Last Thursday, we were finally able to see the extraordinary 'POWERMASK' exhibition at the Wereldmuseum Rotterdam. Curated by none other than Walter van Beirendonck, sided by art historian Alexandra van Dongen and anthropologist Sonja Wijs, it had been on our wish list from September 1st when it opened for the public. For 'POWERMASK', the museum with a focus on ethnology gave the legendary Antwerp fashion designer a free hand to present his own unique, multi-faceted vision of the phenomenon of masks. The result is a stunning colorful display, carrying the designer's unique signature all-over, combining ethnic masks and ethnological documents with modern Western fashion, art, photography and culture — featuring the work of impressive names like Christophe Coppens, Diane Arbus, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Brian Kenny, Martin Margiela and Walter's own Dirk Van Saene.

The exhibition is both a feast for the senses and proof how relevant van Beirendonck's vision remains to this very day. He might have found a more niche position as a fashion designer (and a more invisible role as Head of Fashion at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp), the exhibition, although much smaller, feels like an echo of his iconic Antwerp exhibition 'Landed/Geland' from 2001, which at that time set a new standard for fashion exhibition in terms of presenting pieces within its societal context, but still succeeding to convince aesthetically and therewith speaking to spectators in more than one way. With 'POWERMASK' van Beirendonck underlines, now more than ever, that we need powerful artistic voices like his to remind us of the unique beauty of all cultures on this planet and how exchange between them is what makes life interesting.

When in Rotterdam before the 7th of January don't miss out on this incredible exhibition! [ Continue reading ]

After having seen it ourselves this afternoon, for those in and around Berlin, make sure to drop by the incredible KÖNIG GALERIE to witness German artist Julian Rosefeldt’s first solo exhibition at the gallery. On view in the nave of former Catholic church St. Agnes is his large video installation titled 'In the Land of Drought' that was filmed in Morocco and the Ruhr area.

A condensed version of Rosefeldt’s filmic interpretation of Joseph Haydn’s 'The Creation', 'In the Land of Drought'  confronts the relationship between man and his impact on the world. Set to atmospheric sounds and a pulsating hum, the 43-minute piece looks back from an imagined future upon the post-Anthropocene: the aftermath of significant human influence on Earth. An army of scientists appear to investigate the archaeological remnants of civilization after humanity has made itself extinct. Shot entirely using a drone, Rosefeldt’s images hover meditatively over the desolate landscape and ruins. Connoting surveillance, the drone’s bird’s eye view removes human perspective with us onlookers kept at a distance throughout. Increasingly, more figures dressed in white lab suits emerge to inspect the ruins of civilization – which are in fact abandoned film sets close to the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.

Halfway through, the audience is transported to the comparably bleak Ruhr area of Germany, which is littered with the remains of industrialization. The same ‘scientists’ prowl the abandoned mining region, wandering among the headframes and coal pits before finally descending upon an amphitheatre. As seen from the audience’s heavenly outlook, the amphitheatre resembles an eye, and its all-seeing ability is reflective of the panoptic aerial viewpoint. A dialogue unfolds between the two perspectives of control: the eye on the ground and the drone’s eye overhead. As the steady hum livens to a climatic rhythm, the figures draw close only to disperse again. Reminiscent of cell division, the unifying aesthetics hint at a prospective optimism amidst a dislocated world man has created. The result is both mesmerizing and though-provoking, make sure to witness it first hand before it closes on the 23th of July! [ Continue reading ]

Three weeks ago, the Japan Museum SieboldHuis in Leiden, in the west of the Netherlands, opened the exhibition 'The Constructed Landscape', for the first time ever presenting this body of beautiful work by the highly talented Japanese photographer Shibata Toshio in The Netherlands. Known for his captivating landscape photography, Shibata captures signature images of large-scale highways and civil engineering constructions in uninhabited regions in deeply captivating photographic works. Civil engineering structures such as dams, lakes and bridges play a central role in his work. His perspective takes the viewer beyond the functionality of these structures and shows them the aesthetics of the infrastructure. His compositions illustrate how nature — weather, corrosion, erosion, water currents and landslides — reclaims damage done by human intervention. Shibata’s photos, taken with a large-format camera exude an atmosphere of fantasy void of references to time, place and scale. His works have been praised for their timeless, abstract and picturesque qualities — making his body of work among the most interesting in its genre. Specifically featured in this edition of the exhibition is a series of bridges in the Benelux as seen from various different perspectives.

For those in and around The Netherlands: don't miss this extraordinary exhibition before it closes on the 3th of September! [ Continue reading ]

When the thrilling 'Tokyo Compression' series by German master photographer Michael Wolf was first presented in 2010, like the rest of the world, we were stunned by its captivating oppressive beauty. In the years that passed, the Asia dwelling photographer kept expanding the series, next to all of the other long-lasting chapters that portray the DNA of different Asian mega cities like Tokyo (and for instance Hong Kong, where the photographer has lived a significant part of his life) as sublime fine-grained puzzles full of mystery and unfamiliar beauty. In total, Wolf worked on'Tokyo Compression' from 2010 until 2013, with three publications as a result, that are among our favorites and part of the most interesting publications of its kind.

Today, we encountered not only one, but three reasons to shine light on this highly inspirational work once again: firstly, the arrival of the definite finale of the 'Tokyo Compression' series in printed form, with yesterday's release of the fourth book named 'The Final Cut' by German publisher Peperoni Books. Secondly, we discovered that some months ago the body of work was nominated for this year's prestigious Prix Pictet and most importantly; as a result of all this renewed interest, the series will be exhibited throughout the world once more in 2017. After it was shown at Blue Lotus Gallery in Hong Kong in the first months of the year, to our great pleasure, a 'Tokyo Compression' exhibition will open for the public in two days in our homebase Amsterdam, where it will be shown next to 'Hong Kong Coat Hangers' at the Wouter van Leeuwen Gallery until the 20th of May. Within that period another part of 'Tokyo Compression' will travel to London, were it will be on display at the Victoria and Albert alongside the other 11 nominees of the Prix Pictet until the 28th of May.

We are extremely excited by this fourth coming of one of our favorite series of all time, so we decided to share some of our favorites below. When in Amsterdam or London: don't miss the opportunity to see Wolf's magic first hand in the coming two months as this seems to be the final chance to do so! [ Continue reading ]

Last week, we once again had the privilege to witness another highly anticipated (a little more than any other we have seen before) exhibition opening at our favorite museum in Antwerp: the MoMu Fashion Museum. In the new exhibition, for the first time ever, the museum focusses on genius Martin Margiela’s often forgotten Hermès collections that he created from 1997 to 2003. The exhibition also touches beyond his extraordinary work for the Parisian house and furthermore showcases the relationship between these collections and the complete vision he created with Maison Martin Margiela.

Groundbreaking deconstruction and timeless luxury –two worlds that Martin Margiela made his own– therefore are the starting point of the exhibition named 'Margiela, The Hermès Years', uniquely displayed in a "split-vision" Hermès orange/Margiela White scenography, designed by the museum's regular collaborator, but more importantly also Margiela's former trusted scenographer: Bob Verhelst. For anyone looking for a razor sharp yet very emotional insight into where many of today's ideas about fashion and modern luxury still find their core inspiration, we can only urge to travel to Antwerp before the end of  August, as this extraordinary exhibition clearly showcases the work of an unparalleled visionary in what for us is already among the best exhibitions of the year. [ Continue reading ]

After it was first presented to the world at the MCA Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City last year, two weeks ago the MOCA in Los Angeles opened the tremendously exciting 35-year retrospective of one of our favorite painters working today: Kerry James Marshall. Marshall’s figurative paintings have been unparalleled in their consistent portrayal of African American culture and history. The now nearly 600 years of painting in America contains remarkably few African American painters and even fewer representations of black people. Marshall —being a child of the civil rights era— set out to redress this absence from the moment he consciously picked up his paintbrush, inspired by one of his personal heroes: social realist painter Charles White. 'Kerry James Marshall: Mastry' is the artist's first major retrospective in the United States, containing nearly 80 paintings, all of which contain images of Black subjects going about their daily business, presented with utter equality and humanity. A deeply accomplished artist, who makes ravishing paintings, Marshall’s strategy was three fold.

First, as a young artist he decided to paint only black figures. He was unequivocal in his pursuit of black beauty. His figures are an unapologetic ebony black, and they occupy the paintings with a sense of authority and belonging. Second, Marshall worked to make a wide variety of images populated with black people. This led him to make exquisite portraits, lush landscape paintings, everyday domestic interiors, and paintings that depict historical events, all featuring black subjects as if their activities were completely and utterly normal. Third, Marshall concentrated on painterly mastery as a fundamental strategy. By mastering the art of representational and figurative painting, during a period when neither was in vogue, Marshall produced a body of work that bestows beauty and dignity where it had long been denied. Both on the individual level of Marshall's extraordinary unique artistic vision and today's context granting an ever-growing relevance to his body of work: making that when you are somewhere near Los Angeles, there is no reason whatsoever to miss this incredibly relevant exhibition! [ Continue reading ]

A little over a year ago, the New York City-based Asya Geisberg Gallery opened a new exhibition named 'Quiet Earth' featuring new works by American collage artist Matthew Craven. Unfortunately we missed the inspirational display at the time, but recently our friend Merijn at …,staat pointed it out to us and we have been infatuated by the haunting works from that moment. The exhibition featured a series of works on paper, combined together rhythmically repeating a flattening of time and scale. In the imagery, Craven combines found images of antiquity with abstract hand-drawn patterns of ambiguous origin, and often subsequently painting walls to emphasize aesthetic choices that personalize his project. Ever-curious and controlled in his choice of placement and mark, as per usual the artist created enigmatic combinations, that despite (or maybe because) their encyclopedic nature, always succeed to engage our gaze and force curiosity about each specific reference and composition.

Craven always begins his imagery on an aged background, often vintage movie posters with yellowing tape, finding images in old books that are never glossy. As his collages compress millennia by placing the prehistoric next to the modern, they shift around time: the distance between the image’s creation and our grasp of its significance, the hours searching for appropriate materials, the cultivation of isolated fragments before evolving into Craven’s artistic universe. Several of the works use the landscape, colorful and present, to form a dialogue with the silent man-made artworks, adding an exciting visual layer. It seems as Craven is saying that we exist today because of our pre-historic past, and all cultures share the same planet. From a greater distance, the differences melt away (which too many people seem to forget now a days!), and just as all landscapes share underlying structure and forms (hence the quietness of the earth, possibly), so too do Craven’s stone temples, monuments, and patterns. The result is a highly fascinating series of work forming a quest through human history without ever losing our interest on an aesthetic level. We can't wait for more aesthetic journeys from the mind of Matthew Craven. [ Continue reading ]

We have been off to a slow start here (not elsewhere), but with some very exciting meetings ahead in the coming months (stay tuned!), there will be an even stronger overal shift to ‘Less but Better’ in this year. Nevertheless, we will start picking up the pace from here, still sharing those things that continue to move us — today putting focus on the infamous Studio Job once more. As part of the Carpenters Workshop Gallery's ten-year anniversary programme, last week the gallery with three locations worldwide opened its Parisian space for the public to an exclusive exhibition by Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel, which might very well be the most impressive display of their holistic practice till date.

Entitled ‘Here There Nowhere’ the exceptional solo show presents new creations, some of the most emblematic pieces that the duo created over the last few years and, very excitingly so, for the first time it opens up the drawings that form the basis for most physical creations to the public. The result is a highly diverse constellation of the fascinating creatures, iconic hybrid forms and ironic objects that punctuated with iconographic references — forming a kitsch and fanciful world where the object transcends functionality with everything bound together by the ‘Neo-Gothic’ aesthetic, masterfully championed by the Dutch power duo. When in Paris, ‘Here There Nowhere’ in a must visit! [ Continue reading ]

Last Saturday, one of our favorite Amsterdam-based galleries; The Ravestijn Gallery, opened a new show by Dutch collage artist Ruth van Beek named 'The Situation Room', which we feel ends a very interesting year of exhibitions, following other favorite shows by Vincent Fournier and Robin de Puy. The work of van Beek originates in her ever-growing archive. The images, mainly from old photo books, are her tools, source material and context. By folding, cutting, or adding pieces of painted paper, she rearranges and manipulates the image until her interventions reveal the universe that lay within them.

With her imagery, van Beek triggers the imagination of the viewer: passive human hands are animated, objects turn into characters, and abstract shapes come to life. The original image may have been taken out of context, but the familiar imagery –the formal photography of an instruction book, a clearly displayed object, or a staged action– remains recognizable, and thus speaks to our collective memory. Contrasting elements engage in conversation in van Beek’s work: the dead past coming to life; the literal and the abstract; displaying and concealing expressively; both the limitation and the endless possibility of an archive. Hereby, van Beek joins a new generation of artists that, by finding restriction in closed archives, offer a counterweight to the limitless availability of information. The constant organization of the world around her even gets a literal representation in van Beek’s work: the rearranging hands of instruction books appear and reappear, like a self-portrait of the artist as a creator. [ Continue reading ]

The official opening is tonight, but the very first solo-exhibition of the talented British photographer Harley Weir at Foam in Amsterdam has been open for the public since the 2nd of December and we had a chance to see it for ourselves this week. It marks an important step in the rise of the 28-year-old, who has been receiving international acclaim and a growing attention in the last years, after kick starting her career at age 17, when she shot her first fashion editorial for Vice UK. Although presentation-wise the exhibition at Foam isn't the best thing we have ever seen, the curation of the imagery shows the incredible talent of Weir, far transcending the specific subject-matter, showing an intriguing coherent body — undisputedly making her one of the most interesting voices in contemporary photography.

The title of the exhibition, 'Boundaries' refers to what is ultimately dissolved in the work of the photographer. But even as she crosses the lines of what usually holds people apart, on personal as well as political levels she is not out to make any statements. The exhibition therefore reads, as Weir specifically intended it, as a visual poem, open to interpretation. The exhibition shows a mix of Weir’s ethereal portraiture with still life images and reportage work in Israel, India, Jordan and the series that struck us deeply when we encountered it on Dazed some weeks ago: the haunting depictions of the temporary homes at the refugee camps of Calais. Whatever it is in front of her lens, Weir always seems to get to its essence by framing that what seems to speak to her most, creating captivating visual narratives that stick. [ Continue reading ]

When we discovered the paintings of British artist Danny Fox, somewhere in the early Summer of last year, we experienced an excitement that hardly still occurs in that kind of encounters, especially in his discipline. His work, as much as the artist behind it, are of the hate-or-love-kind, and we fell head over heals for his uncompromising creations. At that time Fox had refocused the subject-matter of his unpolished paintings from painful self-experience to the more uplifting things he appreciates in life resulting in scenes with boxers, horses, cowboys, snakes, fruit, transsexuals, strippers or patterns reminiscent of ancient Greek decoration. It marked the start of a new phase, with the St Ives-born turning into a rapidly rising star in the art world, giving him the opportunity to travel beyond London, where he was based, moving to Los Angeles. An exhibition with new works opened last Friday, bringing Fox's work to Denmark for the first time, given the moniker 'A Spoon With The Bread Knife' — a reference to English rhyming slang where the bread knife translates to wife and spoon to cuddle. His new works show his familiar signature, through which he has created new captivating narratives, exploring a new richness in the complete image and bigger sizes in his canvasses, seemingly indicating that all this is only the start of what we can expect from one of our undisputed favorites in contemporary painting. [ Continue reading ]

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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

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 ]

At the beginning of this year, one of our favorite artists working today; Rinus Van de Velde, presented the impressive 'Donogoo Tonka' exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst in which he brought his one-of-a-kind, overtly rich artistic vision on the world around us —built up from many layers of signature charcoal strokes— to the contemporary art museum in Ghent. At the beginning of this month Van de Velde returned with already his next show (at the same time some of his work is also on display as we write this at Tim van Laere Gallery Gallery in the group show 'Take Care, Amigo'), this time at his Amsterdam-based gallery tegenboschvanvreden — forming a new, not to miss, chapter in the ongoing display of unique talent from the self-described drawing-obsessed artist. For the exhibition, named 'A Sunday as a Sunday', the Antwerp-based artist has created a new series of drawings, focussing specifically on the theme of the antihero, having stopped the prominent portrayal of himself in his works, which marks an important new direction. [ Continue reading ]

For most of the last 15 years, Cali Thornhill DeWitt's name was only known in artistic circles, despite the fact that he's been deep in pop culture's (edgier) inner circle from a very young age. The Canadian-born grows up in the San Fernando Valley, goes on tour with Courtney Love's band Hole as a youngster, even briefly lives in Seattle —working for the royal couple of grunge as Frances Bean Cobain's nanny (plus appearing in drag on the actual cd of Nirvana's 'In Utero' album)— and at the age of 19 he moves to New York City. Two years later he returns to Los Angeles, where he starts working as an A&R at Geffen and eventually co-founds his label Teenage Teardrops, alongside Bryan Ray in 2006 (which now a days also houses a publishing branch and is run by the artist together with his wife Jenna). In this period, halfway the first decade of the 21st century, DeWitt also begins expressing himself visually, soon finding a signature genre of visual poetic work, which we feel could be best described as Gangster Holzer, also strongly reminding of the inspirational work of Eike Koenig. From that period on the multitalent has been creating a diverse field of output: from music video's, album artwork, photography projects to radio shows and numerous publications — establishing himself as an artist with the cool of a rock star, always pushing himself in finding new areas for his artistic expressions.

We fast-forward to 2014, when DeWitt creates a sweater for his friend Joerg Koch, founder and editor-in-chief of 032c. After having been a respected name in the LA art scene for about a decade, showing his work all over the globe, it is then that the name Cali Thornhill Dewitt would transcend its familiarity in just the art world, entering the pop cultural realm. DeWitt's present to Koch is one of the artist's creations inspired by the memorial sweaters worn mostly by Mexcian-Americans after a beloved family member or friend has passed away, which DeWitt had been creating for his art shows before, sporting his poetry in signature gothic letters on the back and front. For Koch he creates a commemoration to the late troubled actress Romy Schneider, because of their shared nationality. At the time, the leading German culture magazine is in the middle of getting its merchandise operation going, and Koch decides that he likes the sweater so much that a small run is reproduced for sale (including the typo in the German text). Today it's in its third (or fourth?) run, available at high end web-boutique ssense (before selling out, again) where Koch is editor-in-chief since 2015, and even though the sweater being not as scarce as it once was: it's still worn by some pretty cool people.

Some months after the Romy Schneider sweater is first released by 032c, another wearable creation of DeWitt becomes a prop in pop cultural history, when Kanye West wears a oversized 'DONDA' sweater to that launch of Jay-Z's music streaming service Tidal in March of 2015. Although at that time very few know that DeWitt has created that particular sweater, it forms the official start of the extensive collaboration between pop culture's current loudest (and most ambitious?) voice and the Canadian artist, so far including a commemoration to Kobe 'Mamba' Bryant and several complete 'collections' of The Life of Pablo merchandise, having had site specific pop-up sub-items all over the world in 2016. And although, even today, probably less than more people actually know who's the artistic visionary behind their much-hyped Pablo sweater, the name of Cali Thornhill DeWitt can be found all over the internet's pop corners since last year — for the first time making him somewhat alike the people he has been so close to since his teenage years (although maybe even being nolens volens...)

Fortunately his new status hasn't stopped the artist in putting his own projects (it probably helped/will help in the future) out in any way, with a new exciting body of work being presented at Copenhagen-based gallery Eighteen next Thursday the 13th of October. Named '29 Flags' the exhibition takes its departure in recent American history, with a prominent role for its most famous icon: the Stars & Stripes. The series consists of 29 vintage USA flags, with flock lettering, in various sizes and from various time periods and places. Each work refers to a specific iconic events in American (cultural) history; from the death of Marilyn Monroe, The Waco siege, Elvis comeback concert, The cult of the Manson family, Traci Lords’ underage porn, The Unabomber to the trial of O.J Simpson. [ 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 ]

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 ]

Running for only a few more days, (so when around New York City make sure to still catch it!) 'The Keeper' is an inspirational and remarkably designed exhibition dedicated to the act of preserving objects, artworks, images and to the passions that inspire this undertaking — which makes it for us, as avid collectors and collection lovers, a must visit. The curation that's on display in the New York City-based New Museum forms a reflection on the impulse to save both the most precious and the apparently valueless, bringing together a variety of imaginary museums, personal collections, and unusual assemblages, revealing the devotion with which artists, collectors, scholars, and hoarders have created sanctuaries for endangered images and artifacts. In surveying varied techniques of display, the exhibition also reflects on the function and responsibility of museums within multiple economies of desire. The eye catcher of the exhibition is 'Partners (The Teddy Bear Project)' (2002), a vast display conceived by Ydessa Hendeles. Composed of over 3000 family-album photographs of people posing with teddy bears, and vitrines containing antique teddy bears, Hendeles’s project establishes the teddy bear as a metaphor for the consolatory power of artworks and images and underscores the symbiotic relationship that ties people to their objects of affection.

Subsequently, through a selection of studies and portraits that spans the twentieth century, the exhibition tells the stories of various individuals through the objects they chose to safeguard, exposing the diverse motivations that inspired them to endow both great and mundane things with exceptional significance. As responses to loss, chronicles of experience, subjective quests, and archives for the future, the unusual collections and personal museums that are presented range from staggeringly maximalist efforts to modest struggles charged with urgency. [ Continue reading ]

As shared by dezeen two days ago, we are very impressed by the second BMW Museum, which will be opening its doors very soon in Beijing, China. Beijing- and Frankfurt-based firm Crossboundaries’ design for the gallery space on the third and fourth flour of the BMW building brings forth the exclusiveness of the cars while it references the Chinese aesthetic heritage in an innovative but elegant way.

The museum exhibition starts on the third floor of the newly built building in the Chinese capital; entering through an grande, almost two floors high and bright area, which houses the reception zone, whose vertical surfaces are accentuated with horizontal lighting strips interpreting the motion of speed. Subsequently the visitor is being absorbed into a lower, more transitional lounge which was created as a cozy touch. The key feature in the design of the space are the hite, light and slightly transparent fabric banners are hung from the open ceiling on this floor. While the fabric’s verticality reduces the high ceiling to a more human scale, the vast amount of white textile surfaces indicates generority and the “Chinese red gate” as backdrop transmits an imperial feeling. The horizontal lighting strips continue into the main exhibition area and information walls, with integrated screens for multimedia presentations at the perimeter walls of the space. Projections can be also screened on to fabric banners in the middle of the space where seating areas are provided around the exhibition pieces, which adds up to a very impressive exhibition space, if you ask us.

Combining references to the old within a contemporary aesthetic, we can only hope for more interior design like this as this is what the future should look like... [ Continue reading ]

On the 22nd of July, Berlin-based duo Jacob Klein and Nathan Cowen, the creative forces behind the ever-inspirational online mood board Haw-lin and the accompanying studio Haw-lin Services, presented their very first solo exhibition in Germany at the HVW8 Gallery in the German captical in a collaboration with adidas. For the exhibition, named 'Shows You', Klein and Cowen will showcase a selection of spacial and graphic imagery that reflect their eclectic and detail based process. The German and American creatives founded their online moodboard Haw-lin when they met in 2008 while both working at Eike Koenig's inspirational Berlin-based design studio HORT and started working for clients some years after as Haw-lin Services, building on the reputation they had gained all over the world through their excellent curation of imagery and art projects/collaborations that were created under their Haw-lin eponym. Now for the first time, the exhibition 'Shows You' has created a physical overview of their working process across different mediums and the way Jacob Klein and Nathan Cowen communicate content, which resulted in a unique insight into the minds of these highly inspirational minds, who we hold in the highest esteem.

When in Berlin this Summer, make sure to drop by HVW8 before 'Shows You' closes on the 3th of September of this year. [ Continue reading ]

Although the official run of the exhibition ended last week, the highly inspirational show named 'FERNWEH' presenting the latest works by the Berlin-based Dutch artist Aldo van den Broek, continues to be open by appointment at the Amsterdam-based Galerie Ron Mandos until the 20th of August. Giving those who have missed it a last chance to see, what we feel is one of the most interesting exhibitions of the Summer to be found in Amsterdam. Recurring themes in all of Aldo van den Broek's dark and mesmerizing work are history, underground, punk and romanticism. His creations characterize the world where he lets architecture and people meet. He is fascinated by the urge of people to strive for safety and freedom simultaneously and the deconstruction that usually follows. Travels and experiences bring valuable inspiration to his work. His researches brought him to Berlin, where he has been living since 2010, but also the post-communistic suburbs of Belgrade and Tbilisi.
Aldo’s work reflects his interpretation of purity and beauty within ugliness. Therefore, he choses to work with wasted materials with no apparent value. Used and re-used by himself, or found on the streets and abandoned places. By literally using his own past failures as a beginning for his new works, these different themes are constantly transforming and melting together till they reach their final appearance. [ Continue reading ]