On a day like this, which revealed the latest and till date most important piece of evidence of a still ongoing radical change in the fundamental requirements for the Western political class to be granted democratic power by the electorate — lacking the traditional need of a significant coherent political constructive vision, but on top of that not even the usual outspoken representation of inhabiting moral decency. In today's world empty signifiers have become the rule in the political jargon, proving to suffice as elementary communicational means to still mobilize a majority of the voters. Distributed digitally, the new system of communication functions by similar rules as that of (mostly constructed, sometimes organically erupted) online viral content: going for maximum instant impact without an intrinsic meaning or significant rooting in the relevant context.

It is safe to say that for us these times are rather confusing. With elections in The Netherlands (with Trump's racist/hairdo twin brother Wilders very likely to become the biggest party for the first time), but also France and Germany (with similar political movements) coming up, we might be heading for a rather nauseating new world order in the next five years and beyond. Ultra individualistic Western societies have become detached from ideology serving as the engine for politics as the means of managing a society. It feels that they have silently uprooted under a cloud of ultimate prosperity, having become significantly more polarized (stimulated by new digital paradigms) than ever before in modern times. Independent mass-communication is losing its significance, slowly transforming into (economical) niche media. A general sentiment of distrust towards truth as a value and the expert representing it, has grown deep roots and might very well be the indefinite heritage of postmodern thinking. Therewith, in any public debate today, beyond just in the political realm, it has become extremely complex to effectively portray important emotional universal truths with a constructive quality and actually reach a significant audience. The inherent noncomplex nature of reactive anger, fear, cynicism and scapegoating those who seem to be guilty just fit the profile of a viral message better.

Most of what's left, or maybe it just feels like that at the moment, is radical communication. The nuanced expressions hardly still land in the seemingly ever-shrinking attention span of the digitally conditioned human or more fundamentally not even make it through the algorithms to begin with. That makes now, maybe more than ever, a time to oppose the empty signifiers with radical subversive thought in the arts. It's time to shake up that slowly shaping new world order, because too many people seem to be dozing. To do just that, we revisit one of the people who's been doing this for years; Adam Stennett and his incredible body of work on paper, in recent years dealing explicitly with the theme of emergency in post-9/11 America. A new emergency might very well be just around the corner, let Stennett's work be a reminder for it not to happen. [ Continue reading ]

Evidently part of the Pantheon of the most important painters of the 20th century, Spanish artist Pablo Picasso also created sculptures throughout his life that were as innovative as they were (and still are!) influential. After the MoMA in New York and the Musée national Picasso-Paris, BOZAR/Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels has just opened the next chapter of the exhibition, bringing together 80 of Picasso’s sculptures for the very first retrospective of the artist’s sculptures in Belgium. After having seen it ourselves last Sunday (the exhibition opened on 25 October 2016: Picasso’s birthday), it is safe to say that the exhibition will be among our favorites of the year, marvelously showcasing the extraordinary scope of the artistic vision of Picasso and revealing the inspirational development in finding the right 3D equivalent of his canvas-bound painted expressions.

'Picasso. Sculptures' is laid out in a chronological and thematic circuit elaborated in collaboration with the former host of the biggest part of the curation; Musée national Picasso-Paris — the sculptures positioned into a dialogue with around twenty of his canvases, around fifteen ceramics, and objets d’art from non-European cultures which belonged to his personal collection. Without a doubt, Picasso will always be first remembered as the prolific and groundbreaking painter. However, 'Picasso. Sculptures' incredibly presents Picasso the sculptor, having created some of the most radical forms in modern sculpture, making those works just as profoundly influential and inspirational today. [ Continue reading ]

We have been following the highly talented Antwerp-based photographer Frederik Vercruysse from the moment we discovered his collaborations with fellow photographer Filip Dujardin some years ago. In recent years Vercruysse worked on a broad scale of projects, ranging from commissions for brands and magazines, next to free projects of which his 'Tempo Polveroso', shot in the marble quarries outside of Villa Lena, still is a big favorite of ours.

Last week marked another important milestone in the career of the Belgian: for the very first time ever, presenting a collection of some of his best photography in a printed publication, produced together with publisher Luster. Named 'Index 2006-2016' the elegantly designed book includes architecture and interior design photos, as well as his signature captivating clean cut still lifes, compositions and landscape photography — all fresh, graphic images bathed in a soft light, showing his extraordinary eye for details. The two main fascinations behind the world he produces; graphics and composition, are omnipresent in his portfolio. The curation of the works presented in the new book pre-eminently show how controlled Vercruysse works: always taking the time to carefully arrange and rearrange, until he has found the most balanced composition — resulting in immaculately defined images of the highest aesthetic standard. [ Continue reading ]

Last week, leading Canadian outerwear brand Arc’teryx started an ambitious new chapter for their inspirational Veilance collection. Through a new partnership with renowned creative architecture firm Snarkitecture, headed by Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham who aim to marry architecture and art with their joint endeavor, for the first time ever the brand opened a unique concept store experience in New York City — open for the public until January 8th, after it closes its doors for good again. Accompanying the new project in New York, Veilance introduces a new strategy in the grouping of its minimalist pieces of clothing: having created the new categories Wind, Rain and Cold protection systems.

From this new direction of thinking, Snarkitecture created a space that highlights Veilance’s multiple apparel solutions built from the highest performing materials and proprietary construction techniques. Conceptual, structural and innovative, the collaboration of Veilance and Snarkitecture delivers a progressive shopping experience, in our eyes giving another peek of where physical retail as a whole is unavoidably moving towards in the (near?) future. No surprise that this progressive creation comes from Arc'teryx Veilance, having led the way in hybridizing cutting edge technical features with future-proof aesthetics in their designs since its inception, now beautifully translated into a fitting retail experience.   [ Continue reading ]

We recently discovered the beautiful photographic work of Tokyo-based Ko-Ta Shouji, that within its analogue 'snapshot' genre shows an inspirational marriage of the explorations of technical experiment with a captivating, emotional contemporary feel. Practically all of his images are taken on film, mostly characterized by that mentioned snapshot aesthetic: working with unorthodox, free floating frames, often full of joyful young energy, having a colorful metropolitan feel. Beyond catching his subject in, what feels to us as, the right moments, Shouji subsequently masterfully adds second and third layers to his imagery through light leaks, double exposures and blurred spots, infusing an ambiguous element of mystery that runs as a red threat through his whole portfolio — whether he shoots models in an editorial for a leading fashion magazine, his beautiful portrait series named 'gosees'; catching young models as free as they are right after what the title suggests, but also in his 'Untitled' series, being his most abstract body of work, portraying the world around us as a beautifully blurred place that haunts its spectator, built up layer after layer out of washed out colors and floating movement.

Having had a history as a stylist before turning to photography, Shouji clearly knows his way around catching and portraying a zeitgeist, without a doubt having been inspired by the photographic aesthetic that came to life in the communication of European fashion houses around the turn of the century, for instance through the creative endeavors of Martin Margiela joining forces with Mark Borthwick and Helmut Lang opening up new chapters in the work of Jurgen Teller. [ Continue reading ]

Paris-based illustrator and artist Yann Kebbi has been among our favorites from the moment we discovered his immaculately executed raw style in The New Yorker some years ago. His color pencil drawings are one of a kind: combining hard, sketched lines that mark his figures, buildings, streets and anything else that make up his captivating (city) scenes, overlaying them with clouds of primary colors to give the depictions warmth, but most importantly Kebbi excels as a master of the act of omitting to complete his works. His drawings seem joyful at first glance, but always show another mysterious layer of wry- and sometimes even sadness, to be observed within his perfect bursting chaos of lines and colors, which infinitely seem to fascinate us.

In recent years he continued on the particular stylistic road that gathered him international acclaim very quickly, but Kebbi also seriously challenged himself by exploring new areas. One of these explorations was the introduction of watercolors to create similar scenes as he had been doing with pencils, but this time implementing rich areas of color and even using similar techniques as, another one of our favorites, Dutch artist Rop van Mierlo does — for instance in the project 'Howdy – drawings of America', created together with his friend Idir Davaine, in which they portray their travels through the USA. His most recent 'Monotypes' series (brought to our attention two weeks ago by It's Nice That) shows a more radical development going beyond lines as the markers of his depictions, using monotype printmaking. A medium used before Kebbi by iconic French artists like Degas, Matisse and Picasso, being a technique of printing layer by layer, to create a single unique print — proving to be another discipline in which Kebbi succeeds marvelously to bring his unique artistic vision to life. [ Continue reading ]

Last month, one of our favorite abstract painters working today; London-based Kes Richardson, returned with an exciting new solo show, which took place at another favorite of ours from the English capital: the FOLD Gallery. With his new paintings, exclusively created for the exhibition given the moniker 'FAIR GAME' that ran for a month until the beginning of October, Richardson breaks out of the grid structure that formed the mold for the nine paintings for his debut solo exhibition named 'Garden Paintings' from 2013 (which became our introduction to his abstract work) showing a new depth in his abstractizations and the exploration of radical new imput on and even outside of the canvas — resulting in some of his most intimidating creations until date. [ Continue reading ]