Aesthetica Issue 86 by Aesthetica Magazine

Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 86 December / January 2019

BUILT FOR THE ELEMENTS

TRANSIENT INSTALLATION

CULTURAL INFLUENCERS

New photographers redefine visual modes of storytelling and concept

Architects move past the boundaries of nature through innovative design

Tracking the evolution of light art as an unprecedented sensory language

Exploring the power of branding as a platform for talent development

UK £5.95 Europe €11.95 USA $15.49

TOWARDS CONNECTIVITY

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Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 86 December / January 2019

TOWARDS CONNECTIVITY

BUILT FOR THE ELEMENTS

TRANSIENT INSTALLATION

CULTURAL INFLUENCERS

New photographers redefine visual modes of storytelling and concept

Architects move past the boundaries of nature through innovative design

Tracking the evolution of light art as an unprecedented sensory language

Exploring the power of branding as a platform for talent development

Welcome

UK £5.95 Europe €11.95 USA $15.49

Editor’s Note

On the Cover Marta Bevacqua’s works look at the significance of frames – female figures sit by windows, look into mirrors or gaze back at the viewer. The images communicate poignant yet playful messages about visual identities, questioning the wider notion of a polished, edited self. martabevacquaphotography.com (p. 120). Cover Image: Marta Bevacqua, Editorial realised for Grazia Magazine France. Model: Emma Laird @ Ford. Courtesy of the artist.

I think about Radiohead’s Idioteque often. Considering it was written just as we moved from the 20th to the 21st century, there is so much meaning that still rings true today, nearly 20 years later. It’s easy to look at the world and get cynical. The rate and acceleration of change is hard to comprehend. I also think about cultural anthropology – everything that has happened to get us right here, right now. We are constantly developing as humans, but this progression isn’t always as ground-breaking as starting to use tools or developing language. Rather, we are evolving emotionally. Thanks to technology, we can readily have anything that we want – from ordering dinner and groceries to streaming entire television series in one binge experience. We no longer have to wait for anything, so what does this mean for our humanity? What does it mean for patience, kindness and courtesy? How will this affect the world in 100 years’ time? Within the same breath, I marvel at what technology has done for us and how it has transformed the ways in which we live. I have a two-year-old daughter and the thought of having to go to the bank to withdraw money, drive to the supermarket and then do the shopping seems a million miles away. The time I get back through online commerce is revolutionary and almost priceless, and for that I am grateful. Still, it has been months since I even set foot in a shop, and there’s also something a little strange about that fact too. This issue is very special; through our features and editorials we are diving into bigger subjects head on; Lust for Light looks at the technical and philosophical meaning of light art as a medium in its own right. We also highlight the 2018 Foam Talent Call, which includes 20 photographers you should know. Meanwhile, Phaidon’s Living in the Desert surveys buildings in some of the most inhospitable landscapes on earth. In photography, we present seven outstanding practitioners whose works are redefining genre. Architecture, immersive design and portraiture are included, traversing fine art, CGI and fashion. Finally, Gabrielle Motola discusses collaborative inspiration and the essence of the road trip. Cherie Federico

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contents

Art 16 Regular Sections The December / January edition covers the latest shows including Tadao Ando at Centre Pompidou and a survey of Renzo Piano at Royal Academy.

24 Cultural Influencers Championing the next generation of talent, COS redefines the traditional gallery platform through fashion branding and immersive playgrounds.

30 Moments of Seclusion San Francisco-based portrait photographer Nirav Patel specialises in communicating a sense of peacefulness both in front of and behind the lens.

44 A Sense of Discovery Rebecca Reeve’s work offers a renewed perspective of our place within the world, evoking a mirror-like awareness of interior and exterior landscapes.

56 Towards Connectivity Foam’s 2018 Talent Call provides an overview of how photography is changing in the digital age through an influx of interdisciplinary methods.

62 Aesthetic Minimalism Gianfilippo De Rossi pinpoints rapid changes in urban infrastructure, creating geometric harmony and balance in bold, colourful compositions.

74 Human Observation Whitney Hayes is driven by capturing a specific mood – her intimate and softly realised images reflect upon time, memory and physicality.

84 Transient Installation Exploring the rise of light art – where illumination is both the medium and concept. Featured names include Yayoi Kusama, Liz West and teamLab.

90 Playful Direction Photography duo LM Chabot casts a critical yet sensitive eye over the peculiar everyday through a range of commercial and personal projects.

102 Built for the Elements About one third of our land mass is covered in desert, yet these spaces are largely unpopulated. A selection of architects take on the challenge.

108 Reflective Environments Six N. Five is a design studio that specialises in still life visuals with a clean aesthetic, influenced by the likes of Edward Hopper and Wim Wenders.

120 Subverting Expectations Marta Bevacqua communicates poignant yet playful messages about the role of women in visual media and the notion of the edited self.

Exhibitions

Film

Music

132 Gallery Reviews Including the first UK presentation of Ren Hang; Nicholas Nixon at CO Berlin; Dorothea Lange at Jeu de Paume; and Eugene Richards at ICP.

136 Familial Cycles The Wild Pear Tree, directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, demonstrates a masterful approach to pacing in a sprawling and tentative family drama.

138 Textual Influences Tia Cabral’s second album of occult synth music under the stage name of Spellling follows on from her dreamy 2017 debut, Pantheon Of Me.

Books

Artists’ Directory

Last Words

140 The Metropolitan Wanderer An overview of Hannah Starkey considers female representation in image-making; each work looks at the function of the flâneuse as a character.

152 Inside This Issue Featured practitioners cover a range of styles and techniques, questioning our perceptions of reality through both analogue and digital methods.

162 Gabrielle Motola Having embarked on a voyage from England to Iceland, Motola discusses the intersection of dual passions: photography and the road trip.

Aesthetica Magazine is trade marked worldwide. © Aesthetica Magazine Ltd 2018.

The Aesthetica Team: Editor: Cherie Federico Assistant Editor: Kate Simpson Digital Assistant: Eleanor Sutherland Staff Writer: David Martin

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Advertising Coordinator: Jeremy Appleyard Marketing Coordinator: Hannah Skidmore Artists’ Directory Coordinator: Katherine Smira

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Published by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley. Aesthetica Magazine PO Box 371, York, YO23 1WL, UK (0044) (0)844 568 2001 Newstrade Distribution: Warners Group Publications plc. Gallery & Specialist Distribution: Central Books. Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

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Reviewers: Kyle Bryony, Tony Earnshaw, Thana Faroq, Olivia Hampton, Sarah Jilani, Julia Johnson, Erik Martiny, James Mottram, Selina Oakes, Paul Risker, Matt Swain.

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Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Jean-Marie Tjibaou Cultural Centre, Nouméa, 1998. Photo © Sergio Grazia. © ADCK - centre culturel Tjibaou/RPBW.

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Cultural Landmarks RENZO PIANO: THE ART OF MAKING BUILDINGS From his ground-breaking collaboration with Richard Rogers won the competition for the Centre Pompidou. It was the as- “‘The exhibition shows on the Centre Pompidou in 1971, to the 66-storey glass- tonishing success of this location that took both designers how making buildings covered tower of The Shard (2012), London’s tallest building, to the forefront of their field. The location, largely known is a civic gesture and Renzo Piano (b. 1937) has shaped cities and redefined public for its cultural programming, turns architecture inside out, social responsibility. spaces across the globe for decades. Both of these interna- with coloured heating and air-conditioning ducts and el- I believe passionately tional landmarks are considered in the Royal Academy of evator systems on the outside. His next major collaboration that architecture Arts’ presentation this autumn; a show dedicated to an archi- was with the engineer Peter Rice, sharing the Atelier Piano is about making a tect who brings a sense of precision and elegance to his com- & Rice from 1977 to 1981, when he established the Renzo place for people to come together and mand of structure and form. Presented in the new Gabrielle Piano Building Workshop, now based in Paris and Genoa. Projects central to the Royal Academy presentation in- share values.’” Jungels-Winkler Galleries in Burlington Gardens, and on the 250th anniversary of the Royal Academy – of which Piano is clude the New York Times Building (2007) which, completed an honorary member – this exhibition comes at a poignant following the September 11 attacks, was seen as a symbol of faith in the future of skyscrapers in New York. Its open and moment in time and is one not to miss. An overview of the designer’s practice moves through 16 transparent design embodies the ideal relationship between significant projects, from early experiments to signature ven- media and the city, and it features a Piano trademark: the tures that have now become relics. As someone who creates clear glass curtain wall that acts as a sunscreen outside the each design piece by piece, often constructing full-scale façade, which can also be seen in The Shard. Other landmark structures include the Jean-Marie Tjibaou mock-ups, and using detailed models, Piano is an ideal subject for a show like this. He notes: “This exhibition shows how Cultural Centre, Nouméa (1998), Jérôme Seydoux Pathé Founmaking buildings is a civic gesture and social responsibility. dation, Paris (2014) and Whitney Museum of American Art, New I believe passionately that architecture is about making a York (2015). Rarely seen archival material, models, photographs Royal Academy and drawings reveal the process behind them, including an of Arts, London place for people to come together and share values.” Born in Genoa, Piano studied in Milan where he worked in original model from the design process for the Menil Collection Until 20 January the office of Franco Albini. In 1970, he set up the Piano & in Houston (1986), and the white ceramic rods from a full-size Rogers office in London with Richard Rogers, with whom he mock-up of part of the New York Times Building. www.royalacademy.org.uk

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Spatial Inspiration TADAO ANDO: THE CHALLENGE boutique hotel and gallery and the Chichu Art Museum. “Key to the Paris The Church of Light, which stands in an Osaka suburb, takes presentation is a simplicity to its conclusion, with a construction that embodies large-scale installation, a career-spanning concern with the use of light. “What I Naoshima, a work felt when observing Romanesque churches was that hope representative of an resided in light alone. I ask myself how I can create things ongoing dialogue that remain forever imprinted on people’s souls,” Ando says with the natural of the interplay of light and concrete structure, which evokes landscapes of Japan’s a sense of the spiritual in a relatively small space. ‘art island,’ which In conversation with curator Frédéric Migayrou, Ando is home to several explains: “In the end, for whom does architecture exist? Given of Ando’s projects.” that it is used by people, it has close links with the body. In that sense, aren’t the body and the mind important? We perceive all kinds of elements, like air and materials. Architecture involves creating places for the community. I ask myself how I can make things that are printed on people’s souls.” Accompanying the exhibition is a 256-page catalogue that illustrates Ando’s innovative work through 70 of his finest projects. Containing three portfolios – rendered in black and white photographs, travel notebooks and drawings – audiences can see into architecture as a holistic practice from ideas to production, through to the sensory stimuli of Centre Pompidou, Paris surrouding spaces. Ultimately, Centre Pompidou welcomes Until 31 December viewers into a truly interactive and blockbuster programme this autumn, one that celebrates the ingenuity of buildings. www.centrepompidou.fr

Musée d’art Nariwa, 1994. Nariwa Museum, 1994. © Photo: Mitsuo Matsuoka.

“Architecture should provide a place for mankind’s sense of joy,” says Tadao Ando. A self-taught designer, who abandoned his original career as a professional boxer after being captivated by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Imperial Hotel building in Tokyo, Ando (b. 1941) draws upon the influence of Japanese aesthetics. His noteworthy structures present a sense of simplicity, contrasting the often complex use of space and light in response to the surrounding landscape. Ando’s clean-lined style initially made an impact by going against the technological trends of 1970s construction and, over a 50-year career, his works have won acclaim and awards around the world, including the US Pritzker Prize in 1995. Centre Pompidou’s retrospective considers defining works: the Azuma House in Sumiyoshi (1976), Naoshima (1988-2018), the Church of Light (1989) and La Bourse de Commerce in Paris (autumn 2019) are featured in a staging designed by Ando. In all, around 50 key projects are represented, offering further insight into a unique philosophy of design. The show is organised around four main themes: the basic form of space; the urban challenge; the origins of landscape and the dialogue with history. Key to the Paris presentation is a large-scale installation, Naoshima, a work representative of an ongoing dialogue with the natural landscapes of Japan’s “art island,” which is home to several of Ando’s projects including the Benesse House

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Ezra Stoller, Cohen House. Paul Rudolph. Siesta Key, FL, 1955. © Ezra Stoller, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.

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Visualising Modernism EZRA STOLLER The photography of Ezra Stoller (1915-2004) played a vital role in shaping the public perception of modern architecture – to the extent that many leading designers referred to having their work “Stollerised” and aspired to having their structures popularised by him. Indeed, according to legend, some found the buildings less impactful in reality than when encountered in two dimensions through the medium of Stoller’s expert composition and framing. Appearing in magazines such as Architectural Record, The Architectural Forum, Fortune and House Beautiful, his images undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the media attention of architecture’s new postwar direction – one filled with idealism and social intent. A career-spanning selection of Stoller’s images from the 1930s to the 1970s is being presented in Russia for the first time, in the Red October space at Moscow’s Lumiere Brothers Center, including black and white images of public spaces, private houses and commercial premises. Originally trained in Industrial Design, it was during WWII that Stoller began working as a photographer for the Army Signal Corps, later taking his skills into civilian life and developing a keen eye for structural documentation. It soon became clear he had a unique vision for the formal and spatial properties of the emerging aspirations of modern architecture and, over the decades, he became closely associated with Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as Paul Rudolph, IM Pei, Gordon Bunshaft, Eero Saarinen, Rich-

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ard Meier and Mies van der Rohe, amongst others. His method involved making painstaking preparations, often visiting projects repeatedly at different times of day to observe how the light and shadows fell and moved, and pursing the best possible angles by squeezing into unlikely nooks and crannies, making detailed diagrams and plans of the scene before turning to his camera. However, despite meticulous planning, Stoller was always alert to the possibility of a serendipitous moment that needed spontaneous reaction. His large format images are mostly in monochrome, and convey a remarkable sense of three dimensions, embodying volume, line and even the texture of the materials. Pictures of Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum feature, alongside other New York icons such as Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building and Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal for JFK Airport, as well as Paul Rudolph’s Yale Art and Architecture Building and Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute in California. A notable piece from his collaboration with Lloyd Wright is the “house above the waterfall.” Fallingwater – located in rural Pennsylvania – is often regarded as the architect’s masterpiece, built in 1935. Its cantilevered structure is surrounded by lush woodlands, creating harmony between the techniques of modernism and the natural world. This is just one of the ideal subjects presented for exploration by Stoller’s camera, a structure that has now become wholly iconic.

“A career-spanning selection of Stoller’s images from the 1930s to the 1970s is being presented in Russia for the first time, in the Red October space at Moscow’s Lumiere Brothers Centre.”

Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow Until 3 February www.lumiere.ru

Nocturnal Worlds BRASSAÏ ballet and the opera, experiences held in stark contrast to the “Fascinated by the avant garde circles with which he is mostly associated. aesthetics of streets in His first photobook, Paris de Nuit (1933), created a suitably rain and fog, Brassaï scandalous response upon its publication, recording the was also drawn to cultural milieu of urban landscapes. A following volume, humans within the Voluptés de Paris (1935), brought international fame. Under urban geography. Nazi occupation, photography was banned on the streets of He moved through wartime Paris, though the drawings which Brassaï created cafés, bars and during the war years were published in 1946 in Trente Dessins, dancehalls, capturing a collaboration with another counter-cultural friend, the poet lovers, workers and screen and stage writer Jacques Prévert, with whom he and gatherings.” also worked on the ballet Le Rendez-vous. Post-war, however, Brassaï returned to image-making and continued to develop central themes, increasingly preferring static to active subjects, and also undertaking commercial work shooting images for the likes of Harper’s Bazaar. His international reputation continued to grow, until he was included in a seminal show at MoMA, New York, in 1937, spanning images from eight years previous. He was also presented at the Rencontres d’Arles festival in France in 1970 and 1972, and then again in 1974, as he returned as the guest of honour. Notable works within SFMOMA’s retrospective include SFMOMA, San Francisco Avenue de l’Observatoire in the Fog, On the Outskirts of Mor- Until 18 February delles (Rennes Region), Bal des Quatre-Saisons, rue de Lappe and Salvador Dalí and Gala, Villa Seurat, Paris. www.sfmoma.org

Brassaï, Avenue de l’Observatoire in the Fog, ca. 1937; Estate Brassaï Succession, Paris; © Estate Brassaï Succession, Paris.

Paris between the wars, and the nocturnal life of the Montparnasse district in particular, will always be associated with the atmospheric, dimly-lit, sometimes fog-shrouded photographs that were created by Hungarian-born Gyula Halász (1899-1984) who took the name Brassaï in reference to his birthplace of Brassó (today known as Brașov in Romania.) SFMOMA’s thematic survey includes renowned images that instantly evoke the streetlife of 1930s Paris, alongside portraits of a remarkable circle of artistic friends including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Henri Matisse. Christened “the eye of Paris” by the American writer Henry Miller, Brassaï studied and worked as a journalist in Berlin after WWI before joining many Hungarian practitioners in moving to France to join a growing creative community. Arriving in 1924, his home became the city – a place that would prove infinitely inspiring through nighttime walks and documentation of the metropolis by moonlight. Although largely fascinated by the aesthetics of streets and gardens drenched in rain and fog, Brassaï was also drawn to humans within the sprawling urban geography. He often moved through cafés, bars and dancehalls, capturing lovers, prostitutes, workers and gatherings as a collective mass. However, his oeuvre in fact spanned all societal strata; through friendships with a well-connected French family, he was granted access to the lives of the upper classes, the

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Brooke DiDonato, Long Way Down, 2016.

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Questioning Reality ROUTINISED ABSURDITY The repetitive behaviours which make up daily routines are rarely perceived as absurd, especially whilst we are invested in them. The intention of a new exhibition at KINDL, Berlin, is to invite the viewer to see such rituals out of their usual context – patterns of action revealed as strange and mechanistic. The theme of Routinised Absurdity goes deeper, considering the consequences of a contemporary society and economic system which is increasingly data- and algorithmdriven, based on constant quantifying of individual actions, and measured against a pre-determined ideal. It considers the impact of the individual within global systems in terms of oversaturation, as well as the effects on mental health. Featured is a selection of narrative images by a range of contemporary photographers who deal in issues of identity and the pressures exerted on the self – topics wholly relevant in today’s world. Curated by CUCO (Hanna Dölle, Katherina Perlongo and Annika Turkowski), the presented artists are Louis de Belle, Juno Calypso, Brooke DiDonato, Christoph Grill, Aleksey Kondratyev, Elisa Larvego, Sandra Lazzarini, Pierrick Sorin, Sebastian Stumpf and Ben Zank. Calypso graduated from London College of Communication in 2012, and first featured in Aesthetica in 2014 within The Next Generation – a selection of graduating artists from LCC. She is interested in ideas around feminism, isolation, loneliness and self-sufficiency. During university she pro-

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duced a series of self-portraits disguised as a fictional char- “Routinised acter named Joyce. Capturing herself in rented rooms or at Absurdity goes her grandmother’s house, she created a portrait of a woman deeper, considering who takes the daily labour of constructing beauty ideals to the consequences of a the point of absurdity. A related series saw Calypso visit ro- contemporary society mantic honeymoon resorts, posing as a travel writer, in order and economic system to act out solitary scenes of desire and disappointment in their which is increasingly rooms. French multimedia artist Sorin also puts himself on the data- and algorithmstage in Super 8 short movies, acting out seemingly strange driven, based on a moments in quotidian situations. He specialises in the manipu- constant quantifying lation of scenography in order to create worlds where surreal of individual actions.” details undermine a sense of reality in an unsettling fashion. Meanwhile, the complexity of human perception is a key concern for DiDonato, who is based in New York City and graduated in photojournalism from Kent State University in 2012. Her images slide between recognisable and fantastic worlds, often set in domestic scenarios but introducing a dream-like sense of the bizarre as stories unfold. Blurring the distinctions of fact and fiction and raising themes of vulnerability, instability and self-destruction, the characters slip between momentary spheres of consciousness. For Stumpf, KINDL – Centre for however, the photographic image gains its power through Contemporary Art, Berlin traversing narration and its negation, drawing attention to Until 3 February the invisible histories which lie behind each picture, and which govern the existence of public spaces. www.kindl-berlin.de

Reflections on the Everyday OF INDIVIDUALS AND PLACES: PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE LAZARE COLLECTION

Astrid Kruse Jensen, Hide and seek. From the series, The Construction Of Memories.

It was an encounter with the portraits of British pioneer artist Todd Hido (b. 1968) are also included – photographs “The presentation Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-1879) at a 1999 MoMA which are both compelling and melancholy in their overall comprises images that exhibition that inspired Canadian Jack Lazare to fall in love effect, drawing upon memories of vanished suburban reveal real of imaginary with photography and to begin assembling an outstanding neighbourhoods from a 1970s childhood, places which no places, or indeed those private collection, including many major 20th century longer exist in reality, evoking the surreal film narratives of in an ambiguous figures. Now, 14 albumen prints by Cameron – who, over David Lynch and Alfred Hitchcock. Nicolas Dhervillers and position between the a brief 11-year career used the wet collodion process to Astrid Kruse Jensen share this interest in ethereal spaces. two. ‘The photos create portraits of family members and major Victorian (The featured image, taken by Jensen, was published in challenge us with their figures including Alfred Lord Tennyson and Charles Darwin Aesthetica in 2013 from The Construction of Memories series.) emotive power and the Lee Friedlander (b. 1934) is also a seminal artist included subjects they confront.’” as well as allegorical and literary scenes – sit alongside mostly contemporary images in Of Individuals and Places: in the show, one who focused on picturing the “social landscape” of the 20th century, using hand-held 35mm Photographs from the Lazare Collection. The presentation comprises images that depict real or cameras and captured reflections in store-fronts to posters, imaginary places, or indeed those in an ambiguous position signs and open roads. This intimate and personalised subject between the two. “The photos challenge us with their emotive matter transition is further explored in pieces from other wellpower and the subjects they confront, which draw us into their known figures such as Saul Leiter, Danny Lyon, Sarah Moon, universality,” says Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ curator Larry Towell, Albert Watson and Laurence von der Weid. Diane Charbonneau. They include the urban landscapes Meanwhile, the contemporary nature of the portrait and of José Manuel Ballester, as well as Edward Burtynsky, who its power to reveal states of mind is considered in a gallery is best-known for sweeping panoramas of places that have compiling the contrasting styles of Elliot Erwitt, Angela been compromised and modified by industry, from mine- Grauerholz, Isaac Julien, Richard Learoyd, Nelli Palomäki, Montreal Museum workings to China’s Three Gorges Dam. There are also mises Alexander Rodchenko and August Sander. In counterpoint of Fine Arts en scène from Carlos and Jason Sanchez and interiors by to this, works by Tina Barney, Nan Goldin, Adam Jeppesen, Until 28 April Nicolas Baier, Jiagang Chen and Trine Søndergaard. Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Hannah Starkey and Thomas Struth The cinematic and deeply enigmatic works of American evoke the deep complexity of human relationships. www.mbam.qc.ca

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1. Haroon Mirza, A Chamber for Horowitz (detail), 2015. Installation view at Museum Tinguely, Basel, courtesy hrm199 and Museum Tinguely. Photography by Bettina Matthiessen. 2. Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho, El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World), 2012. 2 channel HD video installation with sound, 13 min 35 sec. Courtesy of the artists and Gallery Hyundai. 3. Installation view of Fibre Market Project (2016) at the London Design Museum (2016). © Christien Meindertsma. Photo: Luke Hayes. 4. George Platt Lynes, James Leslie Daniels, c.1937. © 2018 Estate of George Platt Lynes, Beth Rudin DeWoody. 5. Alnis Stakle, from Heavy Waters. Courtesy of the artist.

10 to See RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

Haroon Mirza

Ikon, Birmingham Until 24 February

www.ikon-gallery.org Taking the theme reality is somehow what we expect it to be, this is the UK’s most comprehensive collection of work by Haroon Mirza (b. 1977) to date. Featuring past series and new, previously unseen pieces, the full breadth of Mirza’s audio-visual practice is on display with moving imagery, installation and electronic sound filling Ikon’s galleries. Testing the limits of human perception, audiences are invited to consider the emotional resonance associated with art.

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www.tate.org.uk/liverpool South Korea’s Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho (both b. 1969) have created a multi-screen film, Anomaly Strolls, responding to Liverpool and echoing the postapocalyptic themes of the acclaimed 2012 video work El Fin del Mundo (The End of the World), both of which are presented within an installation created from salvaged materials. The works are part of News from Nowhere, a project using science fiction to reflect on society today.

www.design-museum.de Beyond the Surface is the Dutch designer’s first solo presentation outside her native country. A unique approach explores beyond the realisation of an object, looking at the whole chain of production from factory to waste disposal sites, interviewing and reporting back. Vitra presents items made from wool, flax, incinerator bottom ash and recycled wool, with projects including the biodegradable Flax Chair.

www.barbican.org.uk Challenging the idea of art as a playing field for solitary, predominately male, practitioners, this show, subtitled Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde, considers the collaborative output of more than 40 couples from the first half of the 20th century – from painters and architects, to writers and musicians. Included are legendary duos such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; Dora Maar and Pablo Picasso; and Emilie Flöge & Gustav Klimt.

Moon Kyungwon and Jeon Joonho

Tate Liverpool Until 17 March

Christien Meindertsma

Vitra Design Museum, Germany Until 20 January

Modern Couples

Barbican Art Gallery, London Until 27 January

New East Photo Prize 2018

Calvert 22, London Until 2 December

www.calvert22.org Supported by The Calvert Journal, the Foundation’s accolade champions contemporary perspectives from Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia. Established and emerging names featured include Antal Bánhegyesy, Vika Eksta, Daria Garnik, Ilkin Huseynov, Lucia Sekerková, Michał Sierakowski, Alnis Stakle, Lana Stojićević, Fyodor Telkov, Peter Trembeczki, Adam Wilkoszarsk and Boglárka Éva Zellei.

6. Luke Willis Thompson, autoportrait, 2017. Installation view, Turner Prize 2018. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and produced in partnership with Create. Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Tate Photography. 7. Larry Bell, Standing Walls II, 1969 / 2016. Installation view at Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles. © Larry Bell/DACS 2018. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth, Photo: JR Dot. 8. Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, Parktown, 2016. Courtesy of Stevenson, Cape Town/ Johannesburg and Yancey Richardson, New York. 9. A Snicket in Halifax, 1937.© Bill Brandt Archives. Courtesy of Michael Hoppen Gallery. 10. Armando Salas Portugal, Torres de Satélite, México DF, 1968. Vintage C-Print, 25.2cm × 20.2 cm. Collection J.L. Larivière, Buenos Aires. © Barragan Foundation, Switzerland / Adagp, Paris, 2018.

Turner Prize 2018

Tate Britain, London Until 6 January

www.tate.org The Turner Prize returns to Tate for its 34th edition. Forensic Architecture is an interdisciplinary team concerned with how the built environment relates to human rights violations. Naeem Mohaiemen investigates post-WWII themes of decolonisation and utopias. Charlotte Prodger employs the moving image, sculpture and performance to address queer identity, landscape and language, whilst Luke Willis Thompson tackles histories of social inequality.

www.southbankcentre.co.uk Featuring new commissions and installations alongside contemporary sculptures, Hayward Gallery’s autumn exhibition Space Shifters includes works by 20 leading practitioners that alter or disrupt the visitor’s sense of space and re-orient their perception of their surroundings, transforming the experience of the gallery’s distinctive architecture. Each piece has been selected to offer an alternative history of minimalism.

www.fotomuseum.be FOMU brings together three seminal photographers who employ the self-portrait as a mechanism to address gender and identity. The first is Claude Cahun (18941954) – born Lucy Schwob, a practitioner who pioneered transgender representation. Samuel Fosso (b. 1962) references post-colonialism by adopting different versions of the self, and Zanele Muholi (b. 1972) uses the body as a canvas to communicate the politics of race.

Space Shifters

Hayward Gallery, London Until 6 January

Claude Samuel Zanele

FOMU, Antwerp Until 10 February

Bill Brandt

Michael Hoppen, London Until 19 January

www.michaelhoppen gallery.com Bill Brandt (1904-1983) came to the UK in 1933 and made his adopted home the key subject of images that extended across various strata, from high society to working-class life, and from street photography in the industrial north to winter landscapes. Throughout the 1960s he developed a signature visual language using a wide-angle lens. This presentation includes rare images from the family collection.

Southern Geometries

Fondation Cartier, Paris Until 24 February

www.fondationcartier.com Spanning Mexico to Patagonia, Fondation Cartier celebrates a diversity of styles and approaches – most notably geometric abstraction from Latin America, bringing together 250 pieces made by over 70 artists from the pre-Columbian period to the present. Including modernist works, sculpture and architecture, as well as ceramics, weaving and body painting, this exhibition creates cross-cultural connections amongst a wealth of regions.

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Cultural Influencers COS CHAMPIONING YOUNG ARTISTS, ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS, THE BRAND EXTENDS ITS AESTHETIC TO THE WIDER SECTOR, ACTING AS A GALLERY SPACE FOR NEW VISIONARIES.

If you have attended a gallery opening or fair in recent opment has become ingrained into the company’s timeline, years, you are, perhaps even unconsciously, familiar with with its first foray into the art world occurring in 2010, when COS. The London-based label seems to be dressing an the brand partnered with Frieze for the fair’s Frame section, entire cohort of curators and editors in clean-lined, well- dedicated to young, emerging visionaries. Dipping its welltailored garments, described as “reinvented classics with heeled toes into the industry’s waters, this was a starting point timeless, functional and tactile design.” COS has undoubt- for COS, as it launched commissions and aligned itself with a group of people who were similarly interested in culture, edly infiltrated the art world – but in more ways than one. Founded in 2007 by Hennes & Mauritz – the Swedish retail finance and politics and how these elements feed into the behemoth behind H&M – COS (Collection of Style) was en- clothes we wear from day to day. “Our practice is deeply invisioned as a new approach to sharp, casual dressing. In ex- fluenced by the work of others,” says Gustafsson, “it’s a way tension to selling clothes, however, the company has embed- of giving back to those who have so inspired us.” Spurred on by success with Frieze, COS soon began workded itself into the cultural sphere, contributing to the wider cycle of exhibition, presentation and curation – pushing the ing directly with other well-known figureheads. The first of boundaries of conventional artistic platforms. Since 2010, these projects came about in 2012, when the collective partthe brand has partnered with major institutions and practi- nered with German artist Carsten Nicolai – best-known for tioners on a stream of projects, spanning large-scale instal- his work with soundwaves – on an installation in Berlin. After lations at world events down to launching small capsule col- this, the brand threw support behind exhibitions at Palais de Tokyo, Paris, as well as a presentation of Donald Judd’s works lections designed around form, concept and narrative. Running the show is Swedish-born Karin Gustafsson, the at 101 Spring Street, New York (2015). After this, the compacurrent Creative Director. Gustafsson has been with COS since ny rallied architect André Fu to create an installation in Hong it was first founded, having been scouted during a graduate Kong with the launch of the Autumn / Winter 2015 collection. From this point on, the campaigns only grew in breadth and show at the Royal College of Art. She took on the position of Assistant Designer, moving up to Womenswear head in 2011. popularity. In 2015, COS teamed up with New York-based Finally, in 2016, she was tasked with the vision and undertaking Snarkitecture – a duo whose practice sits on the spectrum of of COS’s external projects, a core strand of the label’s work. art and architecture. “We first worked with Daniel Arsham and “We look at collaboration as a celebration,” she describes of Alex Mustonen for Salone del Mobile, after being inspired by her current role, where inviting others into the process is key to their works at Design Miami and Art Basel,” describes Gustafsson. In 2012, Snarkitecture had produced a larger-than-life reinventing the wheel for breaking into the sector. The notion that fashion can be part of wider talent devel- inflatable pavilion in Miami, putting itself on the world stage

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Stylist: Hannes Hetta; Photographer: Viviane Sassen; Models: Karen Elson & Fernando Cabral; Location: Kivik Art Centre, Osterlen, Sweden. A/W ’18. Courtesy of COS.

“The notion that fashion can be part of wider talent development has become ingrained in the company’s timeline, with their first foray into the art world occurring in 2010, when they partnered with Frieze.”

Previous Page & Left: Stylist: Hannes Hetta; Photographer: Viviane Sassen; Models: Karen Elson & Fernando Cabral; Location: Kivik Art Centre, Osterlen, Sweden. A/W ’18. Courtesy of COS.

for joyously fun, interactive projects. For the Milan event, 100,000 metres of white ribbon were installed within the roof of a gallery; undulating clusters of woven material resembled stalactites hanging from a cave roof, blending the natural with the artificial. The project was a huge success. Instagram feeds across the world were littered with waves of white fabric, smiling faces and, of course – underneath the likes, shares, follows and comments – the circulated COS image. Dynamic and performative environments have proven popular in the evolving world of social media engagements (consider Kusama’s Infinity Rooms), and this sensibility has not gone unnoticed. Gustafsson notes: “Snarkitecture’s unexpected approach focuses on the viewer’s experience and memory, achieving moments of wonder and interaction.” Indeed, the label would work with the duo later that year on an LA-based pop-up, then again in 2017 on a project entitled Loop. For this, a rollercoaster-like track of lilac-coloured metal was attached to the roof of a Seoul gallery, shooting glass balls down into an adjoining room where they piled up in satisfactory lines. The installation merged the technical and formal sensibility of COS’s clean lines with Arsham and Mustonen’s innovative playgrounds; each ball followed a carefully constructed path into a mathematical heap, much like the threads that are woven together in fabrics. Moving research further into contemporary structures, the annual Milan furniture fair also became a major asset for COS’s portfolio in 2016, commissioning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto (b. 1971) for an installation entitled Forest of Light. The work took the form of a darkened space illuminated by towering beams that responded to visitors’ movements. Fujimoto, well-known for materialising the concept

of ‘found architecture’, is a practitioner focused on exploring the natural landscape and the changing needs of humanity. He notes: “Creating architecture is like planting seeds. When we design, we play close attention to the context of the site, the requests of our clients and the historical backgrounds of each community. If what we call ‘future’ is defined as a series of possibilities, I would say that the small proposals that stimulate them are the ‘seeds of the future.’” In the context of Forest of Light, COS and Fujimoto poignantly pick up on what consumers are craving in the 21st century: to find something truly original whilst being a part of the collective experience. Bringing viewers back into their body and out of the digital world, the interactive landscape encouraged audiences to consider their physical experience. In the same vein, 2017 marked the year that COS collaborated with London-based Studio Swine on New Spring, an immersive, multi-sensory exhibition. Set in a former theatre, the duo installed a minimalist, life-sized tree rendered in white metal. Its branches slowly released blossom-like bubbles filled with a perfumed white mist, dissipating when touched. The project was an undeniable success and went on to win the Milan Design Award for Best Engagement. Again, images of the project ricocheted across digital feeds, and lines snaked around the building. The piece was re-exhibited in October 2018 at the Changning Bell Tower, Shanghai. Tethering itself to large-scale influencers and inviting viewers into stimulating landscapes, COS has produced a winning equation where user-led environments attract viral popularity. “There are intrinsic links between fashion and design with regards to function and form,” Gustafsson explains of this collective approach. “Whilst this synergy has always been strong,

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Stylist: Hannes Hetta; Photographer: Viviane Sassen; Models: Karen Elson & Fernando Cabral; Location: Kivik Art Centre, Osterlen, Sweden. A/W ’18. Courtesy of COS.

it is becoming more collaborative over time, through direct filled with architects, photographers and sculptors across partnerships and the sharing of inspiration with regards to disciplines.” Most recently, the Autumn collection, shot by materials, processes or techniques.” These projects ultimately Viviane Sassen at the Kivik Art Centre in Österlen, Sweden, exist as a branding exercise, and the COS logo remains ever- is one such example of this. “The garments explore innovapresent; what sets the collective apart is that it places focus on tive materials and shapes whilst referencing natural and metthe artist, rather than the label. COS acts as a commissioning ropolitan environments,” she explains. “These themes were body in the tradition of a museum or gallery, allowing the inspired by the likes of Jill Bliss, who draws upon the unlikely medium of local plants and mushrooms, and American practitioners to have total creative control. Though there are overlaps in terms of aesthetic – minimal, painter Georgia O’Keeffe. We were also inspired by Christien clean, tactile – the featured practitioners are allowed free Meindertsma’s work, refining raw materials.” The choice of setting was deliberate, too: “The centre is in reign to realise their work, not just offered settings for the showcase of new products. “COS provides an open brief to synergy with the key directions that underpin the season: commissions and gives them ‘carte blanche’ for audience ex- sculpted forms and textural contrast. Where organic horiperiences that embody a shared sensibility and exploring its zons meet concrete creations, the fibrous natural cottons boundaries,” Gustafsson explains. “Our programme of col- meet reproportioned garments in technical fabrics.” Saslaborations is about giving back. It’s exciting for us to make sen’s signature and well-rehearsed aesthetic leads the collection’s visual identity also; bold, block palettes, clean art more accessible and bring it to a wider audience.” The community-led ethos has also fed into a number skylines and uncanny shadows build the clothes into fine of capsule collections. In 2016, COS partnered with the art photographs, as opposed to straight campaigns. So what does this mean for fashion as a cultural empire? Guggenheim Museum, New York, for their retrospective of American painter Agnes Martin (1912-2004). Lightly Can clothes, in fact, contribute to the wider business of art sketched grids, inspired by Martin’s abstract canvases, were through a fine-tuned understanding of consumer demand, printed on dresses and shirting. “Our clothing and accesso- curated feeds and exhibition programming? In a period where ries are made to be striking in their simplicity, elegance and creativity and commerce are becoming intrinsically linked, structure. Often the process of inspiration and refinement COS leads by example and spearheads the next generation begins and ends with cues from artists that are distilling form, of talent, whilst tapping into the needs of the individual. “Emerging practitioners are vital in bringing new ideas to the colour and light down to its essence in interesting ways.” In this way, design – for COS – is as much about idea gen- industry,” explains Gustafsson, “so for us, it’s important to eration as it is communicating fashion ideals and wearable support where possible. We hope to continue to grow, evolve clothing. “As we research, brainstorm, and begin to form our and stay innovative whilst continuing to collaborate across ideas,” says Gustafsson, “our mood boards are constantly the many disciplines that give meaning to today.”

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Right: Stylist: Hannes Hetta; Photographer: Viviane Sassen; Models: Karen Elson & Fernando Cabral; Location: Kivik Art Centre, Osterlen, Sweden. A/W ’18. Courtesy of COS.

Words Laura May Todd

www.cosstores.com

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Moments of Seclusion Nirav Patel

San Francisco-based portrait photographer Nirav Patel (b. 1982) specialises in communicating a sense of peacefulness through the lens. As blinds filter sunlight into bedrooms, curtains muffle grey skies and silent waves ripple over the horizon, anonymous characters revel safely in the confines of domestic worlds. Patelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s works are deeply human in their intent, touching upon the therapeutic and affective nature of photography. Panning a number of settings in seconds, the cinematic images reach audiences on a simultaneously personal and universal level, where solitude is a notion with which everyone can relate, appreciate and apprehend as a mediator for understanding the self. He notes: â&#x20AC;&#x153;I am drawn to still periods of time. As a child, my imagination soared in safe havens. To this day I still look for the glimpses of quietude, especially when the world is as turbulent as it is today. These images are a window into my world.â&#x20AC;? www.niravpatelphoto.com.

Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Meghan K Sadler. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Meredith Adelaide. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Location: Elk, California. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Location: Scottish Highlands. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Meghan K Sadler. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography, Model: Meredith Adelaide. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Location, Scottish Highlands. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography, Occidental, CA. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Lauren Isabeau. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Britta McPherson. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Location: Santorini, Greece. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Location: Scottish Highlands. Courtesy of the artist.

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Nirav Patel Photography. Model: Beth Kirby. Courtesy of the artist.

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A Sense of Discovery Rebecca Reeve

Rebecca Reeve started the Though Looking series in 2014, using grid-like forms as a means to capture, arrange and organise the landscape. Offering a personalised view of national park areas in the USA, the images introduce blinds as an almost democratic character within the composition, marking scenery through equal units of space and shrouding the viewer with a limited view. An interdisciplinary approach to image-making, the collection combines digital photography with the traditional medium of painting; each blind was created en plein air in response to the location. The works offer a renewed perspective of our place within the world, evoking a mirror-like awareness of how interior and exterior landscapes are increasingly separated. Ultimately, they encourage us to meditate on the cardinal rhythms of natural life. Reeve has exhibited internationally at La Biennale de MontrĂŠal, the Museum of Latin American Art, Buenos Aires, and the Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, Louisiana. www.rebeccareeve.com.

Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #23, (Through Looking) (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #17, (Through Looking). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #22, (Through Looking). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #16, (Through Looking). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #28, (Through Looking). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Rebecca Reeve, Untitled #15, (Through Looking). Courtesy of the artist and Upfor Gallery.

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Towards Connectivity Foam Talent IN AN AGE WHERE PHOTOGRAPHY IS BEING DEMOCRATISED, FOAM’S 2018 TALENTS CREATE AN OVERVIEW OF THE WIDER WORLD IN A TIME OF UPHEAVAL AND APPREHENSION.

In 2011, for the November issue of Frieze, the critic Chris O’Hagan writes, “exhausting itself through its very ubiquity, Wiley tried to understand the flux of contemporary media. losing its meaning in an age of almost unimaginable over“Inextricable from photography’s history is the idea that [it] load? Faced with the unprecedented flow of digital images, acts as a kind of window into the world … transparent glass one has to ask if the traditional status of photography as a through which we see images.” We are living in a time of digital way of documenting the world has been altered irrevocamania. Never before has there been such interest in producing bly. What role does reportage play when the smartphone pictures, from an institutional level to snapshots of people on has made us all potential citizen (photo)journalists?” What’s the street. The numbers are simply staggering. When Wiley’s more, what does this daily barrage mean for those trying to article was written, Facebook users were uploading 300m make a living, and forge a career, out of the medium? One institution has done more than most to help us unshots a day, whilst those uploaded to Flickr and Instagram had risen above 11 billion. “Everything and everyone on derstand the nuances of this loaded question. Foam, the earth and beyond, it would seem, has been slotted some- museum and magazine based in Amsterdam, has, since where in a rapacious, ever-expanding Borgesian library of 2007, organised Foam Talent, an annual Call for the most representation that we have built for ourselves,” he wrote. “As important emerging figures under the age of 35. For Elisa a result, the possibility of making a photograph that can stake Medde, who has been the Managing Editor since 2012, the a claim to originality has been radically called into question.” survey, and its shortlist, is “part of the larger mission to proYet, at the same time, we have stopped trying to understand mote and provide a platform for young practitioners.” The process is wholly democratic, based on an open what is driving the aesthetics of our most successful contemporary artists. “What is missing,” Wiley writes, “is the impulse submission basis. This year, the 20 names were chosen from to identify schools or movements within new practices, and 1,853 portfolios received from countries as diverse as South Korea, Somalia, Mozambique and Lebanon. Of the selected the desire to codify a set of common principles.” Has anything changed in the seven years since Wiley wrote names in this year’s issue, artists from America, Europe and this piece? Writing in the The Guardian, Sean O’Hagan ref- Japan feature alongside China, Russia and Ghana. This initiative is, however, not the only annual survey of erences Wiley’s article to explore where the medium might go now, as social media use has pushed us all further into emerging talent. In the UK, British Journal of Photography uncharted territory. As it stands today, 350m images a day publishes an annual Ones to Watch issue, whilst Aperture in are now uploaded onto Facebook, whilst Instagram clocks New York often themes magazines around new voices from in at 95m pictures and videos per day. Added to this, there under-represented regions, with the Summer 2017 edition are 188m daily active users of Snapchat. “Is photography,” titled Platform Africa. However, Foam Talent is not just an-

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From the series Frères d’une île pas très proche, 2018. © Durimel, courtesy of the artists.

“Pulling together the threads of various topographies, relationships and experiences – those included in this year’s Foam Talent are, therefore, a litmus test of where photography can go and what it can do.”

Previous Page: Dima Komarov, Untitled. Taken in the village of Vaslisola, Novotoryal District, Republic of Mari-El. August 2018. Courtesy of the artist. Left: From the series Frères d’une île pas très proche, 2018. © Durimel, courtesy of the artists.

other print-based showcase of notable practitioners. The project is augmented by an exhibition, talks and an events programme that take in Amsterdam, New York, London and Frankfurt throughout the following year. Furthermore, work by one of the selected practitioners is then added to the permanent art collection of the Deutsche Börse Foundation in Frankfurt, with all the shortlistees catalogued within the everexpanding allure of Instagram circulation and popularity. But why are these platforms so important in charting the changing nature of art? How do they tell us more about the ways in which digital media alters our perception of archiving and data as opposed to meaningful compositions? Looking at each issue from 2007 to today, one can gather a sense of how the medium is being interrogated, and in what direction it is moving. Talent Calls such as these are about understanding photography through a period of change. “The submissions – coming from all over the world – create a map,” Medde explains of its diversity and impact. “Next to floating trends and tendencies, artists keep focusing steadily on social, political and environmental concerns, very often entwined with identity and personal representations. Today’s emerging practitioners cross borders with striking ease. The making of classic two-dimensional representations is interchangeable with object installations, meaning that the experience of the work is important as the vision.” Medde and the team, therefore, are not merely searching for interesting conceptual or technically impressive works. They’re looking for a series of pieces that, linked together, say something about the here and now – offering introspection in a world of disconnect. As jigsaw pieces meshed together, they create a blur of information about the contem-

porary experience. “We want to give a reliable idea of what this generation is working on in different areas of the planet,” Medde says. “We don’t see it simply as an award, but as a curated selection. We actively put together 20 bodies of work that we think of as somehow representative of a generation in a specific moment in time. We want images that are able to say something about what’s going on out there..” So what has Foam made of this year’s crop? “The differences we noticed are related to tendencies in ways of working. We’re finding more longer-term projects, in which all the techniques are perceived increasingly as a tool, rather than the end result.” There is, she suggests, a simple reason behind these choices. “Younger generations are having lots of fun with photography – more than previous generations. The work is more playful, yet more conscious in a way,” Medde continues. “To me, it feels like they see it more as a craft.” In an era when spontaneous protests are instantaneously captured by camera phone users on the ground, the hallowed ideals of reportage are surely in existential threat. Not so, according to Medde. But we will have to work to re-adapt what we understand to be “documentary” works. “Practitioners these days are capable of using all artistic techniques to build up new ways to address issues,” she says. On the other end of the scale, the team has noticed works that, whilst being distinctly “photographic,” have used other disciplines as a way of informing the final series. In other words, the means contribute to their ends, and are deeply involved in the production along the way. “It could be sculpture or performance or poetry or journalism,” she says. “The works are free of strict boundaries of what an image should be or what it should convey.”

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From the series Frères d’une île pas très proche, 2018. © Durimel, courtesy of the artists.

Similarly, Dima Komarov has amassed an impressive fol- Right: A good example of this is the Washington-born, ChicagoFrom the series 43-35 10th Street, raised Daniel Shea, who, in March 2018, won the esteemed lowing on Instagram – under the handle of @_nothingxgood 2018. © Daniel Shea, courtesy of Foam Paul Huf award, earning him €20,000 and a solo show – for portraits of teenagers at play in St. Petersburg, as well the artist and Webber Represents. currently taking place at the Amsterdam gallery. Shea’s as intimate shots of domestic buildings. Using a Canon 600d, 43-35 10th Street, which was originally published by Kodoji Komarov started out as a street photographer – hanging out Press last year, can be seen as a way of understanding the at skate parks and gigs and underground parties, taking real estate gentrification of his neighbourhood in Long shots as a way of fun. But recently he has moved into the Island, Queens. Once an industrial area, the city is now home realms of studio work, and in doing so has heightened his to such cultural destinations as MoMA PS1, as well as a practice so it resembles an anarchic fashion shoot – the kind gleaming new crop of expensive high-rise, new-build apart- of collections that might be linked to the iconic visions of Larry Clark, Terry Richardson or Juergen Teller. ments which look out across the Manhattan cityscape. Unlike the sense of hedonism conjured with these Shea has reflected that modernist architecture “comes in the form of a utopia of consumer engagement.” To commu- household fashion names, however, Komarov has a distinct nicate this, he juxtaposes the Long Island images with studies point to communicate, connected with his identity. “Russian of government buildings in Brazil, as well as a small indus- youth culture is becoming more similar to the West,” Komarov trial town in the margin-lands of California, to create a series states in an interview with It’s Nice That (Laura Isabella, April that shows how structures can reinforce class boundaries and 2018). “But I feel that a global boom is still to come because Words economic inequality. Shea’s artistic past includes time spent we can still feel the pressure and prejudice of the older Tom Seymour as a dedicated sculptor, and this is reflected in his feel for generations in Russia. We also live under harsh control; the shape and contour, and a focus on the graphic elements of government doesn’t want to support young people.” Komarov indicates the power of image-making to continu- Foam Amsterdam, an architectural composition. Despite this, the pieces are esally reassess our place within society – panning from the indi- 13 January - 3 March; sentially humanistic – aligned with ideals of documentary. Durimel – twin brothers Jalan and Jibril Durimel – also vidual into the universal. Pulling together various experiences Red Hook Labs, New York, included in the 2018 presentation, draw inspiration through – those included in this year’s Foam Talent are, therefore, a 22 March - 10 April; their diversified upbringing between the French Antilles and litmus test of where photography can go and what it can do Beaconsfield Gallery the USA. Born in Paris to parents from the island of Guade- through the seemingly omniscient eyes of digital feeds. So is Vauxhall, London, loupe, at the age of four they moved to Miami where they art more about accessibility and experimentation in an age of 16 May - 9 June; first immersed themselves in American culture. Each image overload? Or is it about curation – selecting and editing with Deutsche Börse, Frankfurt, demonstrates, as they note, “a passion for life’s unseen, ro- precision? “It’s clear practitioners are more conscious of the 6 September - 1 November. mantic and graceful moments and in the desire to use their opportunities they have within their hands,” Medde concludes. “If they can make use of a platform, or a tool, they will.” skill to tell the stories of all cultures of the diaspora.” www.foam.org

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Aesthetic Minimalism Gianfilippo De Rossi

Based between Rome and Los Angeles (b. 1987), Gianfilippo De Rossi largely focuses on street photography and the urban landscape – pinpointing rapid changes in industry through the rise of globalised architecture. Three years ago, he began to capture the minimal topography of Los Angeles, finding a sense of calm in the fast-paced city through the harmony of colour and line. In the process De Rossi became invigorated by the emptiness that can be found in fleeting moments – car signs, trees or cars picked out of a sea of concrete. Featuring a primary colour palette, the images offer precision through the balance of geometric form. What De Rossi highlights is the urge to select, curate and edit through the overwhelming amount of information available in the city – mapping personal experiences through the constant sensory and emotive stimuli of contemporary life. www.gianfilippoderossi.com.

Gianfilippo De Rossi, BRY. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gianfilippo De Rossi, BBOR. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gianfilippo De Rossi, BYR. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gianfilippo De Rossi, GBROYPW + VINE. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gianfilippo De Rossi, BYW. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gianfilippo De Rossi, BGBR. Courtesy of the artist.

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Human Observation Whitney Hayes

With a client list that includes Carolina Herrera, Ignant, Nike, VSCO, Donna Karan, Moda Operandi, Schön Magazine, Vogue and Teeth, Whitney Hayes is a fashion photographer passionate about capturing the defining moments of humanity – driven by mood as a compositional element. Searching for emotion within a landscape of disconnect, Hayes purveys youth and beauty through a range of projects from backstage and runway to editorial. Aside from her interests in contemporary visual culture, Whitney is also an activist in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease, raising awareness and affecting change through an in-depth portrait project. Providing glimpses into the complexities of memory, time and the singular physical experience, the following works cast an eye over our place within nature as a land of light and shadows – deep forestry and open pathways depict larger depths within the psyche. www.whitney-hayes.com.

Whitney Hayes, A self portrait taken in Oregon. Courtesy of the artist.

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Whitney Hayes, A late day image taken in Ecola State Park, Oregon. Courtesy of the artist.

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Whitney Hayes. Model: Kara Neko in Narragansett, Rhode Island, from the fashion editorial Wind From The Sea shot for Monrowe Magazine. Courtesy of the artist.

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Whitney Hayes, A hidden shore home in Oregon, taken from the beach. Courtesy of the artist.

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Whitney Hayes, a classic Narragansett end of day, from Wind From The Sea for Monrowe Magazine. Courtesy of the artist.

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Transient Installation Lust for Light A NEW GENERATION OF ARTISTS CONSIDERS THE ALLURE OF VISUAL STIMULATION, CREATING PLAYFUL AND IMMERSIVE PROJECTS THAT TRIGGER SENSORY EXPERIENCES.

As a species, we have a pretty nuanced understanding of how cannot physically register photons, we cannot see without light works, and how it blends into our lives seamlessly. This them either. It contains a spectrum of seven visible colours, includes the birth of photography – a medium now ingrained and millions of gradations between them. It all feels infinite.” With such an open landscape for discussion, the collecin daily feeds – a way of capturing a burst of ultraviolet rays bouncing off the subject matter in front of us. However, what tion dives headfirst into well-known experiential practitionwe see isn’t always an exact representation of the truth. As ers like Olivier Ratsi, sculptors such as Iván Navarro and Laurence Scott notes in Picnic Comma Lightning: In Search Romain Tardy, photographers like Brice Bischoff and Barbara of a New Reality (2018): “Our brains can’t see, hear or taste. Kasten, and site-specific artists such as Bill FitzGibbons. PerThey sit in the dark, making up a world informed by electrical haps most significantly, any discussion of light would not be stimuli from our sense organs. What we consciously perceive complete without mentioning Yayoi Kusama, who has arguably become one of the most iconic avant-garde figures in is our brain’s ‘best guess’ at what the outside world is like.” Image-making has advanced from anthropological and the world. Nick Clark wrote in The Independent (April 2015): documentary usages into the realm of high art, so an associ- “[Her] trademark polka-dotted sculptures and mirror instalated form of expression developed. In light art, the visible lations have proved a huge draw, with up to 9,000 flocking spectrum is the discipline and concept all in one – pushing to the touring show [Infinite Obsession] a day – making her the lines between figuration, abstraction and representation, exhibitions the most visited in the world.” Few realise that Kusama’s Infinity Rooms have been exand asking viewers to reassess their perception of the world. A new book titled Lust for Light tracks the evolution of hibited since the early 1960s, when she was an underthis genre in all its complexity. Edited by Hannah Stouffer – recognised but active member of New York’s East Village whose writing and artistic credits include VICE, Juxtapoz, art scene, famously swapping letters with Georgia O’Keeffe. New York Times and Microsoft – the title profiles numerous The rooms are still shown today – with Victoria Miro’s The practitioners who are using the medium in progressive ways, Moving Moment When I Went To The Universe open until 21 exploring how we place something so fundamental to our December 2018 in London – demonstrating an iconic ability existence on such an elevated cultural pedestal, and increas- to give form and structure to psychedelic colours, repetition ingly so. Stouffer notes: “Light causes our planet to flourish – and reflection and – crucially – light’s tangible, endless and it is associated with growth and warmth.” Indeed, without it, completely uncontainable qualities in nature. It’s difficult to find another artist that inspires such devoour vision of the world would be impossible, so its associations are vast and tied to our surroundings. She continues: tion to the craft. Access to one of the Infinity Rooms requires “Visible rays enable our sense of sight, and although we most to stand in line for any number of hours. And whilst

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Fuji, Joanie Lemercier, Japan 2014, © studio JL. Audiovisual installation, 15:00 minutes. Concept and visuals: Joanie Lemercier; Music: Paul Jebanasam Production: Juliette Bibasse. www.joanielemercier.com/fuji..

“In light art, the visible spectrum is the discipline and concept all in one – pushing the lines between figuration, abstraction and representation, and asking viewers to reassess their perception of the world.”

Previous Page: Blueprint, Joanie Lemercier, STRP Biennale 2015, ©studio JL. Audiovisual installation, 15:00 minutes. Concept and visuals: Joanie Lemercier; Music: James Ginzburg; and Yair Glotman. Commissioned by STRP Biennale 2015, Eindhoven. Artist production: Juliette Bibasse. www.joanielemercier.com/blueprint.

Left: Barry Underwood, Drill, 2015.

Kusama still works at a furious pace, she spends her days are challenging contemporary human perceptions of the in a psychiatric unit in Japan – having survived a series of world. Members of modern society have forgotten how they suicide attempts, brought about in part because of depres- once saw the world. By reaching back and examining past sion caused by the lack of recognition from her now prolific means of understanding, we find hints for the future.” Similar to teamLab is Nonotak, a French performance career. Why then has she found so much fame so late? In some ways, the phenomena might be understood by anoth- project founded by illustrator Noemi Schipfer and architect er, more widespread usage of light – the camera phone and Takami Nakamoto. The collaborative studio creates ethereal, its connected image, best summed up by Instagram, which dreamlike environments built to envelop, challenge and stagger the viewer, with custom-built technology, projection enables all users to share a selfie in seconds. From iPhones to gallery spaces, the influence of installa- mapping, reflective surfaces and fibre optics designed to tions like Kusama’s (amongst other pioneers such as Dan provoke audiences into questioning their surroundings. New developments have also transformed how practiFlavin, James Turrell, Keith Sonnier, Olafur Eliasson and Jenny Holzer) seems to be embedded in hugely popular tioners operate in isolation, as well as together – in duos exhibitions, ones in which the individual becomes part of or groups. One example of this is Sabrina Ratté, who works the show. Take, for example, teamLab, a collective of “ultrat- with video synthesisers. “I manipulate electricity through echnologists” founded in 2001 with offices in Tokyo, Shang- knobs and wires in order to transform the luminous signal hai, Singapore and London. The group’s practice navigates into shapes, colours, textures and movements.” She uses the the confluence of art and science with more traditionally phrase “digital sculpting” – a way of turning “the electronic inclined designers working alongside programmers, engi- signal into abstract landscapes or virtual environments. My neers and mathematicians. Intuition, sensory stimulation videos mix analogue with contemporary techniques; they are and social consciousness resonate in the collective’s aspira- a way to acknowledge the history of video art whilst subverttions. They note: “We describe our work as interactive. Unlike ing the formatted aesthetics that have risen with digital.” Whilst new technologies have transformed many practices a viewer who stands in front of a painting, [those] immersed in and beyond light art, some artists are still working with in an artwork [are] more aware of other people’s presences.” Indeed, the now prevalent digital age has changed the rather more tractional light forms. Kate Hush finds ways to way viewers think and feel about culture. To observe this has play with neon, the inert noble gas which has been used varialmost become a truism. However, less attention has been ously, for both creative and commercial purposes, for nearly paid to the way technology has enabled cross-disciplinary 100 years. Hush, who is based in Brooklyn, creates expresand intermedia art – the spaces in-between. As teamLab de- sive portraits through cylindrical shapes. “Growing up by scribes: “By using what we have termed as ‘ultra-subjective the forest, I had many light sources,” she says. “The sun, the space,’ we can experiment with new visual experiences. We moon, twilight, fires, porch lights and the occasional flicker-

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DAYDREAM V.2 by NONOTAK (Noemi Schipfer & Takami Nakamoto.)

ing street lamps; all your run-of-the-mill yellow and white now recognised for a deeply experiential manipulation of Right: by NONOTAK, colour in both studio spaces and built environments. The HOSHI illuminations occurring in nature and Sylvania bulbs. (Noemi Schipfer & Takami Nakamoto.) “But I also had the light of the television. A small screen purpose: to extend the imagination beyond architecture and wherein to sit vigil and become witness to the seductive to redefine our involvement within place. West notes: “I’m inglow. Every colour imaginable was there … I wondered what terested in looking at how sensory phenomena can invoke it was like to be Kim Novak bathed in the neon green hotel psychological and physical responses, tapping into our own of [Hitchcock’s] Vertigo. So I found my way into the city and deeply entrenched relationships to colour.” This interest is also picked up by the likes of Joanie Lemerinto the neon shop to finally become the woman in the light.” What Hush poignantly describes is humanity’s fasci- cier, whose practice manifests in optical illusions and trompe nation with screens as they buzz and flicker – we are now in a l’oeil effects, questioning reality through visual sensation. world riveted by visual aura and moving image, where fictive Somewhat comparably, Stouffer recognises those who inmodels are just as interesting as the truth, and artificial light corporate the natural landscape into their work. This occurs is just as alluring as sunlight. To bring back Scott’s ideas, “we most notably with Barry Underwood’s long exposure LED are being coaxed into new lines of sight, encouraged to see photography and Javier Riera’s projections. Riera states: “Geboth public and private, inside and outside, simultaneously.” ometry is the language that best describes the deep pulse Many other well-known names have returned to the tech- of nature. In my opinion, projecting light is quite similar to nical advances of yesteryear, which, when repurposed, can painting on canvas, yet there is no physical substance – just still create extraordinary lightscapes. Miguel Chevalier is a flow of electrons that disappears when the electric current one such example, who uses dated computers: “On a screen, is interrupted. When I finish working in a place, everything colour is light. Red, green and blue electron (RGB) beams remains as it was before I started working there.” What Riera picks up on is that the spectacle of light art – follow mathematic calculations and generate an infinite number of chromatic variations – a stream of 16 million nu- whilst offering little by the way of environmental disruption merical shades. Computers represent a fabulous dictionary – is part of humanity’s new, transient language. The presence of forms, on which basis I can modify and regenerate images.” of code, the blue light of our phone screens and pixellated Words From RGB to CYMK and beyond, colour plays a crucial worlds are still being defined. Sculptors, designers and pho- Tom Seymour part in our understanding of the world. Consider the images tographers using renders, virtual reality and trompe l’oeil are printed within these pages, as opposed to their counterparts generating realities for humanity to experience. Celebrated viewed through monitors, touchscreens and digital borders. installations such as West’s, Kusama’s and Nonotak’s are so Lust for Light is published Each shade carries its own connotations and is deeply con- popular because they help us to make sense of a planet that by Gingko Press. nected to our emotions. Manchester-based Liz West – a final- now – through digital spheres – is constantly performing, reist in the 2016 Aesthetica Art Prize – is another practitioner assessing and rewriting our version of the truth. www.gingkopress.com

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Playful Direction LM Chabot

LM Chabot fuses sensitive and objectivity, casting a critical yet sensitive eye over the environment and society through photographs that span fashion, architectural and editorial genres. Inspired by a multitude of surroundings, the duo’s practice focuses around the unexpected; each image exposes the oddities of life through bold, communicative vignettes. The following pages display pieces from a number of personal series including True Colours – a project solely based on spontaneity and creativity – and Trapped – a representation of the #MeToo movement. Also featured are photographs from a variety of commissions from across the globe for Korean Air and Still Optimiste – a clothing collection inspired by the pop-culture illustrations of Montreal visual artist Pony (@ponymtl). LM Chabot has won a number of prestigious accolades such as the Lux Prize, the Kuala Lumpur international photoawards and Flash Forward as part of the Magenta Foundation. www.lmchabot.com.

LM Chabot, True Colours. Photographers: LM Chabot; HMUA: Valeria Amirova; Stylist: Mélodie Wronski; Models: Kate (Folio), Cat (Folio), Marie-Christine (Montage), Marie-Claire (Montage); Retoucher Victoria Lord.

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LM Chabot, Still Optimiste. Initiative: Sid Lee Collective; Photographers: LM Chabot; Photo Assistant: Marc-Olivier Bécotte; Creative Director: Gabrielle Laïla Tittley; Art Director: Camille Boyer; Art Director Assistant: Maude DionRoyal; Stylist: Mélodie Wronski; HMUA: Valeria Amirova; Models: Milly (Folio), Jerimy Riviera, Sophie B-T, Sebastien Hotte; Retoucher: Visual Box; Production: Shaida Missaghi; Production Assistant: Sebastien Hotte, Joëlle Binet.

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LM Chabot, Trapped (detail). Concept, Art Director & Photographers: LM Chabot; Paper Artist: Pauline Loctin (Folio); Models: Vincent Malo, Catherine Dacier; Retoucher: Visual Box; Production Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ĂŠloi.

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LM Chabot, True Colours. Photographers: LM Chabot; HMUA: Valeria Amirova; Stylist: MĂŠlodie Wronski; Models: Kate (Folio), Cat (Folio), Marie-Christine (Montage), Marie-Claire (Montage); Retoucher Victoria Lord.

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LM Chabot, En Route. Photographers: LM Chabot; Set Designer: Evelyne Morin; Stylist: Tinashe Musara (Folio); HMUA: Valeria Amirova; Model: Milly (Folio); Retoucher: Yuna Kersalé; Client: En Route Magazine; Production: L’éloi.

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LL Chabot, Korean Air. Photographers: LM Chabot; Art Director: Camille Boyer; Retoucher: Victoria Lord; Client: Korean Air; Agency: Ogilvy Shanghai; Production: L’éloi.

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art

Built for the Elements Living in the Desert APPROXIMATELY ONE THIRD OF THE WORLD’S LAND MASS IS COVERED BY DESERT; A SELECTION OF INNOVATIVE ARCHITECTS TAKE ON THE CHALLENGE OF THESE TERRAINS.

“I am supportive of an art that takes into account the direct distinctive tasks, and joys, presented by life in one of the effect of the elements as they exist from day to day,” wrote world’s most fickle and unrelenting environments. The paradoxical nature of the subject matter is poignantly the pioneering land artist Robert Smithson in his 1972 essay Cultural Confinement. Practitioners like Smithson and captured in the introduction: “To build in any environment, his modern-day disciples who move beyond the confines of one must ask: What is a desert? Words typically used to traditional gallery spaces in favour of the outdoors find a describe such arid landscapes include: uninhabited, unocmost worthy opponent in extreme conditions, perhaps none cupied, unpeopled, abandoned, evacuated, tenantless, unmore so than the hot, dry and unforgiving desert. Its ex- frequented, neglected, secluded, isolated, desolate, lonely, panses have long seduced creatives of all disciplines – from solitary. All of these words emphasise the negative space authors and musicians to painters and architects – and with and contribute to a sense of nothingness. A desert may good reason. Despite an array of contemporary technologi- simply be defined by its lack.” However, emptiness in a world cal advancements, the terrain is in many ways still elusive of excess offers both opportunity and adversity. Through the dozens of diverse and surprising examples and menacing, and as such, simply beguiling. Those individuals bold enough to seek shelter in the desert – included, the author makes the case that, not unlike the even if only temporarily – face a profusion of challenges above argument enumerated by Smithson, by stepping that include heating and cooling, as well as securing safe outside of the well-established comforts of the built world and reliable sources of water and electricity. However, as and seeking new solutions in unforeseen environments, it the familiar adage goes, with great risk comes great reward. not only becomes possible to innovate through art and Breathtaking views, an abundance of space, an unmatched architecture, but also to gain deeper insight into what it sense of tranquillity and an unflinching understanding of takes to live, and build, embracing new corners of the world the surrounding elements seem to come as standard with away from megacities, high rises and global infrastructure. life in an arid plane. And in today’s world of global feeds, “The desert is famously inhospitable,” notes Moren, who was post-truths and dense populations, the notion of space first drawn to the geography when introduced to the artist and reconnecting with nature seems to be an unattainable Andrea Zittel’s sprawling live-work compound in Joshua Tree oasis. These contrasting ideals are the subject of a recent National Park, California, titled Wagon Station Encampment. book published by Phaidon. Conceived by the editors of “Out of necessity, you have to think, ‘How do I create wind the publishing house and written by Izabela Anna Moren, tunnels? How do I create cross-ventilation? How do I heat the compendium highlights 50 residences – from USA, water?’” She continues, “It’s not like a modern apartment in a Australia, Europe, Asia and beyond – that consider the major city like London or Berlin. You cannot afford to ignore

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Campos Leckie Studio, Zacatitos 03, 2011, Los Zacatitos, Mexico. Image credit: John Sinal.

“Breathtaking views, an abundance of space, an unmatched sense of tranquility and an unflinching understanding of the surrounding elements seem to come as standard with life in an arid plane.”

Previous Page: Openstudio Architects, Swartberg House, 2013, Karoo Desert, South Africa. Imge credit: Richard Davies. Left: Guilhem Eustache, Fobe House, 2014, Marrakech, Morocco. Image credit: Jean-Marie Mothers.

the way that you live and the solutions you need to survive.” Several common denominators such as remote location, sustainable practices and an ability to re-engage humans with the landscape bind all of the divergent constructions together. However, each home falls into one of three distinct categories: Built to Embrace, Built Within or Built to Resist the Desert. The former classification is defined as architecture that “is characterised by various possible forms of dedication to nature, be it through enhancing panoramic vistas, following the trajectory of its light, or imitating its organic colours and shapes. These are houses that allow one to experience the organic world from within as much as from without.” Amongst the key buildings highlighted is the thick-walled and aesthetically satisfying Swartberg House in the Karoo Desert of South Africa. Built in 2013 by the firm Openstudio Architects, this stark-white citadel shields its inhabitants from the region’s harsh temperatures, which range from minus six to 40 degrees Celsius, whilst offering sweeping views of the surrounding grasslands and vineyards from the strategically placed windows and a generously sized roof terrace. “In the context of an environment with such overwhelming visual stimuli, strategies for inserting oneself into the desert become increasingly elaborate,” Moren explains. “A structure’s entire orientation [has] to be meticulously choreographed to coincide with nature’s movements.” The Swartberg House finds itself in good company in this chapter. Also present is the appropriately titled House to Watch the Sunset by Not Vital. Situated in Aladab, Niger, this dutifully geometric, mud-and-straw construction bears a striking resemblance to the ancient Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico and, through the incorporation of purposefully

located doors and windows, invites guests to take their time gazing upon the vast and level ground and seemingly endless blue skies. As the book attests: “These structures not only guide your eyes, but your body through space. It comes down to fundamental questions: what’s the first thing you see in the morning when you wake up? With these houses, the external topography is as exposed to you as you are to it.” Creating pathways between geology and the personal experience, the buildings create a sense of paralleled rhythm between living, breathing and walking through rooms within an undulating landscape. Artist Doug Aitken further questions humanity’s reconnection to nature with Mirage. Fabricated in 2017, the monolithic piece was installed in Palm Springs as part of the inaugural edition of the Desert X biennial. As its title suggests, this sculpture-cum-structure has the capability to mirror the mountains of the Coachella Valley surroundings or become completely camouflaged, depending on the time of day. Aitken’s phantasm serves as a mechanism for self-reflection. The preceding section of the publication, dubbed Built Within the Desert, features projects, that are “together with nature and attempt to give back to it, if only by not depleting it further. As architecture has a claim to permanence, it is a virtue to include solutions that compensate for prevalent lack, exploit the benefits of available materials, and generate new resources from existing ones, thereby setting up a circular cycle able to sustain itself without – or with only minimal – outside intervention. Fitting this bill is the recent Tunisian construction Deserti Tascabili DJ Complex #2 by AutonomeForme Architettura. Realised in 2017 and inspired by the 2009 text You Must Change Your Life

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AutonomeForme Architettura, Deserti Tascabili DJ Complex #2, 2017, Djerba, Tunisia. Image credit: © Archive AutonomeForme .

by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, this stately property offers both sea and desert vistas and reduces its environmental impact with astonishingly dense walls that allow for natural cooling – allowing free-flowing spaces. Also of note is one of the most sought-after resorts in America: Amangiri. Established in 2009 by I-10 Studio, this Utah sanctuary has become synonymous with idealised luxury – filling google image searches with sunset-lit patios and classical Americana rock formations. The modest scale and earth-tone walls invite guests to gaze outwardly, fixing their sights on the monuments and sweeping parks that surround the property. As Moren illustrates: “Much of its beauty lies in the fact that it does not try to overpower the breathtaking views but rather supports them, silently.” Homes engineered to manoeuvre the elements, to stand up to extreme temperatures and arid conditions comprise the final category of structure outlined. Moren continues: “Depending on the technological possibilities available, architects have introduced innovations to improve their buildings’ abilities to withstand the world outside. Recent discourse has mainly focused disaster preparedness, with architecture and science uniting to develop projects that can withstand earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires or tsunamis. In the desert, such defiance is needed on a daily basis.” This ultimate grouping comprises projects like a 2011 off-grid prototype by Michael Leckie and Javier Campos: Zacatitos 03. Named after the Baja California Sur community in which the home is located, this construction calls upon minimalism to combat the harsh exteriors. Concrete, glass, steel and aluminium work together, in harmony, to maximise ventilation and minimise heat retention. Though stylish in appearance, this Mexican abode is a feat of

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engineering and design. As this chapter’s accompanying copy expounds, the practitioners behind Zacatitos 03 “use methods to overpower or outwit nature, with the benefit of ingenuity and funds – to build works of extremely high quality in a topography that challenges the basic skill of survival.” Similarly, Guilhem Eustache’s 2014 Fobe House from Marrakech exemplifies ecologically minded architecture through the use of artisan-crafted, double-thick walls that facilitate temperature regulation. Reminiscent of a modular form conceived by Sol LeWitt, this brightwhite desert mirage marries form and function to create a dreamlike environment fit for its cinematographer client. As the Fobe House and Zacatitos 03, and the previous examples, illustrate, desert constructions are not, by any means, devoid of beauty. But buildings cannot rely on aesthetics to survive. Ingenuity, creativity and wit is required. “It is modern progress that allows us to spend extended periods of time in hostile environments and attempt to find a balance between radically taming one’s surroundings and slowly, thoughtfully adjusting to them,” the text summarises. In a world where industry has accrued astonishing amounts of environmental damage – with just 12 years to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius – the cataloguing of these projects comes at a time of need for the planet. Exploring the ingenuity of architecture to work with the land – as far as it extends – in constructive, meaningful and unprecedented ways, the publication is a testimony to designers recognising the hold that geology has on our very existence. In 1972, Smithson stated that “nature is never finished.” Perhaps, however, this should be updated, taking into account today’s ecological state. Nature – in its supremacy, fragility and vulnerability – should never be taken for granted.

Right: Campos Leckie Studio, Zacatitos 03, 2011, Los Zacatitos, Mexico. Image credit: John Sinal.

Words Stephanie Strasnick

www.phaidon.com

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Reflective Environments Six N. Five

Six N. Five is a contemporary design studio – directed by Ezequiel Pini (b. 1985) – that specialises in still life visuals and videos with a clean and modern aesthetic. Aside from working on advertising, editorial and video commissions, the brand also makes experimental work which is legitimising CGI as a new medium for self-expression. The Wait and Luster series introduce product design through immersive image collections and are showcased in the following pages. The former – influenced by Edward Hopper, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders of John Register – introduces furniture pieces from Atelier Aveus into contemplative settings, depicting the distortion of time through room dividers, sofas and wall lamps. Highly poetic scenarios utilise soft colours and symbolic objects to construct a sanctuary filled with potential. The latter is a collaboration with Studio Proba for a collection of rugs placed within imaginative architectural configurations. www.sixnfive.com.

The Wait for Atelier Aveus. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Atelier Aveus.

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Luster for Studio Proba. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Studio Proba.

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Luster for Studio Proba. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Studio Proba.

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The Wait for Atelier Aveus. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Atelier Aveus.

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The Wait for Atelier Aveus. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Atelier Aveus.

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Luster for Studio Proba. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Studio Proba.

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Luster for Studio Proba. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Studio Proba.

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The Wait for Atelier Aveus. All the image rights belong to Six N. Five & Atelier Aveus.

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Subverting Expectations Marta Bevacqua

In 2011, Italian fine art photographer Marta Bevacqua (b. 1989) became inspired by fashion, embarking on a new career path that started with a short course at Central St Martins. Moving to Paris in 2014, she realised curatorial and advertorial initiatives with Vogue Italia, widening an already successful portfolio with a mixture of personal and commercial projects centred around portraiture. Bevacqua’s current credits include a number of high-profile editorials and campaigns for the likes of Madame Figaro, Grazia, Marie Claire and Vichy. The following works all look at the significance of frames – female figures sit by windows, look into mirrors or gaze back at the viewer, layered by the edges of a transformative photograph. The compositions communicate poignant yet playful messages about the role of women and visual identities – creating intriguing visuals that question the notion of a polished, edited self. www.martabevacquaphotography.com.

Marta Bevacqua, editorial for Paulette Magazine (May-June 2018 issue). Model: Coralie Kory. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Editorial for Grazia Magazine France. Model: Emma Laird @ Ford. Courtesy ot the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Editorial for Grazia Magazine France. Model: Vovk @ Mademoiselle Agency. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Strange days. Model: Beatrice Simion. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Chloe. Model: Chloe @ Mademoiselle Agency. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Autumn. Model: Francesca Moro. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Sky. Model: Janke du toit. Courtesy of the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Editorial for Grazia Magazine France. Model: Emma Laird @ Ford. Courtesy ot the artist.

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Marta Bevacqua, Editorial for Grazia Magazine France. Model: Emma Laird @ Ford. Courtesy ot the artist.

exhibition reviews

1Wake Up Together

REN HANG & WHERE LOVE IS ILLEGAL

When Chinese photographer Ren Hang committed suicide in February 2017, his death was widely mourned as the loss of a visionary, one who questioned the meanings placed upon the body. Liverpool’s Open Eye Gallery – the first UK exhibition of Hang’s work – demonstrates the beauty of photographs in challenging expectations of individual identity within a world of mistrust and prejudice. Ren’s work masterfully places nude subjects in harmony with their surroundings. Gender characteristics are exposed, yet irrelevant. Whilst a strong current of physical intimacy runs through his work, there is no sign of the “pornography” of which he was accused by the Chinese authorities. The interactions between subjects are instead playful, exploring the possibilities of a body connecting with others in poignant ways. Plants and animals are used not as masks, but as objects that create a symbiotic relationship with nature. The

palette, contrasting the neutral skin tones with vivid, multitonal hues, gives a sense of vibrancy to the scenes that emphasises a delightful freedom, where it becomes possible to live organically within one’s own skin. A similarly powerful commitment to authenticity runs through Robin Hammond’s series Where Love is Illegal, also being exhibited. Documenting couples and individuals living in countries where it is forbidden to love as they wish, each image is accompanied by a story – in the subject’s own hands – of the struggles they have faced. But there is little sense of weariness in the portraits; instead they’re intimate, defiant and unwilling to present themselves as they are to the rest of the world. Whilst both featured practitioners reflect upon the problems that can arise from living true to one’s spirit, they also powerfully capture the emotion and determination of the human condition to do so.

Words Julia Johnson

Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool 15 November - 17 February www.openeye.org.uk

2Politics of Seeing DOROTHEA LANGE

This retrospective of Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) spans work from the early 1930s to lesser-known pieces of the 1950s. The generous selection is complemented by riveting slides that put the iconic works in the context of their series. There’s an eye-opening alternative slide to the one known as Mother and Child which shows a young girl leaning despondently against a barbed wire fence as her mother watches from behind. In the photo taken just before it, the girl is smiling, giving the viewer a less homogeneously melancholy and humanistic view of The Great Depression. In 1932, Lange dropped studio portraiture to chronicle economic hardship in the San Francisco area. With Paul Taylor, the professor who later became her husband, Lange published An American Exodus (1939). Some of these works are harrowing to contemplate. Migrant Mother documents the plight of a mother flanked by her three children: the

mother had just sold the tyres on her car when Lange offered to help her by making her distress known to the wider public. Another heart-rending piece is White Angel Breadline which focuses the viewer’s attention on an isolated beggar using the same principle: he faces us in a crowd of men turned in the opposite direction. Both photographs provoke nearreligious connotations in audiences, and are deeply affecting. After constituting an archive for the Farm Security Administration, Lange documented the ship-building industry in the San Francisco Bay area. In 1942, she turned her attention to the Japanese internment camps. Japanese Children with Tags is particularly poignant and Manzanar Relocation Center gives the viewer a haunting long-shot of the camp. The exhibition closes with images of public defenders and prisoners in the 1950s, when the concept of justice was extended to offer legal representation to those in need.

Words Erik Martiny

Jeu de Paume, Paris 16 October - 27 January www.jeudepaume.org

3Living with Buildings HEALTH AND ARCHITECTURE

Living with Buildings is a curious study of the structures which house and care for humanity. Each section takes on a different aspect of health, hospitalisation and healing in a dialogue between the changing needs of urban planning and developments in architecture. Novelist Jack London, Bauhaus founder Walter Gropius, and a range of artists including Rachel Whiteread, Camille Pissaro and Ilona Sagar present criticism around housing solutions, alongside increased understanding of how environments affect our mental and physical wellbeing collectively. Highlights include Andreas Gursky’s panoramic image Paris, Montparnasse 1993 – a seemingly endless tower of windows, depicting crowded yet isolated living. Elsewhere, Erno Goldfinger’s designs for the Balfron Tower (1965) are a compelling testament to utopian possibility paired with dystopian reality. The ground floor’s chapter contains a

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moving representation of Maggie’s Centres for cancer sufferers, whilst occupying the first-floor gallery is a full-scale model of a mobile health clinic offering a flexible, robust and private programme for medical staff working in remote, less-populated and developed areas of the world. The exhibition is a testament to the innovations of humanity across science and architecture. Destruction makes way for rejuvenation, a concept that can be seen amongst all the pieces on display, whilst the wider designs adhere to the changing needs of mass populations in today’s world. Wellcome Collection poignantly asks the question: “We’re surrounded by buildings all the time, but how do they affect our physical and mental health?” In an age of disorder, anxiety, disconnection and social upheaval, this is a necessary and thought-provoking show. Read Iain Sinclair’s book of the same name for further illumination on the topic.

Words Jillian Knipe

Wellcome Collection, London 4 October - 3 March wellcomecollection.org

1a. Untitled, Ren Hang, 2016. Courtesy of Stieglitz19, Belgium. 2a. Paul S. Taylor, Dorothea Lange in Texas on the Plains, circa 1935. Portrait of Dorothea Lange by Paul S. Taylor. © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. 2b. Dorothea Lange, Drought-abandoned house on the edge of the Great Plains near Hollis, Oklahoma, 1938. © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California. 3. Living with Buildings: Health and Architecture, Wellcome Collection, 04 October 2018 – 03 March 2019. Paimio Sanitorium designed by Alvar Aalto, Finland. Photo credit: Wellcome Collection.

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4a. Bleu Blanc Rouge no.19, 20?? © Christopher Anderson. Courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery. 4b. Bleu Blanc Rouge no.01, 2008. © Christopher Anderson. Courtesy The Ravestijn Gallery. 5. Eugene Richards, Wonder Bread, Dorchester, Massachusetts, 1975. Gelatin silver print. Collection of Eugene Richards. © Eugene Richards. 6. Paris, dog, 1979. © Ute Mahler, courtesy of the artist.

4Bleu Blanc Rouge CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON

Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam, presents Bleu Blanc Rouge, a remarkable catalogue of still lives and moments of magic realism by Magnum photographer Christopher Anderson. Bold, contrasting images span the globe in technicolour depictions of humanity – deep shadows and bright palettes profile the mundane and draw attention to fleeting memories between France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the USA. Born in Canada, Anderson has long been interested in intimate, hidden moments – documenting that which we cannot or do not usually get a chance to see. Strong compositions, rich details and powerful concepts have allowed the artist to go from strength to strength, including being New York Magazine’s first-ever photographer in residence. Describing the inspiration behind his work, Anderson has revealed that emotion is the only quality he is interested in. Indeed, this can be seen at Ravestijn, where a huge array

of poetic rhythms and performative expressions are on display. Viewers can hardly resist the temptation to delve into the curated space and connect to the complex narratives. Large-scale archive prints draw the viewer into surreal scenarios – compelling perspectives on a variety of concepts from French identity to ambiguous still lives to elements of Texan Americana. As audiences walk into the space, rich and cinematic colour schemes jar against the white walls – a foray into sensory information and over-saturation from the city. Close-ups of faces, anonymous portraits, raindrenched side-streets, spilt cherries, cars, flags, anonymous passers-by and corner illuminations are at every turn, constructing a wider impression of time as it moves through the lens and the documentation of western life. Anderson creates a rich tapestry of urban life charged with contemplation and urgency in the blue–white–red palette.

Words Thana Faroq

Ravestijn Gallery, Amsterdam 3 November - 22 December theravestijngallery.com

5 The Run-On of Time EUGENE RICHARDS

ICP’s first retrospective of Eugene Richards (b. 1944) spans nearly 50 years and explores critical themes in the photographer’s career. Combining original documents, notes, prints and digital videos from the artist’s collection, the exhibition captures Richards’s versatility, in terms of both style and subject matter. It is divided into seven thematic sections relating to aspects of socioeconomic struggle, health crises, war and terrorism, and evolving notions of the American family. Richards is particularly well-known for socially and politically conscious images of American inner-city life. In the 1980s, he and the reporter Edward Barnes worked together on a project dealing with inner-city drug addiction, which successfully presented an intimate and complex view of cocaine and crack addiction across groups of people. “There’s a process of getting to know people and getting them to trust you,” he wrote in 1986. “[But] I’m always very aware

that I’m visiting – that I’m there, that I have a responsibility.” Richards spent time in Ground Zero after the 9/11 attacks. He also spoke to collateral victims and first responders, documenting wounded veterans recently back from Afghanistan and Iraq. He conversed with their family members; attended funeral services, home births and weddings – always seeking to find the intrinsic relation between problematic places and the humans that inhabit them. In his recent The Blue Room series, Richards captured the Midwest’s crumbling economic landscape and the repercussions on the local population. Peter Rock’s Church, taken in 2010 in Arkansas, shows a lively dog next to a tombstone, with a broken-down church in the background. This ongoing concern with the intersection of individual human lives and social circumstances makes Richards a unique and necessary voice in the art world – and indeed our wider culture.

Words Olivia Hampton

ICP, New York 27 September - 6 January www.icp.org

6 Essences – Photographs from Four Decades UTE MAHLER & WERNER MAHLER

In a clearing in Minsk, a fair young woman with long, blonde hair and an oversized black turtleneck gazes languidly into the camera lens. Her expression reads at once stoic and warm, coy and sensual. Shot in 2009 by the artistic duo Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler, this monochrome image is part of the pair’s photographic reimaging of the Mona Lisa, a series entitled Monalisen der Vorstädte, or Mona Lisas of the Suburbs. As the collection’s name suggests, the German photographers have re-cast Leonardo’s young enchantress with modern-day women from across Europe, giving these fresh-faced beauties their day in the proverbial sun. Shot between 2009 and 2011, this series is one highlight from the duo’s comprehensive exhibition at Galerie Springer Berlin. Mounted in celebration of the city’s European Month of Photography 2018, the show spans four decades of images from the artists, showcasing their fruitful careers

as solo practitioners, as well as their more recent collaborative works – spanning interior to exterior. Both creatives are perhaps most commonly recognised for their contributions to the bimonthly publication Sibylle, which was regarded as the top fashion magazine in East Germany from 1956 to 1995. Both Mahlers – who were the founding members of the OSTKREUZ agency – regularly shot editorials for the magazine from 1977 to 1994, and these images are featured prominently in this exhibition. Amongst the Sibylle shots of note are Ute’s snowscape in Thuringia from 1977 and Werner’s sweeping beach scenes from Gran Canaria that date back to 1994. Also on view are portraits of the German ballet dancer Jutta Deutschland taken by the former, and early works and landscapes from the latter. This diverse collection proves that it is still possible to see the world through a new lens.

Words Stephanie Strasnick

Galerie Springer Berlin 2 October - 5 January www.galeriespringer.de

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Still from The Wild Pear Tree. Courtesy of New Wave Films.

film

Familial Cycles THE WILD PEAR TREE Nuri Bilge Ceylan is a master of pacing. In the case of The more complete. A notable, secretive encounter with the “Ceylan is careful to Wild Pear Tree, a sprawling family drama and much-antici- former focus of his affections Hatice (Hazar Ergüçlü) is blend humour with pated follow-up to Palme d’Or winner Winter Sleep, events especially beautiful, and eludes to the relationship still the protagonists, unfurl over hours, with scenes stretched almost to break- having some weighted significance to Sinan. The remainder as well as in the ing point. The film studies Sinan (Aydin Doğu Demirkol), of his story is peppered with disappointment save for the relationships that an ambitious grad student who has returned home to write. occasional small triumph peeking through from time to they maintain with Demirkol, with a soft disposition, complements Sinan as a time. Emotions are taught for the entirety. A highly regarded friends and family, subdued artist; we wade through their world with resignation. author screams into Sanin’s face for asking the wrong with each visual Hoping to find inspiration for an autobiographical account questions about his profession, the worst of several misfired joke or deadpan line of his life in a small Turkish tourist town, Sinan is instead attempts to summon a connection with the people in his life. delivered effortlessly.” There are some truly wonderful set pieces in this small faced with his father’s gambling addiction. Ruddy-faced with an undeniable twinkle, Murat Cemcir plays the indebted Turkish town, captured by cinematographer Gökhan Tiryaki. parent with gusto, always gently persuading viewers to like One particular sequence has Sinan walking past a replica Trojan horse, signalling the town’s association with ancient him even if morals might stray from the path. Ceylan is careful to blend humour with the protagonists, Troy. Ceylan uses the depths of the seasons to mark the as well as in the relationships that they maintain with friends passing of time, with his final sequence set where Sinan and and family, with each visual joke or deadpan line delivered his father move hay to feed sheep and reflect on Sinan’s effortlessly. In a particularly heart-warming scene, Sinan weeps novel, taking place against an eerily quiet snowy day so openly when he discovers his father motionless and covered pristine you can almost feel the wind whipping your face. The Wild Pear Tree is an extension of Ceylan’s authorship, with ants under a tree, only to find that he has been asleep for hours. This is hardly comedy set out to break boundaries, but building on rich set pieces and crisp, seasonal vistas to pull Words Ceylan’s deliberately slow journey to the punchline makes the his characters into the foreground with a steady, patient hand. Beth Webb Once viewers offer the amount of time required to appreciate space before the joke lands just as entertaining. Through ticking off meetings with family and old friends the film, Ceylan, in turn, delivers a polished and utterly that he had left behind to study, Sinan’s character becomes heart-stopping portrait of youth, fatherhood and failure. www.newwavefilms.co.uk

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Inspired by Ideas AESTHETICA FILM FESTIVAL School Award for Best Screenplay. Best Narrative Feature went to Emmy-winning filmmaker Dimitri de Clercq for You Go To My Head, recounting the narrative of a woman with amnesia, whilst the Best Documentary Feature prize was awarded to Almost Heaven, directed by Carol Salter, which offers a lifeaffirming portrait of Ying Ling – a trainee mortician in one of China’s largest funeral homes. Celebrating new approaches, Best VR & Immersive film went to Ingejan Ligthart Schenk, Jamille van Wijngaarden and Steye Hallema’s Ashes to Ashes. For shorts, Best Drama was presented to Christopher Haydon’s In Wonderland – a relationship told in reverse. Looking to the darker side of humanity, Barnaby Blackburn’s Wale was awarded Best Thriller, whilst Alice Seabright’s Sex Ed took home the prize for Best Comedy. Tapping into brand ethos, Giacomo Boeri and Matteo Grimaldi’s colourful Start the Buzz was awarded Best Advertising, and Best Fashion went to C41 Magazine X Adidas Originals Prophere, by Leone Balduzzi. Celebrating the art of performance, Paul McLean’s Dances with Circles was named Best Dance, whilst for Music Video it was I Am Sex, directed by Yuval Haker. The jury gave the Artists’ Film prize to bielecki&bieleck for Author of Expectations, and Best Experimental was presented to Jay Bernard’s Something Said, a response to the black British archives. Ian Bruce’s hand-painted Double Portrait won Best Animation, and the People’s Choice was received by Andrew Muir for Turning Tide.

“Inviting audiences to explore new independent cinema, the 2018 edition of the BAFTAQualifying Aesthetica Film Festival offered the most diverse programme to date, with over 100 industry sessions.” Words Eleanor Sutherland

ASFF returns 6-10 November 2019 www.asff.co.uk To watch the winning films: www.asff.co.uk/ asff-2018-winners Password: asff2018

Dimitri de Clercq, still from You Go To My Head. © CRM-114 and The Terminal.

Inviting audiences to explore new independent cinema, the 2018 edition of the BAFTA-Qualifying Aesthetica Film Festival offered the most diverse programme to date. The eighth festival took place in York from 7 to 11 November, with over 100 industry sessions from Aardman Animations, Film4, British Vogue, BFI and more. Guest speakers included actor and screenwriter Alice Lowe and BAFTA-winning editor Mick Audsley, with Guest Programmes from Iris Prize, British Urban Film Festival, Imperial War Museum, Scottish Documentary Institute and Underwire Festival. Partners included York St John University, BFI, Make It York and The Video Show. New for 2018, the festival expanded its competition with Narrative and Documentary Feature films, as well as immersive experiences, launching the Screen School VR Lab in partnership with London College of Communication. As a platform for talent development, the festival also introduced pitching sessions, inviting filmmakers to share projects with the UK’s biggest funding and distribution organisations, including Curzon Artificial Eye, StudioCanal and Dogwoof. Of the 300 films nominated in the Official Selection, 19 awards were presented, including the prestigious Best of Fest Award. 2018’s accolade went to Ed Perkins’s Black Sheep, a documentary telling the deeply human story of Cornelius Walker in the wake of the murder of Damilola Taylor. The film also took home Best Documentary and the Northern Film

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Image: © Catalina Xavlena.

music

Textual Influences SPELLLING Tia Cabral was driving to Sacramento on the I5 when she happened to witness the SpaceX satellite launch, another win for Elon Musk’s space exploration programme. As she gazed up at that rocket, a fearsome blaze of promise against the violet twilight sky, something crystallised for Cabral’s Berkeley, California-based artist. “It’s such a weird tension to think about the possibilities of outer space, of the ability to live on other planets while we struggle with so many problems on Earth. I was thinking about this whilst writing Mazy Fly.” Cabral’s second album under the mystic stage name of Spellling follows on from the dream logic thrall of her 2017 debut. Pantheon Of Me was described by Pitchfork as an album evoking “Geidi Primes-era Grimes, with dashes of New Weird American mysticism and divine soul.” Speaking of the record, and her wider practice, Cabral discusses how sky and outer space travel are both touchstones: “unknown territories that hold both terrifying and liberating potential. People have always looked up to the sky for predictions.” That sense of cosmic and psychic possibility is vivid on Mazy Fly, a genre-defying record with an Afrofuturist glimmer. “I’m a huge fan of Sun Ra and many other Afro-Futurist musicians and artists, from Parliament and Lee “Scratch” Perry to Erykah Badu and Shabazz Palaces. I watched Sun Ra’s film Space is the Place several times whilst writing Mazy Fly. In the film, Sun Ra comes from Saturn in a music pow-

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ered spaceship to earth with the mission of liberating black “Gothic poetry became communities from oppressed conditions. He warns that outer part of Cabral’s space is ‘not only high; it’s low. It’s a bottomless pit.’ The idea varies influences, as that voyaging into new paradigms is both promising and ter- well as foreboding rifying is a concept that I carried into this album.” literature and biblical Cabral is a Taurus – diligently creative, if slow with it. “My texts. ‘I got obsessed surroundings are important. I need sensual stimuli around with all creatures me, special lighting for different stages of making, pictures of winged, all things loved ones and the things that inspire me. I even painted my related to the idea whole studio bright blue with white clouds to place myself of apocalypse.’” in the Mazy Fly atmosphere, and because I’m obsessed with Prince’s Raspberry Beret: “Overcast days never turned me on/ but something about the clouds and her mixed.” Gothic poetry became part of Cabral’s varied influences, as well as foreboding literature and biblical texts. “I got obsessed with all creatures winged, all things related to the idea of apocalypse: angels, flocks, swarms, UFOs, demons, insects. I put a lot of the texture of these ideas into the sound, like samples of wind, buzzing, humming and drone.” Whilst Pantheon made thrilling use of its frugal synth / guitar / drum machine triune, this record billows with new Words elements: added instrumentation, guest musicians and stra- Charlotte R-A tegically embedded found-sound samples. The end result is a singular, haunting vision, a record so potent with sound and space that it might be a spell, a portal, a flying machine. spellling.bandcamp.com

Creative Improvisation PI JA MA

Image: © Alice Kong.

In a previous life, before she began singing in alt-pop duo Pi The Beatles to Lily Allen. Critics tend to describe them as “Tarragon is likely Ja Ma, Pauline de Tarragon was a fresh-faced teen contestant “quirky” – is that a description that works for the duo? “I think to be found hunched on Nouvelle Star. The foray was a formative one, an experi- it suits us pretty well,” says de Tarragon. “We’re dumb dream- over an illustrator’s ence she’s described as “special” but also “traumatising.” It’s ers – we love to laugh. We like to improvise because [music] is pad, or filming for her semi-animated little wonder: the adverse affects of Pop Idol-style fame on the only place where you can do whatever you want.” Off stage, de Tarragon is likely to be found hunched over Youtube channel, Pi young performers are well documented. “I don’t recognise myself when I watch those videos now,” says de Tarragon. “If an illustrator’s pad, or filming for her semi-animated Youtube Ja Ma Show. She I was doing that show today, at 22-years-old, I would make channel, Pi Ja Ma Show. She cites Japanese illustrator Tarō cites Taro Gomi as different choices. I’d be more natural, simple, no make-up and Gomi as a lifelong inspiration, along with artists such as Kiki a lifelong inspiration, Smith and David Shrigley. There’s a childlike quality to de Tar- along with artists heels. That’s been my preference since I was a kid.” De Tarragon isn’t one to dwell, however. “If I hadn’t done the ragon’s work, a colourful, comical energy that is both careful such as Kiki Smith TV, I wouldn’t have met Axel, and it’s likely I would’ve stopped and carefree. It shows up throughout Nice to Meet U, the debut and David Shrigley.” making music. So, no regrets!” Axel Concato is de Tarragon’s album the pair recorded at Concato’s home studio. “Everypartner in Pi Ja Ma, the Rouen-based producer to her Paris- thing was done there except some drums, some vocals, the based vocalist. Concato’s an established producer, with pro- flute, the double bass and the strings, which were recorded in duction gigs for the likes of Hushpuppies and The Narcoleptic proper studios – in Rouen, Paris, London and Skopje.” The duo has earned touring spurs with not just one but two Dancers on his CV. De Tarragon was at art school when he reached out to her via email, in 2015. “I had some songs and recent tours with indie pop troupe Superorganism, and have I was looking for the perfect singer, someone to collaborate big things planned around the album’s release this January with. A friend showed me a video of Pauline doing a cover of (via Paris indie label Cinq7). “We’re crafting a new stage design, Words Femme Fatale by The Velvet Underground. I was immediately and plan to release new videos [singles] and new episodes of Charlotte R-A the Pi Ja Ma Show in the run-up. We’re gonna play so many seduced by her voice and spontaneously sent her an email.” On meeting, it quickly became apparent that the two were gigs, which is great because we’re addicted to [performing kindred spirits – goofball wits with pop smarts. Together, the live] now. We’d also like to travel to Japan as our album will soundcloud.com/ pair make airy, magpie alt-pop, drawing on everything from be out there too. It’s going to be a crazy year.” pijamaofficial

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Untitled, April 2006. Courtesy of Hannah Satrkey and MACK Books.

books

The Metropolitan Wanderer HANNAH STARKEY: PHOTOGRAPHS 1997-2017 The cinematic mise-en-scène of everyday urban life is therefore enhancing a feeling of emotional disconnect. “I “Often depicted in central to this retrospective of Northern Irish photographer was thinking about how when women were photographed solitary settings, Hannah Starkey (b. 1971). With an introduction by curator on their own, in solitude, they were seen as lonely, rather Starkey’s subjects and writer Charlotte Cotton, this new and intriguing than just being on their own,” she explains. In doing so, the are placed against publication from MACK Books features important images of image functions as a view into the female lived experience, modernist and women spanning 20 years, from early staged photographs an insight that is too often ignored by mainstream media. minimalist facades, in Belfast to documentation of the 2017 march in London. “My pictures come out of a sort of defiance against the kind where courtyards and Taken from the perspective of the flâneuse, Starkey’s pictures of image that’s too easy to read about a woman, that either hotel lobbies become makeshift mirrors and recall Susan Sontag’s definition of the photographer as a overtly empowers her, or exploits her.” This can be felt in Starkey’s intimate yet deeply profes- manmade barriers.” “voyeuristic stroller,” who is an “armed version of the solitary walker reconnoitring, stalking, cruising the urban inferno.” sional and empathic approach to her subjects: the images Here, the female perspective is shown through the quotidian, are narrative-driven and present female characters, not as individuals, but as part of an overarching, broader story. drinking coffee in a café or sitting in a waiting room. Often depicted in solitary settings, Starkey’s subjects are Take, for instance, her 2009 street reportage across variplaced against both modernist and minimalist facades, ous European cities. In this collection, the subjects’ eyes where courtyards, studios and hotel lobbies become make- are masked in dark sunglasses, becoming, as Cotton puts, shift mirrors and manmade barriers, perhaps indicative of “readymade shields that block the surveying gaze.” The female gaze presented in the book therefore acts as the troubles faced by women in the city on a daily basis. “I’m interested in the psychological truth more than the photo- a buffer between the reality of feminine lived experience graphic truth,” says Starkey. “My pictures are built on emo- and the expectations imposed on women by society. “I tion. Every element is designed to drive the emotional IQ of photograph women because I want to see different types of Words images out there rather than the same thing. I’m interested Gunseli Yalcinkaya an idea and trigger empathy in the viewer.” Composition is used to further the internal narratives of in how they are represented in the world because I worry each character, with figures placed in segregated contexts, that if there’s a very narrow idea of what we are, in doing so boxed off by furniture or captured as a mirror reflection, we might not be able to reach our full potential,” she says. www.mackbooks.co.uk

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Utilitarian Construction THOMAS DEMAND: THE COMPLETE PAPERS ily describe reality – in other words, it is symbolic. As such, “Fundamental to Demand’s models are not so much exact replicas as they are Demand’s practice replicas of the structures that they imitate. is the notion of “It’s not about representing reality in a one-to-one relation- transience; paper is, ship. That’s when the models got to be sculptures-as-models. after all, a vulnerable, It was a way of making a proposition that is enough to show fragile material that an idea, but which still becomes another object in the world.” will undoubtedly Also fundamental to Demand’s practice is the notion of change and perish transience; paper is, after all, a vulnerable and fragile material with time. The final that will undoubtedly change and perish with time. The final image therefore image therefore serves as manifesto to memory. “You can’t serves as a manifesto sail a ship with an anchor on the ground, but, never forget, to memory.” things, places, our idea of ourselves enter reality through photography,” he says. By capturing the three-dimensional project – building layers of concept and replication on top of each other – the artist is once again creating another means of construction, one that is frozen in a particular moment. At a time where culture was dominated by the likes of Damien Hirst’s sheep’s head, Demand’s practice offers a refreshingly simple and utilitarian mode of thinking. Walking the line between architecture, design and photography – Words and doing so with such ease – this publication is a must-read Gunseli Yalcinkaya for anyone interested in cross-disciplinary art or the wider perameters of how image-making is evolving in a world of post-truths, media coverage and woven perspectives. www.mackbooks.co.uk

Gate, 2004. C-Print / Diasec, 180 x 238 cm © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / DACS, London.

“The photograph is the lingua franca of the 21st century,” says Thomas Demand, whose three-dimensional cardboard sculptures of rooms are central to his new publication, The Complete Papers, which includes all his images as well as primary texts from over the past 25 years, taken from previously unseen works from 1990 to documentation of his most recent exhibition at Fondazione Prada, Milan (2016). Existing somewhere inbetween representation and abstraction, Demand’s technique focuses on the space that exists between reality and experience, and that which we build to connect the two. “I aim more towards the imagination of the world around us than how it might actually be: how one memorises things and places one sees rather than what is actually being seen,” he explains. The concept is simple: Demand creates a three-dimensional model of a pre-existing place or object, and photographs it, before destroying the project, leaving only the image in its place. His practice is purposefully simplistic, stripping each component down to its bare essentials. Take for instance the 2018 piece titled Study for Kvadrat Pavilion, a series of three white cardboard structures made up of geometric shapes placed against one another. “I would try to do a sculpture that is so simple that it’s nearly not,” he explains. This arguably reductive approach recalls philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s idea that language is a system of signifiers that do not necessar-

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film reviews

Kusama – Infinity HEATHER LENZ

Kusama – Infinity tells the story of artist Yayoi Kusama, whose journey has been forged out of a fierce self-determination to become a world-renowned artist. Given that she is known for polka dot art, director Heather Lenz creates a portrait that delves into the layers beyond this and beyond the seemingly simplistic shapes on the surface. The feature is emotionally complex and startlingly original – a showstopper. The feature follows the necessity of creative expression and the vulnerability that follows. Lenz permits a peek beneath the dark underbelly of the art world, or rather to gaze upon human nature in its depths. What we see is the artist’s lack of control over the response to her pieces. With a potent sense of tragedy, Kusama not only goes unrecognised, but is denied acknowledgment for her innovative approach to the application of spatial

installations. Instead, other practitioners are credited for their imitation of her unique, unrelenting vision. To witness this dismissal, and to see a deeply likeable character being sent to the back, evokes anger in audiences, especially as we learn of her depression. Opening up a discussion of mental health, the story begins to translate to wider society an artist who has no choice but to express herself, even though it causes pain. Impossible not to be drawn into Kusama’s world, she is defined by a juxtaposition of extremes. Her vibrant, larger than life persona is viscerally offset by a sense of intimacy and anguish. But the illuminating thread running through the documentary is how her suffering sheds light on aspiration as a vice; Lenz feeds us two visions of the artist – an individual who is the culmination of success, anxiety, struggle and all in-between.

Words Paul Risker

Dogwoof www.dogwoof.com

Postcards From London STEVE MCLEAN

A hyper-stylised homage to Soho, high art and the male form, Postcards from London is the story of a dreamer who arrives to find the streets are most certainly not paved with gold. But what Essex teenager Jim (Harris Dickinson) does have going for him is a body worthy of Adonis. It’s enough to catch the attention of The Raconteurs, a group of Soho “rent boys” – a term they fight against – who like to impress their clients with some cultural post-coital chat. With Jim lured into their world, so begins a bizarre odyssey, as he becomes educated in the works of Caravaggio and more in an effort to get up to speed with wider culture. The trouble is Jim is afflicted by a rare (and real) condition, Stendahl Syndrome, which leaves sufferers dizzy and prone to fainting by their emotional reaction to great art. At points, he even finds himself transported into the very pictures that cause his reaction.

The brainchild of writer / director Steve McLean, Postcards from London impresses with its highly theatrical evocation of Soho, shot on neon-drenched sets that wistfully recall how the area was years before redevelopment. There are references to Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and The Colony Room, a notorious club where members of the art world gathered. Jim even models himself on George Dyer, the working-class thief who became Bacon’s lover. Another showcase for rising star Harris Dickinson, who came to the fore in Beach Rats and has recently been seen in Danny Boyle’s Getty family TV saga Trust, the film feels like a knowing nod to the work of Derek Jarman, and the 1986 movie Caravaggio, which retold the painter’s life. But those expecting a lurid tale of rent boy exploitation may be disappointed; McLean’s film has more high-minded ideals to pursue: truth, beauty and fine art.

Words James Mottram

Peccadillo Pictures www.peccapics.com

Dogman MATTEO GARRONE

Living two lives as a dog groomer and part-time drug dealer, doting dad Marcello is coerced into supporting erratic, coke-snorting brute Simone on a heist. But it’s the dogman that winds up in a cell. Leaving prison a year later he asks Simone for his cut and is beaten for his gall. A variation on the tale of “the worm that turned,” Matteo (Gomorrah) Garrone’s multi-layered drama is as much a revenge thriller as it is a study of wannabe masculinity. An important concept to be addressed in today’s world, this feature is a must-see and perfect autumnal viewing. Bubbling beneath is a complex and unpredictable amalgam of Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, skewed and corrupted) and Poe (a Hop-Frog for the 21st century). Neither hero nor villain Marcello (mesmerisingly played by the twitchy Marcello Fonte) boasts few endearing qualities. Forever on the sidelines due to personality and

diminutive stature, he seeks justification and acceptance but naturally lapses into submissiveness. The story charts his evolution into a form of manhood that previously he never possessed – one that is alienating and surprising. Set against a seaside backdrop the milieu is as washedout as Marcello is washed-up. This is a portrait of one of life’s inveterate losers. Yet there are sparks of a deepseated humanity that hint at the possibility of redemption, even as the plot veers off into unknown territory. As a variation on the “buddy” movie, Dogman presents genuine electricity in the partnership between weedy Fonte and Edoardo Pesce’s hulking Simone. It sizzles and cracks from start to finish. But the power it provides jolts the soul, never soothes it. Garrone offers original viewing in a criminal opera of martyrdom. One can see why it competed for the Palme d’Or Cannes Film Festival.

Words Tony Earnshaw

Curzon www.curzonartificialeye.com

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music reviews

16,17 EX MYKAH

Ex Mykah is an avant-pop project by Colombian / Cuban sounds and vocal effects emerging at dramatic tangents, American artist Bryan Senti who has previously worked beautifully imagined and executed to perfection. There is as a musician for Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt (Miike even room for a cinematically orchestral instrumental in Snow) amongst others. Produced alongside Grammy- Thinking of New York which could be perceived as filler but winner Justin Moshkevich and John Hull, 16,17 spans a is equally as engaging as the vocal tracks. It also marks range of themes in American society, from drug abuse the mid-point of the album, the second half of which, to social class, politics and religion, combining complex compared with the R&B excursions of earlier tracks, leans hip-hop structures with electronic, ambient pop. This in a more pop-orientated direction. The album concludes is a deeply personal and political record dealing with with the brooding Dead Celebrity, punctuated by the equal riches of hypnotic vocals and mesmerising guitar. adversity, loss and ruminations about life and humanity. Lyrically thought-provoking, sonically arresting and The languid yet puissant opener Faceless sets the tone for what is to follow. Merging rhythm and melody with majestic throughout, 16,17 conveys both a sense of the sumptuously inventive production, it showcases a range avant-garde and an almost unintentional commerciality. of cross-genre instrumentation and leaves the listener Dynamic and constantly pushing boundaries, Ex Mykah uncertain as to what may be coming next. Suspicions has created a thoroughly new and modern record that and Interventions follow a similarly innovative path, with already sounds like it is destined for classic status.

Words Matt Swain

Kowloon Records exmykah.bandcamp.com

Love Hates What You Become LOST UNDER HEAVEN

Ebony Hoorn and Ellery James Roberts combine forces once more as the couple-cum-rock band, Lost Under Heaven. Written in the depths of sunny Manchester’s Northern Quarter, this album sounds like it was conceived in a place a million miles away, in somewhere far dustier and tinged with melting sunsets. Tied together with a much-welcomed strand of social commentary on everything from the world’s current alt-right uprising and global warming, the rawest and most poignant moments of the record come when proceedings get stripped back. As a whole body of work, there is a plethora of interesting ideas that at times feel overwhelmingly disjointed. The almost EDM-laden opener Come teeters on overproduced and messy, with rattling drum machines and a cacophony of electricity – only working cohesively when the vocals swing in tandem with the shuddering production on the

chorus. The vocals of both the front man and woman take some getting used to, with the stylistically out of key singing becoming somewhat jarring, and the ultra-hipstersounding naval gazing delivery getting the back of even the least sceptical amongst us. But when the album rocks, there is a nuanced and subtle understanding buried in the songs that is nothing short of heartfelt. The inspiring The Breath of Light is slow and guitar-led, and the pushed forward gruff vocals of Most High are striking in their asymmetry. The half speed moments seem more intentional and intimate, as the title track Love Hates What You Become sees the duo harmonising in a rough round the edges and supremely endearing manner. The yearning misery of Savage Messiah sounds like a deep red West Texas road trip – the heavy electric guitars are angered and surrounded by tumble-weed.

Words Kyle Bryony

Mute Records lostunderheaven.com

Precipice INDI

Indi is the moniker of contemporary musician and composer Indira Force, who hails from the rainforests of Titirangy, New Zealand. Now based in Berlin, Indi writes using a combination of electronic and classical instrumentation. Indi was recently accepted into the prestigious Red Bull Music Academy, renowned for exposing the next generation of emerging artists to world-class artist lecturers including Brian Eno. Opening track Dementer is the perfect introduction to Indi’s sound, with instruments weaving in and out of the overall tranquillity, enabling ethereal vocals to invoke an electro-folk atmosphere. Cair Paravel begins with an isolated, plangent vocal and then eases into pastoral mode as the music unfolds, a picture book of simplicity with intricate details. The instrumentation is elegantly paced, drifting languidly and hazily as the choral, multi-

layered voices soar, sounding angelic and hymn-like. Title track Precipice is an electronic, more beat-heavy sonic excursion with propulsive and rhythmic elements intertwined with strings, the stylistic genesis of which may be traced back to when Indi was co-writer in the New Zealand-based, trip-hop band Doprah. Woman has malleable beats too, contorted and distorted, and an edginess that continues to run throughout Cannibals, drawing on electronic strings to close out the album with a flourish of future-sounding cinematic beauty. As a whole, Precipice most closely resembles the other-worldly soundscapes of Björk and the tumbling landscapes. Although at times a little one-dimensional, it is nonetheless a collection of songs that make great use of space and is frequently a thoughtful, inventive and experimental work that repays repeated listening.

Words Matt Swain

Flying Nun Records indissounds.bandcamp.com

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book reviews

Tbilisi MARTIN PARR

Personal, humorous and anthropological, Martin Parr’s (b. 1952) images are known for their stark portrayal of contemporary life in Britain and around the world. For over 30 years the Magnum photographer has captured the way societies live, addressing global themes of leisure and consumption with an unflinching eye. Major projects – including The Last Resort (1983-1986), a celebrated series of 40 works documenting experiences in New Brighton, Liverpool – have investigated the idiosyncrasies of UK communities, looking to rural locations and seaside destinations for inspiration. In Prestel’s Tbilisi, Parr turns the lens on Georgia’s capital, a growing travel destination with a rich history spanning more than 1,500 years. Looking to a variety of locations – including marketplaces, designer shops, gyms and casinos – the collection draws a dynamic

Words Eleanor Sutherland

Prestel www.prestel.com

The Art of Looking LANCE ESPLUND

“When we consistently focus on the new, we embrace the next thing out of habit, not necessity,” Lance Esplund cautions early, taking the kind of longview that tells of a long career. Avoiding the exclusionary vocabularies that abound in the art world, Esplund’s book conversationally guides the interested newcomer towards confidence in approaching western contemporary art. The first five chapters on how to explore key elements – colour, form, line, space, weight, rhythm, structure – prepare the reader to know what to look for. Following this grounding, Esplund offers readings of individual works Joan Mitchell, Paul Klee, Richard Serra and Marina Abramović, demonstrating how one can interpret painting, sculpture, video, installation and performance via fundamental elements. Esplund offers time frames to help with our understanding of what “modern” or “contemporary” art may

portrait of life in an ever-changing city. Once a trading centre on the Silk Road, the locale combines 21st century, historic and Soviet influences, offering a vast array of intriguing architectural styles and cultural traditions. Parr’s bright, colourful images reflect this diversity, touching on all aspects of life with an acute detail. Subjects range from tourists taking selfies to global fast food outlet employees, as Parr travels Tbilisi’s streets to document market stalls, cultural institutions and scenes of contemporary nightlife. At once socially aware, entertaining and deeply human, the photographer’s signature commentary style runs throughout the collection. Spanning both portraiture and documentary, the vibrant travelogue combines candid and staged scenes to provide a spontaneous yet carefully curated insight into the people and places that define the region.

be, but ultimately reminds that many “-isms” are defined less by a time period than by a philosophy. Postmodernism’s diverse and contradictory positions, for instance, are an embrace of the rebellious: this means it can contain Marcel Duchamp’s 1919 Readymades as much as Roy Lichtenstein comics-inspired 1960s pop art. Ultimately encouraging us to trust both our emotional and intellectual responses, this book instills autonomy. Making a case for re-embracing the power of cultural expression, Esplund believes art should actively stir, not passively amuse. Our craving for instant gratification works against us because it does not allow art to be worked for and discovered. And yet, “all of us who have felt deeply in other areas of our lives have access to the depths of art” – it is a kind of work that calls for no special experience, only trust and patience.

Words Sarah Jilani

Basic Books www.basicbooks.com

Vivian Maier: The Color Work COLIN WESTERBECK AND JOEL MEYEROWITZ

Vivian Maier’s life story has been pursued since 2009 – the year in which she was credited, posthumously, as the author of some 150,000 photographs. In nine years, her black and white works have been the subject of numerous retrospectives: her later Ektachrome slides – of which there are 40,000 – remain largely unknown. The Color Work reveals Maier’s care for chroma through a large-format monograph of 150 full-colour plates – remarkably, it is believed that she neither saw nor edited these slides. “You see the way colour could entice her when an ‘incident’ emerged out of the flux of daily life,” writes Joel Meyerowitz in his foreword, before describing the book’s cover as “an image as powerful as a nation’s flag.” For the cover, a woman’s tailored red dress amplifies the tense folding of her hands; in another picture, a red heeled shoe taunts its cream, plaster-cast counterpart; an orange

light is the bullseye in a wintry, residential scene. Whether figurative, urban or landscape, the subject is accentuated by colour – it is the “punctum,” Colin Westerbeck notes, quoting Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida. Throughout, anonymous narratives arise; many pictures are untitled, without a specific date or location. Scenes of sulking children, taken whilst working as a nanny in Chicago, contrast with commentaries on prevalent ethnic disparities. Westerbeck attempts to decipher Maier’s identity, suggesting that her photographs might lead to an “understanding of her as a human being.” But it is not the artist nor her comparison to would-be contemporaries Lee Friedlander and Diane Arbus that prevail: instead, holding our gaze, are the palettes and lines that coexist in her compositions – each picture quietly unwrapping the mechanisms of western society.

Words Selina Oakes

Harper Collins www.harpercollins.co.uk

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artists’ directory

MARTIN COLE

Suzanne Taylor is an interdisciplinary artist whose work investigates the psychopathology of social disorganisation. Her work invites the viewer to question the relationship between subject matter and content, beauty and the uncanny and between figuration and abstraction.

Waiting for the Return of Giants is a series of images created in Palermo; it comprises the practice-based outcome of Martin Cole’s ongoing PhD research in Photography at the University of Plymouth. He notes: “I wanted to investigate the notion of a ‘Baroque Space’ created by architecture and realised in the urban environment. I am interested in the way in which these locations might be a major component in creating alternative versions of a European modernity. This is a metaphor for Palermo – a place of hidden histories both ancient and modern – and a comment on photography’s unreliable relationship to a true reality.”

www.suzannetaylor.art

www.palermoallegory.com

SUZANNE TAYLOR

HEESOO AGNES KIM The art practice of Heesoo Agnes Kim pertains to notions of selfidentification. Through video works she plays upon the notion of dreams and deals with issues of identity and the social influences that affect how a personality is constructed. Kim notes: “Social goals may continue for generations, but they are initially expressed through individuals.” The images featured here are stills from Knotting Face, a single channel video projection.

www.heesookim.net

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JANE GOTTLIEB Jane Gottlieb’s dynamic images transcend the norms of reality and colour.

www.janegottlieb.com

LUIS FRAILE

DAVID HINTERKÖRNER

The work of Spanish painter Luis Fraile (1947-2016) is complex and unsettling; his pieces feature endless transformations with ambitious yet controlled expressionism. Mysterious metaphors align with serene narratives. His legacy features more than 3,000 artworks.

Living and working in Vienna, David Hinterkörner is an Austrian artist with a background education in mathematics. Through his paintings he searches for the ideal combination of structure, colour and emotion – offering block patterns that reference Hinterkörner’s longstanding interest in geometry.

www.luisfraile.com | Instagram: @LuisFraileArt

www.dhin.at | Instagram: @davidhinterkoerner

CHO, HUI-CHIN

PETER GEORGAKIS

Through a practice primarily concerned with painting and sculpture, Londonbased Cho, Hui-Chin demonstrates a deep interest in the amalgamation of materials. Distorted subject matter and abstract motifs intertwine in each piece – a figurative depiction of the artist’s integrated cultural upbringing. Cho is a winner of the Cass Art Painting Prize and the Steer Medal and Prize.

Australia-based artist Peter Georgakis takes a multi-disciplinary approach to his compositions – building sculptures, photographing them and using post-production to transform elements from a seemingly banal environment into multilayered, uncanny images. The piece shown here is Submit (cower) from the Affectives series. Georgakis most recently exhibited work at The Biennale of Australian Art.

www.chin.art | Instagram: @chohuichin

www.petergeorgakis.weebly.com | Instagram: @peter.georgakis

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Ana Junko Spanish photographer Ana Junko explores the interplay between light and darkness as a visual language. In the Synthesis: Mare Magnvm series, long exposure techniques offer deep shadows and soft distortion, creating a feeling of silence and mystery in monochrome landscapes. Junko notes that the series "transmits my personal vision and sensations". www.anajunko.com

The Voids of Pest, 2, 2018. Acrylic, paper and oil pastel on canvas, 100cm x 150cm.

aili vint Aili Vint's current focus is VR and digital light installations inspired by water. The latest piece, Farewell, is a memorial designed for the sinking of MS Estonia in the Baltic Sea on 24 September 1994. Claiming 852 lives, it was one of the worst maritime disasters of the 20th century. Playing with the perception of horizons, the artwork calls upon the human experience as a commemoration of those lost at sea. www.aili-vint.squarespace.com

Anna Belleforte Dutch-Canadian artist Anna Belleforte explores the built environment. Each work addresses what natural and manmade structures and landscapes mean to the human experience – how they comfort or isolate us and what they say about our sense of self. With a background in architectural conservation, Belleforte translates scale and perspective into spaces that are familiar yet thought-provoking. www.annabelleforte.com | Instagram: @annabelleforte

Left: Night Sower, 2018. Acrylicon canvas, 16in x 20in. Right: detail of Night Sower.

angela di finizio Naples-based photographer Angela Di Finizio explores hidden aspects of humanity, producing a highly personal geography of places and figures. The ongoing series Watermark depicts Venice in winter and selected works can be viewed as part of the group exhibition Prospettive Emergenti: Current Trends in Italian Photography during the Week of Italian Culture in Cuba, at the Palacio del Conde Lombillo in Havana until 7 December. www.angeladifinizio.com

brett dyer

Célia Hay

Brett Dyer is an art professor and artist from Texas. His recent work combines figures with evocative colours and patterns, revealing the complexity of the human spirit. His work is exhibited throughout the USA; Dyer will have a solo exhibition Deliverance: Rescued and Set Free at the Longview Museum of Fine Arts in Longview, Texas, 12 January - 23 March 2019. www.brettleedyer.wixsite.com/artist I Instagram: @brettleedyer

Célia Hay’s work questions image production with a highly physical approach to filmmaking. The work depicts people wandering, dealing with some contained violence. She looks for something that slips from them and which cannot be totally grasped; an inner experience. Hay's first feature film Aphra and Aradia, commissioned by the Institute of Contemporary Arts, premiered in November in London. www.celiahay.fr | Instagram: @celiahay_

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Chad Wong

david dejous

Chad Wong is largely inspired by the concept of “double displacement”; the alienation that immigrants feel when returning home after a long period of time, unable to fit into any context. It is this in-between status that drives Wong’s work, uncovering the past as a means to establish an authentic identity. The work shown here forms part of an installation entitled Ma Fan Cafe (Trouble Cafe). www.chadwong.myportfolio.com

Paris-based David Dejous works to reveal the paradoxes within images, considering their equivocal nature and their ambiguities. He draws upon the confusion between the various codes of representation associated with painting, photography and drawing, but also with photocopied, screenprinted, documentary and scenographic media. The resulting images raise issues of authenticity, realism and illusion. dadej@gmx.com

Diana Savostaite

ezra enzo

Originally from Lithuania, painter Diana Savostaite studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. She considers her process akin to a diary, where daily moments and childhood memories combine with a joyful approach to mediums and materials. Based in London since 2005, she has exhibited work in Mall Galleries and the Saatchi Gallery. Savostaite is a winner of The Winsor & Newton Young Artist Award in 2017. www.dianasavostaiteart.com

Providence, Rhode Island-based Ezra Enzo’s large-scale works are situated between verbal and visual communication – ideas and emotions are portrayed at the intersection of paint and script. With an emphasis on materiality, her pieces examine the boundaries between land, language, femininity and power. Enzo's practice also includes sculpture as well as as sound and video installation. www.ezraenzo.com I Instagram: @ezra.enzo

francesca centioni dene

gliska

In her practice, Francesca Centioni Dene uses analogue and alternative photographic processes, including printmaking and collage. Interested in exploring and extending dialogues, Centioni Dene often links ideas of memory and identity. Upcoming exhibitions include the Dulwich Festival’s Artists’ Open House at Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, 11-12 May 2019. www.francescacentioni.com | Instagram: @francescacentionidene

Gliska is a multimedia artist based in Vienna. The tactile, colourful qualities of his works are representative of paintings which often dominate the viewer's perception. His distinct figurative and diagrammatic style picks up often unvoiced tensions, fears, as well as hopes of modern societies. Gliska has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions and performances throughout Europe. www.gliska.com I info@gliska.com

For submission enquiries regarding the Artists’ Directory, contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com

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artists’ directory

Gudrun Nielsen

James De Vere

Icelandic sculptor Gudrun Nielsen addresses human impact within contemporary cityscapes. The Mountain series, showcased here, comprises a collection of works inspired by the location of Nielsen’s studio – on the site of Iceland’s leading provider of clean energy. The photographs document small but constant changes in the surrounding environment. www.gudrunnielsen.co.uk

Australia-based James De Vere creates fine art using traditional media such as lens and brush. Since 2001, he has run a successful international creative business. He is also an avid traveller, gathering cultural inspiration from a range of international locations. The piece shown here is entitled Sofala So Good and depicts Australia’s oldest surviving gold town, located near the Turon River in New South Wales. www.jamesdevere.com

joshua armitage

kristin bedford

Joshua Armitage is a painter based in London. His work fuses observations made in the present with layers of personal memory and experience. The aim is to capture within the artworks the potent feelings which he associates with certain times in his life, using light, space and the process of painting to recreate an impression and experience of these feelings. www.josharmitage.co.uk I Instagram: @joshua.armitage

Pushing the boundaries of aesthetics and social realism, Kristin Bedford's photography explores race, visual stereotypes and self-expression. Her latest project, Cruise Night, is an investigation of the female gaze, cultural politics and masculinity in Los Angeles' often-overlooked lowrider car culture. Each saturated image demonstrates a strong understanding of fine art and documentary genres. www.kristinbedford.com

michael harris wilson

Peng-Yu Chen

A creative and conservation artist, Michael Harris Wilson works with painting, sculpture and photography. A range of tools and materials are used to create texture, and the incorporation of encaustic wax and semi-precious stones defines his art. Wilson's Nature series of paintings asks the viewer to consider the impact of humanity's actions on the environment. www.michael-harris-wilson-art.com | www.findcreatives.com/michaelwilson

Peng-Yu Chen is a Taiwanese digital artist, inspired by computer animation, gaming and globalised content. Chen’s latest series, entitled Colour of the Soul, uses digital colour palettes to represent inner abstraction. Emotions and expressions of life are captured through fluid and playful rendering – transforming intangible concepts into ethereal forms. Instagram: @piersondigital

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Sonya Rademeyer & Chloe Lam Upon meeting at the 2018 OtherLands.OtherSounds residency in Portugal, Sonya Rademeyer and Chloe Lam created I Am Because You Are – a video performance that comments on relationships and a social responsibility towards the environment. Connecting physical space with the musicality of the body, the duo’s work touches upon current affairs from a globalised planet. vimeo.com/286043697 | sonya-rademeyer.com | chloe-lam.com

City Walls, 2018. Egg tempera and oil on wood, 21.5cm x 27.5cm x 2.5cm.

Sharon Alviz Puerto Colombia-based Sharon Alviz is a conceptual artist interested in the urban landscape. Utilising peculiar perspectives, she invites audiences to consider architectural compositions and our relation to them. The featured image, from Lovely Paper, offers a clean, geometric landscape, building a playground of frozen shapes, generating a new state of aesthetic ennui. www.sharonalviz.com/lovely_paper.html

Stéphanie Langard

Tom Pettis

Having been brought up in a family of furniture-makers – surrounded by rare woods – Stéphanie Langard developed a passion for fine art informed by a variety of materials and techniques. Langard’s practice has developed into poetic sculptures that give tangible forms to abstract concepts. Each piece connects the viewer to a diversity of textures, shapes and lines, bridging the gap between emotions and aesthetics. www.stephanie-langard.com

Tom Pettis is a UK-based painter and writer. Of particular interest is the theme of time – its ongoing narrative and its relationship to the human condition. The influence of the past becomes a physical part of the work, through the use of the historic medium of egg tempera. Through conceptually heavy ethereal works Pettis explores the turbulent narrative of human societies. www.tompettis.weebly.com I Instagram: @tompettis3

yuanhao gu

Yuki Ioroi

Beijing-born Yuanhao Gu is a senior art major at Whitman College in Washington. Combining traditional Chinese painting techniques with western art training, Gu explores the current experience of his life in the USA through painting, photography, ceramics and installations. Recent shows include the 2018 RCA Contemporary Art Summer School Exhibition at the Royal College of Art in London. Instagram: @ericyuanhaogu

Based in Rotterdam, Japanese artist Yuki Ioroi produces threedimensional pieces that incorporate words as a representation of human behaviour. Building upon the universal impulse to begin reading when presented with a text, the works ask questions about our understanding of language. Through overlapping, repeating and embedding layers of phrases, Ioroi offers viewers a sculptural, linguistic maze. www.ioroiart.com

For submission enquiries regarding the Artists’ Directory, contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com

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artists’ directory

Aardenburg & De Vries

anna carey

Jacqueline Aardenburg and Rosanne De Vries are a photographic duo based in The Netherlands. With backgrounds in styling, design and commercial imagery, their works combine aspiration and realisation – photographs that are both surreal and believable. The duo create playful and dynamic compositions that build on reality, with a minimum of post-production enhancement. www.aardenburgdevries.com Instagram: @aardenburg_devries

Anna Carey is an Australian artist based in Los Angeles. Through memory and imagination, she creates miniature models based upon familiar architecture, which she then photographs, resulting in a disorienting space where imagination and reality blur. The series In Search of Rainbows explores the connection between colour, memory, space and sensation. www.annacarey.net Instagram: @annacareyhere

Anne Louise Blicher

Beata Guzinska

Anne Louise Blicher is a Danish printmaker and oil painter who examines the inner potential of objects and materials. Negotiating environmental concerns as well as innovative design, Blicher produces works across two and three dimensions. Each piece crosses vertical and linear horizons, searching for empathic responses to the landscape. www.alblicher.net Instagram: @alblicher

Fashion designer Beata Guzinska was born in Poland. Her career began in 2011 when she won the Best Designer prize at OFF FASHION in Kielce; she has since become an ambassador for the prize. Currently based in London, Guzinska's latest collection is entitled KASH and is distinguished by bold use of colour and religious motifs. www.notjustalabel.com/collection/ beataguzinska/kash Instagram: @guzinskabeata

carla cescon

Eileen Olimb

Carla Cescon constructs set-like compositions, capturing them as sequences of movement and light. With literary connotations of Kafka’s biomorphic landscapes, the images revel in the act of combining objects and producing banal connections between everyday items. Cescon notes: "As an artist I like to translate personal experiences. I believe it’s like creating visual descriptions of aphorisms." www.carlacescon.com

Holding a bachelor’s degree in Geography and Environmental Studies, Eileen Olimb combines interests in social sciences. Having travelled for several years before settling in Luxembourg, Olimb's works communicate her experiences of meeting people from all walks of life. The paintings combine a bold palette with striking shapes as a vivid tapestry of expression. www.eileendelux.eu Instagram: @Eileendelux

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Eleanor Rickard

Gjert Rognli

Utilising primarily analogue processes, photographer Eleanor Rickard seeks beauty and narrative in both the landscapes and the people she encounters. Drawing upon established traditions in the literary and cinematic worlds, she explores the emerging genre of fictive documentary, questioning the nature of the real through a constructed narrative. www.eleanorrickard.co.uk Instagram: @eleanor_rickard

The forces of nature are at the heart of Gjert Rognli’s award-winning practice, where references to everyday life and the surreal meet. Each of the scenarios he creates embodies an underlying conflict. Based in Norway, the artist’s background is of the Sami, an indigenous community whose culture has strongly influenced his interpretation of reality. Instagram: @art_photography_sapmi www.grognli.wixsite.com/ theforgottenplace

holly o'meehan

I.Relevant

Holly O’Meehan is an emerging artist based in Australia. Her process-driven practice combines numerous ancient craft techniques in an effort to “hero the handmade”, with particular focus on crochet, clay and ceramics. Reflecting the maker's hands in materials, O'Meehan explores the current critique of such crafts within the contemporary art scene. www.hollyomeehan.com.au Instagram: @pollygeorgebyholly

I.Relevant is the pseudonym for a female artist based in the UK. Her ongoing project questions the purpose of life, including idealism and the aspirations of humanity to "succeed." Using furniture as a canvas, she combines simplistic, childlike drawings with lyrics and phrases from popular culture; the pieces invite audiences to engage in transitional spaces. www.irelevant.net

Ian Heslop

Ioanna Sakellaraki

Inspired by the surrounding landscapes of rural Cumbria in the UK, Ian Heslop creates dynamic large-scale oil paintings. Blending analogue and digital methods, the works evoke dreamlike atmospheres which ask the viewer to consider compositions that deal with the subconscious and approaches to mental health. Instagram: @ianheslop79 Twitter: @ianheslop10 Etsy: IanHeslopPaintings

Ioanna Sakellaraki's work is inspired by the power of recalling and rebuilding memory from the nonexistent. Through personal forms of conceptual documentary photography, the artist explores the line between isolation and obsession, observing the connections between humans and places. She was awarded The Royal Photographic Society Postgraduate Bursary in 2018. www.ioannasakellaraki.com @ioannasakellaraki_photography

Jaehee Yoo

Janis Cornelius

Seoul-based Jaehee Yoo’s abstracted paintings allude to the South Korean landscape. Selecting colours, textures and details from surrounding sceneries as well as from personal memories, Yoo presents an enhanced experience of nature as a place for solitude and peace away from today’s digitalised world. She notes: "The work depicts our limited significance in the face of the endlessness of space and time." Instagram: @jaeheeyoo78

A graduate of Chelsea College of Art and Design, Janis Cornelius paints landscapes and seascapes of the UK and Antigua. Her practice includes portraiture of Londoners in their workplaces as well as self-portraiture. She has exhibited in New York, Amsterdam, London, Venice and Paris. www.janiscornelius.com Riccardo Vitello, Contemporary Ballet Dancer, 2018. Oil on canvas.

Jo Kitchen

kayleigh jayne harris

Having recently graduated from Central Saint Martins, Jo Kitchen is an artist investigating gender politics through subtle humour. Generating conversation and bridging the gap between the body and its associations, Kitchen’s works are heavily influenced by semantics – how objects, and indeed, the physical form, can be imbued with deeper significance. www.jokitchen.org

To draw a line on a surface is also to enable that surface to take form from that gesture. As such, Harris considers her work to be a collaboration; each nuanced mark which she places on, through and around the paper embodies the intimate correspondence which takes place between the artist and their material. www.kayleighjayneharris.com Instagram: @kayleighjayneharris

For submission enquiries regarding the Artists’ Directory, contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com

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artists’ directory

Kench Lott

Lucas Redondo Bonet

Kench Lott is an American artist currently living in Savannah, Georgia, where he creates visual paradoxes – an experimental and playful example of 21st century sculpture. Following the escapist mentality of mindfulness, each piece is an optical illusion designed to play with the viewer’s sense of space and design. www.Kenchlott.com Instagram: @Kench.art

Lucas Redondo Bonet is a Spanish painter. A graduate of Art History from the University of Valencia, he developed a keen interest in oriental art and culture, travelling to Japan and then to South Korea, where he currently lives and teaches figurative art. Redondo's practice revels in traditional methods and invites the viewer to find extraordinary in the everyday. www.lucasredondobonet.com

Triptych (front view), 2018. Photography by Yi Yang Liu.

Matthew Rimmer

May Parlar

Matthew Rimmer’s sculptures provoke contemplation in the viewer – using abstraction to pinpoint the elements of plastic arts: form, space and colour. Recent works utilise the symbolism of aquariums as a container and an arena for gravity and light to bend. Following a degree show at The Glasgow School of Art, he will exhibit as part of the RSA New Contemporaries in March 2019. www.matthewrimmer.net Instagram: @matthewrimmer_

New York-based May Parlar is a photography and video artist creating visual narratives exploring identity, belonging and time. In the series Once I Fell In Time she examines time and memory whilst using mundane objects as metaphors, installing or suspending them in abandoned landscapes. www.mayparlar.com Instagram: @mayparlar

nicole renee ryan

Richard Shipley

USA-based artist Nicole Renee Ryan paints imagined spaces and misremembered places. She uses the landscape as a way to explore the complex interactions of memory and imagination. Ryan has exhibited work at the Heinz History Center, The Butler Institute of American Art and Aqua Art Miami during Art Basel Miami Beach. www.nicolereneeryan.com Instagram: @nicole.renee.ryan

Richard Shipley hails from York, where he began painting in the 1980s as the graffiti artist known as CageOne. Now residing in Bristol, his technique has evolved into abstraction – shadows and lines cast soft impressions across each piece. Shipley's works are collected worldwide.

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www.richardshipley.art Instagram: @richardshipley.art

Stephen Wilson

Victoria General

Addressing the intersection of traditional craft with contemporary culture, American artist Stephen Wilson questions the categorisation of mediums that designates what is and is not considered as fine art. This is strongly expressed through the implementation of embroidery and found-object assemblage, which is at the centre of his artistic process. www.stephenwilsonstudio.com Instagram: @stephenwilsonstudio

Charcoal artist Victoria General evokes a sense of familiarity within unexplored corners of the urban environment. Capturing a sense of fragility in the featured, anonymous characters, and highlighting imperfections in the process, General provides clarity in a world of disconnect, pinpointing the human experience through vulnerable and intimate moments. www.saatchiart.com/victoriageneral Instagram: @victoria.general

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Gabrielle Motola, Skagen, Denmark en route to Aarhus. 13 August 2018. From the series Henge to Henge. Courtesy of the artist.

last words

Gabrielle Motola Artist

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Originally, I began as a psychologist and filmmaker, but soon I extended my practice into photography. In August 2016, my first book, An Equal Difference, was published, comprising 165 images with the support of Olympus. Shooting entirely with their OMD cameras, I continued to explore internal mindsets and external landscapes in Iceland and beyond, experimenting frequently with digital infrared photography. Being a self-confessed motorcycle addict for even longer than I have been interested in image-making, I made a solo voyage combining the two passions, riding from Englandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Stonehenge to Icelandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Arctic Henge, creating a new body of work in the process. The resulting series is on display at the After Nyne gallery, London, from 14 December to 3 January. www.afternynegallery.com | www.gabriellemotola.com.

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