SPLAT: A Sensory Play Party & Performance By Bobbi SalvΓΆr Menuez @ Performance Space New York

β€œSometimes performing, leaking always, together” reads the subheading of Bobbi SalvΓΆr Menuez’s SPLAT, a sensory play party at Performance Space New York, where the multidisciplinary artist also gave a private performance. Guests had their tongues painted by Early Shinada in quori theodor’s gnaw installation, brought towels for β€œslime hour” in the β€œsplash zone,” were offered beverages and a place to communally shower in the bathroom before engaging in some dry, quiet play in the β€œsoft zone,” and documented themselves while traveling through the β€œliminal zone.” All guests had stickers placed over their phone cameras, so the only documentation of the night came from within an interactive, live-feed macrophilic installation resembling a giant mouth titled I’m Big, You’re Small. All attendees were asked to take rapid Covid tests before attending and encouraged to engage in consensual cruising and play. A house manager could be found on site to support in all ways necessary and voyeurs were received with a warm welcome.

The Perfect Specimen: Read Our Interview of Lauren Lee McCarthy On Her Exhibition "Bodily Autonomy" @ Mandeville Art Gallery In San Diego →

medical pamphlet with man spitting into a vial says "So You've Decided to Exchange Saliva"

Installation view, Lauren Lee McCarthy: Bodily Autonomy at UC San Diego Mandeville Art Gallery. March 2-May 25, 2024. Photo by Pablo Mason. With support from Creative Capital.

When asked to read through a long list of terms and conditions before giving consent, most of us have developed a reflexive response of scrolling to the bottom and trudging ahead. There’s a miniature risk/benefit analysis that we all conduct, which includes a completely unknown potential risk in the distant future, and the near future benefit of moving on. Time is such a valuable commodity that we regularly find ourselves sharing everything from personal data, browsing data, biometric data, and more. Oftentimes, there’s no contract at all. You may have thought you were showing all of your friends how your looks changed from 2009 to 2019, but you were really training someone’s private surveillance software. The list of myopic, nefarious applications that we serve by giving ourselves away to faceless data farms in exchange for what often amounts to a forgettable laugh is endless. In Lauren Lee McCarthy’s Bodily Autonomy exhibition at UC San Diego’s Mandeville Art Gallery, she explores two very specific aspects of the way that we engage with science and technology. With β€œSurrogate,” she created an application where couples and individuals who are interested in hiring her as a surrogate mother are invited to dictate everything from her eating and sleeping habits, to her daily activities, and more. While these requests are not actually fulfilled, the application itself challenges notions of reproduction, genetic selection, and commerce. With β€œSaliva” she has created a saliva exchange station that is activated every Thursday from 6-8pm where visitors are invited to give and receive samples of their own saliva. Each participant is given agency to label their sample as they prefer and they provide the conditions for what happens to it (scout’s honor). Doreen A. RΓ­os, a PhD candidate in Art History, Theory, and Criticism at UC San Diego and an independent curator and researcher, spoke with McCarthy to discuss the implications of these technologies and the imperative within the work to embody a more transparent form of participation. Read more.

Read an Interview of Holly Hendry on the Occasion of Her Exhibition @ SCAD Museum of Art for SCAD deFINE ART 2024 →

 
Holly Hendry, Watermarks, SCAD, deFINE ART, exhibitions

Holly Hendry, Her bones begin to bend, 2024. Image courtesy of SCAD.

 

Holly Hendry’s Watermarks, featured at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum of Art through June 24, is a site-specific oasis which playfully investigates the way water runs through virtually every facet of human life. Situated outside the museum in glass vitrines overlooking Turner Boulevard, Hendry’s four sculptural pieces encounter the world in an unconventional way. The architectural display is situated in the community; students pass it every morning on their way to class. The significance behind the work in this context becomes ever-evolving, effortlessly aligning with the shifting elements of the everyday. Her edifices traverse intricate concepts that range from the expansiveness of architecture, societal conceptions of the female form, to the connectivity of bodies via water. Interestingly balancing the lightness of uplifting artistic figuration with the weight of impending doom as it relates to our not-at-all-ubiquitous freshwater supply, Hendry’s sculptural forms are dynamic manifestations of life on earth. Read more.

Watermarks is organized by SCAD Museum of Art chief curator Daniel S. Palmer with assistant curator Haley Clouser and presented as part of SCAD deFINE ART 2024.

Louis Vuitton's Spring 2024 Men's Capsule Collection Is A Fusion of Visions

 
 

creative direction by Tyler, the Creator and Pharrell Williams

Louis Vuitton’s iconic imagery is a staple in the fashion world, unique and identifiable amidst the ever-changing tides of trends. Despite this classic style that cements the brand’s singular voice, their ability to evolve and innovate that image is constant. The 2024 Men’s Capsule Collection displays this innovation while still staying true to the brand’s face by staging an instinctive union between the visual universes, combining the distinctive artistic voices of the Menswear Creative Director Pharrell Williams with long time friend of him and the brand, Tyler, the Creator. Fusing the signature preppy sophistication popularized by the artist with the elegant dandy dressing established by Pharrell Williams at the Maison, it evokes the brand’s common palette of earthy creams and browns, as well as muted yet still vibrant blues and greens to support the pops of bright color that bring the air of spring into this lineup. The emblem of the collection being a craggy monogram, hand-drawn by the artist himself. Throughout the collection you can feel the creative collaboration take place and see the marriage of these two’s strong visions come together.

 
 

TRUFFLE by Parker Woods and Erin Green Book Launch @ Sheriff Gallery

TRUFFLE is an ode to detail; with the combining forces of Parker Woods’ intimate style of photography that takes a fresh approach to abstraction by placing it within the context of humanity, as well as Erin Greens’ honest and raw makeup artistry, depicting more than just makeupβ€”but the person behind it. The book proposes a perspective one could only define as close, in all ways. Work that prides itself on defying the very word β€œpristine.” TRUFFLE’s black and white imagery along with their mix of up-close shots displaying both identifiable human features drawn in makeup amongst abstracted textured imagery creates a unique voice that speaks to you like a whisper directly into your ear. Portraying not only up close intimacy, but an undeniable vulnerability that compels you to look, even if it feels invading, the art book stands out by its artistic approach that can only be described as honest. 

With graphic design by Patrick Slack and Austin Redman, the final object is a 208-page, landscape-oriented book with slipcase and a 40.64cm x 50.8cm double-sided poster. Edition of 200.

You can preorder TRUFFLE now on their website

 
 

Lefty Out There "Tempus" @ Maddox Gallery in London

An exploration of time through the lens of growth, energy and artisanship, β€˜Tempus’ is Lefty Out There’s most complex and intricately crafted show yet. Envisaging a show entirely in color, his sophisticated palette is intertwined with multidimensional shapes, forms and proportions. Exploring just how far he can push his abstractions, his trademark polymorphs breathe and grow as the exhibition unfolds through more than 30 unique works.Hailing from Chicago, Lefty’s immersion in the city’s buzzing street art scene marked the start of his career-long obsession with patterns. Always chasing perfection, his studio in Los Angeles is part traditional artist’s atelier, part experimental workshop. Harnessing the power of machinery, technology, carpentry and a myriad of different mediums and techniques, the new works reflect the patience and passion Lefty invests in every stroke and contour. Tempus will be on view until May 4th at Maddox Gallery, 12 Berkeley Street, London

Read An Interview Of Kate Mosher Hall On The Occasion Of Her Solo Exhibition @ Hannah Hoffman In Los Angeles →

Kate Mosher Hall, 31,556,952 seconds, 2024 
Acrylic and charcoal on canvas 
80 x 72 inches (203.2 x 182.9 cm)

I recently visited Los Angeles born-and-raised painter Kate Mosher Hall at her light-filled studio in a bricky industrial area of Glendale. With the 5 freeway buzzing nearby, she walked me through her complex and unique process, which involves silkscreening light-sensitive emulsion over gessoed canvas using anywhere from eight to thirty screens depending on the particular painting, Photoshopping, layers of collage, and paint. It’s a β€œchoose-your-own adventure” as she says, to get the desired effect. To help organize things, she’s created a lexicon: box paintings, hole or mesh paintings, recursion paintings. Some paintings incorporate elements of all styles. Hall, a punk drummer, worked in silkscreen studios for several years before she began UCLA’s Fine Art MFA program. We talked about Never Odd or Even, Hall’s second solo exhibition at Hannah Hoffman, which is currently on view in Los Angeles and the way that the work employs both good and bad math, challenges modes of looking, and the infinite repetition within binary relationships. Read more.

Izumi Kato's Not-Quite-Human Figures Are Apparitions of Coexistence in Perrotin's Inaugural Los Angeles Show

#6
Untitled, 2023

Photo by Kei Okano
Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin Β©2023 Izumi Kato

Perrotin inaugurates their new Los Angeles location with an exhibition of work by Japanese artist Izumi Kato.

Imagine, for a moment, that Izumi Kato’s figurative subjects have a life of their own. From the artist’s studio in Tokyo, his subjects have traversed the ocean, crossing the Pacific to emerge in Los Angeles. Making their way to Pico Boulevard, they appear utterly at home in Southern Californiaβ€”a place where one can encounter the extremes of both prehistoric geology and urban modernity, where tar pits coexist with gleaming new buildings, where eternal ocean cliffs abut concrete highway. These binaries of ancient and modern, geological and man-made, are dualities that also coexist in Kato’s work, making his exhibition a fitting choice for Perrotin’s inaugural exhibition in Los Angeles.

Izumi Kato’s exhibition is on view through March 23 @ Perrotin in Los Angeles, 5036 W. Pico Boulevard

Miu Miu's Fall/Winter 2024 Collection Traces Life From Girlhood to Womanhood

The Miu Miu Fall/Winter 2024 collection by Miuccia Prada draws inspiration from the span and scope of people’s lives, its shifting clothing types reflective of the development of character, both personal and universal to form a vocabulary of clothing, from childhood to adulthood.

Concurrent gestures express different moments in life β€” they coexist within single outfits, just as we each hold simultaneous memories of our own experience. Evocations of childhood are expressed with deliberately shrunken proportions, cropped sleeves, and round-toed shoes; archetypical clothing types that directly recall those worn in youth. Childhood is a moment of impulsive, natural rebellion, here reflected in the liberation of a dichotomous mixing of different codifications of dress, pajamas with outerwear, proper with improper, right with wrong. By contrast, adulthood is expressed through recognized signifiers of propriety and chic β€” gloves and handbags, brooches, tailoring, the little black dress. Like mnemonic devices, clothes can make us both think back, and project forwards.

Those components of duality and recollection find counterparts in materials and construction. Bonding and fusing meld together different fabrics and combine disparate garments, sweaters and cardigans in silk and cashmere, poplin skirts with knit, while shearling is treated to mimic precious fur. Silk dresses are creased and molded to cotton jersey sheaths, volumes reduced with the impression of the original garment remaining, a trace of its antecedent.

As the collection reconsiders characteristic signifiers of life through the vocabulary of clothing, so our literal vocabulary can be readdressed. Girlishness is a word we can revalue, from a pejorative gendered noun, anchored to age, to a universal idiom expressive of the strength of rebellion, a spirit of freedom and individuality, one attribute of a richer whole. Perceived as an inherent component of Miu Miu, it should be examined not as a lone trait but as a fundamental aspect of a wider temperament β€” a notion expressed through a cast of personalities who each embody this ever-shifting Miu Miu persona. They include Dara Allen, Ethel Cain, Guillaume Diop, Luther Ford, Angel Hazody, Kristin Scott Thoe, Qin Huilan, Little Simz, Jasmin Savoy Brown and Ángela Molina, who also features in Miu Miu Women’s Tales.

Contemporaneity allows divergent creative processes to arrive at paradoxically correlated results. The Palais d’IΓ©na is punctuated by video installations created by the Belgian-American artist CΓ©cile B. Evans, art considered as a tool to enrich and expand conversation around people. Conceived independently of the collection, by chance the notions of the survival of memory in their art finds echo within the clothes. This is a shared language, one informed by the moment we all live within, a universal message nevertheless resonant with our unique experience.

Willfully Surrender to the Chaos of Nature in Tali Lennox's Tremors @ Nicodim in Los Angeles

In her first solo exhibition with Nicodim, artist Tali Lennox enlists erupting volcanoes, glowing forests and mystical landscapes to explore the pleasure of submitting to the chaos and the power of nature. Tremors finds a range of female bodies in varying states of capitulation to an onslaught of mother nature’s harshest elements, finding common ground between internal and external states of disorder.

Originally inspired by the German anthology of illuminations Das Wunderzeichenbuch: The Book of Miracles, this collection takes the lead from the book of Renaissance paintings that depict both biblical and folkloric tales with a decidedly apocalyptic flair.

Shells and oysters proliferate the canvases, appearing sometimes as ominous hallucinations and at other times morphing directly into the features of the painting’s subjects, symbolising a surrender and a fusing to nature.

 
 

Tremors is on view through April 6 @ Nicodim, 1700 S Santa Fe Avenue #160 Los Angeles, CA 90021

Highlights from Acne Studios' Winter 24 Presentation

Inspired by industrial materials and the human form, Acne’s winter 24 collection features a blend of toughness and craftsmanship in leather and denim garments. It is staged against the backdrop of two large-scale sculptures made from recycled tires by Estonian artist Villu Jaanisoo. These sculptures, titled Chairs in Rubber (2001), represent a fusion of craftiness and industrial aesthetics.

β€œI consider myself a sculptor in the most traditional sense. What interests me about working with tires is the certain β€˜inner resistance’ of this material: it requires a lot of physical as well as mental force to shape them; the resistance that exists in each tire makes the surface of the sculpture alive, almost baroque.

”For my artworks, I have often used recycled materials, such as used car tires or utilized fluorescent tubes. Environmental issues have been important in terms of employing these, but to me, what’s even more interesting is the trace that the former lives have left to the recycled things I use for making something new, also the idea of putting something familiar into a new context,” says the artist Villu Jaanisoo.

The collection embodies a fast and futuristic woman, reshaping Acne Studios' signature codes of denim and leather with a raw, mechanical twist. It juxtaposes elevated femininity with a tough attitude, subverting traditional archetypes of womenswear. Classic elements like fur (both faux and shearling), ladylike handbags, a timeless black dress, and leather are reimagined with a contemporary edge.

β€œI’ve always been drawn to leather and denim. It’s the spirit of Acne Studios. One of our first collections in the late ’90s was called β€˜leather and denim;’ two things that belong together. This season, we’ve created a powerful leather and denim woman. I’ve always related to clothing through subcultural movements. Denim and leather can transcend genre and subcultures β€” from punk to S&M. When you want to feel tough you gravitate towards leather and denim; it’s like armour. It always feels right. An empowering safety zone,” says Jonny Johansson, creative director of Acne Studios.

Discover Celine's Womenswear Winter 24 'L'Arc de Triomphe' Collection & Celine BeautΓ©

"La Collection de l'Arc de Triomphe" reflects back on the 1960s, the golden age of Celine, capturing the essence and spirit of the house through coordinated looks and authentic reweaved materials. Ready-to-wear pieces are combined with hand-embroidered couture items, while felt caps offer a ’60s reinterpretation of the classic Celine baseball cap.

Upon his arrival at Celine in 2018, Hedi Slimane reintroduced the "Triomphe" emblem, featuring it prominently on the Triomphe bag, which he designed on his first day. The Triomphe bag quickly became a new classic for the house, symbolizing its core essence and values.

β€œLa collection de l’Arc de Triomphe” film marks the birth of Celine BeautΓ©, the first cosmetics line in the house’s history. Models wear β€œLa Peau Nue” rose naturel lipstick, one of the fifteen shades of the β€œLe Rouge Celine” collection that will be available in 2025. The Celine BeautΓ© collection will launch this autumn with the first satin lipstick shade β€œRouge Triomphe.”

model wearing black wool riding cap with triomphe logo, black sunglasses and black neoprene tank with black beaded collar

Ready When Worn: the Avant-Première of MM6 Maison Margiela AW24

For the Avant premiere of AW24, MM6 explores the liminal state of a silhouette morphing between urban cool and couture refinement. Looks hover in limbo. Elegance with wit, puns and double entendres. Clothes that aren’t ready-to-wear: they’re ready when worn, molding to the character of the wearer. Oblique references to Man Ray bring an undercurrent of bohemian elegance, evoking artists, celebrities, friends, lovers and other singular types who move through life like it’s a work of art. Characters inhabiting an uncannily parallel world, with unexpected textures, raw finishes and, of course, white paint.

The familiar skews obscure as staples and archival garments adopt new attitudes, blending minimalism with maximalism on vintage-leaning pieces and riffing on classic masculine codes of dress, with cleverly placed darts reconfiguring silhouettes and tailoring language extended to pieces considered outside the traditional tailoring realm.
Pockets come to the fore as functional, multiple, exaggerated emblems of utility, with asymmetrical placements creating critical distance from the usual technical sportswear tropes.

For night, a bedding theme plays out in Lycra bodysuits and dresses in an allover trompe l’oeil quilt print as well as on a pink t-shirt with a flocked Party Bear motif lifted from an old kids’ duvet. True to MM6 codes, humble materials become ornamental: the lining of a black dress is pulled out, twisted and looped around the neck to create intriguing yet elegant volumes. Waistbands are flipped to create couture-like tulip hem effects, and tops are slashed with zips, sexing up something quite mundane. Roughly hewn β€œreplacement” panels on pants suggest customization as hard-loved, well-worn clothing, like sun-bleached ribbed knits and ultra-wrinkled stonewashed denim, take on a new personality. A white cotton shirt, biker jacket and trench coat are gutted and reconstructed with all the details flattened out, their open collars and cuffs sewn into place permanently.

As if lifted from a construction site, a bucket and a rubble sack join the MM6 accessories universe as a molded EVA bucket bag and a tote. Footwear additions include a cream version of the Anatomic clog, a vulcanized lace-up, the Stitch-Out Anatomic boot with a raised ridge detail on the toe and the Tube boot with an anatomic toe, cigarillo heel and wide shaft in suede. Throughout, a sleek monochromatic palette of black, white, camel, gray and chalk is enlivened with shades of green and jolts of pink.

The season also marks the launch of the first ready-to-wear collaboration with Salomon: a capsule of minimalist classics β€” a five-zip mackintosh, a five-pocket jean, a shell jacket with long body zips, a classic men’s tuck-in shirt β€” are made from bonded Gore-Tex, bringing an almost alien functionality to a cityscape. The complementary Seamless line blends influences from compression base layers worn by athletes to speed recovery and MM6 bodysuits on a compression top, leggings, arm warmers and a bodysuit. The Water Bottle bag, the Trailblazer.

Pocket Backpack and a cap complete the lineup. By focusing on simple gestures that transform everyday dressing, MM6 continues its exploration of clothing, form and wearability. Pieces spark an immediate connection and play on the duality of perception, slipping easily into a wardrobe purposefully prepared to let personality shine through.

model standing profile wearing long black knit turtleneck and baggy black parachute trousers with back bubbly tabi boots

Highlights From Balenciaga's Winter 24 Collection during Paris Fashion Week

Taking place at les Invalides, under a set of screens tracking a narrative timeline from morning to night over natural and electronic landscapes, the projected images shift from actual to artificialβ€”or somewhere in between the two states. Editing, splicing, content sharing, scrolling: each element and more plays across the monitors.

The soundtrack is composed by BFRND and features high energy rhythms, hypnotic melodies and voices turned into synths. 

The 24/7, a limited-edition wraparound mask, has an aerodynamic single-mold design that seamlessly obscures the wearer’s face around the eyes and along its sides by enveloping it from every angle. Ergonomic hollows hold each earβ€”looping under instead of simply sitting atop. Each end of the mask tapers toward the back of the head, leaving an opening so it can easily be donned or removed. A Balenciaga logo is lasered onto the left side.

Another standout was the limited-edition eBay t-shirt, with only 200 produced. The garment can be found in classic Balenciaga gray with a distressed treatment and eBay’s multi-colored logo.

Wayne McGregor Employs AI In One Choreographic Work & Addresses The Climate Crisis In Another This Week @ Sadler's Wells In London

text by Lara Monro

This week, the multi-award-winning choreographer and director Wayne McGregor CBE will present Autobiography (v95 and v96) and UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey at Sadlers Wells, London. 

For over twenty five years, McGregor’s multi-dimensional choreographic work has radically redefined dance in the modern era, securing his position at the cutting edge of contemporary arts. Take, for example, his appointment as the first choreographer from a contemporary dance background to be Resident Choreographer at The Royal Ballet in 2006, where he has created over twenty productions that daringly reconfigure classical language. 

Alongside his multiple cross-sector collaborations and role at The Royal Ballet, Studio Wayne McGregor is the creative engine of his life-long enquiry into thinking through and with the body. The 30+ works created since being established in 1992 (as Random Dance) showcase the evolution of his distinctive visual style and reveal the movement possibilities of the body in ever more precise degrees of articulation. 

McGregor’s Autobiography (v95 and v96) is the latest iteration of Autobiography (1.0), a series of unique dance portraits inspired and determined by the sequencing of his own genetic code. The work upends the traditional nature of dance-making by using the new AI tool AISOMA to hijack his DNA data through its specially created algorithm, which overwrites the configurations of 100 hours+ of his choreographic learning to present fresh movement options to the performers. The meshing of artificial intelligence and instinct converge to create a totally unique dance sequence that complements the medium’s ephemeral quality. 

While v95 and v96 shines a light on the cutting edge innovation capabilities of dance and future facing technology, UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey is a moving meditation on the climate crisis. Inspired by the Jim Henson cult classic, The Dark Crystal, it depicts an Earth driven by extremes and urgently in need of healing; a modern eco-myth that asks how we can come together to be whole again. The combination of cutting-edge costumes paired with the digital landscapes creates a stunning blend of fantasy and documentary. 

Autobiography (v95 and v96) will be showcased this Tuesday and Wednesday (March 12th & 13th), while UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey will be showcased this Friday and Saturday (March 15 & 16th) at Sadlers Wells, London. 

scene from Autobiography (v95 and v96)

scene from UniVerse: A Dark Crystal Odyssey

A'Driane Nieves Dismantles the Policing of Emotionality in self-evident truths @ VSF in Los Angeles

A'Driane Nieves, a new world is still possible (so hold onto your radical imagination), 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Various Small Fires, Los Angeles / Dallas / Seoul. Photo credit: Julia Gillard.

A’Driane Nieves’ debut exhibition at VSF, self-evident truths. Combining paintings on canvas and paper with new explorations in neon and audio installation, this ambitious exhibition is also Nieves’ first on the West Coast.

Nieves’ dynamic gestural abstractions extend from a writing practice and the therapeutic potential of movement, composition, and color. A self-taught painter of over a decade, Nieves began making work after a therapist suggested painting might be a somatic path through which the artist could move to overcome the impacts of childhood abuse, particularly emotional suppression. In spite of, or perhaps because of the weightiness of this genesis, Nieves’ paintings often carry an energy of joyful, empowered liberation.

self-evident truths is a wry play on the US Constitution’s famous refrain (β€œwe hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...), she asks β€œwhose truths?, self-evident to whom?”

self-evident truths is on view through April 6 @ VSF, 812 N Highland Ave. Los Angeles

Watch the Video for "Piano Etude No.2" by Philip Glass Reworked by AVR In Collaboration with Mugler

music written by Philip Glass & reworked by AVR
recorded, produced & mixed by AVR
additional production by Fergus Frost
recorded drums: Luca Marini
performed drums: Hanno Stick
Director & Editor: Alex de Brabant
DOP: Kevin Klein
VFX: Felix Geen
Mastering: Felix Davis
Atmos Mastering: Mike Hillier @mikehillier
Colorist: Alaa Abdullatif
Rotoscope: Rohaman Sabbi
AC: Michael Herbers
Assistants: Raphael Fischer-Dieskau, Leander Rau, Mitch Speed 
Styling: Nicole Walker
Wardrobe: Mugler
Titles & Logo Design: Fabian Maier-Bode
Logo Animation: Chernoff Faces
Special thanks to: Musicboard Berlin and Gema

AVR’s music is about collective transcendence and experiences that remind us of our shared humanity. The multi-gentre producer, composer and performer who studied jazz and classical piano since the age of nine had some rework ideas about the Philip Glass piece β€œPiano Etude No.2” for a while. To have it released on Glass’ label now is something she didn’t dare to dream of.

The most famous of his piano works has a big dynamic range, from introverted and serene to powerful and ecstatic β€” framed by the Glass meditation-like minimalism. the pieces’ emotional state Anna von Raison describes as her favorite in music: neither sad nor happy but instead on a meta-level, looking at things through the lens of freedom.

AVR’s recording starts with Glass’ original piano melody performed solely by her voice, as the song starts to build, the piano enters and once the full chords come together, her rework begins. She extends the composition with a high-energy drum solo part, played by Luca Marini (performed by Hanno STick). Later a choir enters with a legato arena chant melody to settle for the finale the way it all began: in the intimate sung version of the main theme.

Read Our Interview Of Painter Jess Valice On The Occasion Of Her Solo Exhibition @ Almine Rech In New York →

 
portrait of Jess Valice from behind painting a man's face on canvas
 

Each and every day we observe thousands of faces online and in person. And with each and every one, we reflexively look for clues to determine how they must feel. It is an empathic impulse endemic to us as social creatures. And yet, regardless of our perpetual, involuntary efforts, we can never be sure that we’ve ascertained any level of truth. It’s this mystery that lies at the heart of Jess Valice’s painted figures. The artist’s initial life path, which was headed toward a medical practice, laid the foundation for an approach to painting that leaves the viewer in a state of quizzical study, lost in the gaze of a subject who was never asking to be diagnosed. The predominant demons and desires of her subjects even seem to elude Valice, as she finds herself reworking each of their faces incessantly until she lands on something that feels honest. For her solo exhibition, Mara, opening today at Almine Rech’s Upper East Side gallery in New York, the subjects in question are at various points of overcoming the part of their egos that obstruct the path to enlightenment, known in Buddhism as Mara. According to Valice, β€œThere is this overwhelming sense of fatigue that I think is typifying our generation, the weight of a spectrum of emotional responses that digital space provokes in us every day… It’s all so complexβ€”this is where the science and melancholia come inβ€”the recognition of this blankness as a widespread response. It’s too much to feel.” Fellow painter and confidante Avery Wheless joined Valice in her studio as the paintings were nearly finished to delve into the making of this new body of work and demystify some of the je ne sais quoi embodied by Valice’s disaffected figures. Read more.

Devon DeJardin "Echoes Of The Past" Opens This Week @ Albertz Benda In New York

Albertz Benda presents the second solo exhibition with the gallery by Los Angeles based artist Devon DeJardin. In this exhibition entitled Echoes of the Past, the artist has reimagined Old Master  portrait paintings, redefining a visual language for the traditional genre. DeJardin’s new paintings are the culmination of five years of his exploration into what the artist terms secular β€˜guardians,’ who appear as central figures in his compositions. Comprised of geometric shapes assembled into  anthropomorphic forms, the guardians have a distinctly modernist feel in their tenuous balance between figure and abstraction: 20th century artists from diverse contexts including Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Yves Tanguy come to mind as significant inspiration.  

In Echoes of the Past, the artist delves further back across art historical eras, interpreting his portraits through the lens of Flemish Primitive and Italian Renaissance artists to the Dutch Golden Age and Spanish Romantic  masters. While classical portraiture throughout these epochs focused primarily on royalty and pinnacles of  society, DeJardin’s paintings conjure imaginary guardians that protect a wounded society.  

The cheerful themes of DeJardin’s earlier work have evolved into a darker, more limited palette, reinterpreting  choices by many of history’s greatest artists, including Goya, van Eyck, and Rembrandt. They are conceptual reflections of the era in which the artist has lived as DeJardin’s generation has never known life in a world without warβ€”from the Gulf War and the War on Terror to the ongoing conflicts in the Ukraine and the Middle East. DeJardin metaphorically and physically mines the darkness in society to create his work, using shading and light to subtly tease figures from abstract shapes. The orb-like eyes of his figures appear lighter in tone, signifying a purity of spirit and hope for the future.

As always, his paintings are notable for their meticulous rendering. His figures are so sculptural that they almost seem to emerge from the wall. DeJardin goes straight to the canvas, working without a maquette to depict the figure and background in an organic, liberatory process. In recent years the artist has experimented with framing devices for these figures, including floral, architectural, or landscape imagery. In each of the new canvases, the background corresponds to the era from which the artist reimagined the imagery: six smaller works reflect the intimate and domestic scale of Dutch Golden Age paintings, while two larger vertical works lean on an Italian Renaissance tradition, complete with landscape and drapery surrounding the figures. The show serves as a testament to the enduring power of portraiture as a genre of storytelling, with each painting offering a glimpse into shared human experience across centuries. 

On view from March 7 to April 13 at Albertz Benda NYC. 515 W. 26th Street, New York, New York