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Hana Kinbaku, 2008 © Nobuyoshi Araki courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary |
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Michael Hoppen Hana (Flower) — Araki by Araki, 2003 Kinbaku (Bondage) When I tie-up women, I tell them “I’m binding your heart, not your body.” A woman can slip out of my bondage. It doesn’t have to be accomplished. — “Subete no onna wa utsukushii (All women are beautiful)” 2006 Hana Kinbaku is a new exhibition of work by one of Japan’s greatest artists, Nobuyoshi Araki. The gallery presents a series of handmade, one-off diptychs, never before seen in the UK. Araki’s Hana Kinbaku works are photographic diptych studies of flowers (hana) and bondage (kinbaku- the ancient and highly skilled art of Japanese erotic restraint). In this body of work, Araki physically, and imperfectly, tapes the images into diptychs, accentuating the join between subject matter and adding an extra layer of texture to each individual piece. The juxtaposition of bound female semi-nudes and intense close ups of orchids, tulips and chrysanthemums strengthen the beauty of Kinbaku whilst reinforcing the innate sexuality of flowers. The work links Araki’s two main photographic themes; Eros (life/ sex) and Thanatos (death), conjoining them in a way that has a strong and direct visual impact. The decision by Araki to only print one of each coupled image enhances the intrinsic themes of life and death. Michael Hoppen Contemporary specialise in Japanese photography and are delighted to be working be working with Nobuyoshi Araki and his studio in Tokyo for this exhibition. |
Hana Kinbaku, 2008 © Nobuyoshi Araki courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary.
Hana Kinbaku, 2008 © Nobuyoshi Araki courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary. |
Hana Kinbaku, 2008 © Nobuyoshi Araki courtesy Michael Hoppen Contemporary |
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YZ Kami, Endless Prayers V, 2007, Mixed media on paper, 115.6 x 83.8 cm, Private Collection, Photography Rob McKeever. |
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Parasol unit The most striking works in Endless Prayer are Kami’s large, frontal portraits of ordinary people, each of whom entirely fills their canvas, often measuring three metres by two metres. Despite their imposing size and intense presence these portraits are neither flattering nor psychological; rather, they objectively depict the subjects as they are, absorbed in their own world. This characteristic together with their fresco-like quality, executed using a special painting technique, endows the figures with a certain lack of materiality resembling that of Faiyum portraits which were painted to accompany Egyptian mummies in their graves. In some of the paintings the eyes of the subjects are closed, but in others they are open and they gaze either inwardly or at a fixed point in the distance. No eye contact can be established by the viewer and each painted figure seems to carry their own distinct history within them. The same frontal perspective and detachment is prevalent in Kami’s monumental photographs of \Islamic sites and architecture. For the Iranian-born Kami, architecture, like human beings, speaks of its own history and at times he combines architecture with portraits of people to create some poignant works, such as Dry Land, 1994-2004. The exhibition also features Kami’s collages, entitled Endless Prayers. These works are made by gluing countless minute brick-shaped cut-outs from poetry books on to the canvas in circular arrangements or according to some Islamic architectural detailing of domes. The spiralling patterns are inspired by the whirling motions in the rituals of dervishes found in the Mawlavi order of Sufism, who profess that the act of spinning undoes the ego, cleanses them of the self and finds the sole unity of God. Sufism was founded by the fourteenth century Persian poet Rumi, whose poetry has played an important role in Kami’s life since he began studying it as a young man. The work entitled Konya, 2007, was made in homage to the poet and bears the name of the town where Rumi was born. Y.Z. Kami was born in 1956 in Teheran, Iran, and now lives and works in New York. He has had many solo exhibitions in America, for example Barbara Toll Fine Arts, New York, 1992 and 1993; Holly Salomon Gallery, New York, 1996; Deitch Projects, New York, 1998 and 2001; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, 2003; John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, 2007 and Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, 2007. Kami’s work is in the collection of several major museums in the United States, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York. |
YZ Kami, Untitled (The Gardener I), 2005, Oil on linen, 208.3 x 157.5 cm, Collection Stanlee Gatti, San Francisco.
YZ Kami, Untitled (Woman in a green sweater), 2006, Oil on canvas, 335.3 x 188 cm, Courtesy of Mr and Mrs Thomas Gibson, Photo Rob McKeever, courtesy Gagosian Gallery. |
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YZ Kami, Endless Prayers VI, 2006, Mixed media on paper, 106.7cm x 75.6cm, Private Collection, Photography Rob McKeever. |
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Caroline Chiu, Compassion, 61 x 51 cm, Large format Polaroid photograph, © Caroline Chiu. |
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Caroline Chiu, Acala – Cutting Through Ignorance, 61 x 51 cm, Large format Polaroid photograph, © Caroline Chiu.
Caroline Chiu, Buddha of the Future, 61 x 51 cm, Large format Polaroid photograph, © Caroline Chiu.
Caroline Chiu, Divine Tara, 61 x 51 cm, Large format Polaroid photograph, © Caroline Chiu. |
Rossi & Rossi Ltd Gods and Monsters, an exhibition of superb photographs by Caroline Chiu, presents some 20 unique images of Himalayan sculpture from the Nyingjei Lam Collection. Caroline Chiu aims to convey the power and the mystery of these outstanding objects through her highly individual method of working with the world’s second largest camera. Nyingjei Lam in the Tibetan language means "The Path of Compassion" and this is one of the most significant collections of Himalayan art in private hands in the world. It includes rare and important Indian and Nepalese bronze sculptures of the 7th to the 12th centuries as well as many remarkable images from Tibet dating from the 10th to the 17th centuries. Among these are figures in copper, gilt bronze, silver and other materials depicting the Buddha, Bodhisattvas (future Buddhas) and esoteric Tantric deities, as well as an outstanding group of portrait images of saints and lamas. Anna Maria Rossi and her son Fabio were closely involved with the formation of the collection over a period of some twenty years. The collection was on loan for ten years to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, where it was exhibited for the first time in 1999, accompanied by a major illustrated catalogue by Jane Casey Singer and David Weldon, published by Calmann & King. It is now on long-term loan to the Rubin Museum of Art, New York, home to a comprehensive collection of art from the Himalayas and surrounding regions. For Caroline Chiu to have had access to such a collection was a great privilege that would be comparable to having access to the greatest sculptures by Michelangelo, Cellini or Bernini. This exceptional collaboration between museum and artist has resulted in a series of masterpieces of photography. Caroline Chiu uses an old-fashioned Polaroid camera, weighing about 500 lbs, with a negative size of 20 x 24 inches. One of only three such cameras in existence, this model has been used by such artists as Andy Warhol. The 20 x 24 Polaroid camera allows her to photograph the images at extreme magnification so that the results are as close to visual perfection as possible. The small objects are blown up to as much as 100 times their normal size, revealing details imperceptible to the naked eye, so taking on an almost abstract quality. Working with such a large camera is time-consuming and presents many challenges, with no second chances or room for mistakes with the lighting and full frame compositions but, as Caroline says: “Such a rare process suits the subject matter. The resulting images are precious in themselves, echoing the feeling of the objects.” Caroline explains: “I am not seeking an ‘objective’ view of the exceptional items I photograph, but to reveal their mystery and ‘dark beauty’" … To reveal this ‘dark beauty, I use a chocolate film made up of a colour positive and a black and white negative. This gives the images a dense richness and intense dark brown colouring.” Polaroid is no longer producing this precious film which she finds ideal for the evocative effect that allows the objects to emerge poetically from a mysterious sepia darkness. The characteristics of the film also contribute to the distinctive patina and texture of each image and the process which produces one unique and un-reproducible image is akin to painting and a refreshing reaction to today’s digital world of retouching, re-editing, and mass media. Caroline Chiu was born and raised in Hong Kong, and studied in the USA at Tufts University and New York University as well as photography workshops at Rockport College in Maine. Her work has been exhibited in Europe, Hong Kong, and America. Since 2001, she has been working on a long-term project called The Chinese wunderkammer which recreates the European precursor of the museum, the ‘wonder rooms’ full of far-flung curiosities from around the world. For this project she assembles and photographs a wide range of Chinese and Asian cultural artefacts. |
Caroline Chiu, Just So, 61 x 51 cm, Large format Polaroid photograph, © Caroline Chiu. |
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Shi Xinning, A Holiday in Venice – At the Balcony of Ms. Guggenheim, 2006, Oil on canvas, 210 x 272 cm. |
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Zhang Huan, Young Mother, 2007, Incense ash on linen, 250 x 400 cm. |
Bai Yiluo, Civilization, 2007, Mixed media installation, (12 ceramic busts with agricultural / farmers tools and 12 stands), Each piece approximately 160 cm high including the stand.
Zhang Haiying, Anti-Vice Campaign, Series 001, 2005, Oil on canvas, 300 x 400cm.
Cang Xin, Communication, 2006, Silica gel, Length: 172 cm.
Zhang Dali, Chinese Offspring, 2003-2005, Mixed media: resin mixed with fibreglass, 15 life size cast figures, Average height 170 cm each.
Qiu Jie, Portrait of Mao, 2007, Lead on paper, 250 x 168 cm. |
Saatchi Gallery Since the post-Mao reform era began in 1979, China has seen the emergence of an extremely diverse and dynamic art scene, a development that has taken place within a short space of time and in spite of the continuing difficulties faced by those involved in independent art production. In recent years, contemporary art from China has also been attracting great interest in the West. Chinese artists have quickly found their place in the international art scene, and skilfully employ media, techniques and forms of expression that were developed in the West. Nevertheless, their specifically Chinese roots - pre-modern tradition on the one hand, the requirements of the Socialist Realist style prescribed by the Communist Party until the late 1970s on the other — are evident in many of the artists' works; in comparison to Western art, for example, greater emphasis is placed on figurative painting. The scene of the greatest economic and cultural metamorphosis of our time, China is not only at the center of the world's attention but has arguably the most vital, imaginative, and uncontainable art scene in the world. Chinese artists have gained international recognition for their powerful works capturing the social and aesthetic confusion created in a rapidly changing society. To the Chinese avant-garde, materialism is all pervasive, and the dominant consumer culture has altered people's mentalities. Interestingly, their work, influenced by Western ideals and art practice, remains distinctly Chinese in its content and aesthetic. Produced in the dual context of globalization and urbanization, much of the work examines the collision between the present and the future, and the confusion and ambiguity that characterize the new China. Their work is often a stunned attempt to deal with the dynamic and tectonic forces transforming China. The Saatchi Gallery re-opens in the 70,000 sq. ft. Duke of York’s HQ building on King’s Road, Chelsea, London on the 9th of October. The inaugural exhibition will be The Revolution Continues: New Art from China. This show will bring together the work of 24 of China’s leading artists in a survey of recent painting, sculpture and installation. Artists featured in the inaugural exhibit include: Zhang Dali, Zeng Fanzhi, Wang Guangyi, Zheng Guogu, Zhang Hongtu, Zhang Huan, Qiu Jie, Xiang Jing, Shi Jinsong, Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Li Qing, Wu Shanzhuan, Shen Shaomin, Li Songsong, Zhan Wang, Liu Wei, Zhang Xiaogang, Cang Xin, Shi Xinning, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Bai Yiluo, and Feng Zhengjie. Saatchi Gallery is the only completely free entry contemporary art museum of its size in the world. Open daily from 10am to 6pm, the Saatchi Gallery will have free admission to all shows, including temporary, curated exhibitions, as part of the Saatchi Gallery’s aim to bring contemporary art to the widest audience possible. Free admission has been enabled through the Gallery’s corporate partnership with the leading contemporary art auction house, Phillips de Pury & Company. Phillips de Pury & Company will have their own Gallery Room to present art environments; the first show will present new work by the artist and film maker, Julian Schnabel. The Revolution Continues: New Art from China book is published by Jonathan Cape (£30) to coincide with the gallery opening. The extensive Saatchi collection of new Chinese art is presented here in conjunction with Jiang Jiehong’s examination of the use of the colour red, the iconography of Mao, the sense of the collective and the use of textual language that derives from the calligraphy of the propaganda poster. Jiang Jiehong is a curator from Shanghai who is now director of the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at the UCE Birmingham Institute of Art and Design. |
Li Qing, Wedding (There Are Six Differences In The Two Paintings), 2006, Oil on canvas, 190 x 275 cm, each panel. |
Sun Yuan and Peng Yu, Old Persons Home, 2007, 13 x life size sculptures and 13 x dynamoelectric wheel chairs, Dimensions variable. |
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Gerhard Richter, 4900 Farben (4900 Colours), 2007, Enamel paint on Aludibond, 680 x 680 cm, La Collection de la Fondation Louis Vuitton pour la Création, © 2008 Gerhard Richter. |
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Serpentine Gallery Gerhard Richter (b. Dresden, 1932) is one of the world's greatest living artists and perhaps its greatest living painter. Since the early 1960s, he has tirelessly explored the medium of painting at a time when many were heralding its death. He has produced a remarkably varied body of work, including photography-based portrait, landscape, and still-life paintings; gestural and monochrome abstractions; and colour chart grid paintings. The exhibition features 4900 Colours, a major new work comprising bright monochrome squares randomly arranged in a grid to create a field of kaleidoscopic colour. The 196 square panels of 25 coloured squares can be reconfigured in a number of variations, from one large-scale piece to multiple, smaller paintings. Richter has developed a version comprised of 49 paintings especially for the exhibition. 4900 Colours is parallel to Richter's design for the south transept window of Cologne Cathedral, which replaced the stained glass that was destroyed in World War II. The window, unveiled in August 2007, comprises 11,500 hand-blown squares of glass in 72 colours that are derived from the palette of the original Medieval glazing. The Seemingly arbitrary distribution of colours was generated using a specially developed computer programme and this renewed interest in using chance to define composition led the artist to develop the concept for 4900 Colours. Richter produced the first in his series of grid paintings in 1966 in which he replicated, in large scale, industrial colour charts produced by paint manufacturers. As with his photo-paintings, the use of found material as a source removed the subjective compositional preferences of the artist, however, the Colour Chart Paintings took this a step further, eradicating any hierarchy of subject or representational intent, and focusing on colour to create an egalitarian language of art. Since 1964, Richter has had more than 100 solo exhibitions around the world. He represented Germany at the 36th Venice Biennale in 1972 and was the subject of a major touring retrospective, Forty Years of Painting, at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2002. The Serpentine Gallery exhibition is curated by gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones, co-director Han Ulrich Obrist, and exhibition curator Rebecca Morrill. It preceds two other major presentations of the artist's work in the UK in 2008 and 2009: at the National Gallery Complex, Edinburgh from November 8, 2008 and at the National Portrait Gallery, London from February 26, 2009.
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Gerhard Richter, 1024 Farben (1024 Colours), 1966, Lacquer on canvas, 254 x 478 cm, © 2008 Gerhard Richter.
Gerhard Richter, 256 Farben (256 Colours), 1974/84, Lacquer on canvas, 222 x 414 cm, © 2008 Gerhard Richter.
Gerhard Richter, 4096 Farben (4096 Colours), 1974, Lacquer on canvas, 254 x 254 cm, © 2008 Gerhard Richter. |
Gerhard Richter, 1024 Farben (1024 Colours), 1973, Lacquer on canvas, 299 x 299 cm, © 2008 Gerhard Richter. |
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Bless, N°35 Automatica, © Grégoire Alexandre for Intersection Magazine UK. |
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Ryan Gander, I couldn't See But A day of It (Multiverse), 2007, Installation View Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, © 2007 Francis Ware.
Alicia Framis, China Five Stars, 100 Ways to Wear a Flag, 2007, Installation Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva © 2007 Francis Ware.
Bless, Fat Knot Hammock, 2007, Installation view Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, © 2007 Francis Ware.
Tobias Rehberger, MoF 94,7%, 2007, Installation View Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, © 2007 Francis Ware.
Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades, Alignment, 2007, Installation view Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, © 2007 Francis Ware.
Jurgen Bey, The Modelworld Maquette, 2007, Installation view Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva © 2007 Francis Ware.
Martino Gamper, Gallery Furniture, 2007, Installation view Centre d'Art Contemporain Geneva, © 2007 Francis Ware.
Bless, N°35 Automatica #03 Planter, © Bless. |
Somerset House Contemporary culture is witnessing one of the most significant shifts of recent times. The old dividing lines between artists and designers appear to be dissolving into one another. Indeed the breadth and range of investigation and inspiration they share is possibly the widest to date. The exhibition Wouldn’t it be nice … hopes to present a series of projects emerging from these lines of dissolution, which reflect the current spirit of cultural production internationally. The commonalities between artists and designers are partly due to the reconsideration by designers of the modern tradition and its utopian hopes for universal, simple and mechanistic solutions. Since then there has been the realization that form can never be neutral. Pioneering design historians such as Reyner Banham and later Dick Hebdige have pointed out that even those most pared down and simple of modernist forms are suffused with cultural meaning. In turn, there has been a concomitant recognition that the consumer / user is a complex cultural, social, political and economic being, and that his or her needs are not purely mechanistic. This represented a loss of faith with the notion of pure function. Indeed, as early as the 1950s Jan Tschichold recognized that the rules he established in his earlier book The New Typography intended to render typography perfectly functional, smacked of fascist authoritarianism. Rather than leading designers to despair, this questioning of the modernist design orthodoxies has rendered them more ambitious. Recognising that form carries meaning, many designers (working on graphics, fashion and products) have chosen to investigate the messages they create. This shift of parameters has enabled designers to think in terms of a concept. Partly this is related to self-expression, but more importantly it concerns taking responsibility for the broader ramifications of design. The works of the best of today’s designers display self-awareness and, at times, political intent. Above all designers have developed a keen sense of critique, and work within what is best described as a culture of ideas. If historically artists from Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol to Jeff Koons and Heim Steinbach questioned the threshold between art and the everyday, between the work of art and the quotidian object, today’s artists are going one step further. The work of this new generation reflects, on the one hand, a pop sentiment of the kind expressed by Warhol when he said: ‘the world fascinates me. It’s so nice; whatever it is...I accept things. I’m just watching, observing the world’. In line with this, artists today demonstrate a greater interest in other disciplines, such as design per se and how it has penetrated our popular — and our visual culture. Added to this there is also a keen desire to explore the "situational" and "relational" aspects of the object, installation and environment making. Such works rely heavily on the designed object and require the direct participation of the public, be it in such seemingly banal tasks as eating, playing pool or learning to make paper flowers; or in resolving quite serious issues such as prostitution and the lack of fuel in African villages. In this moment of cultural fluidity so-called artistic and design strategies are being explore by each other’s counterparts. To further compound matters some practitioners work in collaboration with each other’s disciplines, and others simply do not wish to be categorized in any one camp. Over and above any questions of definition, what is shared by these creators is an interest in questioning life, by exploring and experimenting with contemporary culture at all levels. Wouldn’t It Be Nice... Wishful Thinking in Art and Design is a major exhibition that addresses the application of wishful thinking in art and design today. It explores the thinking processes and working methods, that fall into the gap between various attitudes, forms of behaviour and creative practices. On one hand, there's the dichotomy between activism and acceptance, as well as social concern and social control. On the other hand, the juxtaposition between grand plans and harsh realities, between the benign and the confrontational. This project conceived by design historian and art historian Emily King and director of the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Katya García-Antón in collaboration with Christian Brändle, Director of the Museum of Design Zurich, will present art and design alongside one another, undifferentiated. As the former barriers between artists and designers — but also graphic designers, stylists and architects — has become uncertain, the breadth and range of investigation and inspiration they share is possibly the widest to date. The exhibition hopes to present a series of projects emerging from these lines of dissolution, which reflect the current spirit of cultural production internationally. Among the creators invited to participate: Dexter Sinister (UK/US), Jurgen Bey (NL), Bless (F-D), Dunne&Raby and Michael Anastassiades (UK), Alicia Framis (ES), Martino Gamper (IT/UK), Ryan Gander (UK), Martí Guixé (ES), Tobias Rehberger (D) and Superflex (DK). Dexter Sinister is the compound name of David Reinfurt and Stuart Bailey. Dexter Sinister recently established a workshop in the basement at 38, Ludlow Street, on the Lower East Side in New York City. The workshop is intended to model a ‘Just-In-Time’ economy of print production, running counter to the contemporary assembly-line realities of large-scale publishing. This involves avoiding waste by working on-demand, utilizing local cheap machinery, considering alternate distribution strategies, and collapsing distinctions of editing, design, production and distribution into one efficient activity. In 2000, Stuart Bailey co-founded the arts journal Dot Dot Dot with Peter Bilak. Dexter Sinister will be working on a new issue of this fanzine/journal on the occasion of the exhibition, as observers of the AC*DC project in its entirety and of the different events punctuating it. Stuart Bailey made a name for himself in the Netherlands for his contributions to art and design as a graphic designer, critic and editor. On an international level, he is better known for the graphics and co-editing with Peter Bilak of Dot Dot Dot, a biannual publication covering the fields of art, music, design, architecture, literature and language. Stuart Bailey will be working on a new issue of this fanzine /journal created in 2000 on the occasion of the exhibition, as observer of the AC DC project in its entirety and of the different events punctuating it. The designer Jurgen Bey is reputed for his rich and innovative creations and for his involvement in design research and teaching. He became known in the 1990s in the context of the Dutch phenomenon known as Droog Design, before founding the Studio Jurgen Bey whose philosophy is “to consider urban and architectural construction as indissolubly linked to the design of products”. For Wouldn’t it be nice ... Wishful thinking in art and design Jurgen Bey presents several maquettes. Working on a reduced scale enables him to remain on the ideas level, free from the logistical restraints encountered when making a full-size model. In his own words, “if one could work in a model world, reality would never bore us”. Bless is both an evolutive, collaborative project and a brand, created in 1995 by Desirée Heiss and Ines Kaag, based respectively in Paris and Berlin. Hailed as two of the most creative fashion designers of their generation, they refuse to be pigeonholed, moving easily from fashion to beauty, from interiors to art exhibitions, and working with other brands. Their production, situated between art object and design, functional object and fashion, is always unique and marked by the adaptation of unexpected elements put to use in a totally new way. The 30 collections produced up to the present day show not only a fascination for recycling materials, subverting customary functions and deconstruction, but also an interest in textiles and traditional handicrafts. Dunne & Raby is a collaborative duo formed in 1992 by the industrial designer Anthony Dunne and the architect Fiona Raby. They have developed an original line of research aiming to create prototypes of “hypothetical objects” which question the beliefs and usages of the contemporary consumer society. They explore in particular the social, psychological and aesthetic dimensions of everyday life in relation to electronic technologies, both through commercial projects and academic work, to stimulate debate. Since 2003, they have developed a project in collaboration with Michael Anastassiades entitled “Designs for Fragile Personalities in Anxious Times” which offers an alternative domestic landscape reflecting our fears in a rational way. Alicia Framis combines the cultures of northern and southern Europe in projects revealing the architectonic and social components of the contemporary city. For example her work on the Atopic Villa deals particularly with solitude and coexistence, differences and coincidences in a constructive way, searching for a new space and social order enriched by the diversity of the individuals and situations produced by the urban culture. Another multiform project entitled Anti-dog is a commentary on the increasing aggression observable in large cities, and endured particularly by women in and out of the home. The couture line of clothing she has created aims to protect them in an illusory way: the clothes are inspired by designs of famous couturiers but are tailored in a material used by dog-handlers for their own safety. Martino Gamper focuses on creating situations that include materials, techniques, individuals and spaces, and which favour meetings and discussion. His interest in the psychosocial aspects of furniture is translated especially by a love of corners and un-wanted objects that he uses to create a disparate family of objects, site-specific installations and special events. Ryan Gander was born in 1976 in Chester. He studied in Manchester, then in Maastricht and in Amsterdam. The conceptual rigor and the visual simplicity that he uses permit him to stimulate the narrative potential of each of us by giving us enigmatic clues to stories that are sometimes fictive, sometimes true. Thanks to his childlike imagination, the artist tries to rehabilitate the utopian hopes of “lost” modernist projects. As such, he reconsiders urban planning, World Fairs or Bauhaus design. Between the installations, publicity, music, discourse and literature his work incites dialogue; makes the familiar strange, and vice versa. He has recently exhibited at The Artists Space of New York, the Turin Triennale in the Castello di Rivoli, at the Laboratoires d’Aubervilliers, as well as in the context of the Tate Triennial 2006: New British Art is at Tate Britain, London. Marti Guixé has called himself an ex-designer since 2001, as design for him means abdicating to the economy; he aims instead to subject the market to laws which he makes and breaks himself, in a continual search for new product systems and proposals capable of opening up the user’s field of experience. Attempting to be and to think in a contemporary way, he works notably on bringing design into the realm of the living, hybridizing such different areas as anthropology, typography, gastronomy and performance. Tobias Rehberger considers his art as a form of action involving spaces and the individuals that inhabit them. His work uses the translation, transposition and interpretation of references from the worlds of art, architecture, design and everyday life as tools to examine the relationship between sculpture and communal living, to create a utopia illustrating his desires and representations. The Superflex collective, Björnsternje Christiansen, Jacob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen have developed projects linked to economic forces, democratic production conditions and self-organization. Their study of alternative energy production methods in Brazil, Europe and Thailand has enabled them to update and question the existing economic structures using what they define as tools. These theoretical, economic and aesthetic proposals invite people to participate actively in the development of experimental models, whose realizations are multiple and whose trans-formations are encouraged by use and by the improvements effected by both users and experts. The Bio-gas project (1997), for example, required the help of engineers to refine a simple, economical and safe energy system through the productive use of a natural biological process: bio-gas; the aim being to bring to certain populations the mass production of a cheap and easily-transportable device for treating bio-gas. Graphic Thought Facility is a graphic design consultancy working for public and private clients on national and international projects. They produce both print and three-dimensional graphics for publishing, marketing, press, exhibition, events, product development and brand applications. Graphic Thought Facility was set up in London in 1990 and its directors are Paul Neale, Andy Stevens and Huw Morgan. |
Dunne & Raby, Technological Dream Series no. 1: Robot, © Dunne & Raby. |
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Catherine Opie, from left, Untitled # 1-8, (The Blue of Distance), 2007, C-prints, Edition 1 of 5 + 1AP, 71 x 53.3 cm. |
Left, Catherine Opie, Beatrice, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.; right, Catherine Opie, Skylar, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.
Left, Catherine Opie, Ben, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.; right, Catherine Opie, Charlotte, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.
Left, Catherine Opie, Gabe, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.; right, Catherine Opie, Petey, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.
Left, Catherine Opie, Georgia, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm.; right, Catherine Opie, Pilar, 2004, C-print, 50 x 40 cm. |
Stephen Friedman Gallery For the past 20 years Opie has wandered the North American continent, photographing communities and deserted urban landscapes in a desire to document the played-out ideal of the American dream. From her early studio portraiture of transsexual and queer communities to her polaroids of urban American life from In and Around Home, Opie’s contemporary take on classic genres builds a conceptual montage of contemporary American identity. The exhibition title, The Blue of Distance, is inspired by Rebecca Solnit, a writer on photography and landscape. Here, Opie continues her investigation with two new series of work capturing the remote beauty of the Alaskan landscape. Created using a digital camera without manipulation, these colour photographs document immense and sublime landscapes free from any trace of humanity. The Blue of Distance is an installation of eight photographs taken at different times of the day on a boat trip to Glacier Bay. They impart a poetic, semi-abstract vision of blue monochromes, where sky and water meet the horizon. In Edge of Time, a series of nine photographs taken on the same boat trip, Opie focuses her lens on a cliff face overlooking the water, where millennia have shaped and etched the rock face. In each series, the photographs are hung half an inch apart, with the horizon line running continuously at the same level, creating panoramas that completely immerse the viewer. Moving beyond the territory of the body and the ‘man-made’, Opie taps into feelings about wilderness and being lost within it. The emphasis on the horizon line, a potent symbol in American culture, underlines notions of time, space, and uncharted territory. This is momentarily disrupted, however, by two distinct and monumental photographs hung at either end of the gallery where the landscape is punctuated with signs of life: tourists visiting a waterfall; a grizzly bear surrounded by a pack of wolves. This sudden dislocation shifts the sense of reality, causing the viewer to see themselves in the third person. Photographed at such a distance these tiny figures are engulfed by the environment, their presence surreal and insignificant in comparison to the vast and enduring terrain. Transcending documentation, the wild Alaskan landscape, colonised and disputed by mankind, becomes a signifier of the internal geography of the American psyche. Catherine Opie has exhibited in museums worldwide. Recent solo exhibitions include Catherine Opie: American Photographer, Guggenheim Museum, New York (2008); Catherine Opie: 1999 & In and Around Home, Aldrich Museum, Ridgefield, CT (2006) touring to the Orange County Museum of Art, California, Cleveland Museum of Contemporary Art, OH, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, NC; Catherine Opie: Chicago (American Cities), MCA Chicago, Chicago (2006). Recent group shows include Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2007); Into Me/Out of Me, PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, NY (2006); The Unhomely: Phantom Scenes in Global Society, curated by Okwui Enwezor, 2nd International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Seville, Spain (2006) and Universal Experience: Art, Life, and the Tourist's Eye, curated by Francesco Bonami, MCA, Chicago, IL touring to the Hayward, London (2005). |
Catherine Opie, from left, Untitled # 1-9 (The Edge of Time), 2007, C-prints, Edition of 5, 71 x 53.3 cm. |
David Altmejd, The University 2, 2004, Wood, paint, plaster, resin, glass, mirror, Plexiglas, wire, glue, plastic, cloth, synthetic hair, jewellery, glitter, minerals, paper, beads, synthetic flowers, electricity, light bulbs, 272 × 546 x 640 cm. |
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Stuart Shave / Modern Art Having emerged as one of the most exciting and talked-about artists at the Venice Biennale in 2007, Altmejd’s new show extends his fascination with myth and the fantastical, featuring sculptures of the human form fabricated from a fusion of organic materials such as taxidermy, and hard, reflective surfaces including mirrors. |
David Altmejd, The Giant 2, 2007, Foam, wood, glass, mirror, Plexiglas, resin, silicone, taxidermy birds and animals, synthetic plants, paint, pinecones, horse hair, burlap, chains, wire, feathers, quartz, pyrite, other minerals, jewelry, beads, glitter, 254 × 427 x 234 cm.
David Altmejd, The Glasswalker, 2006, Foam, magic sculpt (resin), paint, fake hair, wood, glass, plaster, 152 × 213 x 135 cm.
David Altmejd, The Giant, 2006, Foam, magic sculpt (resin), paint, fake hair, wood, glass, decorative acorns, taxidermy, squirrels (3 fox squirrels and 4 grey squirrels), 290 × 152 x 102 cm. |
David Altmejd, The University 1, 2004, Mirror, wood, 168×180 x 269 cm. |
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