DEBUT CONTEMPORARY Magazine SS F/W
Jewellery: Maria Francesca Pepe Fashion: dresses by
Aida Emelyanova & Henrietta Ludgate Domus Nova The Postkarten Project
DEBUT CONTEMPORARY Debut Contemporary is an innovative platform aimed at talented and ambitious artists interested and eager to turn their art practice into a successful career and a viable business. Debut is the only professional development and career empowerment platform of its kind in the UK. Artists on the Debut Contemporary benefit from a wealth of opportunities including weekly workshops (amongst others media training, branding, PR & marketing and artist resale right, intellectual property rights and copyright), access to a network of collectors, one on one mentoring sessions and the opportunities to exhibit at high profile events and gallery spaces.
PHILOSOPHY Artists have historically found it difficult to access gallery space and professional industry help to assist in pushing their careers in the right direction. Lack of professional development in the industry has had a devastating effect in the respect of the loss of creative talent for decades now. Debut Contemporary’s key role is to change that as well as give the rising talent a chance to shine and get a necessary exposure within the right networks. Using this flexible platform designed to pass on the industry knowledge with the aim to increase a success rate of artists staying in business. It will also teach all participating artists how to look at their practice as business. Enabling then not only to live off their work and make some serious financial gains in the process. Due to the recession and rising unemployment we believe it is more important than ever that these creatives are promoted and nurtured, and Debut Contemporary offers a sustainable solution to this problem. We will enable emerging, talented artists to showcase their art in a prime location and with a full service offering that removes all the difficulties of setting-up and running an art business, through professional workshops taught by successful industry professionals, and one on one mentoring sessions. Our simple and affordable “all-inclusive licence fee� allows talented artists to take their first step into the professional art environment without long-term commitments; artists maintain
complete control over their creative licences, pricing (with our professional assistance) and profits (with 80% of the commission going straight to the artist). Debut Contemporary not only offers emerging artists an affordable opportunity to succeed in their creative careers, but also looks set to deliver a dynamic and stimulating gallery experience that has not previously been seen, in this particular format. A series of art performances in the gallery window will entice a wider audience to be part of the art world.
DAVID CHARLES WILLIAMS The Virtuous Nature In Silence Oil on Canvas 2011 Moments Drifting In Sennen Oil on Canvas 2011 Achievement Surrounds You Now! Forever! And Not in a Blink of Eye Oil on Canvas 2012
Contents
10
The Postkarten Project The postcard project by the Australian artist Caroline Kha
28
1 DoART: Agnetha Sjogren Art dog sculptures
35
Middle Eastern Art Scene by Sara Raza
Sana Khan an interview with the talented young photographer
An overview of the Middle Eastern Art Scene
21
Jewellery: Maria Francesca Pepe An interview with the World famous Italian jewellery designer
10
54
45 Interview with a chef Interview with one of the most creative chef in town
Interview with an interior: Judy Sale
69
Domus Nova Interview with the founders Arnaud Cheung & Rob Atkins, about their vision for the future of Domus Nova
Spring decorating ideas and design trends.
Art Dinner
35 Curating a space - tips Tips from expert on how to curate your space
The intimate artistic laboratory style networking event between creatives and the business thought leaders in London
78
Fashion: dresses by
Aida Emelyanova & Henrietta Ludgate The dresses born from the collaboration between the Scottish luxury womenswear designer and the Russian artist
WINTER ‘13 ISSUE
editor in chief: GABRIA LUPONE AND SARA RAZA creative director: GABRIA LUPONE writers: KELVIN DE VETH EVA KUBÍCKOVÁ PIÑA RODRIGUES GABRIA LUPONE SARA RAZA SOPHIA VICTORIA photography: GABRIA LUPONE art director: GAIA DI GREGORIO published by:
All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be copied or reproduced without the prior written consent of the Publisher.
Frame layouts: Elizabet James Colour In Motion, series 2011
Editor’s letter ‘Come, there’s no use in crying like that!’ said Alice to herself, rather sharply; ‘I advise you to leave off this minute!’ She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people. ‘But it’s no use now,’ thought poor Alice, ‘to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable person!’ Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’ She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way. So she set to work, and very
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Have you ever wondered where postcards come from? The artist Caroline Kha can help you find out the story behind your old postcards and tell you more about the places they show.
Caroline Kha is an Australian multidisciplinary artist specializing in painting and photography. Her paintings and collages examine the romanticisation of travel and culture and reflect her interest in the relationship and dialogue between traditional oil painting techniques and photography. After graduating in Fine Arts from the National Art School in Sydney, she moved to London where she was awarded an artist residency at the Florence Trust in 2009. Her artworks have been exhibited and found in private collections in Australia, Japan, Hong Kong, China and the United Kingdom. Kha’s recent work explores ideas about cultural memory, place and identity. Postcard and found imagery have always been a rich source material for her practice. The desire to learn more about the unknown and obscure places she found depicted in old postcards led her to the launch of a new project that celebrates personal stories, history and discovery of new destinations: the POSTKARTEN Project. The POSTKARTEN Project gathers old postcards from all over the world for the creation of a new work. Everyone can participate: postcard collectors and travellers are invited to submit postcards they have collected or received. Locations of a selection of them will be researched and mapped online in collaboration with creative web developer Mike Chang to produce an imap of postcard images connected to local historical information and personal stories. The aim of the project is to share stories and images of travel destinations and promote discovery of new and unknown places. Selected contributors will also be asked to participate in POSTKARTEN-VOYAGES, a traveling postcard book which will travel the world and be documented simultaneously online. Artist reserves the right to edit text. Selected locations will be researched and be mapped online.
CAROLINE KHA Bokeh Series Atlas, Oil on Canvas 2010 Bokeh Series Flos Caeli Oil On Canvas, 2010 Bokeh Series Il Mare Oil On Canvas 2012
Caroline Kha On The Road Mixed Media 2010
“
The blue ink on this postcard has started to fade and bleed making it difficult to read. Some stamp collector/spend thrift has steamed off the large stamp on the right hand corner. The postcard seems to be from the 1950s, the bright colours in the postcard remind me of the old American Technicolor films I used to watch as a kid. It reads, “The warm seas of the Indian Ocean are driving away the trail vestiges of the UK hostilities. We are staying literally 25 yards from a spectacular beach which really has white sands. In the garden avocados, bananas, paw paw and flame trees of thika grow in abundance. Out of the trees appear baboons, colobus monkeys and bush babies. The girls have been bare back camel riding = uncomfortable by all accounts! Wish you were here, L.”
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For further information about the POSTKARTEN Project or to participate, contact postkartenproject@gmail.com
Postcard submission requirements: To follow:
Send an old postcard or a copy of a postcard marked “POSTKARTEN Project” to 29C Islip Street, Kentish Town, London.
PostkartenProject.tumblr.com
#PostkartenProj
Or send 300 dpi postcard image and details to postkartenproject@gmail.com Postcards could be one you collected or one you have received. Location could be known or unknown. Write on the back or on a separate sheet of paper a couple sentences about: why you chose the postcard and any personal significance. Artist reserves the right to edit text. Selected locations will be researched and be mapped online.
Sana KHAN
Sana Khan is a Pakistani Contemporary Fine Art Photographer whose work compasses rudimentary human emotions and experiences through the stages of life. Sana Khan is a young Contemporary Fine Art photographer whose work shows the rudimentary human emotions and experiences through the stages of life. Her art is a representation of the world as she sees it. All of her sets are created with meticulous effort to reproduce her interpretations and notions in a more tangible form. For some early photographs, for example, she spent months searching relentlessly for morgues and butcher shops for cadavers. In her more recent series she has used painted backdrops and constructed sculptures adorned with ghungroos, a group of metallic bells that form an anklet worn by Indian and Pakistani dancers. I met up with Sana to find out more about this eccentric artist and to understand the long process behind each of her works.
SARA KHAN Ghungroo Series I 3540 x 5320 2012 On the left page: Some are just not meant to be caged 5904 x 3540 2008
SARA KHAN Tree Series Pinyada 3240 x 4274 2008 Hippo -x20--
1)Tell us something about you and your background I’m a contemporary fine art photographer from Pakistan, currently based in London.
2) Describe what you do and how you do it My art is a tool of communicating my own narratives of life, showing the world as I see it. Aim is to create what I have in mind and have it come out on paper as something real. I prefer creating work in a controlled environment, mostly on constructed studio sets. I often have to go through painstaking months of organizing the execution of work, and travel to locations where the items required are accessible.
4) How do you come up with your best ideas? My ideas show up in symbols that relate to state I’m in, which I then develop further. Either I’ll get the full visuals when in sleepy state or intoxicated by music or some experience would bring forth a symbol in mind that I get obsessive about and build my story around. For example my recent series ‘Ghungroos’ was inspired by my fascination with coming and going of a man I adored. He worse squeaky shoes that made sounds against the floor, which alerted me of his arrival. I could find no better object better suited to express the sound as I would hear it then that of ghungroos,
5) Where do you find funding for your projects? Most of my work is self funded, but recently been lucky enough to get residencies where I was allowed to make work in return for teaching workshops at art universities.
6) What is more important for you, content or technique? I think both go hand in hand, I try to balance both with equal importance.
7) What are you working on now? I’m currently completing fourth photograph for Ghungroos’ series, which has to be shot in Sri Lanka. At the moment making arrangements for possible travel dates and funding from art organization. Also exhibiting work in London and around Europe.
8) What’s the finniest/weirdest thing that has ever happen during one of your shooting? Oh plenty! Rhino getting a boner during shoot, trying to control a monkey that jumped around set peeing on equipment but the worse one for me was when I was working in morgue for a brief time in order to get permission to use a dead female head for my work. And while cutting the body huge chunk of skin and flesh flew in my mouth and for some strange reason my first instinct was to swallow it.
SARA KHAN Draped in Goth I 4894 x 4111 2008 Ghungroo Series I 7172 x 6328 2012
CALL FOR ARTISTS
We are pleased to announce that we are accepting applications from all aspiring and talented artists across all disciplines to be part of Debut Contemporary. We are looking for artists to join the programme who will meet the criteria set out by our select committee. We invite all independent talented and ambitious artists across all media to apply, including visual arts, performance, film, animation, sound and music.
Membership at Debut Contemporary includes 1-2-1 mentoring and professional development with our expert team, regular weekly workshops headed by leading industry experts from the world of art and business, assistance with PR & marketing and social media strategies, promotion and sale of artworks with 80% net commission for artists, as well as special events such as art dinners and monthly private views which provide an opportunity to showcase the work and personally meet a wide range art collectors and influencers from the international art scene. This unique platform is designed to best showcase, support and promote emerging contemporary artists in the UK and internationally and act as a launchpad to further artists’ careers. With over 5000 applications received to date, the selection process is rigorous and we are looking for great art coupled by an equally good mind-set and hunger to succeed. With numerous success stories from the Debut artists in the past year, we very much look forward to continuing to discover, mentor and nurture new talent. Applications can be made via the Debut Contemporary website, www.debutcontemporary.com by clicking ‘Apply’ in the menu bar. We are looking forward to hearing from you soon, Debut Contemporary