imagery, elusive symbols, screen prints, and Xerox collages. It’s in these varied forms of media that the synergy between visual artistry and musical expression effortlessly unfold. Employing deliberate restraint, Hartmann eschews superfluous elaboration about her work. She entrusts the observer with discovering the magical quality which resides in the gap between the art and viewer. Hartmann treats the output of her mind as an algorithm; it becomes a framework for further artistic computation. Her work delves into the depths of the subconscious, revealing concepts characterized by their infinitude. Her perspective extends to the creatively unconventional, where she intriguingly regards conspiracy theories as societal relics worthy of study—an open-mindedness which enunciates her versatility as an artist. A fusion of the modern mythological emerges, as Hartmann recycles recurring themes that persist in our collective consciousness. Through her exploration of spiritual phenomena, she invites us to delve into the enigmatic, prompting us to seek understanding in realms beyond the real. Click here to read more.

Barragán’s Spring Summer 2024 Collection Is A Narco-Capitalist Fever Dream

As bed bugs and celebrities took over Paris during Fashion Week, a different kind of sartorial presentation took place half a world away at the military-controlled Felipe Ángeles International Airport airport in Mexico City. Artist Victor Barragán’s eponymous label’s SS24 collection is a narco-capitalist fever dream and a nod to the semiotics of 21st-century free-trade realism. As the American far right decries an invented crisis at the US border, stirring up a terrifying imagination of unchecked terrorism and fentanyl gangs, and as Mexico devolves into violence as a result of mismanaged NAFTA trade agreements, Barragán’s SS24 collection is awash with camo, political sloganeering, and machine gun echoes of nationalist violence. Bullet slugs and scabbed-over Xs are carved into models' foreheads. Blood streaks, hypodermic needles, biohazard coolers, and rosaries accessorize traje de luces, or matador costumes, and military fatigues. Even the designer can be seen disguised as a cross between Charles Manson and a Marxist revolutionary being perp-walked on a jungle tarmac. This is not quiet luxury, this is a mass grave. Above, Barragán shares exclusive behind-the-scenes images.

crosslucid Manifests Human Stories through Artificial Intelligence in Dwellers Between the Waters @ ACUD Galerie in Berlin

‘Dwellers Between the Waters’ (2023) is conjured as a series of hybrid rituals that mediate the space between physical presence, trauma, memory, healing, and virtuality. Polyphonic in its artificially intelligent framework, Dwellers Between the Waters could be experienced as a happening that is chanted by various elemental entities such as waters, winds, earth, air, algorithm... as well as poetry, history, magic, human and more-than-human creatures. This happening of digital rituals questions the singularity of humanist perception of reality. Co-performing with artificial intelligence, it attempts to create alternative epistemologies and outlooks on (so-called) reality through rendering multi-focal narratives and embedding the psycho-magical practice in forms of living ‘sigils’.

Combing artificial intelligence with the practice of magic and alchemy, Dwellers Between the Waters seeks possible solutions in response to the traumas of the contemporary anthropos, and examines how artificial intelligence, in terms of artistic practice, remains integral to our contemporary condition, that is, the ever-evolving climate crisis and the sixth extinction of species coupled with wars, inflation, and capitalist exploitation. By evoking, cultivating, and connecting various forms of consciousness in the virtual realms, Dwellers Between the Waters invites the ‘dwellers’ who inhabit in and among ‘realities’ to share their stories and experiences, which then feed back to (so-called) reality as evolving strings materializing across both physical and virtual domains to bring novel perspectives for further changes.

Dwellers Between the Waters is on view through October 8th at ACUD Galerie, Veteranenstraße 21, 10119 Berlin.

Teresa Baker's "From Joy to Joy to Joy" Recontextualizes Traditional Materials With Modern Discourse

text by Tara Anne Dalbow

If art historian Simon Schama’s assertion is correct that “landscapes are culture before they’re nature” and “scenery is built up as much from strata of memory as from layers of rock,” then when Teresa Baker, a member of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes, surveys the Northern Plains she sees far more than meets the eye. The nine technicolor tapestries included in From Joy to Joy to Joy offer a glimpse beneath the visible surface of her ancestral homeland at a terrain imbued with ancient meanings, enriched by tradition and ritual, and animated by that which is sacred and ineffable. Poised between the past and present, recollection and reality, the physical and the spiritual, Baker’s chimerical landscapes inspire a poignant commentary on the ways history, social sensibilities, memory, and mythology mediate our experience of nature.

At first glance, the viewer might find the textiles’ base material, Astroturf, surprising. They’d be right to assume that someone raised nomadically across the national parks of the Midwest wouldn’t have had many encounters with the imitation grass. It wasn’t until Baker moved to Texas a few years ago that she discovered the vibrant, short-pile synthetic turf. Sturdy enough to support layers of paint, weavings, sticks, and stones yet malleable enough to be manipulated into unusual, organic shapes, the plastic mats freed her from the rigid constraints of traditional canvas. The mimetic texture, capable of conjuring wide-open plains and vast grassy fields, alleviated the burden of representation and encouraged abstract experimentation. 

Perhaps the fiber’s most compelling quality is the tension it enacts with the natural embellishments. The ultra-contemporary turf, indicative of an age beholden to plastic and artifice, tempers the traditional materials and recontextualizes them within a modern discourse. Yarn, willow, and buckskin, resources used for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples, are dispensed like paint to create mesmerizing gestures, patterns, and shapes across the shaggy surface. Despite being restricted to the materiality of yarn to generate variation in her lines and marks, Baker renders a convincingly painterly effect that’s both innovative and recognizable. Nods to certain expressionists, including Mark Rothko and Helen Frankenthaler, can be found throughout the exhibition alongside techniques, patterns, and symbols culled from Mandan and Hidatsa customs and craftsmanship. 

While the compositions resist narrative, the haptic engagement with the surface texture, the coloration, and the use of organic shapes ground them in the realm of landscapes and topographical maps. One can identify a winding river in Spring Unforeseen, an island in the middle of a lake in No Walls, or a parched field in Yellow Prairie Grass. At times, the individual threads that bisect the picture plane appear as longitude and latitude lines; other times, they read like hiking trails or the boundaries of various plots of crops. Dappled strands of yarn arranged side by side mimic the fluidity of water, and layers of paint imitate shifting patterns of light and shade. Baker relies on the emotional freight of her color palette to modulate between the feeling of a landscape and the landscape itself. Indigo, as evocative of the ocean and the night sky as it is of melancholy and despair. 

Where the materials resist domination, the strings fray, the Astroturf emerges beneath the painted veneer, and the rawhide curls around the edges, the tapestries feel most alive, charged with an energy and agency of their own invention. Even affixed to the gallery walls, there’s a sense of perpetual unfurling as if the works are still engaged in the act of becoming. To see them this way is to see them as products of a dynamic relationship between artist and material, not a subjugation or domination of the former by the latter. The metaphorical jump from the material to the land itself is difficult to ignore, rendering them poignant examples of symbiotic stewardship. 

On the afternoon of my visit, a rogue red ant crawled assiduously across the brilliant green field in Unwritten. For just a moment, I experienced that exhilarating awareness of being unfathomably small but fundamentally connected to something unfathomably vast and irrefutably miraculous that I’d previously assumed only the grandeur of nature could provoke.

From Joy to Joy to Joy is on view through October 14 @ de boer 3311 E. Pico Boulevard, Los Angeles

Bottega Veneta Reopens Paris Flagship Store

On September 25th, Bottega Veneta unveiled its new Paris flagship store on the iconic Avenue Montaigne. It is the first store designed by and under the creative direction of Matthieu Blazy.

Combining Italian craftsmanship with a modernist sensibility, the near 800-square-meter space is defined by two essential materials: glass, native to Venice, and Italian walnut wood. Industrial square glass blocks are integrated into floor, ceiling, and walls, creating a grid geometry and diffuse, homogenous light throughout the store. Walnut wood panels frame the blocks, and also distinguish the transitional spaces of stairway and jewelry gallery corridor.

Interaction with original design and the handmade begins upon entry, where the front door features a one-of-a-kind glass handle by the Venice-based Japanese glass artist, Ritsue Mishima. Further brass hooks and handles throughout the store pick up on Blazy’s Drop motif, while single Drop elements on store mirrors create rippling reflections suggestive of Venice’s aquatic cityscape.

Photographs by Francois Halard

 
 

Dickon Drury Mines Diverse Corners of Still-Life Painting in An Egg in Your Shoe @ Shulamit Nazarian

Installation view of An Egg in Your Shoe. Courtesy of Dickon Drury and Shulamit Nazarian.

Shulamit Nazarian is currently featuring An Egg in Your Shoe, the gallery’s first solo exhibition by UK-based painter Dickon Drury. The artist’s thematically rich, meticulously detailed paintings mine diverse corners of art history and the genre of still-life painting to delve into themes of self-sufficiency, preservation, and regeneration with tenderness and humor.

Drury's latest series of oil paintings on linen invites viewers to contemplate the complex relationship between material possessions and a sense of home amid an uncertain future. The still lives present collections of objects that work like visual puzzles, prodding the viewer to piece together clues about the mysterious inhabitants of these scenes. Drury's practice seeks the humor and idiosyncrasy embodied in our selection of material possessions, and his research has often looked to the supplies collected by apocalypse preppers. Boxes in the process of being packed or unpacked evoke a sense of urgency and an impending move, while rolls of bubble wrap allude to themes of protection and value for one's beloved objects. The compositions present their diverse groupings of objects democratically, without a hierarchical division between a whistle, a lighter, or a high-end ceramic vase. Without a human figure in sight, Drury's paintings offer an imaginative narrative played out in the background by the invisible, implicit inhabitants of his eccentric world.

 
 

An Egg in Your Shoe is on view through October 28 @ Shulamit Nazarian, 616 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036

Paul McCarthy Continues to Define the Language of the Obscene in Them as Was Is @ Galerie Max Hetzler in Berlin

Bringing together past and present, then and now, Them as Was Is, Paul McCarthy’s first solo exhibition with Galerie Max Hetzler, presents two fundamental aspects of McCarthy’s practice. On the ground floor, eighteen sculptures constitute an early endeavour by the artist to combine different periods of sculpture into one, allowing visitors to draw out the similarities that weave together his most iconic sculptural projects. On the gallery’s upper floor, a series of drawings and video works from the artist’s more recent ‘A&E’ (2019–) project show film and performance to be at the heart of McCarthy’s practice.

The gallery’s second floor presents drawings created by McCarthy during improvised performances between himself and German actress Lilith Stangenberg as part of their ongoing ‘A&E’ project. The project’s title refers to the layered alter egos which McCarthy and Stangenberg assume: Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun, Adam & Eve, Arts & Entertainment, America & Europe. Created during hours-long sessions in which the collaborators enter a state of delirium, the drawings possess a radical immediacy and undeniable physicality. Alongside unconscious scrawls, magazine clippings, and imagery of Hitler and Mickey Mouse, certain drawings incorporate the artist’s tools, providing witness to the gestures embedded in them.

 
 

Them as Was Is is on view through October 21st at Galerie Max Hetzler, Potsdamer Straße 77-87, Berlin.

Singapore Design Week 2023 Spotlights Smart and Sustainable Design

From the festival hub at the National Design Centre to Design Districts at Bras Basah.Bugis, Marina Bay, and Orchard, and many other Design Community locations, Singapore Design Week 2023 will present an extraordinary showcase of Singapore’s distinctive brand of creativity. Singapore design embodies a universal attitude—the desire to always seek to make lives better using design. This year’s festival theme “Better by Design” reflects the commitment of DesignSingapore Council (Dsg) to champion design and creativity that helps meet complex challenges and shape a better future. The festival runs until October 1st. Click here for a full program.

Read Our Interview of Artist Darius Airo Ahead of Both His Exhibitions in Los Angeles →

Installation view of Casual Banter @ Face Guts. Courtesy of Darius Airo and Joshua White.

Heavily intertwined with the work of the Chicago Imagists, artist Darius Airo has derived a decent amount of his contemporary style from the group of representational artists. Imbued with the quintessential imagery and pop iconography of the Imagists, Airo’s work fuses these art historical trends with his own inclination for surrealist imagery and the grotesquerie. His romanticization of public space is influenced by these same artistic roots, but is guided by the poetry he writes. Airo interweaves the quotidian with the romantic through his poetic approach to painting and drawing, unintentionally highlighting the exceptional in the mundane. 

Airo has two shows happening concurrently in Los Angeles. His show Dense at Central Server Works is a collaboration between him and Jim Mooijekind. The respective artists’ work operates in tandem; the paintings are in conversation with one another, all generally characterized by the abstracted figure and its gaze. Casual Banter at Face Guts is a sort of retrospective of Airo’s drawings from the last ten years, curated by photographer Joshua White. The drawings are filled with kinetic figural forms seemingly capable of conversing amongst themselves. Read more.

Derrick Adams Flirts With the Idea of Sensuality in Come as You Are @ Gagosian in Los Angeles

 

Derrick Adams, Be the Table, 2023. © Derrick Adams Studio. Photo: Jeff McLane

 

In Derrick Adams’ debut exhibition with the Gagosian, the artist continues to develop pictorial vignettes centering the Black figure, this time in new works borne from the artist’s imagined invitation to the real or fictional personalities he paints.

The exhibition’s title offers encouragement to be present without the need to conceal one’s true self, dreams, and aspirations—a prompt to shed the pressures of adaptation and conformity. Adams counters hackneyed narratives by presenting figures in moments of carefree leisure, inspired by his belief in the constructive power of scenes that uplift and support Black culture. Adding elements of fantastical daydreams along with a few icons familiar from previous series, he dramatizes lived experience and self-actualization in compositions that balance vivid and muted tones, flat planes and multidimensional space.

Come as You Are is on view through October 28 @ Gagosian, 456 North Camden Drive, Beverly Hills

Lucas Meyer-Leclère "Paris/Berlin" SS24 by Joseph Kadow & Hakan Solak

photography by Joseph Kadow
styling by Hakan Solak
hair by Veronika Stork at Inclover Agency
make up by Sam Hill at Inclover Agency
modeling by Aaron, Gregor, Mahmut & Wolf
all clothing by Lucas Meyer Leclere S/S24
thank you to the adminstration of Parochialkirche, Berlin

 

Pictures Girls Make Inverts Archaic Norms Through Portraiture @ Blum & Poe in Los Angeles

“Pictures Girls Make”: Portraitures, Installation view, 2023, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles © The artists; Courtesy of the artists and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo, Photo: Evan Walsh

Blum & Poe presents Pictures Girls Make: Portraitures, an exhibition bringing together over fifty artists from around the world, spanning the early nineteenth century until today. Curated by Alison M. Gingeras, this prodigious survey argues that this age-old mode of representation is an enduringly democratic, humanistic genre.

“Pictures girls make” is a quip attributed to Willem de Kooning who purportedly dismissed the inferior status of his wife Elaine’s portrait practice. Inverting the original dismissal into an affirmation, Pictures Girls Make is a rallying cry for this exhibition which examines how different forms of portraitures defy old aesthetic, social, and ideological norms.

Pictures Girls Make is on view through October 21 @ Blum & Poe, 2727 South La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California 90034

Park Nights Return @ Serpentine Galleries In London, Featuring Live Music, Performance, Dance, and Poetry

Serpentine was thrilled to announce it’s returned of Park Nights this August. Its experimental, interdisciplinary, live programme sited within the annual architectural commission, the 22nd Serpentine Pavilion designed by Lina Ghotmeh.

Bringing together multi-disciplinary artists, and featuring rave music, performance installations, poetry and dance, the exciting live programme invites audiences to engage, reflect, and connect. Park Nights runs from August to October, featuring The Living and the Dead Ensemble; Castiel Vitorino Brasileiro; Bambii and Christelle Oyiri.

Catch it’s final evening on October 8th, where Christelle Oyiri/CRYSTALLMESS will present a live iteration of her upcoming record with invited collaborators and musical guests.

The events will run through early October at Serpentine Galleries, Kensington Gardens, London.