Kristen Sanders' "Protoself" @ Asya Geisberg Gallery

 
Kristen Sanders, One in the Other, 2020. All images courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery.

Kristen Sanders, One in the Other, 2020. All images courtesy of Asya Geisberg Gallery.

 

For Protoself, Kristen Sanders asks the question: Where does the self-start or end, and are the traces/fragments left behind a part of self? Bringing together imagery such as marks left in fossils and bodies formed by medical mannequin skins, Sander’s uncanny paintings flatten time and explore the negative space between the physical body and one's environment where the self is formed. 

As the show’s title suggests, Sanders points her inquiry into the crux of what makes us human; imagining a moment of first consciousness of a hypothetical early human ancestor. Since 2015 her work has been circling between the extreme past of hominids millions of years ago – and the increasingly closer future of robots with super-human powers and artificial intelligence. Sanders’ fascination lies within the threshold of self-invention, distinguishing the human from both the animal and the animatronic. In considering the former, her work posits that behavioral aspects such as making a mark, or the first non-utilitarian artwork, should be valorized before corporeal evolution. By considering these defining moments for the pre-human, we can then reframe the post-human, negotiating our current unease with AI and its possible outpacing of the human body – arriving at a post-body consciousness.

Protoself is on view through July 8 at Asya Geisberg Gallery, 537B West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011

 
 

William Waterworth's Ein Tir Instinctually Captures Beauty @ Pipeline in London

A woman balances a rudimentary aeroplane-like structure on her head in a field. Zissou, 2023, by William Waterworth.

Zissou, 2023

review by Lara Monro
all images courtesy of the artist

Tatiana Cheneviere opened Pipeline in October 2022. The contemporary art gallery has taken a refreshing approach to presenting emerging and mid-career artists. It introduces each forthcoming exhibiting artist by showcasing a single artwork in a separate, enclosed space to the main gallery area. The art work is specifically chosen by the artist to provide relevant context to their practice and upcoming exhibition. As a result of working for over a decade at one of the most established international blue chip galleries, Cheneviere wanted to create a program that encourages a slower experience to understand the evolving parameters of a single creative practice. Cheneviere explains, “Pipeline’s aim is to reinvigorate the conversation between artist and collector and celebrate the subtleties of storytelling through art.” To date, Pipeline has showcased the work of a diverse selection of artists incluidng Tommy Harrison, Johanna Bath and Emmanuel Awuni. 

Ein Tir, which translates to Our Land in Welsh is currently on view at Pipeline. The exhibition chronicles three new series and key works by the photographer William Waterworth. Born in Macclesfield, Waterworth studied art history at Manchester University, where the work of Sally Mann captivated and inspired him to pursue his interest in photography. “I found Mann’s photos very moving. I guess they felt especially so back then because the paintings I had been studying as part of the art history course weren’t moving me in the same way. There was something about photography; its immediacy and realness.” 

Waterworth decided to leave Manchester for Paris where he studied photography for a year and through multiple influences began to adopt a photographic style, “after I left Manchester, and as a result of Sally Mann's work, I bought a book on Jeanloup Sieff. It was his deeply tonal black & whites that inspired mine.” Waterworth was awarded the Prix Picto de la Photographie de Mode and has since established a photographic career, which includes working with Alexander McQueen and Erdem. 

A dramatic black and white portrait of a man in chain armor with a rope crown. Hamlet as Knight, 2022, William Waterworth.

Hamlet as Knight, 2022

Dramatic black and white photograph of a nude male figure kneeling in a concrete circle outdoors. Benjamin Evans, 2023, by William Waterworth.

Benjamin Evans, 2023

Central to Waterworth’s practice is a quest for stories and the places they are formed, “I like stories and adventure very much, but what I like most about photography is how it can force you to be more open to all walks of life.” In 2016, Waterworth’s fascination with hearing other people’s stories led to a pilgramige up the East Coast of England from Grimsby to Lindisfarne. 

In Ein Tir, Waterworth has taken over the entire gallery space, the first time a single artist has done so at Pipeline. We observe Waterworth's love for exploring, recreating and capturing stories as well as his love for collaboration. His three new series are shown alongside a selection of collage works and text in the end room where a work presented by the next artist is usually shown. 

Waterworth has used the end space to function in its usual way by drawing back the curtain and contextualizing the other exhibited works. These new images chronicle his pilgrimage to Julia Margaret Cameron’s home on the Isle of Wight, the story of Zissou and the flying machine, and the journey a carpenter makes to the Alps inspired by Thomas Mann’s novel The Magic Mountain (1924). “Everything stems from the book at the front of the gallery. It’s made up of 100 photographs and is inspired by Guy Bourdin’s Untouched work of photographs. Then, there are ten framed pieces varying in size, which leads you to the back room; a wall of collage involving the three specific stories I made in March. We traveled to the Isle of Wight, the Alps, and Dorset. They are narrative-driven and could not have happened without the collaboration of Joel Kerr, who created the accompanying video work and Edie Ashley who designed the costumes.” 

Waterworth's deep interest in capturing inherent beauty stems from an instinct, “one's views on beauty is so subjective, but in my case I guess I respond to instinct and let that lead me. I don't really know what it is, perhaps a sensitivity or awareness. All I know is I can feel a great subject when they walk into a room. There's an unexplainable presence to them.” His ability to capture beauty is further reflected through the curation of his diverse body of work on view in the main room where he has carefully selected images from varying corners of his practice, including The Wrestlers (2021). 

Ein Tir is on view through June 10 at Pipeline, 35 Eastcastle Street London

Dramatic black and white photograph of a somber woman in white frills, facing the camera, as a man in black robes lifts his arms in the background. May and Tennyson, 2023, by William Waterworth.

May and Tennyson, 2023

Destiny Haven Trujillo's "Devoraste" @ DIMIN

 
Destiny Haven Trujillo, Daddy’s Little Girl Ain’t A Girl No More, 2023. All images courtesy of DIMIN.

Destiny Haven Trujillo, Daddy’s Little Girl Ain’t A Girl No More, 2023. All images courtesy of DIMIN.

Devoraste—opening to the public on June 1—is a neon diary of the vivid exploits of Destiny Haven Trujillo. For her first solo exhibition in New York, Trujillo embodies the manic charm of her daily life, offering a voyeuristic glimpse into the contemporary vie boheme. The title of the show, “Devoraste,” is derived from the Spanish aphorism meant to convey the concept of unabashed queer self-expression, with the literal translation “you ate that!” For Trujillo, Devoraste references the celebration of pride she conveys in her paintings—colorful bacchanals teeming with joy.

At its core, the work addresses sexual identity and fluidity. The acceptance she has found in the queer community is tantamount in importance to the artist personally as it is to her artistic concept. Approachability is one of the major goals of Trujillo’s canvases—her goal is to welcome the broadest audience possible.

Devoraste is on view through July 7 at DIMIN, 406 Broadway, Fl. 2, New York,

 

Read Our Interview of Actor Benny O. Arthur on His Role in the Series Adaptation of Django →

Benny O. Arthur lounges in the grass. sweater by Dries Van Notenjeans by Y/Projectbelt by Saint Laurent

sweater by Dries Van Noten
jeans by Y/Project
belt by Saint Laurent

CAMILLE ANGE PAILLER: Tell me about Django and your role as Kevin.

BENNY O. ARTHUR: Django was a really special project. The series is a reimagining of Sergio Corbucci’s classic Spaghetti Western character. The series tries to show more perspectives of different people in that period—the minorities, and the world they created for themselves after the American Civil War. I played the role of Kevin Ellis, son of John Ellis, who is the visionary founder of an idealistic city called New Babylon. It’s a community that welcomes all outcasts and people of different races and creeds as equals. When we meet Kevin, he is his father’s number one advocate. He believes uncompromisingly in his vision. Our parents are often like superheroes to us when we’re kids, and it’s only as we get older that we recognize their humanity and their flaws. As John’s youngest son, Kevin has a youthful and hopeful worldview, which eventually brings him into conflict with the harsh realities of the Wild West. The idealistic image he has of his father begins to crumble as he comes to terms with the fact that even our heroes harbor darkness. Read more.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby's "Coming Back to See Through, Again" @ David Zwirner Los Angeles

 
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Still You Bloom in This Land of No Gardens, 2021. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen. © Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Still You Bloom in This Land of No Gardens, 2021. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen. © Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.

 

David Zwirner presents Coming Back to See Through, Again, an exhibition of new and recent work by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, at the gallery’s Los Angeles location. This will be Akunyili Crosby’s first solo exhibition with David Zwirner. The exhibition will travel to David Zwirner’s New York gallery, opening in September 2023.

 
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Potential, Displaced, 2021. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen. © Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Potential, Displaced, 2021. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen. © Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy of the artist, Victoria Miro, and David Zwirner.

 

Born in Nigeria, Akunyili Crosby moved to the United States as a teenager in 1999, and her work reflects her hybrid cultural background and experiences. In her methodically layered compositions, Akunyili Crosby combines painted depictions of people, places, and subjects from her life with photographic transfers derived from her personal image archive as well as Nigerian magazines and other mass media sources.

The works that will be on view in Los Angeles, where the artist works and lives, bring multiple places and temporalities together within single compositions. In these works, Akunyili Crosby uses doorways, screens, posters, and windows as devices that open to other worlds, such as private interior spaces, lush external gardens, and bustling Nigerian markets.

Coming Back to See Through, Again is on view through July 29 at David Zwirner LA, 616 North Western Ave, Los Angeles, CA, 90004

Stan Douglas @ David Zwirner Los Angeles

 
Installation view, Stan Douglas, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, May 23—July 29, 2023. Photo by Elon Schoenholz. Courtesy of David Zwirner.

Installation view, Stan Douglas, David Zwirner, Los Angeles, May 23—July 29, 2023. Photo by Elon Schoenholz. Courtesy of David Zwirner.

David Zwirner is exhibiting Stan Douglas’s major two-channel video installation ISDN (2022), along with a group of related photographs, which will be his first solo presentation in more than twenty years in Los Angeles.

In the two-channel video installation ISDN, the viewer finds themselves in the middle of a call-and-response jam session that unfolds across continents, literally positioned between the two screens. Set in 2011, the work pairs MCs in improvised studios, one in London and the other in Cairo, who trade free-styled verses, transmitted between them on ISDN (Integrated Service Digital Network) lines, a technology that has become largely disused as it has been replaced by faster broadband and fiber optic connections.

The video presentation is complemented by five photographs that recreate specific moments from 2011 in four global cities: London, New York, Tunis, and Vancouver. To create these panoramic mises-en-scènes, Douglas digitally stitched together imagery, utilizing a variety of sources to reconstruct the events as accurately as possible.

Stan Douglas’s work is on view through July 29 at David Zwirner LA, 612 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90004

 

Read Our Interview of Louise Frances Smith on Cultivating a Circular Art Practice →

Louise Frances SmithCollect install Assemblage no1 oyster shells, 2023 (detail)mixed media including clay and crushed oyster shellsphotograph by Yeshen Venema

Louise Frances Smith
Collect install Assemblage no1 oyster shells, 2023 (detail)
mixed media including clay and crushed oyster shells
photograph by Yeshen Venema

In the context of art history, sustainable ways of creating have been around since the birth of conceptual art in the 1960s. Take German artist, Nils-Udo, whose plant creations placed in nature were left to develop and subsequently disappear as a way of commenting on the links between nature and humanity. Today, as we are faced with the sobering realities of humankind’s impact on the planet, environmentally-conscious art forms are becoming increasingly widespread. By working with found objects, natural and upcycled materials, and through processes that intentionally avoid damage to the Earth’s resources, artists are using their creative expression to highlight environmental degradation and the stark reality of climate change. 

Margate-based artist Louise Frances Smith worked mainly with clay until she became increasingly concerned and frustrated with the unsustainable plastic packaging used to store her medium of choice. After conducting considerable research, it became clear to her that it was not possible to naturally source clay from her local area, so she decided to get creative and utilize what was available, better yet, she used what was in abundance: seaweed and oyster shells. Smith has spent the last two years collecting and experimenting with both as part of her newly adopted approach to creating sustainable work. 

This year, as part of Somerset House’s 2023 Collect, Smith exhibited Sargassum Tide, a new body of work that examines wireweed seaweed and Pacific oysters, two non-native species thriving on the UK coastlines due to climate change. She subsequently presented the series in a solo show at The Margate School where she facilitated workshops on how to work with sustainable materials in collaboration with community groups, families, and creative practitioners. 

In the following interview, Smith shares her journey with adopting a sustainable art practice, discusses the scientists, artists, and experts that have inspired her, and where she hopes to take her sustainable practice in the future. Read more.

Nina Childress' "Unisexe" @ Galerie Art Concept

 
Vue d'exposition / Installation view Nina Childress : Unisexe, 2023. Art : Concept, Paris. © Nina Childress, Adagp, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Romain Darnaud.

Vue d'exposition / Installation view Nina Childress : Unisexe, 2023. Art : Concept, Paris. © Nina Childress, Adagp, 2023. Courtesy the Artist and Art : Concept, Paris. Photo Romain Darnaud.

For her first exhibition, Unisexe, at Art : Concept, Nina Childress signs her history of desire in painting. Here, boys and girls with long seventies’ hair, rockers, and groupies are all united by sex. Nina Childress depicts this still virgin moment, when characters fantasize about one another in a unisex relationship of mirroring and projection. There are no scenes of concerts—instead, her depictions are of the backstage. These rockers and groupies are isolated, each one portrayed on his/her canvas, in a music-poster situation. It is a matter of pose for a sexual distance. They do not have sex. Not yet. They look at each other, desire in their eyes, which are very wide open.

Text by Laurent Goumarre

Unisexe is on view through July 22 at Art : Concept, 4 PASSAGE SAINTE-AVOYE 75003 PARIS, FRANCE

 

Michael Wolf's "Architecture of Density Scouts" @ Gallery Buchkunst Berlin

 
A densely packed apartment exterior crowds the frame. Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density Scout #52, 2006. Courtesy of Gallery Buchkunst Berlin, ©Michael Wolf Estate

Michael Wolf, Architecture of Density Scout #52, 2006. Courtesy of Gallery Buchkunst Berlin, ©Michael Wolf Estate

Galerie Buchkunst Berlin presents the series "Architecture of Density Scouts" by photographer Michael Wolf. The scouts are visual sketches made during his famous photographic long-term study of the series "Architecture of Density". For over twenty years, Michael Wolf captured life in Hong Kong's dense urban development through photographs of high-rise architecture, showing an abstracted view of the city's dizzying and seemingly endless facades. Like no one before, Michael Wolf has captured the specific visual aspects of one of the most densely populated cities in the world in breathtaking images.

For this series, Wolf has developed an exceedingly distinctive style. Without streets, sky, horizon, space flattens into an impenetrable abstraction of urban expanse - there is no escape for the viewer's eye.

Michael Wolf's life's work is the depiction of the densification of our cities, which he makes visible and tangible in a unique way in Hong Kong, but which has also taken him to Tokyo, Chicago and Paris. His exact viewon the facades of the big city is at the same time an image of the architectural surfaces as well as an interior view, which tells so much about the inhabitants and their living realities.

Text and translation by Ana Druga

Architecture of Density Scouts is on view through July 22 at Galerie Buchkunst Berlin, Oranienburger Straße 27, 10117 Berlin-Mitte

 

Bottega Veneta Celebrates Brazilian Culture @ Lina Bo Bardi’s Iconic Casa de Vidro

A square building with glowing orange floor-to-ceiling windows radiates behind a wall of dark palm fronds and trees.

Bottega Veneta’s cultural exchange series, The Square, was first introduced in Dubai in 2022. The Square São Paulo is the latest in Bottega Veneta’s cultural exchange series, which was preceded by a second installment in Tokyo. Under the creative direction of Matthieu Blazy, the series brings together artists, guests, and the public in immersive, site-specific events that inspire curiosity and dialogue, and champion Bottega Veneta’s values of craft, creativity, and self-expression.

Marking Bottega Veneta’s 10-year anniversary in Brazil, The Square São Paulo evolves beyond the custom square structures of Dubai and Tokyo with a curation by Mari Stockler in the lush setting of Casa de Vidro, a landmark of Brazilian modernism. Through the 11-day program, artists and artworks from across Brazil honor the legacy of Italian-born Bo Bardi, exploring her interaction with Brazilian culture and celebrating Brazilian creativity in all its forms.

"From the modernist project to her embrace of the power of Brazilian popular culture and collaboration with the counterculture, Lina challenged norms and developed ideas that crossed chronological time like arrows and are, today, an essential perspective of Brazilian identity,” says curator Mari Stockler. “With The Square São Paulo, we dive into her revolutionary thinking. The event is designed as a dialogue. We provoke time by contrasting Lina’s objects with works by modern and contemporary artists in an exchange between past, present, and possible futures.”

Born in Rome, Bo Bardi moved to Brazil in 1946, and became one of the most important and expressive figures in Brazilian modernism. With a strong emphasis on the social potential of design and architecture, her pioneering projects include the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the leisure center, SESC Pompéia. A keen writer and thinker, she co-founded the influential art magazine Habitat and also created jewelry, costume, furniture, and set designs.

Casa de Vidro was Bo Bardi’s first built project and personal residence until her death in 1992. Completed in 1951, the house has been a meeting point for artists, architects, and intellectuals both during Bo Bardi’s lifetime, and subsequently under the direction of the Instituto Bardi / Casa de Vidro.

Participating talents in The Square São Paulo include Arnaldo Antunes, Ibã Salles, Vivian Caccuri, Luiz Zerbini, Carlito Carvalhosa, Rosana Paulino, Alaíde Costa, Lenora de Barros, Cristiano Lenhardt, Leda Catunda, Ricardo Aleixo, and João Camarero. The event will also feature works by Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica, Augusto de Campos, Mestre Guarany, Surubim Feliciano da Paixão – as well as Bo Bardi’s own work, writings, and original furnishings housed in Casa de Vidro. Four books, based on The Square’s four pathways, are published in a limited-edition boxed set.

The event is curated around four themed pathways related to time, geometry and spirituality, Brazilian counterculture, and the roots of Bossa Nova.

“Casa de Vidro is one of my favorite places,” says Matthieu Blazy. “It’s a real inspiration to meet here with artists from across generations, across disciplines, and across Brazil to celebrate Lina Bo Bardi’s legacy and the richness of Brazilian culture. Bottega Veneta is all about timeless style. With The Square São Paulo, we recognize how Lina’s ideas and aesthetics resonate to this day, always reminding us of the transformative power of design and culture.”

The Square São Paulo opened on May 24th and will be open to the public from May 27th through June 3rd.

"Las Malas" by Katuring & Nayeli De Alba

earrings and purse by Merrferfull look by Ruisneakers by ASICS heals by Paula Canovas del Vas

earrings and purse by Merrfer
full look by Rui
sneakers by ASICS
heals by Paula Canovas del Vas

photography by Kapturing
styling by Neyeli De Alba
nails by Vanesa Juez
hair & makeup by Hind Sousan 
photography assistance by Angela Simi 
retouching by Willi Artists
talents Hylas, Violette & Arianne Du Casse
casting by Annabelle Rose

body by Muglersunglasses by Balenciagagloves by Acne Studiosboots by Ninamounah

body by Mugler
sunglasses by Balenciaga
gloves by Acne Studios
boots by Ninamounah

blouse & tights by Isa Boulder purse by Ottolinger earrings by Diesel skirt by Laporte LTD boots by Cruda blouse by Jean Paul Gaultier Vintage

blouse & tights by Isa Boulder
purse by Ottolinger
earrings by Diesel
skirt by Laporte LTD
boots by Cruda 
blouse by Jean Paul Gaultier Vintage

 
blouse & tights by Isa Boulder purse by Ottolinger earrings by Diesel skirt by Laporte LTD boots by Cruda blouse by Jean Paul Gaultier Vintage

blouse & tights by Isa Boulder
purse by Ottolinger
earrings by Diesel
skirt by Laporte LTD
boots by Cruda 
blouse by Jean Paul Gaultier Vintage

sunglasses by Acne studios trench coat by Balenciaga earrings by Merrfer

sunglasses by Acne studios
trench coat by Balenciaga
earrings by Merrfer

 

full look by Courrèges
beret hat by Misbhv
shoes by Cruda
gloves Stylist’s own

 
sunglasses by Acne studios trench coat by Balenciaga earrings by Merrfer

sunglasses by Acne studios
trench coat by Balenciaga
earrings by Merrfer

earrings and purse by Merrfer
full look by Rui
sneakers by ASICS
heals by Paula Canovas del Vas

Danie Cansino's "This is My Blood" @ Charlie James Gallery

 
Painting of a Chicana woman with a foot on the knee of her kneeling lover, brandishing her fan. Painting by Daniel Cansino courtesy of Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo by Yubo Dong.

Images are "Courtesy of the artist and Charlie James Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo Credit: Yubo Dong/ofstudio."

Danie Cansino’s work is a mix of Baroque realism and Chicanx aesthetics; where one might expect to find historical or biblical heroes, Cansino inserts her own friends and family. Through a commingling of time periods and the conflation of the spiritual with the real, Cansino builds upon a legacy of Mexican painters and the realismo magico that is a part of Mexican spirituality. In her latest solo show This Is My Blood, Cansino takes us into the world of magical realism, wherein she installs her friends and colleagues in a Mechica pantheon, subverting the traditions of Western art.

Text by Leah Perez

This is My Blood is on view through June 17 at Charlie James Gallery, 969 CHUNG KING ROAD

 

Matthew Hansel's "My Inner Demon Never Sleeps Alone" @ The Hole in Los Angeles

 
Matthew Hansel, Selfie, 2023. All images courtesy of The Hole and Matthew Hansel.

Matthew Hansel, Selfie, 2023. All images courtesy of The Hole and Matthew Hansel.

 

The Hole presents Matthew Hansel’s My Inner Demon Never Sleeps Alone, which is a body of work that has been developing over the course of the last three years.

The main gallery features a bestiary of demons, pixies, and nude men and women in all kinds of entanglements, poses and rituals. The human figures are painted from clippings of 1960s and ‘70s brochures for West Coast nudist colonies, while their demons, with scaly bodies, attenuated snouts and poulaine-toed feet, recall the morality paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. Hansel’s allegorical twist: instead of admonishing the viewer, he aims to enchant them, conjuring a universe in which, he says, “people are able to live beside and enjoy their demons in a way that they can’t in the real world.”

My Inner Demon Never Sleeps Alone is on view through June 24 at The Hole, 844 N La Brea Avenue Los Angeles

Hana Ward's "HOW TO BUILD UP WORN OUT SOILS" @ OCHI

 
HANA WARD, The Deed, 2023. Photo credit: Courtesy of the Artist and OCHI. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber.

HANA WARD, The Deed, 2023. Photo credit: Courtesy of the Artist and OCHI. Photo by Ian Byers-Gamber.

OCHI, a gallery located in Los Angeles, is now presenting How To Build Up Worn Out Soils, an exhibition of paintings and ceramics by artist Hana Ward. This is the artist’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

Borrowing from George Washington Carver’s pamphlet of the same name, How To Build Up Worn Out Soils speaks to a theme Ward has been mining in her work for years: self- determination and transformation despite limited resources. In the wake of those overlapping pandemics—Covid, climate anxiety, and the resurgence of old rage about persistent systemic racism, Ward reached for books to help gain perspective. Her study found her at the intersection of Black land justice and spirituality.

Like many of Ward’s titles, this one is polysemous—worn out soils refers to both our minds and our environments. Ward considers the ways subsistence farming has historically provided a path toward Black socio-political self-determination, and that self-determination, a catalyst for self-possession. Ward extends this practical labor of place-making and turns it inward to the ethereal, our minds and internal worlds: nurturing the seeds of divinity within each of us, cultivating our energy fields, and enriching our lives in the process.

Text by Bethel S. Moges

How To Build Up Worn Out Soils is on view through June 17 at OCHI, 3301 W Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles, California

 

Autre Magazine and Maison Margiela Celebrate Frieze Week In New York and The Utopia Issue At The Golden Swan

photographs by Neil Rasmus/BFA.com

Read Our Interview of Mattea Perrotta on the Occasion of Her Solo Opening @ Praz Delavallade in Los Angeles →

Mattea Perrotta, Perdòno, 2023 oil on canvas57 x 77 in195.6 x 144.8 cm

Mattea Perrotta
Perdòno, 2023
oil on canvas
57 x 77 in
195.6 x 144.8 cm

Our primary means of conveying meaning is through spoken and written forms, as well as sign language. But what do we do when faced with language barriers, unable to verbally communicate with another/others? Google translate is one option, but what happens when we use our imagination? Or when we explore the imagination of others through our own unique lens?

The earliest civilizations used cave walls as canvases to share their knowledge, beliefs, and stories. For visual artist, Mattea Perrotta, art has become a way of conveying her secrets and vulnerabilities. It has also become a lexicon to connect with others, often from different countries and communities. During her time in Morocco, challenged with learning Arabic but keen to connect with her hosts, she started using drawings to engage with her companions. It was a familiar and natural way of interpreting the world around her. 

A diagnosis of synesthesia at an early age was the catalyst for Perrotta’s need to develop an individual language; mathematical formulas made sense when color coded, as did phone numbers. This subsequently translated into her art form, which began with abstract shapes, defining her earlier career. Perrotta’s practice evolved organically, and in recent years a figurative approach has occupied her canvases as she investigates, questions and challenges the canon of art history referencing the work of Pablo Picasso and Leonardo da Vinci.

This May, Perrotta is exhibiting in her hometown, Los Angeles, for the first time since moving to Europe five years ago. Her solo show, In A Forgotten Tongue, at Praz Delavallade, signifies a turning point for the artist, harking back to an abstract style whilst continuing her investigation into art historical movements; Baroque, Renaissance and Cubism. Each shape within a canvas, or tapestry work, takes on its own vocabulary, distinguished by color and size. As this is Perrotta’s secret language, we are left with subtle signals and our imaginations to interpret the work.  

In the following interview, the artist explains why she describes her paintings as being similar to lasagna and what she will be researching during her residency this summer at the American Academy Rome. Read more.

Highlights from Frieze New York Celebrate Politically & Historically Centered Artworks

NAN GOLDIN Gold, 2016 Archival pigment print, in frame60 1/4 x 116 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (153 x 295.3 x 6.4 cm)Ed. 1/3© Nan Goldin Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

NAN GOLDIN
Gold, 2016
Archival pigment print, in frame
60 1/4 x 116 1/4 x 2 1/2 inches (153 x 295.3 x 6.4 cm)
Ed. 1/3
© Nan Goldin
Courtesy the artist and Gagosian

text by Jennifer Pjieko

“It’s a lot of work, but I’m free now. I’m free!” Artist ektor garcia gestures to the logo on the T-shirt he’s wearing—a black staffer shirt with FRIEZE spelled out in white letters across the middle. garcia had taken some artistic liberty with the art fair-and magazine-branded top, blacking out the letters I and Z with marker, leaving only FREE legible. 

 
ektor garcia, cadenas perpetuas, 2023 (detail)Welded steel, hand bent, handmade steel hooks, found metal, glazed ceramic with copper wire, horseshoe nails, and crochet leather. Dimensions variable.

ektor garcia, cadenas perpetuas, 2023 (detail)
Welded steel, hand bent, handmade steel hooks, found metal, glazed ceramic with copper wire, horseshoe nails, and crochet leather.
Dimensions variable.

 

We were standing around inside Cedric’s, the top-floor café of Frieze New York, underneath garcia’s installation la llorona, a hanging mobile of mixed-metal woven teardrops that illustrated the indigenous Mexican mythical figure of La Llorona: The “weeping woman” drowned her hungry children after their father, a wealthy Spanish man, abandoned the family, and she sheds tears of mourning for them for eternity. Here, as part of Frieze’s curated program, her shimmering, coppery chains gathered into teardrops evade the heavy, matte black net that is there to catch them and float over us as we get together for cocktail hour (we’re not sure which one we are part of at that moment; the restaurant, like Day 1 of any VIP preview day of an art fair, hosts a cluster of many overlapping celebrations at once, bringing cheers and the pop of champagne bottles to crowds from opening to closing hours. 

garcia’s literal self-expressive wardrobe let everyone know his state of mind: After opening three concurrent presentations across New York City (here at Frieze; at the nearby NADA art fair, at the San Francisco gallery Rebecca Camacho Presents’s booth, and at Artists Space in Tribeca, as part of the group exhibition Clocking Out: Time Beyond Management in addition to the recently closed solo exhibition esfuerzo at James Fuentes on the Lower East Side, the artist was finally free to rest for a little bit. la llorona also comes into the fair along with a wave of other politically and historically centered artworks featured—and celebrated—in the commercial context of having lots of very expensive work on offer (or, even more likely, no longer available). While the past several years of global art fairs have been characterized by glossy abstraction and mirrorlike installations, the booths on view inside The Shed on the West Side’s High Line made space for more nuanced, sensitive forms of art. Company Gallery presented a trio of abstract paintings by Tosh Basco, which could have been an element of the artist’s poetic, fragile movement performance at the new Water Street Projects, a curatorial initiative in the Financial District, a few nights earlier; Michael Rosenfeld dedicated his gallery’s entire booth to works made in 1973, the seminal year when Roe v. Wade made its way through the U.S. Supreme Court; we are now living through the devastating consequences of its reversal. At Alexander Gray’s booth, Bethany Collins’s Antigone: 1998 / 2015 (2023), is a diptych of works on paper, which looks at race and language through handwritten parts of Sophocles’s ancient play. Tehran’s Dastan Gallery presents a survey of the past century of Iranian women artists, across a variety of challenging mediums and forms; Gagosian devotes its entire booth to Nan Goldin, who recently signed with the mega gallery; her heartbreaking images recall pain and loss as much as the golden sunlight that bathes her figures. Playful works, such as Jean-Michel Othoniel’s lustrous strands of pearls of every color at Perrotin offer moments of flirtation and light. 

As the sun started to give a little bit in the late afternoon-to-early evening hours, the multi-floored crowd began to contract up and down inside The Shed; soon it would be time for happy hour everywhere. ektor took a couple of Dobel-stamped poker chips (clever objects to be “cashed” as free-drink tickets) for his friends and collaborators outside the party. It was time to celebrate together. 

FRIEZE NEW YORK 2023, installation view Artwork © Nan GoldinPhoto: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano Courtesy Gagosian

FRIEZE NEW YORK
2023, installation view
Artwork © Nan Goldin
Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Courtesy Gagosian

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani Presents Choreography by Damien Jalet & Sharon Eyal @ Sadler Wells in London

text by Lara Monro

This weekend GöteborgsOperans Danskompani presented Skid and SAABA, the works of internationally acclaimed choreographers Damien Jalet and Sharon Eyal, at London’s Sadlers Wells. Both performances push the limits of contemporary dance through their daringly experimental approaches.  

Jalet’s Skid was first performed in 2017 at Gothenburg’s opera house. In 2019, it was named “Work of the Year” by the critical collective “Danse avec la Plume.” Its fitting title alludes to the relentless effort that the seventeen dancers endure to stay on the 34-degree tilted stage designed by New York artists Jim Hodges and Carlos Marques da Cruz. 

This experimental choreography is inspired by the laws of gravity, which forces the dancers to both struggle against and surrender to its natural forces. One by one, the dancers emerge over the top of the stage, which they slip and slide down before falling into the dark void at the bottom. More often than not, it is unclear as to whether they are improvising, carrying out a choreographed movement, or in the midst of losing their grip. Jalet creates a landscape of endless possibilities that is both moving and slapstick. The dancers, adorned in playful and multi-functional costumes by fashion designer Jean-Paul Lespagnard, are in an exhausting dialogue with the inhospitable terrain. Split into three sections, the first is a gentle introduction to the dancers and their graceful attempts at navigating their descent. The second is more dramatic as they challenge gravity by ascending the stage; showing off their physical strength and agility in unified choreography. In the final piece, a solitary figure appears, suspended in a beige sack—alluding to an amniotic sack or a perhaps a big pair of tights—and breaks free from their clothes and the womb-like space. Spectacularly framed by the harsh white lighting, the naked body walks slowly to the top of the stage and jumps off into what we can interpret as the precipice of the universe.  

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

It’s safe to say the best performance was saved for last. Eyal’s distinct style is effortlessly carried off by the hypnotic dancers in SAABA who spend most of the performance on demi-pointe, pulsating power. Each contorted movement exaggerates Eyal’s uncomfortable, abstract, and totally unique language. The androgynous body suits, made by Dior designer Maria Grazia Chiuri, leave little to the imagination. We are left in awe as we observe the capabilities of the human body when pushed to its physical limits. There is an alien-like quality in the way the dancers carry themselves; an unnerving beauty as each and every muscle throbs and protrudes. Their wild, jarring movements prompt a visceral reaction. You are in awe and repulsed all at once. Favoring unison, Eyal keeps her dancers connected, or at least in close proximity to one another for the duration of the performance. Yet, they manage to maintain their individual conviction and sass throughout.

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

GöteborgsOperans Danskompani, SAABA by Sharon Eyal, image credit Tilo Stengel

Rita Maikova's "Bones and Ribbons" @ Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

 
RITA MAIKOVA, THE DOVES ARE HERE, COPYRIGHT © 2023 KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE

RITA MAIKOVA, THE DOVES ARE HERE, COPYRIGHT © 2023 KRISTIN HJELLEGJERDE

 

Tiny pairs of eyes stare out from drooping, coral-like, fuzzy and ghoulish creatures that appear gathered together in theatrical formation against hazy skies. This is the surreal and magical world of the Ukrainian artist Rita Maikova, Bones and Ribbons, the artist’s first solo exhibition with Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, explores what Maikova describes as ‘the duality of existence’ that not only Ukrainians and other nations living with conflict must negotiate on a day-to-day basis, but millions of other people whose worlds have been torn apart by personal, social or political circumstances. In these works, the divide is drawn between the body (bones) and ribbons (the soul). In each painting we can locate both modes of existence – light and dark, despair and hope – but rather than setting up opposites, the compositions gesture towards a kind of resolution or as Maikova puts it ‘the party after the battle’, a time of healing and celebration.

Maikova was abroad when Russia invaded Ukraine and has not been able to return to her home country since. Finding herself caught in a limbo state, she has had to find new ways of existing in the world that involves the compartmentalisation of her emotions, in other words ‘choosing to leave behind the pain in order to leave the house.’ In some ways, this is the experience that these paintings capture, though for Maikova the act of making art is also a form of healing and freedom – it allows her to access her unconscious mind, to dream again. We see this in the fluidity of forms that populate her compositions – hybrid characters appear, often simultaneously, as rock-like formations, rivers, undulating bodies and huge, anthropomorphic beasts against an otherwise bare, desert-like landscape that is inspired by Maikova’s upbringing in the vast, open steppe of southern Ukraine. In this show, the landscape is also sometimes the sea or the beach, defined by the line of the horizon and the changing of light that imply the passage of the day but also, and more importantly for the artist, creates shadows which, she says, ‘express our dark side that is necessary to our existence.’

Bones and Ribbons is on view through June 3rd at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery 533 Old York Road, London (Wandsworth)

 
 

Herman Miller x Vitra Announce A Limited Edition Eames Fiberglass Armchair with Steinberg Cat

Vitra and Herman Miller have partnered with the Eames Office to launch a limited-edition Eames Fiberglass Chair that is hand-painted with the artwork of renowned mid-century artist and Eames friend, as well as cover artist for the New Yorker for nearly six decades, Saul Steinberg. Sanctioned by Steinberg Foundation, each chair will feature the hand-painted cat originally sketched by Steinberg in the 1950s, following the debut launch of the Eames Shell Chair in 1950, which saw the world’s first industrially mass-produced chair with the seat and backrest formed from a one-piece shell. The chair will launch on June 14th 2023 in a limited edition run of 500 chairs, 180 of which will be available in North America through Herman Miller. Click here to sign up for early access.

A modernist white armchair with a black line drawing of a cat on the seat a la Saul Steinberg.