In 2001, Brice Partouche became a prominent name (without ever stepping into the limelight) in the so-called ‘rock era’ of fashion when he founded the Paris-based jeans brand April77. The brand played a pivotal role in bringing the slim silhouette in menswear from the stages of pop venues and runways to the streets of the mainstream. Last summer, Brice launched a new project called Satisfy, this time infusing a fresh cultural elan into the world of performance-oriented running gear. Inspired by Partouche's exciting new endeavor—now with its second collection in stores—we gave him a Skype call (fresh out of the shower after his evening run) to ask about his love for running, the differences between starting a brand now and 15 years ago, and his plans for his subversive new movement in athletic gear. [ Continue reading ]

Last year we had a clear favorite out of all the graduates that left the Dutch art academies in the person of painter Jurre Blom, who we will write about again in the near future. This year is was a little bit harder to distinguish an undisputed favorite while visiting the different graduation shows, but after the passing of some months it is safe to say that artist and illustrator Jan Hamstra's project 'Manifesto of Doubt' resonated the most.

Hamstra graduated as part of a highly talented Illustration class of nine from the Groningen-based Academy Minerva, being the most politically outspoken artist of the lot. Having cut his teeth while interning at two artistic icons; Berlin-based illustrator Henning Wagenbreth and Oslo-based woodcut artist Thomas Kilpper, Hamstra's forsees a path somewhere in between the two, working with a raw impactful aesthetic signature focussing on precarious personal and societal (political) issues. The latter being an artistic ambition slowly turning into a rarity these days, with Hamstra proving the point that it continues to be amongst the most interesting and urgent fields for artists to reflect on.

His graduation project exemplifies all of his ambitions, having both a strong personal and political layer distilled into a captivating form. Every image of the book 'Manifesto of Doubt' is printed by hand, using intensive woodcut technique, which has been the technique Hamstra focussed on for the last two years at the academy. The left and right side of the diptychs form two components of a whole, standing in dialogue with each other. All images explore the theme of (political) resistance as found in the last 80 years of human history, portrayed from Hamstra's individualistic perspective, measuring ideology and terror with his conscience — resulting in a remarkable project promising a lot for the talented artist. [ Continue reading ]

Last year we discovered the work of Athens-based photographer Alexis Vasilikos, who next to uniquely capturing the world around him co-edits the incredible Phases Magazine, which is one of the most interesting destinations on the internet to discover new cutting edge and thought-provoking photographic projects stemming from all over the world. His work for Phases also clearly has set a rather ambitious bar for the work Vasilikos produces himself, as he has been creating series after series in a relentless pace only in the year or so that we had him on our radar (with his archive proof that he has been doing this for way longer than only the last 12 months). His latest series is another raw diamond, which we feel is some of the most interesting compositions of subversive reflections on society captured through a camera, we have encountered in quite a while.

Named 'Dystopian Sequence', in his latest output Vasilikos presents a series of images about love in the times of choleric capitalism. The initial inspiration came from the economic crisis in his country of birth Greece and the politics that are implemented by the IMF and the Eurogroup in the deficit countries of the South. It resulted in a highly diverse raw series, both in color and black and white, touching both beauty and a sense of discomfort, forming a narrative of melancholia and dispair, without ever sinking too deep into the darkness as there always will be hope — in our eyes remarkably represented by the two showering females, totally at ease in their vulnerability and with each other, piercingly caught by Vasilikos. [ Continue reading ]

South African artist duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin became instant favorites of ours from the very moment when we discovered their thought-provoking 'King James Bible' project in the Summer of 2013. The duo works with the eyes of anthropologists, infusing concept within concept —steadily provoking the spectator to research and contextualize their creations beyond the first encounter— in their often raw edged creations rooting directly from the dark side of human life. The inspirational C/O art institute, which for instance brought the incredible 'Beneath the Roses' by Gregory Crewdson and Peter Lindbergh's 'On The Street' exhibitions to the German capital, just opened another must visit, this time featuring the incredible work by Broomberg & Chanarin in the exhibition given the moniker 'Don’t Start With The Good Old Things But The Bad New Ones', featuring two iconic projects in which the duo highjacked two seminal books: Bertolt Brecht’s War Primer, and The Bible (which formed our introduction to the duo's work, as stated earlier), using them as vehicles to explore the documentation, dissemination, and currency of such images within in the media.

The artists juxtapose passages of text, which contain concrete acts of violence, with images, that are often shocking in their violence or tenderness. Images mined from the Internet or The Archive of Modern Conflict function as a means to inhibit a simplified consumption of both text and image. In this way the artist duo challenge our viewing habits, and force us to become a critical observers, unable to passively lose ourselves in the spectacle. [ Continue reading ]

Running for seven more days on Kickstarter, we were tipped by our friend Jon Woodroof on this exciting project by newly founded Amsterdam-based label senscommon, which is looking to reach its goal in finding the funds to introduce their innovative Cyclist Raincoat to the world. The both aesthetic and pragmatic coat is breathable, lightweight and was designed with a split hem that can be attached to the legs — making it ideal for cycling. The beautiful piece of elegant design is the result of four years of observing and experimenting within different concepts of a raincoat suited for cycling by the apparel designer Laura Silinska. Shortlisted in the Muji Design Awards in 2014, the coat is now fully developed and ready to be marketed under the label senscommon, supported by tokyobike and BOOKMAN.

The Cyclist Raincoat was created inspired by high performance, produced in a technical fabric developed specifically for the project — a matte black melange of nylon and polyester backed with a waxed and airbrushed waterproof yet breathable coating. The coat's most innovative feature, which we really appreciate, is the fastening system of the hem, which makes the raincoat truly compatible with cycling on any type of bike. Snapping the push buttons around the legs on the hem of the coat enables the wearer to move safely while staying dry from head to knees.

Silinska and her team succeed in marrying both function and aesthetic, without compromising either, making this one of the most elegant raincoats fit for cycling that's on the market (soon!). [ Continue reading ]

Next to the beautiful 'Invisible Machinery' series by Japanese photographer Toru Ukai, we had one undisputed favorite series of work on display during last weekend's Unseen Photo Fair: the incredible 'Statues' by Swedish born and Berlin-based Henrik Strömberg. In all the images of the photographic artist one encounters the world, remote, removed, almost as if disappeared. Places become difficult to locate, plunged into darkness, half empty rooms, left-behinds; and in the case of the series as seen in Amsterdam deformed statues. In his series 'Statues', which was one of the two series on display in Amsterdam, he took his vision to the iconic shapes of ancient sculptures, deforming them to a new austere composition, from which results this certain inward-looking nature, a deep and universal self-reflection. His view penetrates the invisible, seizes it and gives it a shape. A connection is created between the inside and the outside, the true essence of things and the mere sense of things — resulting in a new shape and aesthetic that both attracts and repels, but never fails to captivate.  [ Continue reading ]

On the 14th of October, New York City-based Brilliant Champions Gallery will present 'THE ECHO’S DECAY', which will be already the fifth solo exhibition in New York by American painter Jake Scharbach, whose incredible work we only recently discovered. 'THE ECHO’S DECAY' includes a selection of recent paintings representative of the artist's richly complex content and visual imagery — bringing together an eye-pleasing modern color palette, oftenly the juxtapositioning of remarkable iconic imagery in diptychs, portrayed in a realist style infused with an intrinsic pop cultural dimension. [ Continue reading ]