AWERTISTIC Art & Visual Culture Magazine
VOL. 1
URBAN GODS INSIDE >
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Tyler Spangler Pawel Nobert
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Photography Jaime Silva
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Director:
Dalila F. Madureira
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Dalila F. Madureira Anders Emil Møller
Content Review Paulo Silva
Copywriting Hayley Canto Sami Wakim Emma Taggart
Ana Teixeira Ana Martingo
Hayley Canto Sami Wakim Emma Taggart
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ED Editor-in-chief, Anders Emil Møller
DITORIAL
DON Quixote by Cervantes is generally regarded as the world’s first novel. That wonderful story about the noble knight of La Mancha in Spain with such a great imagination that he fights epic battles against windmills from the back of his skinny horse Rocinante. It’s weird and absurd, but charming and hilarious. It’s original. Storytelling has been around forever. But over time, the level of creative sophistication has improved, as have the technical skills and possible outlets. The magnitude of make-believe efforts is constantly growing. And with internet connected smartphones, everybody is now on the same grid, ready to receive anything incoming. That’s why messages travel fast and well. Especially the simple ones can get blown out of proportion. In journalism, there is a saying that you should first simplify, then exaggerate. There is no better time than now to exaggerate. That’s now the rule for everything from food videos to religious fanaticism and global politics. Just as it is with consumer marketing. The one who strikes the best balance between precise wording, timelines and fashion to the right audience will gain immense impact. In politics, business, culture and society. Storytelling is now the way you win elections or sell €1,000 phones and mindfulness apps. “It’s the economy, stupid”, as they used to say on the Bill Clinton campaign team. People will not vote for new ideas unless the economy is good. Obviously, except nobody really wants to talk economy unless you happen to work in that field. With a world hooked on social media and its cultivated surveillance targeting, we have created the perfect operating system for those who have the money or power to fuel it. It’s an extreme story. And extreme stories tend to be polarising and even radicalising. That’s why they separate people into winners and losers, friends and enemies. Into separate realities. When told in a way that seems relevant, even the most made-up stories feel real. That’s why it’s surprising and devastating when you realise that the stories you don’t buy or like are what is celebrated by others. Maybe even by the majority. We live in different realities which makes for unpredictable times. We used to say that history is written by the victors. Today, histories are bombarded at us in the fight to be victorious. It’s not virtual reality. It’s virtually reality. It’s the story, stupid. n
9 interview
PichiAvo
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07
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Trending
Agenda
Arizona’s desert
April-July 2019
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37
Interview
Exhibition
PichiAvo
Post-Modernism at MoMa
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45
Article
Intervention Photography
Article
21
10 Augmented Reality Best Practices
49
News
Highlights from the art world
27
Article
Sustainable Architecture
360º Tour
Slovakia’s Andy Wharol Museum Of Modern Art
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Trial(ing)
Market’s Review
TRENDING
Arizona’s desert, USA
It’s not often you see snow in Arizona, but when you do, it’s pretty magical. In recent weeks, unusual wintry weather has arrived to the Sonoran desert transforming the dry, red rocky terrain into an otherworldly winter wonderland. Beautiful pictures from locals have emerged recently, showing how the snow has dusted the region’s iconic saguaro cacti and blanketed the mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. Scenes from the Grand Canyon on New Year’s Day show the immense landscape looking ever more spectacular in a layer of powdery white snow. The city of Tucson had reportedly 0.4 inches (1 cm) inches of snow, while Arizona had up to 18 inches (46 cm). Meanwhile the Los Alamos and Mountainair areas of New Mexico reported having 20 inches (50 cm) of snow. Even Southern California had a flurry or two. n
“In Gods We Trust” Urban Iconmythology Street Art by PichiAvo Text by Sami Wakim Photography by Jaime Silva
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t all began in 2007, bringing a spectacularly lucid splash of Mediterranean colors to the streets of Valencia and the rest of Spain, Pichi and Avo have infused a stunning level of figurative detail into their work.Hints of surrealism leap out and slap the viewer about while drawing you into a radiant explosion of unrestrained, spray painted talent. Creating a massive stir in their hometown and just about to set the rest of Europe ablaze, leads them to participate in numerous national and international events.
“Our main thing is to start something and then we see if works or not,(...)�
Could you tell us a little about yourself, where you´re from, how did you guys meet, and how did you get started in the urban art scene? Well, we are two artists from Valencia, Spain. We met in 2007 because we shared the same passion for art inquisitiveness, and quickly became like brothers, and from that day we are one, always fleeing the ego-centrism of graffiti and come together to give birth to a single work, with two similar visions. Do you have a formal education? Yes and we think it is very important, as we combine 2 studies: Design and Fine Arts. Could you describe the development process of your artwork? All our work always starts in the studio, we are always sharing our ideas, and from that we try to formalize something. Our main thing is to start something and then we see if works or not, from that we either go to the street and share it with the people or we keep it in the studio for us.
How do you go about creating your art piece? How do you choose a wall/environment? The main thing is to have the energy to paint, and then you search for the perfect place for the idea you have. Sometimes it doesn’t matter the place because it is more important the action and the piece you are doing. Each wall or idea is different, and that the fun part of all that. How much does your art affect or influence your everyday life and are there any role models or artists who inspired you? Is 24/7 influence, we are always with that, sometimes with our work and sometimes watching other people’s art. There are so many artists that inspire us, and it is difficult to pick one or two, because every artist has something different.
“Just do what you like and everything will come in some way.”
Has your style developed throughout the years? Yes, and never ends. What are your thoughts on the way the internet is influencing the art world? This one is difficult… but we think it is positive, because everyone like to see what’s going on around. We all have a lot of info that makes us grow, but the difficult part is to always keep your essence and culture. Which countries have you visited to paint so far and where did you like it best? Well we have been in UK, Germany, Greece, Belgium… and each country have something special, it is very difficult to choose one, perhaps Belgium and UK because we did our last works there. Have you painted in the USA? If so, how was your experience like? No, but we were in some Gallery shows. Painting in the USA is something we have in mind, we just have to find a good project. Is there a message in your art? There is always some kind of idea behind our art, but our goal is not the pure message art.
Street art is still considered vandalism, how is it for you to go out and paint in the street? Did you ever have any problems with the law? For us it is normal, we don’t think we are doing anything wrong, but something good for the environment, so maybe because of that we never had big problems with the law, and we hope to stay like that. What have been your most challenging and rewarding piece of work thus far? So far the last one we did in Belgium for the North West Walls in the Rock Werchter Festival curated by Arne Quinze, is our biggest piece. What do you do when you are not creating art? What are your hobbies? We like to do sports and surf, music, reading… different things that make us happy. What’s next for you? What shows or projects do you have planned? Our next project is in Utsira, Norway painting, and then we will start our new personal work. Any words of advice for aspiring new artists? We are not the ones to say words of advice… just do what you like and everything will come in some way. SAUS would like to thank Pichi & Avo and wish them a great rest of summer. n
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INTERVENTION PHOTOGRAPHY Hayley Cantor, Graphic Designer
Being a multipotentialite leads me to be a person who suffers greatly from inspirational distraction. Every discipline excites me, which makes it quite difficult to label myself professionally. After graduating in Psychology, I taught English as a foreign language and most recently, ventured into graphic design (which has led me to also design an awful lot of personalised T-shirts). Writing was the only one that I left as a hobby — purely because it was the only passion I had that didn’t pay the bills. It wasn’t until I was asked at Printsome to write creative content for designers that it all just clicked into place. The idea with this series of articles is simply to take a design-related subject that I am interested in, but have trouble finding collective information about and to curate things into useful little groups. This week, I’ve put together my top 10 references for what I call ‘photographic invention.’ When I was studying graphic and digital design, an art director who was teaching me my first steps in Adobe Illustrator referred to this technique, yet to my disappointment, typing the term into Google just didn’t bring up the kind of results I was looking for. Since that day, I’ve worked hard to collect examples of what he meant by the term, in an attempt to create a series of references that I could use in my future design work.
What is Photographic Intervention? For me, it’s the use of photography as the base for some form of design or illustration. The photograph itself remains intact. This is very important. The creative magic lies in what the artist then does with this photograph. It’s also essential to distinguish the difference between photographic intervention, photo montage and collage. Photo Montage “is the process and the result of making a composite photograph by cutting, gluing, rearranging and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image.” Photo Collage on the other hand, may include both photos and other types of media intervention, often manual interventions and originates from Futurism, in 1915 with the exploration of the relationship between paint and photography. So that being said, here are the top 10 artists I have in my reference goodie bag.
1. Tyler Spangler His works stands out because of the fresh colour palette he uses and because, unlike others artists, he dabbles in GIF animation of his work. The magic lies in his removal of the images from their original context and by the sheer quantity of his work. I’d love to know how old his is (I reckon he’s in his early 30s) and he’s a visual artist close to my heart, probably because he is also a Psych grad. http://tylerspangler.com/
2. Jonni Cheatwood Maybe it’s an age thing, because Jonni has also only got one less than me. For him, it’s all about process and he says his portrait of lover would be a photo of her with paint dripped all over it. (ref) He doesn’t just work with photographic collages, but also with other mixed media techniques and a lot of abstract stuff. http://jonnicheatwood.com/
3. David Marinos
David is a pretty impressive guy, at only 18, he has an incredibly mature and personal style, often working using classic imagery that he modernises, as well as exquisite pieces of photography. Again, he doesn’t only work in photographic invention, but the pieces he has done have a more fashion based aesthetic. Like Tyler Spangler, David’s series ‘The Awake’ makes use of digital media to create his pieces. http://davidmarinos.tumblr.com/
4. Rosanna Jones
Rosanna Jones is a fashion photographer & mixed media artist from London. Interestingly, it seems that the use of photo collage is particularly common in the world of fashion editorial. A fair few examples of this style can be seen on magazine covers (I’m definitely a massive fan of coverjunkie.com for this reason). Rosanna makes use of small objects, like tape to create her collages in her series ‘Concealment II’ http://rosanna-jones.blogspot.com.es/
5. Naomi Vona
Naomi Vona isn’t just an artist, she’s also a collector of vintage photographs, which is what she uses for her canvas. I find her work quite fascinating for the way that she draws and paints directly onto others’ photographs, bringing them new light and new meaning. You can read an excellent interview with her by Frankie Magazine, another great resource for artists you hadn’t heard of before.
6. Hattie Stewart
Known for her work with magazine covers, Hattie’s style is slightly different from the others, as she tends to cover photographs much more than other artists, using both black and white lines, primary colours and little winking hearts with legs. What’s not to inspire? See more of her work on her blog http://hattiestewart.tumblr.com/ and for a great overall review of her work, It’s Nice That is a great starting point. http://www.hattiestewart.com/
7. Zericiphone Designspiration is just one of those sources of inspiration that I just can’t mention enough. Think of it as a curated Pinterest for professional designers, where you’ll find everything from T-shirt design to infographics and designer objects. It’s the kind of place to go on a little tea-break when the working day just becomes too much. It was there that I discovered Zericiphone’s work. Also known as Parisian artist, Eric, he uses historical photographs and fuses them with everyday objects to create his surreal work. His motto is “f you obey all rules, you miss all the fun.” He definitely looks like a very fun man. https://www.instagram.com/zericiphone/
8. Pawel Nobert
Pawel’s work is something I’ve always imagined, but never thought to create, a series of photographic art that challenges our perception of reality, as a comment on the subjective world of social media that we live in. I’m also a sucker for someone able to create a novel colour palette, and Pawel’s use of colour really is quite something else. Check out his website both for his series ‘Constructed’ as well as his other works. http://www.nolbert.com/
9. Danielle Krysa
Ok, so this one is a bit of a cheat, mainly because I said no cutting, but Danielle still manages to maintain the kind of aesthetic I’m talking about, without too much chopping up of photos. Her work is a beautiful array of very simple colourful elements, like dots, dashes and paint splodges that make her work quite unique, despite her use of very similar techniques. So, apart from the chopping, Danielle’s work makes for another decent reference for the coining of my little new term within the field of photo collage. Check out more of her work here. http://www.krysa.com/danielle/
10. Michael Meadors Another early 30-something artist, Michael Meadors in theory, shouldn’t be on my list either. Believe it or not, this is not a photograph, but a highly rendered graphite painting. Since it has the same aesthetic, I’m forgive myself for keeping this super-artist on the list. n http://michaelmeadors.com/home.html
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STREET ART, Portugal Ana Martins, who works as Aheneah, recently reflected on the relaxed freedom of youth and captured that feeling in a crossstitched intervention on a wall in Vila Franca de Xira, Portugal. The work is along a popular route to a local school, and is comprised of over 2,300 screws and nearly 760 yards of yarn.
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DESIGN, Australia
At the prestigious 2018 D&AD New Blood Awards — which recognises design and advertising excellence in students, grads and aspiring creatives between 18 and 24 — Sebastian O’Brien picked up the coveted Wood Pencil award for Re-Active Duty Prosthetics, a concept for 3D-printed prosthetic limbs he co-developed in response to an Adidas brief.
ILLUSTRATION, USA
Las Vegas-based illustrator Abbie Paulhus pairs the brilliant mind of Wes Anderson with the twenty-six letters of the English alphabet, allowing cinephiles and design lovers alike to geek out over one cool poster. She creates illustrations that perfectly invoke the iconic filmmaker’s carefully constructed alternate universes. The images are a sweet mixture of innocence and irreverence, which echo the appeal of Anderson’s films.
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CINEMA, Australia
Using nothing but himself and a drone, Sydney-based filmmaker and graphic designer Pete Majarich managed to turn the deserts of Utah into a breathtaking Martian landscape for his sci-fi short film, The Visitor.a sweet mixture of innocence and irreverence, which echo the appeal of Anderson’s films.
INTERVENTION ART, Finland
Protests over McJesus, a sculpture of a crucified Ronald McDonald by Finnish artist Jani Leinonen, turned violent on Friday night at Israel’s Haifa Museum of Art, where someone firebombed the museum. Christians in the city of Haifa, where the museum displaying the piece is located, are so outraged that they staged protests out the front of the Haifa Museum of Art last week.
TV, Netflix
Netflix’s Love, Death + Robots is a series of short (6-18 minute long) episodes that are all completely different from each other in plot, characters and style. The first episode, ‘Sonnie’s Edge’ looks like a cut scene from a video game and then ‘The Witness’ looks straight out of a trippy Japanese anime show.
3D ART, USA
NYC-based photographer Journey Gong is somehow making modern art even more modern. In his series, Abstract, Gong pays tribute to Abstract Expressionism by reimagining the works and unique styles of renowned painters in 3D. Some of the artists included in the series are Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, and Mark Rothko.
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TECH, Japan
Tokyo-based CG company ‘ModelingCafe’ is proof that computer-generated technology is not only changing film via special effects – it’s also changing the fashion industry. Their latest work is a CGI character who looks so realistic, you’d think she’s an actual person. Simply named Imma (after the Japanese word for ‘ima’, meaning ‘now’) the virtual model is made by transposing her 3D animated head onto a live-action body and background.
ART, Ukraine
Kiev-based workshop ‘OLK manufactory’ has created a series of traditional Ukrainian rugs that you’ll want to collect – or catch, rather. The rugs feature colours and geometric shapes alongside images of pop culture characters such as Pikachu, Yoda, and Homer Simpson. If you look closely, you can even see Poké Balls woven into mesmerising patterns.a sweet mixture of innocence and irreverence, which echo the appeal of Anderson’s films.
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ARCHITECTURE, Amsterdam
Design studio FABRICations has completed the interior of an apartment in amsterdam, the netherlands. the ‘casco loft’ project aims to promote ideas of interaction and flexibility by encouraging shared spaces and the implementation of a flexible, open layout. the concept revolves around the idea of creating an open shell, or ‘casco’ in dutch, where suspended volumes are then inserted inside.
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INDUSTRIAL DESIGN, Scandinavia Swift Creatives recently unveiled SHEET Speaker, a future study of current audio trends, re-focusing on sound quality and nostalgic interfaces as key features. The concept combines the premium audio offering of high-end speakers with the convenience provided by the voice assistant consumer experience. With its design inspired by both professional music equipment and Scandinavian furniture, SHEET is a speaker that fits seamlessly into the home whilst still emphasizing the quality of its sound capabilities. n
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The scheme by FABRICations retracts the upper floors to generate double height voids. this design intervention works to increase the amount of natural light gained into living spaces, while also providing cross ventilation, ensuring a high degree of passive environmental control while simultaneously generating an unconventional spatial experience.
MUSIC, Black Keys
It’s been five years since the Black Keys have released any music together, but with their new song “Lo/Hi,” the duo seem to have picked up right where they left off. Dan Auerbach’s signature bluesy, fuzzy guitar and Patrick Carney’s thumping garage rock drum beat are alive and well. And yes, before you ask — there are female background singers.
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