Unfortunately it took a little longer to share this than we hoped, as it has been some weeks ago that we sat down with British artist John Stezaker when he visited Antwerp for his duo exhibition that closed today at Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, which juxtaposed his collages with the work of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers. Meeting Stezaker, gave us a highly enlightening conversation, but due to our busy schedule in the following weeks, it took time to prepare the text for sharing. What's particularly striking: the (shameful) fact that we publish the conversation on the very last day of his exhibition in Antwerp, pretty much feels like the perfect metaphor for the complete career of the artist, who started in the 70's, but had to change art for lecturing, as nobody seemed to understand his surreal vision in times of (British) conceptual domination.

At the beginning of this century, Jake Miller of the London-based Approach Gallery changed all this by introducing his work to the world. Stezaker debuted a solo exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in 2011 and was granted the Deutsche Börse photography prize in 2012, becoming one of the first non-photographing artists to be granted the prize. His work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture. In his collages, Stezaker appropriates images found in books, magazines, and postcards and uses them as ‘readymades’. Through his elegant juxtapositions, Stezaker adopts the content and contexts of the original images to convey his own witty and poignant meanings.

This exhibition might be over, Stezaker's wise words on his surreal imagery will remain relevant long after today, having stimulated many new thoughts in our minds about contemporary visual culture.. [ Continue reading ]

When we became familiar with the work of Italian visual artist and director Yuri Ancarani, it touched a special place of interests that brought together both our deeply rooted love for cinema and still aesthetics. His immaculate yet very poetic portraiture of whatever subject matter he chooses to focus on, marries content and form in a seldom seen way. Whether it are the marble quarries of Monte Bettogli, where Ancarani portrayed the conduction of the process, the iconic San Siro stadium in Milano or a robotic surgery department in function: as seen through his lens a new kind of beauty evolves out of the ordinary (or unordinary).

Last Thursday, we were lucky enough to have seen his latest feature length documentary named 'The Challenge' at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. The new project took Ancarani to the deserts of Qatar, where he both portrays the sport of falconry and the excessively rich who engage in it, without taking a stance, silently observing. Three years he explored this form of hunting in the field with his camera, which made it possible to capture the spirit of a tradition that today allows its practitioners to keep a close rapport with the desert, despite their predominantly urban lifestyle. The viewer's guide to how they cross that threshold is a falconer taking his birds to compete in a tournament. In the glaring light of an empty landscape, following flight lines and lures, the film recounts a strange kind of desert weekend, in which technological and anthropological microcosms hang in the air, like the falcon, drifting on the irreversible currents of images.

When in Amsterdam, don't miss this incredible work of art that will be shown at IDFA two more times: tonight and coming Saturday! [ Continue reading ]

Last Friday, the doors of the beautiful Capital C building in Amsterdam have opened for BIG ART. The new initiative of curator Anne van der Zwaag presenting over 50 XL artworks by contemporary artists and designers, running until the 27th of November in what used to be the Diamant Exchange of the city. A unique mix of acclaimed names and upcoming talents, monumental paintings, drawings, large sculptures, big photos and huge installations. As one of the official partners of BIG ART we will present some of our favorite artists included in the curation of van der Zwaag. Today, we focus on a longtime favorite of ours: Amsterdam-based artist Marijn Akkermans, with whom we talked about the development in his work after graduating from the art academy 15 years ago, the pressures of modern society and the installation-like presentation of his incredible work at BIG ART. [ Continue reading ]

In the words of Satisfy founder Brice Partouche; "running is like meditation," which might very well the best medicine to keep your mind in the right place at the moment. In that particular realm, the Nike x Undercover Gyakusou Holiday 2016 collection just dropped as part of the ongoing collaboration between Nike and Undercover's Jun Takahashi, that has entered its sixth year. Each Gyakusou collection builds upon the last, blending innovation with Takahashi’s creative punk spirit and athletic sensibilities. The new collection notably reflects Nike’s approach to transformative design, as select items are designed to reduce distraction by being easily packable. Since the very beginning, Takahashi made the Gyakusou color palette to blend well with both the urban and natural landscape using earthy colors and the traditional colors of Japan, this season also debuting some contrasting colors in the palette. Another first time is the fact that Takahashi features in the lookbook created for the new collection. Next to the photography, an impressive video was additionally produced, in which the Japanese visionary expresses his vision for what he has been aiming to create with Gyakusou in the last six years. Very impressive, if you would ask us. [ Continue reading ]

Last month, American photographer Jonathan Levitt, together with Los Angeles-based publisher Snail Press, released a new beautiful printed gem named 'Mawooshen: Life and Landscape of the Maritime Archaic', featuring over 100 carefully selected film photographs taken over the last 10 years. The name of the book refers all the way back to 1605, when British Captain George Waymouth explored what we now know as Midcoast Maine, in an expedition that included a certain gentleman named James Rosier, who wrote a detailed account that was published in England. During this exploration Waymouth and his men kidnapped five Natives and took them to England. The captives reportedly called their homeland Mawooshen. With his book, inspired by Paleolithic animism, western natural history, and shadow archaeology, Levitt creates and alter-world, named after the original native moniker of the lands, through deeply fascinating photographs of geography, plant and animal life, people, and built objects. All of the images are unstaged, analog, and accompanied by fragments of description. The photographs are arranged according to the seasons in which they were taken and span three cycles. The effect is cumulative and modal like a chant. By telling the story of 'Mawooshen' cyclically and ending with the ellipsis of a third spring, Levitt’s cosmology pushes against the linear, eschatological myth of western culture. [ Continue reading ]

After last weekend's highly anticipated (finally!) launch of Amsterdam-based perfume house Abel's new five piece vita odor collection and the accompanying official presentation of the redefined strategy, repositioning of the brand and completely restyled identity, which we worked on over the course of the last twelve months (everything on that later this week) — we first want to shed some well deserved light on the very talented and very lovely Paris-based Sophie Tajan, who was responsible for the photography in the project.

We first encountered her work while researching what direction the visual language for Abel should move towards, in order to distinctively communicate on more than one level what the 100% natural fragrances stand for. The fit with Tajan's artistic vision felt instantly perfect. With a portfolio consisting of part immaculate still life, part abstract documentary and part fashion photography: Tajan succeeds in all three areas. She creates captivating photographs throughout, photographing in natural light, creating imagery in a soft muted color palette and exciting shades of black, gray and white. Particularly her still life experimentations with light, distortions and reflections grabbed our attention and made her the undisputed perfect collaborator for what were trying to create. Looking back today, we can only conclude how happy we are with the outcome and look forward to see what's next for the greatly talented Sophie.

See all of Sophie's work for Abel on their new website. [ Continue reading ]

This coming Friday, the doors of the beautiful Capital C building in Amsterdam will open for BIG ART. The exciting new initiative of curator Anne van der Zwaag presents over 50 XL artworks by contemporary artists and designers and will run for 10 days in what used to be the Diamant Exchange of the city. A unique mix of acclaimed names and upcoming talents, monumental paintings, drawings, large sculptures, big photos and huge installations. As one of the official partners of BIG ART we will present some of our favorite artists included in the curation of van der Zwaag. Starting with Rotterdam-based painter Katinka Lampe, with whom we discussed the democratization of the contemporary visual culture, the rise of artificial self-representation and how this is reflected back in her haunting distorted paintings of young human figures. [ Continue reading ]