On the 8th of May the Toronto-based gallery Narwhal opened an extensive solo exhition of The Godfather of Japanese Eroticism, Toshio Saeki. His beautiful but at the same time sometimes repulsive artwork draws from the basement of a collective subconscious, depicting universal taboos through surreal narratives and dark humor. Filtering imagery from his photographic memory and childhood experiences through imagination and dreams, Saeki splits open a universally erotic world where iconic characters subject themselves to grotesque behaviors staged within traditional Japanese environments. [ Continue reading ]
On the 23th until the 25th of May, the remote and beautiful surroundings of Ireland’s Inis Oírr, will welcome the return of Drop Everything, a free contemporary culture Biennial, for its second edition. Situated on the edge of the Atlantic and close to Galway, Inis Oírr is the smallest of the three Aran Islands and provides an unforgettably atmospheric and unique setting for this intimate weekender of creativity and culture. Visitors to the island can expect talks, installations, screenings, DJ sets and impromptu pop-ups across the island, as well as communal dining, a curated boutique of editions and products created by the collaborating artists and ample opportunity to explore the wild beauty of this tiny and remarkable place. [ Continue reading ]
On the 1st of May graphic artist Andy Rementer returned to New York City-based gallery Mondo Cane, with his third solo show of new and previously un-shown paintings and drawings. The 'Meet Me Later' series transports the spectator to seemingly familiar street corners, domestic situations and subway platforms populated by characters caught in frozen moments of furtive activity. The work has a timeless quality which seems to draw from influences as diverse as Léger, The Italian Renaissance and even the narrative economy of Raymond Carver. Ambiguous narratives connect the work, while the spirit of Rementer’s work, with his familiar high key colors in the paintings, bold decorative patterns and the familiar but odd characters which interact in unexpected and often humorous ways with the surroundings in which Rementer has placed them. [ Continue reading ]
We are still amazed by the latest work of New York-based Australian artist Ian Strange for the 2014 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, within the "Dark Heart" theme. The pitch-black site specific public installation is the structural recreation of the artist’s own 1920’s suburban-style home in Australia. Positioned on the forecourt of the gallery, the amazing ‘Landed’ has seemingly fallen from the sky breaking the surface of the ground it sits on, heavily juxtaposing the neo-classical composition of the museum. At the same time the iconoclastic work materializes the familiar post-modern theme of isolation, heavily experienced in suburban picket-fence-dominated landscapes, which for one is a theme one finds in the work of people like David Lynch to which this work seems to refer to, next to the inspiration Strange found in The Wizard of Oz. We love both execution and concept of this beautiful work by Strange and applaud the gallery for its boldness in accepting a project of this kind. [ Continue reading ]
In 2010 the Los Angeles-based architect Robert Stone finished his creation of something spectacular and totally unexpected on the fringes of the Joshua Tree National Park, boasting with every ingredient to amaze its spectator. Down a lonely stretch of dirt road Stone constructed this crazy amazing property, next to the sister project in all-black Rosa Muerta or 'dead rose', which both clearly show the architect's unique courage and vision and possibly even megalomania, as some have argued. With a very surreal aesthetic the project that was named Acido Dorado, which translates to 'golden acid', is a glamorous larger-than-life golden palace that shimmers like a mirage and transforms inside and out throughout the day, with the changing light exemplifying the intrinsic quality of every noble metal: to shine brightly. [ Continue reading ]
His latest exhibition closed days ago at the Brooklyn-based Kunsthalle Galapagos, but we still love the ninth and former solo-exhibition 'No Blue Skies' by New York City-based artist Eric LoPresti, which took place at the same gallery little over a year ago. The artist’s abstract landscapes are fascinating investigations into the 'apocalyptic sublime'. Whether rendering nuclear test sites, aerial views of the scarred desert of eastern Washington State where he grew up, or ominous undisclosed explosions across a region’s expanse, LoPresti’s environments are ones of man-made disruption. In the paintings, LoPresti continues his use of the color field gradient to represent another landscape in transition. With as the main eye-catcher a 15-foot canvas of an ominous dust cloud, 'No Blue Skies' presents the terrifying, exhilarating moment when the shock of circumstance blinds us to both past and future. [ Continue reading ]
On the 8th of March Galerie Gabriel Rolt opened a new exhibition named 'Don't Sleep On Your Moon'. The exhibition is the fourth solo exhibition of Amsterdam-based artist Nik Christensen, who creates sumi ink works on paper. These rambling, often larger-than-life pieces contain haunting imagery that straddles the line between the natural and the artificial, the organic and the mechanized, by interspersing intuitive strokes with pixel-like building blocks. It’s a tightrope-balancing act, which Christensen has made even more explicit for the forthcoming exhibition, juxtaposing man and nature, society and isolation both in his methods and in his imagery. Frantic, kaleidoscopic, enigmatic, disruptive Christensen works leave the viewer dazzled and dazed, yet at pains to pinpoint what exactly makes these works so eerily unsettling. [ Continue reading ]
The Dutch artists Lernert & Sander continue their string of fascinatingly beautiful projects with their concept named 'Last Season'. Amsterdam-based Lernert Engelberts and Sander Plug created a concept in honor of the arrival of the new seasonal collections at high-end Maastricht-based boutique Kiki Niesten, which yearly creates a concept in honor of the TEFAF Maastricht art fair. 'Last Season' revolves around the reduction of last season's knitted garments by Céline, Chloé, Jil sander and Prada to balls of yarn: "symbols of hope and aspiration." From the 14th until the 23th of March of this year, the results of the proces will be showcased in the window display of Kiki Niesten. Every year during the renowned art fair TEFAF, the prestigious boutique in the heart of Maastricht takes pride in participating artistically to the TEFAF experience, with this year resulting in the great collaboration with Lernert & Sander. [ Continue reading ]
Today is the launch of the latest Amsterdam-based project of Dutch entrepreneur Casper Reinders named Libertine Gallery. The store and gallery is promising to be a large cabinet of curiosities, filled with neon art, Art Deco, stuffed birds and a robot. Libertine Gallery, which will open its doors at the Prinsengracht 715 for the public officially tomorrow, is the result of a collaboration between the passionate art dealer Fredien Morel from Antwerp (sometimes referred to as master of curiousa), interior fanatic Danielle Pakes, Mark Chalmers and Casper Reinders. The new interior design shop and art gallery stood on the wish list of Reinders for quite a while and with this set of collaborators it finally materialised. [ Continue reading ]
The Lotus Dome by Daan Roosegaarde is a living Dome consisting of hundreds of ultralight aluminium foils that unfold in response to human behaviour. The high-tech work of art has been travelling the world since it was created in 2012. Having been on display at a number of historical locations abroad, the Lotus Dome is now facing a contemporary juxtaposition with the Rijksmuseum’s 18th-century period room. The Lotus Dome comes to life in response to a visitor’s body heat. Hundreds of aluminium flowers unfold, a deep bass sound fills the space and light projects the lotus flowers onto the walls. Roosegaarde calls it Techno-poetry. The smart Lotus foil was designed by Studio Roosegaarde and its designers. The foil is made up of different layers of Mylar, a type of polyester, which makes the leaves fold and unfold in response to light and heat. [ Continue reading ]
Marc Giai-Miniet is a French artist who makes highly fascinating dioramas that tend to feature reproductions of human organs, crime scenes, submarines in basements, and our favorite: libraries. The libraries by Giai-Miniet are detailed and striking, replete with book cover art, author names, and identifiable typography. Occasionally a diorama’s title will conjure a loose narrative, an obscure starting point from which the viewer might further consider the art. Giai-Miniet balances the handcraft of tiny diorama with poignant explorations through memory, association, and dreamscape. His tiny homes, though dealing with images of mundane possessions, industrial equipment, and furniture, evoke a feeling that's very surreal and a little sinister. [ Continue reading ]
Stratifications is a beautiful collection of five objects by Paris-based designer Krzysztof J. Lukasik, based on the complementarity between the simplicity of the designed forms and sophistication of the texture of the laminated marble. One of the goals of Lukasik was to rid marble of the heaviness it is often associated with in funeral monuments, making it more suitable for the modern interiors. The technique of laminated marble used by the designer is a way to break the massive aspect of marble by slicing it and also to use otherwise unused scraps, just like with glued laminated wood. Lukasik found this approach to the natural stone collaborating with an experienced stone mason. The outcome of the laminating of the marble allows to bring forth the graphic aspect of marble by breaking the linear pattern of the natural veining. The series of objects is somewhat an echo of the natural stratified appearance of marble as found in quarries, before being transformed. [ Continue reading ]
Recently we stumbled upon this amazing collection of invitations, programs, flyers, posters, and broadsides from the period 1985 to 1987 of the legendary New York-based Palladium nightclub via recto|verso. The level of creativity and diversity is truly astonishing. The Palladium was a cinema, concert hall and later a nightclub. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb and originally called the Academy of Music, it was built in 1927 across the street from the site of an earlier venue of the same name. Opened as a deluxe movie palace by movie mogul William Fox, the Academy operated as a movie theater and concert hall through the early 1970s. In 1985, the Palladium was converted into a nightclub by Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager. Japanese architect Arata Isozaki redesigned the building's interior for the club. When Rubell and Schrager took over a new important chapter started for the Palladium as the heart of the New York art and music scene, exemplified by this wonderful collection. [ Continue reading ]
Copenhagen-based photographer Adam Jeppesen's work challenges the boundaries between documentary and fiction. He is seen as one of the greatest talents in contemporary Danish photography, and we discovered his work during the last Unseen Photo Fair, after which Jeppesen's work by far resonated the most. His photographs inhabit a blurred territory where the real and the fictional become interchangeable. Even if the Danish artist seems to remain faithful to what is in front of his camera, he doesn’t seem to be too concerned about objectivity. The highly impressive work we saw at Unseen was part of the The Flatlands Camp Project. A series of work, recorded on a journey from the Arctic through North and South America to Antarctica. For 487 days Jeppesen travelled in solitude and from this long journey a series of melancholic, evocative landscape pictures have emerged. [ Continue reading ]
Last week the fascinating exhibition called ‘8 artistes & la terre’ has ended at the London-based gallery Erskine, Hall and Coe. The exhibition has been one of the most popular exhibitions to date at the gallery, and was based on the namesake book, which was published by Argile Editions in 2009. All of the eight artists knew each other before they created their work, with Jacqueline Lerat functioning as the lead artist, which resonated in a direct influence in the creation of their individual pieces. Some of the pieces really stood out in our eyes. We love the beautiful and raw sculptures by Claude Champy and Daniel Pontoreau and particularly the dolmen-like work of Bernard Dejonghe. At the same time we are also highly attracted to the the beautiful shape created by Setsuka Nagasawa. [ Continue reading ]
Last night at Fashion Week in Paris, heavyweight Raf Simons, succeeded thoroughly in surprising us and the rest of the world in a way reminding of his early days at the end of the last century. Both the overall aesthetic and the impact of the event, in which Simons collaborated on a label tag-base with American artist Sterling Ruby make the collection destined to be the most talked about of the season. The collection is part Raf Simons' signature immaculate tailored lines and part Sterling Ruby’s infatuation with aberrant psychologies. Presented in a form directly referring to the Punk/DIY patchwork Simons rose to fame with at the end of last century. Coats are collaged with pieces of fabric that seemed in an upward rush, about to fly off their foundation. Items are paint-spattered, bleach-splashed, a shark's ravening maw can be seen, as a grasping hand with shiningly painted nails; "icons of consumption" according to Ruby. From the tailoring to these graphics; the show makes one realize how far ahead he continues to be, and more importantly how much influence Simons has had, and very likely will have, on menswear. [ Continue reading ]
Kristin Victoria Barron, a interior designer who founded the company KRIEST in 2005, recently launched a fascinating collection of classical, material-driven small scale sculptures and lighting inspired by the ‘aether element’, or dream world. Barron was influenced by both mythical archetypes and her own dreams to create the interesting collection. By honing her sculptural craft through mentor Vladimir Rodin, celebrated jeweler and painter whose work for Kieselstein-Cord is in the permanent collections of the Louvre and Metropolitan Museum of Art, Barron was able to create a unique collection of objects that act both functional and is aesthetically appealing. Barron crafted her debut collection in three categories: vessels, objects and lighting. [ Continue reading ]
To celebrate the fact that the first Land Rover Defender was produced 65 years ago, Studio Job was asked to take this 4x4 in hand. In their own way, they have created an ode to the vehicle that makes many of us dream of adventures. Eventually, it has turned out to be more than simply a revised or upgraded vehicle. The result is a sculpture that questions escapism, power relationships and above all Studio Job’s own work. "Designing a car is the same as when, as a designer, you’re sometimes given the chance to redefine a hotel: it’s a higher goal. You don’t get such important commissions every day," says Job Smeets, founder of Studio Job. "On top of that, Defender is an emotionally charged icon. We’ve approached that golden carriage in our own way, maybe not so much from the angle of this one car but rather from the phenomenon of the holy cow in general." [ Continue reading ]
On the 16th of November the exhibition Nature Rewired has opened at Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The exhibition showcases the fascinating creations of Dutch artist Christiaan Zwanikken. The installations of the artist, who lives and works in Portugal and the Netherlands, are hybrids of skulls and bones from nature and robotics from the hands of the artist, which are computer-controlled mechanism creating the moving dynamic within the works. Through his creations Zwanikken shares his vision on the future of man and nature, which is both confrontational and compelling. [ Continue reading ]
Our friends at Gallery 33 opened a very interesting new exhibition named Feathers on the 25th of October. The multidisciplinary exhibition has dinosaurs as its main theme, resulting from the everlasting dinosaur phase which the Gallery 33 crew never outgrew. And with the popular opinion amongst palaeontologists nowadays that modern birds are considered to be the only surviving dinosaurs, as some of them had feathers in some way, shape or form; the exhibition was named Feathers. [ Continue reading ]
We love the story of Ed Drew. The Brooklyn-born serves in the California Air National Guard as a defensive heavy weapons and tactics specialist on Combat Search and Rescue special operations helicopters. He has moved from New York City and currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Drew, beside his work for the Air Nation Guard attends San Francisco Art Institute full time, pursuing a BFA in Sculpture with a minor in Photography. The contrast of attending art school and his military job gives him a unique perspective and interesting opportunities to create work. His most recent body of work focuses on USAF combat search and rescue. [ Continue reading ]
On the 7th of September Galerie Gabriel Rolt opened the exhibition of portraits by the very talented painter Dawn Mellor in which she depicts former members of now defunct not-for-profit collective The Austerians. This is the second solo exhibition at the gallery following "The Conspirators" in 2010. The Manchester-born Mellor is the oldest female artist never to have participated in a group exhibition, nationally or internationally at galleries, museums and public institutions in Europe and the USA or to have collaborated with curators or artists in various media. [ Continue reading ]
We really like the 5th issue of Modern Matter which was created around the concept of stellar. This is a homonym for its cover star, Stella Tennant on the first place, but is also a word to describe her. 'The interior space of a magazine is defined, by and large, by its writers, its artists and its photographers, while the outer space is often defined by a cover model. Here, Stella Tennant, iconic, playful, a born performer, and above all, independent, embodies the interior and the ethos of Modern Matter magazine, in its first truly unisex issue.' [ Continue reading ]
Temps Mort is the first solo exhibition by Alex Verhaest which opened on the 7th of September in the Amsterdam-based gallery Grimm. Roeselare-born Verhaest, who now lives in Amsterdam, investigates contrasts, commonalities and the fusion between man and technology, actor and computer. Her first solo exhibition consists of various video works culminating in one large scale movie scene: the red line connecting all works is the story of a family embroiled in an age-old drama. Divided over several screens and using different techniques, each project depicts a certain element of the final movie scene. There are five ‘Character Studies’ representing a personal analysis of each individual character, as well as five ‘Table Props’ that represent the characters’ inner psychology. [ Continue reading ]