Aesthetica Issue 98

Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 98 December / January 2021

PLAYING WITH TRADITION

ARCHIVE AND MONTAGE

MODES OF REPRESENTATION

Architects who move from immersive game design to community activism

Hassan Hajjaj blends North African culture with western iconographies

Photography that merges interior and exterior within fictional worlds

NGV Triennial explores portraiture as a vehicle for expressing personal identity

UK £5.95 Europe €11.95 USA $15.49

ALTERING THE BLUEPRINT

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Welcome Editor’s Note

On the Cover Los Angeles fashion photographer Natasha Wilson has a mutual passion for art and travel. These two interests come together in various shoots, which tap into the culture of a given location. Her process includes painting a blend of colours over images in post-production (p. 58).

Cover Image: Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson.

Model: Grant Uba. For: Adidas Superstar Campaign.

Here we are, at the end of one year and the start of a new one. We’ve all changed a lot: there's so much we’ve been through and learned together. Technology has become further integrated into daily lives – and we use it for pretty much everything – mostly because we do not have a choice.

Fear has also played a big role in 2020. Back in March, the idea of being in lockdown was alarming, even frightening. It’s a bizarre cultural shift to be nervous to touch a door handle in a public place or to brush past someone on the street. I am nostalgic for the days before the pandemic, and I want them back.

However, we must remember: we are nearing a vaccine. Beyond this, there is a huge amount of relief and joy to be found knowing Trump will be gone from the White House. It's enough to end an incredibly tough year and tie it with a bow, starting 2021 with hope. That is a wonderful feeling.

Inside this issue we look at NGV Triennial in Melbourne. It’s a large-scale exhibition of international contemporary art, design, fashion and architecture. Featuring more than 100 practitioners from more than 30 countries, this year’s presentation asks us to consider the world as we know it, but then think carefully about what we’d like it to be in terms of representation and inclusivity. This is a crucial moment of change and opportunity. We also speak with Hassan Hajjaj – known as “the Andy Warhol of Marrakech” – about identity politics. Through his wonderfully detailed images, we are able to reframe important narratives. Suzanne Moxhay, an Aesthetica Art Prize finalist, speaks to us about blurring the lines between interior and exterior; nature and technology. These images grapple with idealism and dystopia.

In photography, Alia Ali, Kate Theo, Eugenia Falqui, Markus Guschelbauer, Ismail Zaidy and Natasha Wilson question our relationships with both the natural and manmade world – and by extension – our perceptions of each other. There is so much to learn here. Finally, the Last Words go to Magda Keaney, Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, to discuss this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize.

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Art 14 News Coverage of Mary Ellen Mark at San Diego Museum of Art; Alec Soth at Foam Amsterdam; and Gregory Crewdson at Galerie Templon, Paris.

20 10 to See This edition's recommended shows include solo presentations of Barbara Kruger, Isaac Julien, Barbara Kasten, Boomoon and Sarah Sze.

24 Archive and Montage Suzanne Moxhay's photography is reminiscent of empty sets, uniting the exterior and the interior, drawing from collected material and ambiguity.

30 Cultural Examination Alia Ali's photographs use cloth and fabric to hide identities, asking questions about how we define and separate through what we can or can’t see.

42 Focusing on the Detail Eugenia Falqui breaks away from TripAdvisorworthy compositions of Bangkok, shooting the surreal and often humorous sides of the city.

52 Altering the Blueprint Today’s architects aren’t just designing buildings.

They’re working across multiple disciplines to tackle ecological responsibility and social justice.

58 Dynamic Framework Los Angeles fashion photographer Natasha Wilson has a passion for art and travel; she taps into the culture of locations whilst shooting.

70 Surreal Presentation Fine Art. Surrealism. Fantasy. These are the pillars of Kate Theo’s practice, featuring graphic yellow suns, black crescent moons and folded curtains.

82 Playing with Tradition Hassan Hajjaj blends North African culture with western iconographies. Framed images subvert and democratise fashion logos and brands.

88 Searching for Intimacy Ismail Zaidy's alluring compositions play with proximity and distance, featuring siblings as symbols of both connection and estrangement.

100 Modes of Representation The 2020 NGV Triennial explores portraiture as a vehicle for expressing both personal and global identities across continents and cultures.

106 Organic Assemblage Markus Guschelbauer creates pastel-coloured installations that represent our desire to organise and control our interactions with nature.

Exhibitions

Film

Music

116 Gallery Reviews This issue we explore the works of Leila Alaoui at Somerset House, Paul Graham at Huxley-Parlour and Helmut Newton at Hamiltons Gallery.

120 Aesthetica Film Festival The winners of this year's festival have been announced. We provide an overview of the 10th Anniversary Edition, which took place virtually.

122 Opportunity and Promise You Me At Six has crafted its most experimental album to date. The new record is about finding peace and acceptance in what has been and gone.

Books

Artists’ Directory

Last Words

124 Beyond the Binaries Following on from Why Drag? and #GAYFACE, Magnus Hastings is back with another impressive collection celebrating queer identity and visibility.

140 Featured Practitioners This issue's selection includes artists who respond to the world in new ways, moving fluidly between both traditional and experimental techniques.

146 Magda Keaney We speak to the Senior Curator of the National Portrait Gallery about this year's Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize exhibition.

Aesthetica Magazine is trade marked worldwide. © Aesthetica Magazine Ltd 2020.

The Aesthetica Team: Editor: Cherie Federico Assistant Editor: Kate Simpson Digital Content Writer: Eleanor Sutherland Digital Assistant: Saffron Ward

Advertisement Enquiries: Megan Hobson (0044) (0)844 568 2001 advertising@aestheticamagazine.com

ISSN 1743-2715.

All work is copyrighted to the author or artist.

All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used or reproduced without permission from the publisher.

Published by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley.

Aesthetica Magazine 21 New Street, York, YO1 8RA (0044) (0)844 568 2001 Newstrade Distribution: Warners Group Publications plc.

Gallery & Specialist Distribution: Central Books.

Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

Advertising Coordinator: Megan Hobson Artists’ Directory Coordinator: Katherine Smira Production Director: Dale Donley Operations Manager: Cassandra Weston Technical Coordinator: Andy Guy

Contributors: Greg Thomas, Diane Smyth, Beth Webb, Matt Swain, Gunseli Yalcinkaya Reviewers: Kyle Bryony, James Mottram, Chris Webb, Jack Solloway, Jennifer Sauer, Robyn Cusworth, Olivia Hampton, Eleanor Sutherland

Artists’ Directory Enquiries: Katherine Smira (0044) (0)844 568 2001 directory@aestheticamagazine.com Subscriptions: subscriptions@aestheticamagazine.com (0044) (0)844 568 2001 General Enquiries: info@aestheticamagazine.com Press Releases: pr@aestheticamagazine.com Follow us: aestheticamagazine.com facebook.com/aestheticamagazine twitter.com/AestheticaMag pinterest.com/AestheticaMag instagram.com/AestheticaMag

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© Ute Mahler & Werner Mahler, Group with girls, Werben, 68 x 85 cm, Gelatin silver print, Ed. 5.

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On the Riverbanks AT THE STREAMS Ute Mahler (b. 1949) and Werner Mahler (b. 1950) grew up February 2020, they continued to the Volga. Visits to other in the former German Democratic Republic (1949-1990). rivers, including the Rhône and Tagus, are also on the cards.

Whilst much of the duo’s output is rooted in realism, they Together with five other photographers, they founded the Ostkreuz Photo Agency in 1990, named after the S-Bahn sta- are not limited to documentary work. In July this year, the tion – the busiest traffic hub in Berlin. Now, Galerie Springer, artists produced their first fashion spread in 27 years with Berlin, is opening the exhibition At the Streams, highlighting Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin. It is a throwback to the artists’ a new and previously unpublished series. It marks the EMOP early days, when they earned money with fashion photogra(European Month of Photography 2020) – Germany’s larg- phy. “We often alluded to elements of the GDR in these comest festival dedicated to the production of lens-based media. missions, taking models onto the street, taking very serious For this series, both photographers toured Europe’s major portraits,” they explained. “Some of these never got printed rivers and streams – the Elbe, Rhine/Waal, Danube, Po and due to our wider motives. Our portrayals of women did not Volga – considering their social, ecological, political, eco- correspond to the state ideals. Those in charge wanted to see nomic and historical significance. These emotionally power- the models looking more optimistic.”

The series – which is part of Galerie Springer’s exhibition – ful images depict scenes of life on waterways, using portraits and architectural structures to tell authentic stories. “We do was produced at a small location on the Elbe riverbank and not stage any of our pictures,” Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler retains much of their signature style. The monochrome comhave said. “We start with a documentary approach and show, positions were made using a large format camera and depict through subjective photographs, what we have found. In this models exploring and engaging with the landscape. Young way, we discover a sense of reality. It is our reality, however. people stand outside old caravans or gather around outdoor dining tables. Models find pathways to the river, an intriguing History becomes tangible when it’s about real people.”

In these images, groups of people gather on the banks, counterpoint to the documentary shots, with crows hovering enjoying a summer’s day or evening bonfire. The artists atop telephone poles and children running into the distance. began the project, which is captured entirely in analogue This new and unusual collection overlaps in many ways with black-and-white, at the Elbe, the Rhine and the Danube At the Streams: highlighting the depth, complexity, longevity in Bulgaria in 2019. The Po followed in autumn, and, in and range of Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler’s oeuvre.

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“For this series, both photographers toured Europe's major rivers and streams – the Elbe, Rhine/Waal, Danube, Po and Volga – considering their social, ecological, political, economic and historical significance.”

At the Streams Galerie Springer, Berlin Until 30 January galeriespringer.de

Image as Transformation DAWOUD BEY: AN AMERICAN PROJECT

“Just make work that you believe matters.

Audiences have the potential to go back out into the world with new information, and a transformed world view. This may sound like an ambitious agenda, but it is the only agenda.”

Dawoud Bey: An American Project High Museum, Atlanta 12 December - 14 March high.org

Dawoud Bey, A Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, NY (detail), 1990, courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery, Stephen Daiter Gallery, and Rena Bransten Gallery. © Dawoud Bey.

Dawoud Bey was born in 1953 in the borough of Queens, Class Pictures – striking, large-scale colour portraits of high New York City. Now a world-renowned photographer, he first school students, shown alongside stories and notes written began to develop an interest in images as a teenager, receiv- by the subjects. He continued this project across the USA, foing a camera from his godmother in 1968. The following year, cusing on teenagers from a wide range of economic, social he saw Harlem on My Mind at The Metropolitan Museum of and ethnic backgrounds. It gave them space to reveal their Art – an exhibition widely criticised for its failure to include a thoughts, fears and dreams – challenging stereotypes of adolescence. “Bey’s portraits are remarkable for their keen significant number of artworks by African Americans.

Bey was inspired to develop a new documentary project sensitivity and for how they elicit and honour their subjects’ about Harlem, and took to the streets, producing portraits sense of self, which is partly an outcome of the artist’s colwith residents from the historic neighbourhood. The series laborative practice,” notes Sarah Kennel, the High’s Donald premiered at the Studio Museum in 1979, when Bey was just and Marilyn Keough Family Curator of Photography.

The retrospective also includes several poignant bodies 26 years old. “I wanted to make images that contributed to the conversation about Harlem in visual culture,” Bey writes of work exploring African American history and collective in On Photographing People and Communities, published by memory. The Birmingham Project, for example, was created Aperture in 2019. “If you’re serious about learning your art in 2012 to remember those killed in the 1963 bombing of form, it’s important to learn about the history of the subject.” the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The Four decades later, Bey continues to create powerful and pictures, and an accompanying video, are stirring reminders tender photographs that portray a diversity of African Ameri- of lost lives – and the enduring effects of systemic racism. can stories and experiences. Now, the High Museum of Art, An American Project highlights Bey’s powerful and memoAtlanta, presents a full career retrospective – spanning a rable engagement with community, history and place. He larger portfolio of work from early pieces in 1970s Harlem writes to a new generation of artists: “Just make work that you to his most recent landscape series shot in 2017, which reim- believe matters and that has the capacity to transform. Audiagined the sites of the Underground Railroad in Ohio. ences have the potential to go back out into the world with After honing his skills in street photography, Bey moved new information, and a transformed world view. This may towards the studio. By the early 2000s, Bey was making sound like an ambitious agenda, but it is the only agenda.”

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Gregory Crewdson, Alone Street (2018-2019). Tirage pigmentaire monté sur Dibond / Archival pigment print mounted to Dibond.

127 x 225.80 cm – 50 x 88 x 7/8 in. ©Courtesy Templon, Paris – Brussels.

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States of Disillusion AN ECLIPSE OF MOTHS Compared to previous series, including Cathedral of the “I want the viewer to “I have been making pictures in the same general area in western Massachusetts for 25 years now. I drive around and Pines (2013/2014), this new work pans further outwards, interpret their own around in my car, and when a location is right, I just know. I looking at the American landscape through its expansive meaning. The figures am very familiar, in particular, with Pittsfield, MA, and have geography and polarised perspectives. Crewdson notes: “I are often caught in a favourite spots that I like to scout for pictures. I have been made all the Cathedral of the Pines pictures in very remote state of contemplation fascinated with one taxi depot in particular for years, and the locations. That series was more intimate, and had a particular or longing or a search neighbourhoods that surround it. There's a certain kind of focus on nature: the relationship between exterior and inte- for meaning, but I architecture and feeling there that I am drawn to. These pic- rior spaces, dislocation and longing. Some of those themes hope that there is also tures were all made essentially within a small geographical carry into An Eclipse of Moths, but here I was more interested a feeling of optimism, area.” Gregory Crewdson (b. 1962) has been internationally in the urban landscape and placing smaller figures within a redemption and some acclaimed for his unique style – combining documentary vaster view. These prints are larger – and more panoramic – sort of transcendence.” voyeurism with a lustrous vision of contemporary life. He is a to emphasise that relationship between the characters and master of conceptual narratives played out within the every- the emptied-out settings that surround them.”

Though these works are filled with inertia and disillusion, day, often taking domestic settings as a focus.

His latest series, An Eclipse of Moths, comprises 16 images shot in the middle of health and political crises with the 2020 shot over the last two years, ruminating around downed presidential campaign in full swing, Crewdson is keen to state streetlights, abandoned baby carriages and decommissioned that the photographs were not made with any overt social carnival rides. These outdoor scenes, in post-industrial New or political commentary in mind. However, he recognises England, offer room for a cast of classic, haunted characters – his work is, at least, indirectly influenced by the state of full of equal parts yearning and ennui, which the title reflects: the world. He explains: “I think I see this influence more in “The name comes from a real term for a grouping of moths retrospect, rather than a real intention at the time. However, An Eclipse of Moths that are drawn to a light source. I liked that metaphor in terms I want the viewer to interpret their own meaning. The figures Galerie Templon, Paris of the figures in the pictures, being drawn to street lamps and are often caught in a state of contemplation and longing, or Until 23 January porch lights. Like moths, they are attempting to use the lights a search for meaning, but I hope that there is also a feeling of optimism, redemption and some sort of transcendence.” to find their way in the midst of feeling lost, or disoriented.” templon.com

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Proximity and Vulnerability I KNOW HOW FURIOUSLY YOUR HEART IS BEATING

Sonya and Dombrovsky, Odessa, 2018 © Alec Soth / Magnum Photos.

Alec Soth (b. 1969) is widely recognised as a chronicler of spaces. From then on, he became deeply immersed in the “For this series, Soth life on the margins. His breakthrough into the industry came inner worlds of others: “In order to try and access these lives, worked at the sitters' homes with a slow as a Magnum photographer with the 2004 series Sleeping by I made all of the photographs within interior spaces.”

Unlike many of Soth’s previous visual narratives, the choice large-format camera, the Mississippi – a collection of images documenting various of geographical location was not preconceived, but the result almost exclusively people and places across the southern state.

As he travelled, he captured the often-overlooked elements of a series of chance encounters and a fully-fledged embrace using natural light. It of life in the USA, recording an eclectic mix of subjects, from of spontaneity. “Whilst these rooms often exist in far-flung was a laborious, timeempty gas stations at night to abandoned flags and furniture places, it’s only to emphasise that these pictures aren’t about consuming approach scattered along the riverbanks. Soth’s most recent project, any place in particular. Whether a picture is made in Odessa that required subjects I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating, marks a change or Minneapolis, my goal was the same: to simply spend time to remain still for extended periods.” of direction. The body of work, which is currently on view at in the presence of another beating heart.”

In 2020, the need for human contact has been at the foreFoam Amsterdam, is vastly more intimate – comprising close front of global conversation and personal emotions. A desire portraits accompanied by still lifes of personal belongings.

Soth explains: “After the publication of my last book – for connection is a theme that runs throughout Soth’s portwhich was about social life in America – I went through a folio, with windows and doors appearing like portals between long period of rethinking my creative process. For over a year isolated spaces and potential connection beyond; from priI stopped travelling. I barely took any pictures at all. When I vate to public. For this series, he worked at the sitters’ homes returned to photography, I wanted to strip the medium down with a slow large-format camera, almost exclusively using to its primary elements. Rather than trying to make some natural light. It was a laborious, time-consuming approach sort of epic narrative, I wanted to simply spend time looking that required subjects to remain still for extended periods. I Know How Furiously The resulting images close the distance between subject and Your Heart is Beating at other people and briefly glimpse their interior life.”

The starting point was a portrait Soth made in 2017 of the voyeur, drawing attention the tension and proximity between Foam Amsterdam then-97-year-old choreographer Anna Halprin in her home them. I Know How Furiously Your Heart Is Beating is a poetic Until 6 December in California. It sparked an interest in focusing on individuals series filled with vulnerability and honesty. The portraits will and the intricacies of their private settings and domestic hold your gaze: holding a mirror to us, as we are, when alone. foam.org

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Mary Ellen Mark, (detail), Lakeasha and Takeasha Edwards, 21 years old, Lakeasha older by 5 minutes, 2002. Large-format Polaroid.

Collection of Cam and Wanda Garner. Copyright: Estate of Mary Ellen Mark, Courtesy: Howard Greenberg Gallery.

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Beyond Appearances MARY ELLEN MARK: TWINS Over the summers of 2001 and 2002, Mary Ellen Mark The camera is enormous and was wheeled into position. The “The interviews (1940-2015) brought a team of assistants and a large- conspicuous nature of this contraption eliminates any of the demonstrate format Polaroid camera to Twinsburg, Ohio, for the annual candid spontaneity of the more traditional Polaroid snap- a diversity of Twins Days Festival. The resulting series captures the physi- shots most of us are used to. It is well-suited to formal, posed experiences and cal similarity, and subtle differences, of identical twins. Cory portraits. The cool, calm atmosphere belies the hot, frenzied outlooks. When we take time to truly Woodall, Assistant Curator at The San Diego Museum of Art atmosphere of the festival in the midst of summer.”

The featured image depicts Lakeasha and Takeasha Ed- consider each other, (SDMA), explains: “Mark engaged the twins in conversation, getting to know them in the short time they had together wards, both 21 years old (Takeasha older by five minutes.) we find that we during the photoshoot. She worked with them in determin- The portrait is confident and assured – both twins taking a cannot always trust ing their poses and facial expressions. Some are depicted mirror-image gesture. The minute shifts in stature and outfit our assumptions and goofing around, whilst others embrace, or are straight-faced. draw the eye: Lakeasha wears multiple necklaces; Takeasha that it is rewarding These choices help to communicate the sitters’ personalities several rings on her hands. Lakeasha holds her feet further to take a closer look.” and what image they wanted to represent themselves: light- apart; Takeasha pivots her feet closer together, pointing her hearted, loving or self-controlled. Later, after the photo- hip further outwards – towards her sister.

Beyond these intriguing compositional nuances, Mark’s shoots had occurred, Mark conducted phone interviews with the twins to better understand their experiences and attitudes. process – both formally and conceptually – draws attention to the idiosyncrasies of the portraits, drawing on the Polaroid Snippets from these interviews are included.”

At SDMA, the works are installed in groups based on subject, print as a unique object. This sense of individuality is imporstyle and theme. The lack of background places the viewers’ tant for SDMA as it brings the show into 2020 dialogues. focus entirely on the sitters (or standers). The only contex- Woodall explains: “This exhibition allows us to consider that Mary Ellen Mark: Twins tual clues come from the poses, expressions and clothes, despite appearances, no two people, or types of people, are The San Diego which were chosen independently. “Mark wanted to capture ever exactly the same. The interviews also demonstrate a di- Museum of Art the twins as themselves, not necessarily in the context of the versity of experiences and outlooks. When we take the time to Until 7 March fair. She realised the best way to present the pristine details truly consider each other, we find that we cannot always trust was with a highly specialised large-format Polaroid camera. our assumptions and that it is rewarding to take a closer look.” sdmart.org

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Discovery and Documentation UNEARTHED: PHOTOGRAPHY'S ROOTS

Charles Jones, Broccoli Leamington, c.1895-1910, © Sean Sexton, Photo copyright Dulwich Picture Gallery.

“Since the 1800s, photography has gone from being an study and share an understanding of nature’s “architecture.” “At times like this, Moving into the 21st century, Richard Learoyd's (b. 1966) it's important to abstract concept to an integral part of our lives. Now, the lines between documentary and fantasy have never been camera-obscura still lifes are made using antiquated pro- remember that we so blurred.” Unearthed looks at the relationship between cesses. The compositions are pale and melancholy, with are nature too; human beings and nature, as told through the lens. Curator flowers wilting on wooden plinths in front of pallid grey we have endured. and Creative Producer, Alexander Moore, explains: “For the backgrounds. Meanwhile, Welsh artist Helen Sear's (b. 1955) Difficult choices will first photography exhibition here at Dulwich Picture Gallery Wildflower Arrangement comprises multiple “portraits” of the undoubtedly have to it was important to make a 200-year narrative accessible. The Daucus Carota. Pictured against an opulent blood red fabric, be made in the coming show is chronological; the rooms mirror certain movements.” the flower is carefully poised, referencing magic realism and years and I hope the It begins with the camera’s invention in 1840, highlighting surrealism, whilst adopting Elizabethan and Stuart portrai- preservation of both some of the first known Victorian images by William Henry ture. Mat Collishaw’s (b. 1966) Auto-Immolation is emotive, nature and the arts Fox Talbot (1800-1877). “In general terms, photography as videos of burning orchids are trapped within Gothic arches. will be on the agenda.” was considered more of a science in Victorian times, but Collishaw taps into ancient religious concepts – combining Fox Talbot’s obsession stemmed from his frustration as an LED technology with sacred ideals to shock and captivate. artist. Rather than becoming one then the other, I prefer These are just some of the 41 practitioners included in Unthe idea that photography has, and always will be, both a earthed – a seminal show intended to offer inspiration when science and an art.” This early duality between expression we perhaps need it most. Moore continues: “I do want the and investigation can also be seen in by Anna Atkin’s (1799- exhibition to provide hope. Most of the species have existed 1871) cyanotypes: camera-less photograms of algae. through wars, depressions, diseases and wider corruption. At Unearthed: The advent of the camera allowed for quick documentation times like this, it’s important to remember that we are nature Photography's Roots of the landscape, making it an important tool. At the centre of too; we have endured. However, we must also consider our Dulwich Picture Gallery, Unearthed is Japanese inventor Ogawa Kazumasa, who cre- priorities. Difficult choices will undoubtedly have to be made London, Dates TBC. ated colourful photographs 30 years before the discovery of in the coming years and I hope that the preservation of both colour film. Other innovators include Karl Blossfeldt (1865- nature and the arts will be on the agenda. It is these things dulwichpicture 1932), who captured close-up views of plant specimens to that have brought us through difficult times in the past.” gallery.org.uk

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10 to See RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

Though current restrictions differ across the world, with some shows only feasible to view digitally, our round-up considers some of today's most hard-hitting topics from the changing role of the curator to the lack of racial equality, even as we move into 2021.

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Scenarios

Aspen Art Museum | Until 4 April

aspenartmuseum.org Can a photograph be an abstraction? This is the question Barbara Kasten (b. 1936) has been asking for over 40 years. Influenced by Constructivism, the Bauhaus School and László Moholy-Nagy, the Chicago-based artist is best known for work that plays with geometric shapes, light and colour. Scenarios, a new show at Aspen Art Museum, draws on a recent series of non-photographic works, titled Progressions. The exhibition is immersive: audiences are encouraged to approach, walk around, and examine the pieces from all angles.

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Hyperborea

Tate Britain, London | Until 5 March

tate.org “Being ‘female’ and ‘foreign’ was never a problem as a student – later, I realised that there was a difference; but what was important in the end was what I did and not where I came from.”

Kim Lim (1936-1997) was a Singaporean-British sculptor and printmaker of Chinese descent.

Lim experienced a great deal of racial prejudice and gender inequality throughout her 40year career. She responded by creating a unique visual language: an attention to curve, line and surface made her a key figure in the minimalist movement. Tate celebrates her life work.

The Photographers' Gallery, London | Until 24 January

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thephotographersgallery.org.uk Evgenia Arbugaeva (b. 1985) is an award-winning photographer who grew up in a secluded port city on the shore of the Laptev Sea, Russia. Now based in London, the artist remains connected to her birthplace, recording the remote landscapes of the Russian Arctic. The Photographers’ Gallery presents four visual stories connected to real human experiences.

These include images of Dikson, a derelict ghost town illuminated by the Aurora Borealis, and the Chukchi community, which continues to uphold traditions from their ancestors.

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Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. The Art Institute of Chicago | Until 14 February

artic.edu Barbara Kruger (b. 1945) is a searing critic of popular culture. She uses bold graphics, sharp contrasts and direct statements to expose the power dynamics that influence us, from the construction of our identities to the information we consume. Kruger’s rigorous interrogation of stereotypes, advertisements and slogans are imbued with humour, anger, curiosity and empathy. The Art Institute of Chicago re-acquaints audiences with a dynamic and ground-breaking voice, which is just as courageous today as it was in the early 1980s.

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Street. Life. Photography Fotomuseum Winterthur | Until 10 January

fotomuseum.ch How has urban life changed in the last 70 years? To what extent has our relationship with public spaces been altered since the rise of social media, at the hands of gentrification and homogenisation? Fotomuseum Winterthur invites viewers to take a journey through 220 images, exploring a simultaneous sense of proximity and distance. Crowds are at once anonymous and inherently visible – individuals lost in the bustle and blur of activity. Over 36 photographers capture the spectacle, speed and drama of metropolitan landscapes.

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Night Into Day Fondation Cartier, Paris | Until 7 March

fondationcartier.com “As an artist, I think about the effort, desire and continual longing to make meaning of the world around us through materials – to try and locate a kind of wonder, but also a kind of futility that lies in that very fragile pursuit.” Sarah Sze’s (b. 1969) expansive installations combine film, architecture and sculpture. For a solo show at Fondation Cartier, Paris, Sze considers the sensory and psychological repercussions of mass media dissemination: how digital images change and fragment our understanding of objects, time and memory.

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Waterfalls Flowers Gallery, London | Until 9 January

flowersgallery.com For over four decades, South Korean artist Boomoon (b. 1955) has produced large format images focusing on the infinite and ungovernable presence of nature. Flowers Gallery displays a series of photographs portraying a waterfall in Skógafoss, Iceland. The tightly cropped compositions – devoid of all other context – draw the viewer’s focus to the abstract beauty of water rippling downwards, shape-shifting and moving with uncontrollable force.

Boomoon notes: “The water keeps falling self-recursively, aimlessly and meaninglessly.”

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Lessons of the Hour

McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco | Until 13 March

mcevoyarts.org Isaac Julien’s (b. 1960) Lessons of the Hour is a poetic meditation on the life and times of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) – a visionary African American writer, abolitionist and a freed slave, who was also the most photographed man of the 19th century. The show's centrepiece is a multi-screen film installation, which re-imagines the life of a man who struggled for equality as a global citizen. Julien reflects, heartbreakingly, that there are lessons yet to be learned, and the effects of systemic racism are still felt in 2020.

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JR: Chronicles Saatchi Gallery, London | 3 December - 21 March

saatchigallery.com JR (b. 1983) is a TED prize-winner, an Oscar-nominated filmmaker named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2018 – a street artist whose identity is unconfirmed. He has received global acclaim for bringing together diverse groups, creating dialogues around women’s rights, immigration and gun control. JR photographs individuals and pastes the images, sometimes illegally, in spaces reserved for advertisements. Saatchi demonstrates how JR has expanded the meaning of public art through increased visibility and agency.

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Infinite Identities Huis Marseille, Amsterdam | Unti 28 February

huismarseille.nl Infinite Identities: Photography in the Age of Sharing presents the work of eight artists who use Instagram to develop and communicate ideas surrounding their practice. The exhibition demonstrates the power and potential of social media to expand beyond the gallery walls into a virtual, accessible realm. Huis Marseille asks topical questions: How is the internet going to change long-standing museum processes in the future? How did the pandemic bring about new digital bubbles of inspiration? What role might the curator play in 2021 and beyond?

1. Barbara Kasten, Crossover (Düsseldorf) 2016. Installation view of Less is a Bore at K10 Arthena Foundation, Düsseldorf, Germany Image courtesy the artist and Bortolami, New York; Thomas Dane Gallery, London; Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf. 2. Photograph of Kim Lim at work at her studio, London, 1966. Courtesy of Turnbull Studio. 3. From the series Dikson. © Evgenia Arbugaeva. Courtesy the artist and The Photographers’ Gallery. 4. Barbara Kruger, Untitled (Forever), 2017. Digital print on vinyl wallpaper. Dimensions variable. Amorepacific Museum of Art, Seoul. Installation views: Sprueth Magers, Berlin, 2017-2018. 5. Natan Dvir, Juicy Couture 01, from the series Coming Soon, 2008-2014 © Natan Dvir . 6. Sarah Sze, Slice, 2018. Mixed media, wood, stainless, steel, acrylic, video projectors, archival pigment prints, ceramic and tape. Dimensions Variable © Sarah Sze. Photo Credit: Sarah Sze Studio. 7.

Waterfall #7803, 2017, Archival pigment print . © Boomoon, Courtesy of Flowers Gallery. 8. Isaac Julien, The North Star (Lessons of the Hour), 2019. Framed archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Baryta 315g paper mounted on aluminium. Courtesy of the artist, Jessica Silverman, San Francisco and Victoria Miro, London/Venice. 9. JR, The Chronicles of Clichy-Montfermeil, 2017 (detail).

Duratrans prints, lightbox. © JR-ART.NET. JR: Chronicles is organised by the Brooklyn Museum. 10. Sub-saharan migrants wait to be rescued by aid workers of Spanish NGO Open Arms in the Mediterranean Sea on Tuesday, July 25, 2017. © Santi Palacios.

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Archive and Montage Suzanne Moxhay MOXHAY'S COMPOSITE IMAGES ARE INSPIRED BY CINEMATIC WORLDS: BLURRING THE LINES BETWEEN INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR; PAST AND PRESENT; FACT AND FICTION.

Suzanne Moxhay’s (b. 1976) work developed out of an in- into the same plane. When I started making images, I took terest in the constructed domain of film, where natural and inspiration from these techniques. I deconstructed postcards artificial elements merge to immerse the viewer in a fictional and remade them on a tabletop in a three-dimensional way. world. She creates photomontages reminiscent of empty I then re-photographed them, and that became my method sets, uniting the exterior and the interior, drawing from an – introducing another layer of artifice. Postcards, inherently, archive of her own photographs, material collected from old present an idealised view, and I took this idea further. I’ve inmagazines and printed imagery. The audience is involved in corporated other methods into my work since, such as modthe construction of these visuals, which play with anomalies el-making, props, painting and digital manipulation. I like to of texture, surface, depth, scale, movement and architecture. create images that are ambiguous – that invite the viewer to Moxhay has exhibited widely, both nationally and interna- engage with the construction of the scene, in terms of how it tionally, and her work is held in many significant public and was made as much as the suggestion of narrative. private collections across the world, including the University of the Arts Collection, The Royal Academy of Arts, The Cooper A: Pluralities are an integral part of your process. What Union New York, the FSC, the Lodeveans Collection and is the function of layering textures and historical referOxford University. She has featured in numerous publications ences beyond the aesthetics of the composition? including The Guardian, a-n Magazine and Art World Magazine, SM: Working with montage requires a particular way of thinkand has been profiled on the BBC Culture Show. She was also ing. Even if you have some idea of the direction you want to go in, you inevitably have to be guided by the material. I shortlisted for the Aesthetica Art Prize in 2016. originally used old magazines, but nowadays I predominantA: You often use a combination of methods – including ly use my own photographs. I have built up a large archive painting, photography and model-making. How did you and I look for connections across this collection. These can develop each of these techniques individually, and how be formal – like following a path of light from one frame to another – or conceptual, based on the subject matter. do they come together to inform your practice today?

SM: I’ve always been fascinated by the artifice of cinema, where you are often looking at a composite. In old films this A: Why did you pursue photography, not filmmaking? is particularly apparent; the backdrops are clearly paintings; SM: Of course, a film unfolds over time unlike a still image. cityscapes are actually models made on the miniature scale. However, film borrows a lot from painting in terms of lighting, The camera has the effect of flattening out differences be- tone and composition. It is this crossover that intrigues me. tween these forms of representation – bringing everything I always found it interesting that after watching a film I’d

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Suzanne Moxhay, Palms (2019). Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of the artist.

“The attic has been a source of idea generation as it has been left virtually untouched for decades.

It contains a series of unusually shaped and dilapidated rooms.

I've been inspired by its decoration, such as layers of old wallpaper. ”

Previous Page: Suzanne Moxhay, Hybrid (2019).

Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of the artist.

Left: Suzanne Moxhay, Casement (2017).

Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of the artist.

often be left with the impression of seeing certain pictures, but then on re-watching, I realised they were never there.

I used to think that stills were taken directly from the film, but actually they are set up separately, like tableaux which are able to communicate more of the story within a single frame.

I mirror this process: constructing scenes that are suggestive but fairly tenuous, allowing the viewer to bring their own interpretation. I do not include people in the scenes because this would disrupt the emptiness and openness; it might hinder the space in which the imagination unfolds.

A: In a world ruled by constant information overload, news headlines, polarised politics and notifications, do your images deliberately lean into solitude or serenity?

What value is there in the sensation of emptiness?

SM: I want to encourage viewers to look slowly, rather than presenting something that can be read, seen or digested instantly. This goes against the grain of the way we generally consume photography today. My spaces are empty, but there is a lot of detail, which is revealed gradually. I often include elements like floating leaves or pieces of paper, which somehow makes the space visible – almost solid. Perhaps this does produce a feeling of serenity, and it reflects the process when I’m in the studio: quite cut off from the world. It takes me a long time to produce work, and I think that slow process comes across in the final pieces. However, there is also a sense of unease within these suspended moments.

A: Your most recent series, Conservatory, includes staged scenes where patches of 18th and 19th century decoration still remain. How did you find these locations? How

much do these settings dictate the final composite?

SM: I am lucky to have a studio in an old building – a Georgian mansion in South London – where I often set up scenes.

The attic has been a source of idea generation as it has been left virtually untouched for decades. It contains a series of unusually shaped and dilapidated rooms. I’ve been inspired by their curious objects and decoration, such as layers of old wallpaper which are each representative of different eras.

A: In the Victorian era, floral wallpaper and terrariums were brought into the home in an attempt to reconnect with nature in a world that was going through rapid industrialisation into urbanism and so-called “progress.”

How do you explore the representation of nature in the domestic space and our changing relationship with it?

SM: I remember reading a short story by Thomas Pynchon called Entropy (1960), in which the main character creates a tropical microclimate in his apartment – a kind of alternative environment that is sealed off from the city. I saw a connection between this story and the Victorian interiors left peeling in my studio. In the 19th century, people brought the natural world inside the domestic space through floral decoration and the cultivation of exotic plants. These plants were available for the first time because they could be transported in their own miniature micro-climates, in the form of the terrarium or Wardian cases. As the world was becoming increasingly urbanised, people were recreating organic landscapes inside their living rooms in a highly controlled way.

My images build on this idea, using a combination of living plants and renders like with the patterned wallpaper. There’s a play between “real” things and their representation. I’m

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Suzanne Moxhay, Double (2018). Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of the artist.

also interested in the breakdown between interior and exterior – the foliage appears to have broken through the walls.

A: You also interject symbols of the digital age – including electrical cables and screens – which take over the space. What is the relevance of these items; are you trying to provoke a sense of unease or anachronism?

SM: The practice of bringing different objects into the same realm collapses the differences between them, for example the roots of plants and electrical cables. This is echoed in the way that natural objects and hardware can be associated through their lack of design: both of these are determined by their function, so they have an organic quality. They are also concealed in the fabric of the home, like wires in walls or under floors; they are not meant to be seen. Horror films often exploit the idea that there is a hidden, threatening presence within domestic spaces. The home becomes an uncanny and psychologically charged place. The most disturbing scenes often occur in the extremities of the house – in the basement or the attic. I play with these visual idioms.

A: Though your practice is very much about creation, construction and rebuilding, there is a certain amount of disorder and decay in the final images – from crumbling steps, abandoned plastic bottles, broken windows, graffiti and broken floorboards. Are you interested in presenting disarray and disorganisation in a new age very much defined by sanitation, power and control?

SM: I don’t really think of my work as being about disorder or decay, though these themes are valuable. I depict things which are falling apart simply because this allows me to ex-

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plore all four corners of the composition and create anomalies within the image. It also reinforces the disintegration which exists formally in the texture – in the contrasting qualities of the source material I use. There is a relationship with ruins as a subject matter, but it’s more about the idea of the image itself falling apart or in the idea of producing a space that is awkward and does not quite fit together, ultimately because it has been built up from different visual fragments.

A: In a year of lockdowns, nationalised tier systems and widespread curfews, the contrast between exterior and interior has been completely juxtaposed and exaggerated. How has your work been given a new sense of meaning, either literally or figuratively? Do you view the pieces differently now, or did they already touch on familiar tropes that have only become over-emphasised?

SM: I have been examining the difference between inside and outside for some time. I often try to call attention to this boundary and complicate it. These contrasts could be literal: what’s inside a room is different to what’s outside through the window. However, I’m more concerned with the psychological dimension: of what we think of as being “inside” or “outside.” This boundary is not straightforward. Being in lockdown means that you can’t just go inside and be alone in your room, and you can’t just go outside to do what you'd normally do there, because resources have been taken away.

It means that our definitions have to be reconfigured. What also complicates things is we’re now being connected to the outside world through images on-screen, rather than through actually being there, so there is a layer of representation that separates us, and in a sense, this encloses us.

Right: Suzanne Moxhay, Rockery (2019).

Archival Pigment Print. Courtesy of the artist.

Words Kate Simpson

Suzanne Moxhay's work is on show at the Royal Academy, London, until 3 January. royalacademy.org.uk suzannemoxhay.com

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Cultural Examination Alia Ali

“I come from two countries that no longer exist: Yugoslavia and South Yemen. My parents are migrant linguists: speaking seven languages between them, they share only English. I grew up and moved around Sana’a, Sarajevo, Istanbul, Ho Chi Minh City, Wales, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Marrakech. As a female artist who exists on the border of identifying as a West Asian, Eastern European and US citizen, my work explores cultural binaries and challenges culturally sanctioned oppression.”

The following images come from Alia Ali’s (b. 1985) ‫ ] ليس [ أنا‬// I AM [NOT] and BORDERLAND series: portraits swathed in fabrics from 11 regions across the world. Ali uses cloth to conceal the physical identities of the figures, whilst asking questions about how we define and separate through what we can or can’t see. She asks: What are the fabricated barriers in society that promote the idea of “us” and “them”? alia-ali.com.

BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017).

Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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‫ ] ليس [ أنا‬I AM [NOT] series by Alia Ali, (2018). Courtesy of Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, Yemeni Series, by Alia Ali, (2019). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, series by Alia Ali (2017). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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BORDERLAND, Yemeni Series, by Alia Ali, (2019). Courtesy of Galerie Peter Sillem.

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Focusing on the Detail Eugenia Falqui

Bangkok is Thailand’s cultural and commercial centre. In 2019, it was the world’s second most visited city. Year on year, there are approximately 22.78 million tourists, and on Instagram there are roughly the same amount of images tagged with #bangkok. Eugenia Falqui (b. 1993) breaks away from all this tourism, shooting the surreal, unexplored and often humorous sides of the city. She explains: “This is my take on a place that has been my home for two years. I am not Thai. I do not pretend that my images offer an insider’s look at the city, but I’m compelled to explore scenes often neglected in promotional images. There are no TripAdvisor-worthy compositions here; I strike a contrast with the temples that have been photographed a thousand times. I often wonder: if those popular attractions could speak, what would they say?” Falqui is the winner of the Aesthetica Next Generation Award, in partnership with London College of Communication. instagram.com/eugeniafalqui.

An orange rain jacket hangs in a room where the gatekeeper of a condominium usually sits. Due to COVID-19, gatekeepers are encouraged to sit outside instead. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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8 March 2020. Closed rolling shutter of a shop in Chinatown during the COVID-19 spread. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A green wall painted in the height of the pandemic in April 2020. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A red tiny chair in the sun with red cups in a tray on it. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A plant casting its shadow on a closed yellow rolling shutter of a shop in Chinatown area. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A green bush in the Saranrom park close to the Royal Grand Palace. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A shop sign in the heart of Chinatown on a bright blue-sky background. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A red pickup truck found in Soi Sukhumvit 15- Asok area. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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A parking lot exit sign in Asok area. Image courtesy Eugenia Falqui. From the Bangkok Dreaming series.

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Altering the Blueprint Radical Architecture of the Future TODAY’S CREATIVE ARCHITECTS AREN’T JUST DESIGNING BUILDINGS, THEY’RE WORKING ACROSS VARIOUS DISCIPLINES TO GRAPPLE WITH ECOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY.

On a patch of scrubby hillside in western Spain is the Plasen- the physical and sensory world, or our perception of it.

There are western precedents for Galilee’s radically excia Auditorium and Conference Center. It sits like an extraterrestrial landing capsule – a strange geomorphic play on panded understanding of design, from the counter-cultural the landscape. It emerges from the surroundings whilst look- firms of the 1960s – Archigram, Ant Farm – to the intermeing completely alien to them, making such light contact with dia ethos of 1910s-1920s Constructivism. But don’t call the work in her book modernist, Galilee warns (or post-modernthe ground that it seems it could take off any moment.

Architecture critic and curator Beatrice Galilee (b. 1982) de- ist, or anti-modernist). “If it’s a reaction to modernism then scribes the building as “part chrysalis, part meteorite – an ex- that puts modernism at the centre, and that’s something I’m traordinary luminous centre designed by wrapping all of the trying to step away from to decolonise my thinking … Central functions of a theatre, a dance hall, an exhibition space and Europe doesn’t need to be so present in the discourse.”

Her career shows a commitment to widening and democconference auditoriums into a tight ball.” Created by Spanish firm SelgasCano, the Plasencia Auditorium was designed ratising discussions and definitions of architectural practice to make as small a footprint as possible in every sense. Of that matches this aim, in particular her work from 2014 to the building’s 86,000-square-foot volume, only 4,300 feet 2019 as a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New touch the ground, whilst the translucent “skin” – made of the York, where she initiated In Our Time: A Year of Architecture in durable, air-filled plastic ETFE – is self-cleaning and easy to a Day, an annual conference presenting the developments in install, barely adding any weight to construction and offer- the discipline. She now runs The World Around, a platform for three-dimensional design focused on the expertise of artists ing up to 45 per cent reductions in solar heat gain.

The Plasencia Auditorium is one of 79 projects selected by and activists to solve social and environmental issues.

This is not to say that the radical architecture Galilee is inGalilee for Radical Architecture of the Future, which maps out a bold route forward. “You could also call it ‘radical ways of terested in represents a bland, globally homogenous vision. thinking about architecture’”, she notes, a necessary qualifi- The work she showcases reveals a deep sensitivity to the parcation, given that, under Galilee’s stewardship, “architecture” ticularities of place and space, in a way which indicates just incorporates everything from game design to community how many cultures and locations Galilee has connected with activism, inhabitants including insects and data. “It’s provoca- as a writer and curator. Freddy Mamani’s New Andean Architive to think that all of these myriad disciplines have architec- tecture, for example, has transformed swathes of his adopted tural agency, but they all represent different ways of working hometown of El Alto, Bolivia, into a panorama of technicolwith space,” she says. What binds these endeavours together, our abstraction. Mamani’s designs have a vivid appeal that Galilee suggests, is their creative or critical intervention into easily crosses cultural boundaries, but they are rooted in

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Photo: Iwan Baan – Selgas Cano, Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, Plasencia, Spain.

“Another key quality of radical architecture is sustainability.

Sometimes this means ensuring that buildings have a harmonious – rather than parasitic – relationship with local cultures and economies.”

Previous Page: Photo: Iwan Baan - Selgas Cano, Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, Plasencia, Spain.

Left: Photo: Iwan Baan - Selgas Cano, Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, Plasencia, Spain.

the visual imagery of his Aymara people, a historically oppressed ethnic group that makes up a quarter of Bolivia’s population (and the majority of El Alto’s).

Just as Mamani’s startling designs are the product of a profound connection to place, other designs offer futuristic variations on regional cultures. The Fuyang Cultural Complex, near the Chinese city of Hangzhou, was created

by Amateur Architecture Studio using construction materials common in the nearby village of Wencun, including rammed earth and crushed rubble, and was inspired by the landscape paintings of a 14th century Yuan Dynasty artist.

The bright limestone walls of the Palestinian Museum, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, are built on the ruins of fieldstone walls once used by local farmers, whilst the jet-black window shades and angular contours of the site respond to its shape through agriculture. It’s this kind of awareness of historical and social context that prevents designers from lapsing into a eurocentric mindset.

In many cases, attention to the locale also means working directly with communities to improve their economic and social circumstances. Mamani’s first undertaking in El Alto was a cultural centre funded by micro-loans, whilst Amateur Architecture only agreed to build the complex at Fuyang if the regional government also funded the restoration of Wencun, which, like many remote Chinese villages, had experienced significant depopulation and fallen into disrepair as a result of China’s turbo-powered urbanisation.

The Palestinian Museum – designed by Irish / German firm Heneghan Peng – is the base for a humanitarian group supporting Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Gaza strip, in addition to Lebanese refugee camps.

This relates to another key quality of radical architecture: sustainability. Sometimes this means ensuring that buildings have a harmonious – rather than parasitic – relationship with local cultures and economies, but the term also has a more obvious, ecological thrust. At the root of much radical architectural thinking is a concern with finding the most efficient, least exploitative way of using materials, energy and labour. This has led some practitioners away from building altogether – more towards the preservation and reuse of existing structures and materials.

Opalis, for example, is an online directory of retailers trading in salvaged materials created by the Belgian firm Rotor DC to mitigate the wasteful effects of renovation and demolition. Rotor assists first-hand with the repurposing of materials such as tiles, window frames, concrete panels and steel pipes (the manufacture of concrete alone generates around eight per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.)

If forward-thinking designers are asking themselves if they must build at all, the scope of architecture becomes far more expansive than simply signing off on construction plans. Indeed, Interdisciplinarity is another thread that runs throughout Galilee’s methodology. Working with the lexicon of performance art as much as building design, the Mexican Firm Lab.Pro.Fab launches initiatives such as Aerial Domesticity, a “happening” in a Mexico City square that recreated the typical interior spaces of mass-housing schemes by placing them in transparent pods on cherry-pickers, giving viewers an insight into cramped living conditions.

Meanwhile, Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s Mile-Long Opera utilised the unusual shape of New York’s High Line park, located on a former railway line, to stage an eight-night

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Photo: Iwan Baan - Selgas Cano, Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, Plasencia, Spain.

spectacle combining design, music and poetry. Composer David Lang and poets Anne Carson and Claudia Rankine helped the team to script and score the work, whose performers, stretched along the 2.5-kilometre length of the park, repeated sections of a libretto based on interviews with New Yorkers from a range of backgrounds.

In other cases, an intermedia focus means retreating from physical space altogether. Many designers are now creating virtual worlds using technology which can be inhabited with as much sensory and emotional investment as any physical structure. Chinese artist Cao Fei, for example, used the immersive computer game Second Life to create her own online world, RMB City, a satirical shadow-realm crammed with the stereotypical features of modern China, from identikit skyscrapers to souvenirs and shopping malls.

Based on a similar formal conceit but in a different spirit, production designer Hannah Beachler’s realisation of Wakanda, the fictional African home of Marvel super-hero Black Panther, is based on projections of how the visual cultures and economies of countries such as Senegal, Kenya and Uganda might have developed had they not been colonised. The Vault of Life, by Seoul-based firm Mass Studies, envisages a new ecology library and seed bank in the demilitarised zone between North and South Korea: which, because of the lack of human incursion, has become the unlikely home to a vast array of diverse wildlife.

In fact, much “radical architecture” is now made for nonhuman life: from AI to animals. Given the urgency of the questions we face about our relationship with the non-human world, from labour automation to the ongoing mass extinction event, three-dimensional design that embod-

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ies more equitable ways of living alongside non-human life might be the most radical of all. Junya Ishigami’s Art Biotop Water Garden in Nasu, Japan, for example, is an artificial water meadow containing 318 trees uprooted from a nearby section of land to make space for a hotel. Threaded with 160 artificial ponds and intersecting pathways, surrounded by moss and wildflowers, and irrigated by a subterranean network of pipes, this wetland glade is a hyperreal artificial environment. However, it is also a natural landscape, with micro-habitats for insects and indigenous fauna. This space demonstrates how our intervention with ecosystems can offer preservation rather than destruction.

So, how optimistic should we feel about the ability of architecture, in Galilee’s expanded sense, to solve the problems that it also exposes, with regards to the environment, economy and society as a whole? She is cautiously hopeful on this front: “In the past, people have turned to architects as civic and thought leaders, and I think that they can lead on these issues. Right now, it isn’t, but it could.”

Galilee points to Eyal Weizman’s Forensic Architecture, which uses sophisticated technologies such as detailed three-dimensional modelling – alongside documentary research and interviews – to visualise human rights violations around the world, including violence committed by states, police forces, militaries and corporations. “Who could have imagined that architects would be on the forefront of thinking about human rights abuses and interstate conflicts. We’ve got some really good ideas.” Galilee’s methodology, at its best, can show us how to live in more sustainable, empathetic, site-specific ways – with a clearer sense of our responsibilities to the non-human world.

Right: Photo: Iwan Baan - Selgas Cano, Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center, Plasencia, Spain.

Words Greg Thomas

Radical Architecture of the Future is published by Phaidon this January. phaidon.com

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Dynamic Framework Natasha Wilson

Los Angeles fashion photographer Natasha Wilson has a mutual passion for art and travel. These two interests come together in various shoots, which tap into the culture of a given location. Her process usually includes painting a blend of hues over the images in post-production, reducing the colour palette to exist in its own cohesive world. The following pages are filled with energy, using locations as the starting point for inspiration across styling, composition and camera angle. Painted yellow concrete pairs with tie-dye dresses; barbed wire fences connect with intertwined arms. Bright orange corrugated iron acts as a stark backdrop for crisp white styling. Wilson moves between storage containers and abandoned shop fronts, finding intrigue in assuming places. She has been commissioned by a range of high-profile clients including Grazia, Skullcandy, Adidas and Nike, amongst many others. IG: @natashawilson.co.

Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson.

Model: Grant Uba. For: Adidas Superstar Campaign.

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Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson. Model: Jasmine Davis. For: Air to Be.

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Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson. Model: Grant Uba.. For: Adidas Superstar Campaign.

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Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson. Model: Jasmine Davis. For: Air to Be.

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Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson. Models: Grant Uba and Quin Saunders. For: Adidas Superstar Campaign.

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Photographer / Creative Director: Natasha Wilson. Model: Jasmine Davis. For: Air to Be.

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Surreal Presentation Kate Theo

Fine Art. Surrealism. Fantasy. These are the pillars of Kate Theo’s (b. 1979) images, which are inspired by Brooke DiDonato’s (brookedidonato.com) uncanny female figures and the vivid worlds of Leta Sobierajski (letasobierajski.com). For Theo, photography is an instrument for self-discovery. She notes: “I depict the processes that are often going on in people’s minds: dealing with negativity, self-deprecation and being overwhelmed – especially in today’s climate. The scenes are only partially real; most of what is going on is left open to interpretation amongst shades of blue, red, yellow and green. The works, though minimal, are carefully composed. I allow room for audiences to perhaps find something of who they are and who they are not; what they like and what they don’t.” Beyond graphic yellow suns, black crescent moons and folded curtains, there are moments of sensitivity and playfulness in these unassuming compositions. instagram.com/katetheo79.

Kate Theo, Enigma (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Not Forget (2019). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Pride (2019). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Imitate (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Everything Will Be Alright (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Butterfly (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Self-Ignorance (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Contrast (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Ordinary (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Time to End Breast Cancer (2020). Courtesy of the artist.

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Kate Theo, Without Words (2019). Courtesy of the artist.

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Playing with Tradition Hassan Hajjaj HAJJAJ'S IMAGES DEMOCRATISE FASHION LABELS AND PATTERNS, BLENDING NORTH AFRICAN CULTURE WITH WESTERN ICONOGRAPHIES TO EXPLORE COMPLEX IDENTITIES.

Hassan Hajjaj (b. 1961) is a Moroccan-British photographer saw something in my work. Next thing I knew, she was making who has been named the “Andy Warhol of Marrakech.” Blend- me step into the art world – something I had never really ing the glossy aesthetic of fashion shoots with Moroccan tra- dreamt of doing. It might be why I always want to welcome dition and street culture, his bold, detailed images challenge people who do not usually attend exhibitions or galleries. culture-specific beliefs, predominantly western perceptions of the Hijab and female disempowerment in Islam. These al- A: You moved to Britain when you were 12 – in the 1970s luring, multi-layered compositions fuse contemporary North – and have since lived and worked between Morocco and African culture with familiar western iconography. They do the UK. How do you tease out the connections and conso through appropriation, subversion and adaption, blur- tradictions between these countries; your dual heritage? ring boundaries through contrasting patterns – from stacked HH: Moving to London ultimately gave me another persoup cans to Louis Vuitton prints. These eye-catching art- spective about where I came from. This has since been a works reflect the artist's neo-nomadic lifestyle and the per- driving force behind my work. I'll always remember the feeling of the technicolour film I'd left behind when I arrived in sonal relationships he has formed along the way.

Hajjaj’s work is in the collections of prestigious institu- London. I got there on a grey day and people were weartions including Guggenheim, Abu Dhabi, UAE; MAXXI Na- ing quite dark, dull coloured clothes. It felt like a black and tional Museum, Rome; Museum of African Contemporary white movie. I come from blue skies, blue seas, colourful Art Al Maaden (MACAAL), Marrakech, Morocco; Los Ange- garments and markets. That initial contrast has since been les County Museum of Art (LACMA); Brooklyn Museum, a huge influence in my use, and understanding, of colour.

New York; Newark Museum, New Jersey; Victoria and Albert Museum, London and The British Museum, London. He has A: How do you connect inspiration from the club, hip-hop exhibited at Somerset House, London; National Gallery of and reggae scenes of London as well as North African Victoria, Melbourne; and Saatchi Gallery, London. His most tradition – from the historic to the contemporary? recent exhibition, The Path, was a touring show commissioned HH: When I look at my images, I can see the journey I’ve taken: meeting great people who have agreed to be in my work and

by New Art Exchange, Nottingham, curated by Ekow Eshun. enrich it. My first series was called Graffix from the Souk, and was a way of sharing where I came from to my London friends.

A: Did you always plan to be an artist?

HH: It was totally accidental. I never really planned to be an I always enjoyed our exchanges of food: Caribbean, Indian, artist. I've always taken photos for pleasure, but I guess the Brazilian. I experienced new forms of music and culture which turning point was meeting Rose Issa, who had a gallery and broadened my horizons, and it's interesting to see that it did

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Dotted Peace, framed photography by ©Hassan Hajjaj, 2000/1421.

“I wanted my photos to have finished frames – borders which would help to 'complete' them.

Aesthetically, it comprises repeated motifs like Zellige patterns and local products in Moorish design.”

Previous Page: Pois Bleu, framed photography by ©Hassan Hajjaj, 2000/1421.

Left: Three Women, framed photography by ©Hassan Hajjaj, 2002/1423.

not dilute, but expand, my identity. Moroccan culture is very generous and hospitable in its nature, and through my installation I want to share this inherited generosity and hospitality.

A: You move between portraiture, installation, sculpture, and performance. How would you define your images?

Do you think they sit within a particular style or genre?

HH: I offer a specific kind of aesthetic and method which has been inspired by studio photographers like Seydou Keïta or Malick Sidibé – but doing it my own way. For me, it’s all in the subtlety of layering. I also find that there's a limit to photography, so I extend the images further into videos, in which I allow playfulness and humour to take hold.

A: The images are also framed, often by found items such as canned vegetables, Sprite cans and tomato soup tins, which clash against the patterned clothing. How do these items speak to the photographs – formally, thematically and compositionally? How do you decide which items to use? Where do you source them from and is this important in terms of how they tap into your identity?

HH: The idea to use objects as frameworks came from my early work in the 1990s. I wanted my photos to have finished frames – borders which would help to “complete” them. Aesthetically, it comprises using repeated motifs like Zellige patterns – handmade mosaic tiles – and using local products in Moorish design. Sadly, I often find that lots of people see the tin cans before the image itself, but, in a way, it has made them universally accessible – it has allowed my work to be for everyone, to see something familiar as a pathway into the photograph. There are a lot of iconographies that different

people can relate to in different ways. However, these frames go beyond the aesthetics and add nuances. The items I choose indicate more information about the sitter as well: what they are like, where they are form or what they do for a living.

A: You often adopt and appropriate well-known logos, from camouflage print to Louis Vuitton patterns, as well as signs and symbols from around the world that often appear in advertising and mass media. How do you draw attention to these icons to subvert eurocentric ideas?

HH: I've always loved graphics, and I wore some of these prints when I was young (not the real brands, of course.)

When you go to the Souk in Morocco there are a lot of brands. These are important, but the sellers aren’t malicious or scheming in what they sell. They don't pretend that the clothes are the real thing and they’re not – they’re not even a copy. The sellers are just trying to make these patterns accessible – to sell ideas from brands that weren’t made for us.

I carry this idea into my work by democratising logos.

A: How do you plan the colours and patterns within the images? How do you hope to draw the viewer’s eye, and to what? In an age filled with constant noise and information, how do these clashing textures feed into this, and provide exaggeration or subversion?

HH: I use clashing colours because it makes me feel something. I remember reading, in a western magazine, that there are certain colours that don’t “go” together. I disagreed. One time I was on a shoot and I felt compelled to mix brown and blue. That was the point for me where I stopped thinking and started feeling intuitively. It seems to work for me.

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Kesh Angels, framed photography by ©Hassan Hajjaj, 2010/1431.

A: Dakka Marrakchia depicts women posing like fashion models on streets and rooftops, with designer clothing, heart-shaped sunglasses and mopeds. The images in this series often take a low angle, looking upwards at the figures. How are these works a deliberate rebuff of stereotypes of Islamic women as subjugated? Can you tell us more about the women that you shot?

HH: When I made this body of work, I took pictures of friends around me who were henna artists, dancers and neighbours.

Really, the series was a reaction to a French fashion shoot I had been on. They used Morocco as a backdrop, but they didn’t incorporate any real cultural aspect of the place. It was only a pretty background. So, I decided to re-create what I had in my mind: portraying local women and showcasing their real opinions and attitudes. This really reflected the kinds of women I grew up with: strong figures. I played with fashion and accessories to highlight and subvert stereotypes, whilst keeping it inherently Moroccan. Camo was big in fashion – referencing military pants and jackets – but there were no Djellabas with this print. I want to show that, even if our clothing looks "traditional", trends carry through to all parts of the world and are fed into all cultures and materials.

A: In My Rockstars, you turn focus to British personalities, concentrating primarily on figures such as jazz musician Kamaal Williams, demonstrating Britain as dynamically diverse. You’ve also produced many portraits of international musicians and artists – including Billie Eilish, Cardi B and Madonna – bringing them into your unique aesthetic. To what extent do you feel that you disrupt the idea of hierarchy and celebrity through these portraits?

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HH: My Rockstars is a long, ongoing project, highlighting our commonalities and resisting these divisive times. It started with me shooting pictures of those who I deemed to be "rockstars" in my eyes. Eventually, this led to me photographing other well-known figures from across the world. However, this was not something I was initially looking at doing – I was really just trying to document popular culture in all its complexity and diversity. It’s very important to understand that the celebrities I have photographed are not integral to my practice, even though, of course, they are getting the most attention. This is a condition that's reflective of the world we live in, where notoriety is valued, and that’s inherently interesting to note. Hopefully we will find more of a balance in future and less of a weighted system between those known and unknown. In the meantime, please check out all of my Rockstars – this extends to those whom I define as celebrity.

A: What, to you, is the definition of an artist? How do you see your role today? Is there something that you strive for when you embark on a new project or commission?

HH: To remain true to myself is my first priority. I believe I'm here to bring certain aspects of culture and society forward.

It's not my place to comment, but to show something in a new way. I love it when my photography creates debates. For example, I’m often referred to as the “Andy Warhol of Marrakech” in the press. This presents an intriguing question as to whether this comparison is relevant or not. Is it just easier to introduce a Moroccan artist in the western world in this way? With this framework? I don’t know, but there is a conversation to be had here. The veil was also a strong, controversial subject and I’m happy to see that it’s less so these days.

Right: Pois Poulet, framed photography by ©Hassan Hajjaj, 2000/1421.

Words Kate Simpson

instagram.com/ hassanhajjaj_larache. taymourgrahne.com.

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Searching for Intimacy Ismail Zaidy

“For me, photography is a family affair; we support each other in developing concepts.

I shine a light on that subject, as well as the distance and lack of communication many of us experience with family members.” Ismail Zaidy (b. 1997) – known as L4artiste – was born and raised in Marrakech, Morocco. The 3aila series includes the photographer’s youngest brother, Othmane, and sister, Fatima, amongst a number of other unidentifiable characters. Connections, literal, emotional and conceptual, are integral to the work. Figures are gathered on rooftops and desert planes: tied, hidden or huddled together under folds of material. These compositions play with both proximity and distance, fluctuating between intimacy and estrangement. Zaidy’s creative process begins with gathering props from flea markets – including fabrics and Djellaba robes – before choreographing the figures, standing on sandy planes, against concrete or open skylines. instagram.com/l4artiste.

Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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Courtesy of Ismail Zaidy – L4artiste.

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art

Modes of Representation NGV Triennial THE THEMES FOR 2020 INCLUDE REFLECTION, CONSERVATION, SPECULATION AND ILLUMINATION. ISOLATION ALSO SURFACES AS A CONCEPT ACROSS COMMISSIONED WORK.

The National Gallery of Victoria’s Triennial is a huge un- Curator Susan van Wyk suggests that there is also another dertaking, including 100 artists working across sculpture, possible thread – isolation – an aspect of contemporary life painting, photography, fashion and design. These include only exacerbated by this year’s social distancing. She picks established names such as pop-sculptor Jeff Koons (b. out works by Véronique Ellena (b. 1966) and Yanni Florence 1955), Magnum photographer Bruce Gilden (b. 1946) and (b. 1965) by way of example: the former with Les Invisibles light artist Cerith Wyn Evans (b. 1958), as well as emerging (2011), which depicts homeless people shrouded in blankets practitioners. Diamond Stingily (b. 1990), for example, is an on the streets of affluent cities; the latter with Tram Windows American artist and poet addressing the materiality and my- (2019), which shows solitary passengers lost in introspection thologies of identity and social class. A room filled with 700 on their commute, photographed through scratched windows.

A selection of new commissions have much in common, trophies questions humanity's current fascination with competition. Tabor Robak (b. 1986) uses computer-generation to which is encouraging especially in light of fractured global politics. Evidently, there is something universal about the consider the God-like presence of Artificial Intelligence.

The first edition of the Triennial attracted 123 million human experience, which is confirmed through the broad people, making it the most-visited show in Australia’s most spread of artists and their cultural and geographical reach.

The Triennial features creatives from 33 countries, including popular gallery, so the stakes are high. Three years in the making, the event is back. Indeed, 2020 has complicated artists from Aboriginal communities such as the Yirrkala: a an already gargantuan task – and the number of visitors a small community in East Arnhem Region, Northern Territory moot point this year – but NGV’s curators have completed of Australia, 11 miles south-east from the large mining town all planning, and even found time to commission new work of Nhulunbuy. This multicultural approach is in-keeping responding to the health crisis, including bioplastic Personal with NGV’s existing ethos and collections, which include Protection Equipment made by British designer Alice Potts (b. Australia’s oldest Asian art collection and the biggest 1992), and a text-based installation, Unprecedented 2020, by collection of Indigenous Australian art in the world. The Qunadamooka contemporary artist, Megan Cope, (b. 1982). gallery also just closed its summer exhibition, Marking Time, The work queries just how "unprecedented" the pandemic which explored the continued presence of painted images or really is, when Aboriginal populations (like the Qunadamoo- text on a range of surfaces in Indigenous Australia.

NGV has been collecting African photography since 2013, ka people) were decimated by small-pox in the 19th century.

The Triennial is pitched as “a microcosm of the world today” and many groundbreaking practitioners have been selected and the curators point to four key concepts running though for the Triennial, such as Ethiopian artists Aïda Muluneh (b. it: Reflection, Conservation, Speculation and Illumination. 1974) and Girma Berta (b. 1991), South African Phumzile

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Sarah Waiswa, detail of Seeking to belong (2016) from the Stranger in a familiar land series (2016).

Inkjet print, 80.0 x 80.0 cm (image). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased NGV Foundation, 2017. © Sarah Waiswa.

“I realised that black or non-western art is storied – it’s diverse, not something that can be defined in one paragraph, a single chapter or a whole year of study, so I wanted to make work that meant something to me.”

Previous Page: Sarah Waiswa, detail of Seeing but not seen (2016) from the Stranger in a familiar land series (2016). Inkjet print, 80.0 x 80.0 cm (image). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased NGV Foundation, 2017 © Sarah Waiswa.

Left: Atong Atem, Paanda (2015).

Printed 2019, from the Studio series (2015). Digital type C print, ed. 5/10, 84.1 x 59.4 cm (image) 92.8 x 63.2 cm (sheet). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2019 © Atong Atem.

Khanyile (b. 1991), Nigerian Lakin Ogunbanwo (b. 1987) stylised, but I wanted people to feel how I felt when I met and Ugandan Sarah Waiswa (b. 1980). It also features work her – to see how empowering she was,” says Waiswa. “The by image-makers from the African diaspora, such as Atong first time I met her she was so secure in herself.”

Conversations between artist and sitter are key, and that Atem (b. 1994), who was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and moved to Australia as a child. As van Wyk says, these sense of collaboration also underpins Atem’s Studio Series works pick up on identity, gender, history and racism. (2015), which shows young people with African heritage Ogunbanwo questions patriarchal attitudes in Nigeria via amongst colourful fabrics, flowers and umbrellas. “I sent a elegant, subtly erotic portraits, for example, and Khanyile group chat to about 50 friends saying: ‘I’m ordering some exploring female sexuality in the 2016 series Plastic Crowns, KFC come to the studio!’ I asked them to bring costumes which uses evocative portraits to look beyond conservative and fabrics, and there was a huge element of play and conventions of behaviour. “I explore beyond the boundaries performance to whole thing. It’s almost like the images are of what my grandmother would consider a ‘good woman,’ evidence of what we did in the space – we spoke a lot about probing stereotypical ideas of gender, sexual preference what we would do, and that is just as much the artwork to and related stigmas in contemporary society,” says Khanyile. me. A lot of culture is in there – by way of oral tradition “I am interested in how having multiple partners can be an and storytelling – but I wanted to be true to the people I expression of choice as opposed to indicating low morality.” photographed. I was thinking about ethnography and ethics Waiswa and Atem predominantly focus on portraiture: of practice: what happens when a person becomes symbol of of individuals, communities and society more broadly. black culture. I wanted to allow people to truly be individuals.”

Atem’s work draws on the celebrated studio photographers Waiswa’s Stranger in a familiar land (2016), for example, shows an albino woman, Florence Kisombe, in Kibera, a Nai- Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keïta, who were active in Mali robi neighbourhood which is also the largest shanty town in in the 1960s and whose work has been interpreted in Africa. People with albinism are sometimes subjected to ridi- terms of carving out new identities after the country won cule and persecution in sub-Saharan Africa, Waiswa explains, independence from France on 20 June 1960. She says and in Tanzania are even hunted for body parts. In 2009, the discovering their work through her art history course was an International Federation of the Red Cross reported that a “aha moment” – studies which had been a depressing eyesenior police officer in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, stated the opener into how African people were, and still are, objectified.

“My limited introduction to photography was via ethnobody of a person with albinism could fetch up to $75,000.

Waiswa doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of this graphic depictions of black people,” she explains, referencsituation, including images of a jeering crowd which gathered ing the way photography was used, in particular by colonial around the shoot, but her series is also a celebration of powers, to depict certain people and cultures. “It was surKisombe’s sheer panache. “Of course, it was in some way prising to see that the way black people had been depict-

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Sarah Waiswa, detail of Nemesis (2016) from the Stranger in a familiar land series (2016). Inkjet print, 80.0 x 80.0 cm (image).

National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased NGV Foundation, 2017. © Sarah Waiswa.

ed wasn’t just cruel, it was actively dehumanising. But with Seydou, I could see black people taking the tools that had been used against them. That discovery was very powerful to me. I realised that black or non-western art is storied – it’s diverse, not something that can be defined in one paragraph, a single chapter or a whole year [of study], so I wanted to make work that meant something to me.”

Indeed, Atem’s family had its own set of studio portraits at home – as had many of her sitters – so the featured series tapped into early memories. “When I showed the work to my family, a lot of them didn’t think it was anything special, it was so everyday and normal,” she laughs. “It’s interesting to see how non-black audiences perceive them more as art.”

Atem adds that fashion photography was also an influence, and Waiswa echoes this sentiment – making for interesting connections within the Triennial, which includes creations by designers such as Richard Quinn (b. 1990), who riffs on British working class tradition with couture craftsmanship, and Tomo Koizumi (b. 1988) with his exuberant rainbow ruffles.

Like Atem, Waiswa states that studying in the USA – becoming a minority in a country driven by racial tension – made her question her identity in a way she had never done before.

Waiswa says she still feels the pressure of the western gaze and its impact, pointing out that when she’s commissioned to shoot in Africa, the projects come from western publications and brands, meaning she ultimately has to consider “how to tell the story in a way that satisfies that western gaze but at the same time challenges it. The readers are going to see the images in a way that’s different from the way we see ourselves, so it’s a question of finding a balance.”

However, Waiswa is hopeful for the future, referencing the

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growing influence of social and political movements such as BLM, which was founded in the USA in 2013 by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. This increased awareness and pressure has meant that brands and institutions are finally opening up to a more diverse cohort of image-makers.

Nigerian-born photographer Misan Harriman (b. 1966) became the first black man to shoot the cover of British Vogue in 2020, for example, and Tyler Mitchell (b. 1995) was the first African American to shoot the cover of American Vogue in 2018. The big solo shows in London this year, meanwhile, have included Zanele Muholi at Tate Modern and French–Moroccan artist Leila Alaoui at Somerset House.

Waiswa believes the internet has also made a huge difference, removing some of the gatekeepers to allow photographers from various backgrounds to showcase their work on their own platform – as she does through her own account @lafrohemien, through the @everydayafrica feed to which she contributes, and via the @africanwomenphotograph account she curates. Waiswa’s @lafrohemien account has some 46k followers, for example; everydayafrica 420k.

Waiswa and Atem both sit under the theme of Reflection in the Triennial, a concept which van Wyk says “offers multiple perspectives on the human condition today. They allow us to consider identity, celebrating the dynamism and beauty of life, whilst also questioning what it means to live in rapidly changing times, where preconceived ideas of race, gender, representation and power are increasingly challenged.”

Dynamics of race, gender, history and culture affect all of us differently; even still, this Triennial implies, we can find ways to communicate with and relate to each other, and this is crucial as we move into 2021 and beyond.

Right: Atong Atem, Morayo (2015).

Printed 2019, from the Studio series (2015). Digital type C print, ed. 6/10 84.1 x 56.1 cm (image) 104.1 x 65.4 cm irreg. (sheet). National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2019 © Atong Atem.

Words Diane Smyth

NGV Triennial, Melbourne 19 December -18 April ngv.vic.gov.au

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Organic Assemblage Markus Guschelbauer

The current world population is 7.8 billion. The UN estimates that, within this record number, 55 per cent live in urban areas. This is projected to rise to 68 per cent by 2050. Our connection to nature is dwindling as we move further into built-up, developed landscapes.

We are losing touch with subtle seasonal changes; the boundary lines between human and non-human territories are becoming blurred. Markus Guschelbauer (b. 1974) creates pastel-coloured installations that represent humanity’s increasing desire to organise, define and control interactions with the organic world. Pale pink, baby blue and mint green grids impose a sense of order which is both aesthetically pleasing and oddly melancholic. Rolls of turf are slotted into wardrobe-like constructions; photographs of potted plants and tree trunks are hung in neat rows; leaves shoot straight through shelves. Guschelbauer presents assemblages that are both provocative and Instagrammable. markusguschelbauer.com.

Markus Guschelbauer, Apfelbaum / Apple Tree (2011).

Analog C-print / 145 x 118 cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Markus Guschelbauer, Interieur / Exterieur II (2015).

Analog C-print / 128 x 150 cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Markus Guschelbauer, Seeblick 3 / Lake View (2020).

Analog C-print / 90 x 110 cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Markus Guschelbauer, Interieur / Exterieur III (2015).

Analog C-print / 128 x 150 cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Markus Guschelbauer, Interieur / Exterieur I (2015).

Analog C-print / 128 x 150 cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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reviews

Exhibition Reviews

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High Gloss HELMUT NEWTON

Helmut Newton (1920-2004) was radical, provocative and iconic. His erotic, glamorous and voyeuristic photos were often featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and explored themes of gender, lesbianism, fetishism and sexual liberation.

On 31 October this year, he would have been 100 years old.

To mark this event, Hamiltons has curated an exhibition of rare prints, featuring some of Newton’s most famous photographs taken in the 1970s. The images are ferrotypes, made by creating a direct positive on a thin sheet of metal coated with a dark lacquer or enamel and used as the support for the photographic emulsion – the result is often a luscious shine which explains the name of the exhibition.

Though the work is not only high in gloss, it’s high in fashion and execution. In On the 10th floor of the Hilton, Paris, (1976) a lean androgynous subject leans over a glass bal-

cony by the phallic Eiffel tower, breasts bared with nonchalance, towering over the banality of Parisienne traffic: a pose of complete power. Likewise, Woman examining Man (1975) manifests sexual boldness and subversion of conventions; a woman sits, legs spread, casually dressed, staring at a topless man in total effortless dominance; hers is the gaze.

Then there’s Elsa Peretti in a ‘Bunny’ Costume by Halston, New York (1975) where the Italian model (and Studio 54 frequenter) stands smoking in a bunny costume with a svelte silhouette, engulfed in shadows against an angular Sin-City backdrop. It’s the epitome of stylistic idealisation.

Anna Wintour once described Newton’s work as “synonymous with Vogue at its most glamorous and mythic” and this exhibition gives an insight into just that. Newton is one of the most admired fashion photographers of the 21st century.

Words Robyn Cusworth

Hamiltons Gallery, London 21 October - 8 January hamiltonsgallery.com

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Marking Time ART IN THE AGE OF MASS INCARCERATION

MoMA showcases artists who reside in prison, as well as those who are non-incarcerated but have been impacted by the system. Over 35 practitioners illustrate the human aspects of the prison experience, particularly in light of the pandemic.

Major themes include the tensions between crime and punishment; freedom and confinement; regret and redemption; and most of all, what is lost and what can hopefully be found inside prison. The selected works reveal life in carceral conditions, as well as creativity beyond the walls. “The exhibition grows out of 10 years of research on art and mass incarceration,” says Curator Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood. “I want people to experience the artists' power, skill and imaginative worlds."

In Mark Loughney’s Pyrrhic Defeat: A Visual Study of Mass Incarceration, (2014-present), every subject’s portrait is a visible reflection of his own story and identity, whilst in

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Larry W. Cook’s The Visiting Room #4 (2019), the subject is photographed from the back, implying a lack of personal visibility and voice. Tameca Cole’s Locked in a Dark Calm (2016) toggles between the seen and unseen, offering a partial window into life and self in prison. Then Jesse Krimes’ Apokaluptein 16389067 (2010-2013), named after the Greek word for “to reveal or uncover” and a prison number, uses accessible materials to transfer images from magazines and illustrations onto prison bedsheets. The result is an expansive landscape of idyllic dreams for how life could be.

The pieces are at once socially and culturally universal, yet also highly personalised. Whilst division, isolation and repression are prevalent across the works, the idea of art as hope rings true. Here, art is a symbol of resistance, sanity and survival. Art helps us to move outside of our own borders.

Words Jennifer Sauer

MoMA, New York 12 September - 4 April moma.org

Rite of Passage LEILA ALAOUI

Leila Alaoui was shot during a terrorist attack in Ouagadougo, Burkina Faso, whilst on a Women’s Rights campaign for Amnesty International in 2016. She died aged 33 in hospital of her wounds. It is difficult to write about Rite of Passage – the first major retrospective of the photographer’s work in the UK – without first acknowledging how the tragic circumstances of her death unjustly contrast the compassion and human understanding that defines her artwork. The exhibition is itself a curtailed journey that combines photojournalism and “post-Oriental” anthropology, an exploration of migration.

The Moroccans (2010-2014), the first of the series, takes us to the Larache Province in the north. Inspired by Robert Frank’s The Americans (1958), the portraits are vibrant and unfussy. Photographed against the black backdrop of a temporary studio in a local market, Alaoui’s sitters come as they are, in whatever dress. Gauzy robes, folds of woven

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fabric – deep reds, blues, greens – traditional headdresses, a leather drum. Each person stands upright, unposed. All are afforded the dignity of looking directly to camera.

The same is true of Natreen (2013) – literally “We Wait” – documenting Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Even in her early monochromes, No Passara ‘They Did Not Pass’ (2008), the artist grapples with gaze photographing those who attempted the Gibraltar Strait. The failure of No Passara, despite its poetry, is only apparent alongside her exceptional, later Words works – particularly L’Île du Diable (2015–), an unfinished Jack Solloway video portrait of North African migrants in Paris. Here, she perfects a documentary style that empowers the subject.

We say that photos are “taken”, but these feel gifted. Somerset House, London Alaoui’s photographs are intimate but not intrusive. The 11 October - 28 February opposite of isolation, viewing them is like meeting the sitter – an extraordinary experience during times of separation. somersethouse.org.uk

1. Rue Aubriot, Paris, 1975. © The Helmut Newton Estate, Courtesy Maconochie Photography. 1. xxx y. 2a. LARRY COOK (b. 1986, Landover, MD)The Visiting Room #4, 2019. Digital photograph, 40 x 30 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

2b. MARIA GASPAR (b. 1980, Chicago, IL), Soy Paz, Soy Más. 2020. Sky-typed message above Coastal Bend Detention Center (Robstown,TX). Video documentation by Ronald L. Jones. The performance occurred in July 2020 as part of In Plain Sight, conceived by Cassils and rafa esparza, a coalition of 80 artists fighting immigrant detention and the culture of incarceration 1 min., 31 sec. Courtesy the artist. 3 Khamlia, South of Morocco #1, 2014 from the series Les Marocains by Leila Alaoui. Courtesy Fondation Leila Alaoui & GALLERIA CONTINUA.

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4. Alys Tomlinson, Jameela, Lost Summer, 2020. 5a. Bus Converted to Cafe, Lay-By, West Yorkshire, November 1982, from the series A1 - The Great North Road © Paul Graham courtesy Huxley-Parlour Gallery / Anthony Reynolds Gallery. 5b. Burning Fields, Melmerby, North Yorkshire, September 1981, from the series A1 - The Great North Road © Paul Graham courtesy Huxley-Parlour Gallery / Anthony Reynolds Gallery . 6. Mwangi Hutter, For the Last Tree, 2012; Chromogenic print, 39 ¼ x 26 ⅜ in.; NMWA, Gift of Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C.; © Mwangi Hutter.

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Lost Summer ALYS TOMLINSON

In recent years, British photographer Alys Tomlinson (b.

1975) has been taking the photography world by storm: as a Prix Elysée 2020 nominee, winner of the Rencontres d’Arles New Discovery Award 2019 and the Sony Photographer of Year Award 2018. It’s no surprise that Tomlinson’s creative lens has captured the current zeitgeist in an interesting angle.

Lost Summer is a solo exhibition of images taken in June 2020, shot as the UK’s lockdown began to ease. After finding a hook in the cancellation of events, Tomlinson captured the portraits of 44 teenagers from north London wearing their cancelled prom outfits. Fresh-faced youths stand alone in domestic spaces wearing sequins, gowns and suits, staring at the lens with a kind of calm, melancholy composure.

The series of giclée prints captures a range of emotions, from disappointment and loss to uncertainty. This is a summer usually filled with celebration – marking the end of A-Levels – bringing reverie, relief and excitement. It’s also

a time of departure, as many young people approach the milestone of leaving for university or setting out on a new venture into the world of work. Tomlinson draws attention to the ceremonial and transformative nature of promenade dances: more than mere parties but a symbolic coming together. These works capture a rite of passage.

Tomlinson said: “I feel that there is vulnerability and sadness to the portraits, but also resilience. The school year ended abruptly, with no opportunity to say goodbye to Words friends and nothing to mark the occasion of leaving school.” Robyn Cusworth In Jameela, Lost Summer, 2020, we see apprehension. In Drew, Lost Summer, 2020, there’s courage. And in Ava, Lost Summer, 2020 we find hope. In many of the portraits, viewers can find HackelBury a captivating intensity, bound by unpredictability and tense Fine Art, London apprehension. There’s also something striking in the indi- 10 November - 6 February vidualism: a quietly optimistic feeling that so many stories aren’t ending at all; they’re just about to begin. hackelbury.co.uk

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A1 PAUL GRAHAM

Colour, clothes, material details: each photograph is a The first photograph in A1 is the Young Executives, Bank of England, November 1981. An odd move for an exhibition social commentary in miniature. A "BP SELF SERVE" petrol about a stretch of motorway during the 1980s, the inference station looks like a feature from a model village, its lit-up soon becomes clear. Two yuppy-looking gentlemen – blue sign no doubt full of mischief. (Who is serving who?)

Our eyes turn from the blow-dried hair and nylon tie, suits, nonchalance – are glimpsed amongst the London bustle. They are pointing and laughing at a document. A pinafores to empty seats, as Graham’s travelogue along the lady, also in blue, rushes past with a matching blue necktie “Great North Road” (the first major road to run the length of England) unveils a narrative of the decline of British industry billowing across her shoulder. No one notices each other.

This is Thatcher’s Britain, according to Paul Graham and great social change. “SAFE JOURNEY” reads the road (b. 1956), but it’s not the one that his photo series wants us to markings outside the services in Little Chef in Rain, St. Neots give attention to. Instead, we find the blue of the workman’s (1982). In North Yorkshire, the grass is aflame: it’s September jacket; the teal of trucker’s boilersuit. The pastel interiors of 1981 and Burning Fields spells uneasy portents.

A few months later, Graham takes a photo of Drivers Blyth Serves are the location for one of the most striking still lives – Bible, Drivers’ Rest Room, March 1981 – which trans- Discussing Redundancies in Morley’s Café, Nottinghamshire. ports us, wryly, from the sacred to the mundane. There is Two old boys sit side by side. Cheese on toast is on the table, oodles of charm, too, in the ugly, bug-eyed 1980s lenses one of them clutches his wallet. It’s a candid and compelling of the Café Assistants in Compass Café, Colsterworth (1982). picture of working lives during times of upheaval.

Words Jack Solloway

Huxley-Parlour, London 28 October - 18 December huxleyparlour.com

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Return to Nature A GROUP EXHIBITION

As early as 1843, British artist and botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871) self-published a book featuring cyanotypes of plants. Her 19th century cyanotypes used light exposure and a simple chemical process to create impressively detailed and aesthetically alluring blueprints of botanical specimens. The limited edition was the first printed volume ever illustrated entirely with photographic images. However, scholars largely disregarded women’s contributions to nature photography for more than a century, until the 1970s.

Marjorie Content (1895-1984) developed a formalist aesthetic during travels in the American southwest with her friend Georgia O’Keeffe. In Artichoke Flower (1928), she placed the titular subject against a bright background that brings each petal into sharp focus. Laura Gilpin (18911979) wrote of her struggles to communicate the “austere and barbaric qualities” of Chichén Itzá, the ancient Mayan city in Mexico’s Yucatán state. A massive structure fills most

of Group by the Water (The Sacred Well, Chichén Itzá) (1932), dwarfing visitors in soft focus at the top of the site.

Imogen Cunningham (1883-1976), as a founding member of the modernist Group f/64, created high-contrast images with a signature “pure” approach. The flower’s individual and delicate leather-like folds appear with crisp precision in Datura (c. 1930). Amy Lamb (b. 1944), a molecular biologist, also uses sharp focus for large-scale “portraits” of plants. “I want to reveal minute details that are not easily visible to the naked eye,” she once said. A flower nearly bursts out of the frame in White Rose I (1998), the eye inevitably drawn to the pistil and stamen at the heart of the bloom.

By closely examining the outdoors, Lamb’s predecessors helped shape photography into the art form it has become today. The images, shown at one of the cultural institutions to have cautiously reopened its doors in the US capital, are a call to finding revitalisation in nature in the pandemic.

Words Olivia Hampton

NMWA, Washington DC 1 August - 3 January nmwa.org

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She | Dir. Idris Fassisi. Courtesy of Directors Notes / Can We Talk.

film

Resilience and Reinvention AESTHETICA FILM FESTIVAL 10TH ANNIVERSARY Alongside the festival’s steadfast shorts and features “The festival saw “What a year, hey?” began Aesthetica’s Director Cherie Federico in her remotely filmed opening speech. 2020 has not held programme, which spanned from advertising and fashion its move to online back in bestowing challenges upon the world, the headline films to genre filmmaking, experimental work and music as exactly this: a act being a global pandemic which ushered the Aesthetica videos, an extended and selection of Guest Programmes challenge. ASFF set Short Film Festival into a digital space for its special 10th An- were made available on the platform. Directors Notes and to work accumulating Black-centric multimedia platform Can We Talk DXB took a programme of niversary Edition (ASFF), which ran 1-30 November.

However, the festival viewed its move to online as exact- George Floyd’s murder as the catalyst for their collection I speakers, short films ly this: a challenge. ASFF set to work accumulating a pro- Still Can’t Breathe. “From horrific violence and racial bias to and events like never gramme of speakers, films and events, utilising a new level of everyday micro-aggressions, this programme portrays the before, utilising a new reality of life within marginalised populations,” said DXB. level of accessibility; accessibility; channelling resilience and reinvention.

The Showcase Screenings returned to ASFF in digital form, channelling resilience This year’s masterclass series benefitted enormously its lack of physical boundaries. Filmmakers, practitioners and actors with leading universities from across the UK presenting and reinvention.” generously divulged advice and anecdotes over the festival’s curated shorts that dissect themes and lift talent, like week-long programme, from Disclosure director Sam Feder, Ravensbourne University’s Covid-centric strand which who spoke passionately about advocating for better trans centralised identities in isolation. The Filmmaker Insights representation on screen, to a host of prestigious female panel discussions also thrived in the online setting, with the filmmakers, from Chinonye Chukwu and Andrea Arnold to Official Selection discussing everything from working on a Words Sarah Gavron. “This is a good moment to be quiet and think budget to establishing a unique style. “This sounds naive but Beth Webb about ideas,” said the Rocks director in her session, which you have to love your film to cross the finish line,” said one aired on 4 November. It’s this highly accessible platform filmmaker on Cinema for Change: Making Films with Impact.

Innovative solutions were provided to all of the returning Visit our online video library perhaps, that granted ASFF one of the biggest masterclasses in its 10-year history: a rare and rapturous conversation elements of ASFF – from home-delivered headsets to enjoy to see a selection of this with Dame Judi Dench. Recalling tales of working with Clint 360-film to virtual spaces dedicated to Pitching Sessions and year's Official Selection.

Eastwood and stepping into the shoes of Queen Victoria an Industry Marketplace. 2020 may have been a challenging year, but this festival shows how cinema is simply stronger. from her armchair proved a virtual experience like no other. asff.co.uk

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Intuition and Inspiration AESTHETICA FILM FESTIVAL 2020: WINNERS

Hard To Know | Music Video | Dir. Alice Halstead.

The Aesthetica Short Film Festival announced its winners on that Black women’s bodies should be groomed to meet “This year, the 8 November. Usually, filmmakers and film lovers alike would broader societal standards, and the winner of the Hijack physical presence of flock to the Yorkshire Museum in the centre of York to share Visionary Filmmaker Award – Gardar Thor Thorkelsson’s the festival may have in the celebrations as winners from across the festival step up Thinking About the Weather – sees the filmmaker embark been missing as the to receive their accolades. This year, the physical presence of on a mission across as a reaction to his anxieties about the pandemic meant a pivot to digital. Yet the festival may have been missing as the pandemic meant looming climate emergency and its encroaching effects.

Perhaps subconsciously, several of the festival winners the spirit of the week's a pivot to digital for ASFF’s special 10th edition. Yet the spirit of the week's live events and final ceremony lived on as play on the concept of confinement and isolation, drawing live events and final fear and factual commentary out of small spaces. 360 Film ceremony lived on audiences from across the world tuned in remotely.

In consistency with previous years, the festival maintained VR Free by Italian filmmaker Milad Tangshir uses immersive as audiences from a familiar line-up of awards: Best of Fest, a top prize for each storytelling to capture the experience of incarceration, from across the world genre, the York Youth Award (voted for exclusively by school being held within a police car on the way to a holding cell to turned in remotely. ” pupils aged 11-14) and the Hijack Visionary Filmmaker the small parameters of the cell itself. Meanwhile directors Jessica and Henrietta Ashworth make a woman’s graveyard Award, which recognises directors with exceptional vision.

Though the films boast an array of stylistic forms, visual shift as a driver a visceral, emotive and terrifying experience.

Words approaches and methods of storytelling the majority of this Night Bus won the prize for Best Thriller as a result.

Cara Bamford’s light and lovely Talia won the hearts of the Beth Webb year’s winners address key contemporary and longstanding issues dotted across the globe. From Mario Dahl’s Safe Water pupils electing the York Youth Award, but it was Finnish visual – the winner of Best Advertising – which highlights the vital artist Maija Blåfield who walked away (metaphorically in this presence of water in our lives through a single, powerful case) with not only the prize for Best Documentary, but the Entries open for the 11th stunt, to Lanre Malaolu’s Best Dance winner The Conversation, Best of Festival prize for the hybrid film The Fantastic. The edition of the Aesthetica which uses fluid movement to communicate the challenges piece is weighted in conversations with exiled North Koreans Short Film Festival on 1 who recount their experience watching western movies in December. associated with the Black experience to white partners.

Ayanna Dozier’s surreal and startling Softer, which scooped secret. Blåfield crystallises all that ASFF sets out to champion: the prize for Best Experimental film, calls out public demand intuition, inspiration and far-reaching global perspectives. asff.co.uk

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Photo Credit: Katy Cummings. Styling: Danyul Brown.

music

Opportunity and Promise YOU ME AT SIX “We have been in pursuit of a defining album. SUCKAPUNCH embodies the spirit of You Me At Six (YMAS) but fundamentally has moved into different spaces. It’s easily our collective favourite record we’ve made.” Lead vocalist Josh Franceschi is in a positive frame of mind about the band’s seventh studio album. In a musical landscape that seems to demand one-hit wonders, it can be difficult to have longevity in a meaningful way. However, reinvention is always a good starting point.

SUCKAPUNCH arrives at an interesting time. In recent years, the music industry has not necessarily embraced or offered wide exposure of alternative bands, something Franceschi readily acknowledges. “The music industry is tough at times.

That said, it’s a place full of opportunity and promise. To be honest, we’ve just put out our music and our fans have done the rest, we can’t take any credit for chart success we’ve had or potentially will have. It’s absolutely down to them.”

The album was recorded over five weeks in Bang Saray, Thailand; the band arrived armed with dozens of songs and ideas, eager to push the experimentation of 2018 album VI further. Continuing their creative relationship with that album’s producer, Dan Austin (Massive Attack, Pixies), the results are bursting with ambition. “Dan has brought us the confidence to do exactly what we want to do. Liberated us in a way, trusted our ideas and vision, curated it and brought it to life. Ultimately, we went to Thailand to unplug from the

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real world. It became our utopia. It allowed complete and “We've got nothing uncompromised dedication and attention to detail.” to lose because we've The result: YMAS has crafted its most experimental album lost before, and we've to date. Alongside the compelling punk snarl of MAKEME- won before. Our only FEELALIVE, Beautiful Way is a purgative burst of emotional fear is disappointing energy, accompanied by stunning visuals. SUCKAPUNCH is ourselves and as long rooted in reflection and redemption, and sees the band har- as we make music ness darker experiences as a catalyst for creativity. “We didn’t that is progressive have any specific reference points. We knew what we wanted and honest, we to make and ran with it. This is the result of us together find- won't do that.” ing peace and acceptance in what has been and gone.”

Undoubted heavyweights in the live arena, how does YMAS strike the balance between the studio and performing live?

Which location, and version of working, do they consider to be their true home? “It’s a bit of both,” says Franceschi, “we love being in the studio and being away from the world, bringing initial ideas to life but then of course to play live, to see people’s reactions and what our music means to them and connecting strangers, it’s actually pretty remarkable.”

Franceschi attributes the fearlessness that runs through the music to the experiences that come with being in a Words band that’s on its seventh album. “We’ve got nothing to lose Matt Swain because we’ve lost before, and we’ve won before. Our only fear is disappointing ourselves, and so, as long as we make music that is progressive and honest, we won’t do that.” youmeatsix.co.uk

Reclaiming Identity SOPHIA BEL Bel first came to prominence in 2016 as a contestant on “I often talk about Quebec’s hit TV show La Voix. The next two years were spent my art through a releasing a series of singles before Bel recorded her first ep, sort of Freudian Princess of The Dead Vol 1, which demonstrated an affinity discourse – through for left-field melancholy, something the musician describes the lens of repressed succinctly as “nostalgic, moody, alternative pop.” childhood trauma.

Every song she writes is about something "real" – reflecting Voyage Astral is really other passions that feed into the music. “I tend to obsess just me poking fun about different things and have many random occupations. I at the whole cliché like cooking, painting and sewing amongst other things, but It's the first song lately I’ve been really into home renovation and creating a I've released that I nice environment. I think that it’s due to the fact that we have produced on my own.” to spend so much time indoors at the moment.”

Bel’s singular pop trajectory is an ongoing process of reassessing and recalibrating. “The best piece of advice I have ever been given is stop trying to be someone else and learn to know and appreciate who you truly are.” Here, pop is more of an inspiration than an ambition, and she is determined not to let others dictate the terms of her identity.

“I love collaborating and learning from other people’s approaches, but it’s really through being able to produce on Words my own that I’ve found I can express my vision in a more Matt Swain concise way. Moving forward, for me, it's about a combination of perfecting the craft and then sharing it with others. This helps bring the whole concept to a new level.” sophiabel.bandcamp.com

Photo Credit: JF Suavé.

Sophia Bel’s recent single, Voyage Astral, is a mesmerising coalescence of electronica and woodwind. It is replete with expressive guest vocals from Félix Bélisle (Choses Sauvages) and smooth flute, which all result in a hazy dreamscape and textural synthesis. Lyrically it represents a journey into the depths of human consciousness, sung entirely in French and with co-production from CRi (Charlotte Cardin/Milk & Bone).

“I often talk about my art through a sort of Freudian discourse – through the lens of repressed childhood trauma. Voyage Astral is really just me poking fun at the whole cliché. It’s the first song I’ve released that I essentially produced on my own and it really feels great to tear that Band-Aid off.”

Voyage Astral is taken from the new EP Princess of The Dead Vol 2. The title comes directly from past trauma; Bel was the target of bullies in suburban Quebec City, being called everything from “Emo” to “Princess of the Dead.” She's now looking to reclaim those names and take ownership of them.

The Montreal-based artist, singer and producer grew up fascinated by the esoteric sounds of trip-hop and drum ‘n’ bass in the era of Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears.

Through frequently shifting sonic and lyrical territories, it is apparent Bel never wants the listener to get too comfortable with one sound or style. “It varies from one song to another.

Sometimes it starts with a sound that inspires me, sometimes I jot down a few words in my phone and it starts from there.”

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Rainbow Revolution by Magnus Hastings (Chronicle Books, £30). Image Credit: © 2020 Magnus Hastings.

books

Beyond the Binaries RAINBOW REVOLUTION Following on from the success of 2016's Why Drag? and 2018’s #GAYFACE, photographer Magnus Hastings is back with another collection celebrating queer identity and visibility. Rainbow Revolution follows a similar format to Hastings’ previous projects, using an empty white box as a canvas which subjects can transform to reflect their character, sensibility and interests.

“The box is a representation of equality,” he explains. “Everyone is given the same blank space and can do what they like with it.”

Rainbow Revolution features more than 300 images of members of the LGBTQIA+ community, including familiar faces like RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Alaska Thunderfuck, Gigi Goode and Adore Delano, as well as bona fide gay icons like Boy George and activists Will Sheridan and Annie Southhurst. At its most basic and stripped back, the book unpacks the notion of queerness, presenting it as something that can’t be boiled down to a single look or characteristic. Hastings’ subjects, though placed in literal boxes, are the opposite of their limited surroundings; they’re colourful, loud and transgressive, pushing the boundaries of social norms and dousing them in glitter.

The result is intentionally lo-fi and spontaneous. Hastings decided not to retouch the images: “They should be full of the raw energy generated by things happening in real time,” he says.

Each shot feels like a mini theatrical production, a technicolour snapshots into the minds of some of the LGBTQIA+ community’s most idiosyncratic individuals. For example, there’s Drag Race

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UK finalist Baga Chipz in full Ginger Spice get-up, complete “Rainbow with a Union Jack sequin dress and matching bunting. Lisa Revolution Power, the co-founder of Stonewall UK, stands with her arms challenges those stretched wide in front of posters that read, “Some people are bigoted notions gay, get over it." Country queen and make-up mogul Trixie of sex and gender, Mattel harnesses her inner Dolly Parton whilst posing naked in instead posing a nude pumps – her body covered by an acoustic guitar. bolder, brighter Key to Rainbow Revolution is the idea of visibility; the subjects future where span an entire spectrum, forgoing binaries to include trans, identity is a fluid non-binary, pansexual and demisexual people, whose identi- conversation led ties tend to be erased by mainstream media. Personal essays by the individuals also punctuate the book, such as accounts by pansexual, trans themselves.” male make-up artist Kate Gottlieb and “health warrior” Demetre Daskalakis. These stories affirm the existence of queer bodies, something no amount of conservatism can negate.

This is especially relevant in the current socio-political climate, where trans and gender non-conforming individuals face increasingly hostile environments. At the time of writing this, Donald Trump banned trans people from the military and reversed trans students’ rights to use bathrooms that match their Words gender identity, whilst in the UK, equalities minister Liz Truss Gunseli Yalcinkaya has doubled back on efforts to reform the Gender Recognition Act. Rainbow Revolution challenges these bigoted notions of sex and gender, instead posing a bolder, brighter future where Chronicle Books identity is a fluid conversation led by the individuals themselves. chroniclebooks.com

Modes of Celebrity HIGH GLOSS

High Gloss: The Art of Vijat Mohindra by Vijat Mohindra (Abrams Cernunnos, £35) © 2020 Vijat Mohindra.

Any major celebrity who has burst onto the scene in the last milk all over the place, (and) light up a cigarette” – presumably “I work out every 20 years, chances are, have been photographed by Vijat Mo- to get into the mood of these bright, eccentric vignettes. detail like a The cover image is typical of Mohindra’s idiosyncratic style: a filmmaker would. hindra. The 35-year-old, who’s the former assistant of David LaChapelle, is known for his glossy and highly stylised aes- monochromatic shot of Cyrus in a shiny devil suit, shot against I'm pre-planning thetic; bold monochromatic bursts of blues, yellows, and reds a red glitter backdrop and a matching carpet to boot. The use and producing that combine with surreal storytelling to create images that are of single colours and ample texture is both alluring and deeply everything we're theatrical. “I work out every detail like a filmmaker would,” going to do. I both fantastically imaginative and comically absurd.

His clientele sits within the nucleus of pop culture: Kim Mohindra says. “I’m pre-planning and producing everything mix that with the Kardashian West, Miley Cyrus, Rihanna, Paris Hilton and Tyra we’re going to do. I mix that with the spontaneity of the energy spontaneity of the Banks. Subjects are coated in a synthetic sheen, like moulded on set. It’s about achieving a balance between what is set up and energy on set.” resin, giving them a hyperreal appearance that only elevates what happens spontaneously in the moment.”

Inside, Paris Hilton poses inside a giant shell like Botticelli’s the fantasy of Hollywood’s young, rich and very famous.

High Gloss, the photographer’s first monograph, is completely The Birth of Venus, her body cartoonishly draped with a string of as the name suggests: an exuberant, alluring selection of the gargantuan pearls, whilst queer icon Amanda Lepore straddles Mohindra’s most striking images. These works are characterised a giant Malboro cigarette; Donatella Versace stands statuesque by bright hues, brilliant textures and bedazzled cigarettes. From in her neon-lit mansion; Beth Ditto lays face-down against a magazine covers and fashion editorials to brand campaigns crushed velvet floor. “I’ve always been really attracted to and billboards, Mohindra peppers the images with glamorous visually extraordinary things,” he adds. “Photography is about anecdotes of shooting Heidi Klum in the Chateau Marmont and capturing energy rather than just what's in front of the lens.”

It’s within this post-pop tableaux of plastic, spilt milk, eerie Words being on first name terms with Kim K; meeting for the first time moon craters, model sets, celebrities, cigarettes, latex and Gunseli Yalcinkaya and working on Kylie Jenner’s make-up launch.

The book’s introduction, written by another famous face, Miley cake that High Gloss reveals itself. The celebrity, clearly, is a Cyrus, describes the work as “wonderfully lustrous, colourfully hot commodity. Like Andy Warhol’s screen prints for the social curated, bizarrely eccentric.” She later urges readers to “slip into media age, Mohindra’s subjects are otherworldly yet familiar, a Cernunnos some latex, blow bubbles, stick your cat in the TV, pour some peek through fame’s curtain at the illusory world beyond. abramsbooks.com

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film reviews

1

St Maud ROSE GLASS

Rose Glass has already made waves with some impressive shorts, including the briskly comic hotel-set Room 55. Now she fulfils the promise of a feature-length debut with Saint Maud. An impressively rendered tale of religious fervour gone too far, Morfydd Clark plays Maud, a private nurse who has recently converted to Catholicism.

Maud takes on a new client (after arriving in a run-down seaside town) – a terminally ill former dancer named Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), who is confined to bed. With just her occasional lover Carol (Lily Frazer) for company, Amanda can be a cruel mistress, particularly towards Maud, who takes it upon herself to save her charge’s soul.

Glass pays homage to Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, with night-time shots of Maud mooching along the tacky sea-front recalling Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle as he passes through the streets of 1970s New York. Roman

Polanski’s Repulsion and Stephen King’s novel Misery are also reference points, but Glass does not simply borrow others’ work. There’s a freshness that is exciting to watch.

Credit must also be paid to Paul Davies, who manages to step inside Maud’s fractured mind using some wonderful sound design. Likewise, Paulina Rzeszowska’s production design is a key visual expression of the suffocating world around Maud, almost closing in on her as her devotion to the scriptures takes hold and she becomes splintered.

Clark, who is currently filming the Lord of the Rings TV series for Amazon Prime, is a disciplined and charismatic performer, and it shows here as she delivers a fullblooded turn as Maud. With its provocative cocktail of sex, religion, pain and suffering, Saint Maud will almost certainly be the breakout film that both Clark and Glass are remembered for many years to come.

Words James Mottram

studiocanal.co.uk

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Supernova HARRY MACQUEEN

Harry Macqueen’s poignant, yet often very funny, second feature-film Supernova follows a middle-aged couple, Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), as they journey north in their motorhome to visit Sam’s sister.

Right away, we sense something isn’t quite right between them. Tusker appears a little too easily irritated by the good-natured Sam, who remains quietly determined to enjoy the trip, as he patiently drives their Winnebago through the rugged autumnal landscape.

There is a string of complaints, insults and sharp replies to enjoy during these opening moments. Whilst the tone and palette are sombre, the comedy and lightheartedness of the opening scenes belie this. Firth and Tucci’s repartee is a genuine joy; we would be just as lucky if the film consisted only of these early exchanges on the road, the sort that give us a condensed history of

their long relationship and its amusing power dynamics.

It isn’t long before we discover what’s going on – what’s really gnawing at both characters. Tusker, a novelist, is attempting to complete his latest book, but the prospect of this becomes increasingly and tragically remote. The gradual onset of dementia has cost him the ability to write, as well as carrying out more basic tasks: reading, remembering certain words and recalling his whereabouts. An early scene in which Sam loses Tusker shows just how severe the condition is, and the how these moments undermine an already-crumbling will to live.

Supernova sits alongside well-regarded films that consider the brutal effects of dementia (the most notable being Michael Haneke’s Amour). It is also, in its own right, a memorable portrayal of two lovers forced to confront the prospect of no longer sharing the same reality.

Words Chris Webb

peccapics.com

3

Cocoon LEONIE KRIPPENDORFF

Set in Berlin in 2018, over a long, hot summer, Cocoon wash Nora’s jeans in the school bathroom. Quietly selfis a coming-of-age story. It’s also a coming out story, as assured, Romy doesn’t need the validation of her peers.

Krippendorff paints Nora’s world in impressionistic, 14-year-old Nora (Lena Urzendowsky) begins to explore her emotions. The shy, mousy-looking teen is forever in sensual colours, but reality is never far away. Nora and the shadow of her older sister Jule (Anna Lena Klenke), Jule’s homelife is drab and difficult, with an alcoholic mother. The director smartly shows just how brittle selfwho is blonde, experienced and popular with boys.

Written and directed by Leonie Krippendorff, Cocoon confidence can be at that age, with Jule demonstrating a is a good reminder of the delicate eco-system in which much more vulnerable side behind closed doors.

Whilst Cocoon threatens to stray into Euphoria territory teenagers exist. Jule can be cruel to her younger sister and others; at one point she films a plus-size girl running – the usual excesses of youth all on display – the film around the athletics track to later shame her. Her actions ultimately rejects such clichés, as Nora falls for Romy are a stark reminder of adolescence as a minefield. and tries to find words for the feelings that she’s expeNora also suffers when she unexpectedly has her riencing. Convincingly performed by the young cast, period in gym class (recalling Carrie and even recent Cocoon is sensitively handled both by Krippendorff and horror, The Craft: Legacy). Yet through this incident that cinematographer Martin Neumeyer. Youthful confusion she meets Romy (Jella Haase), who kindly offers to and desire have never seemed so delicate and touching.

Words James Mottram

studiocanal.co.uk

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music reviews

1

Shimza CALLING OUT YOUR NAME

After performing a historic livestream performance from Robben Island in honour of Nelson Mandela Day, South African Afro Tech producer and DJ Shimza launches the debut release with his new label Kunye. With the ambition to promote the complex and varied musical heritage of a country that has experienced so much turmoil in its recent history, Shimza’s new EP is a high octane yet compact. It seems to be a stroll around the DJ's mind.

At a meagre three songs, Calling Out Your Name falls into the trap of being far too short. The quality of the record justifies the EP to be at least double the length, and listeners will eagerly await further releases.

Featuring the vocal stylings of Mikhaela Faye, the title track serves to make us all desperately miss sweaty clubs and late nights filled with big emotive drops and powerful get-up-and-move tension. Lyrically, the song delivers a

message about humankind's continual plundering of nature and destruction of the world – something not necessarily expected to be the inspiration behind a floor-filler. However, backed with the Kostakis remix, this anthem is an innovative re-imagining of what the club can be, and how we might engage with it in the years to come, when we can all come together again.

Rounding out the EP is the boppy Maru, which boasts a meandering bassline and harsh kicks that belong in a rave. Rooted in monotone and repetitive ear glitter, the single completes a very short and somewhat incomplete offering that could have represented so much more inspired from such a rich musical lineage – with the true highlight being the lead single, reminiscent of vintage Disclosure. This is an exciting first taster from a label that will evidently continue to build in strength.

Words Kyle Bryony

djshimza.com

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Morton Valence BLACK ANGEL DRIFTER

Black Angel Drifter is an album of unorthodox alt-country music unlike anything you’ve heard. The seventh studio album from Anne Gilpin and Robert "Hacker" Jessett, started life as an experimental side-project in 2016, but the duo then got side-tracked with other projects.

Judging by the results, the lengthy gestation period was worth the wait; sometimes it takes time to sound timeless.

The album features 10 compelling tracks, each with their own strange yet perfectly placed occurrences of sound. From the rambunctious intro of Skylines Change/ Genders Blur, unfolding like a hybrid of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Ennio Morricone, to the down-at-heel Black-Eyed Susan lyrically referencing priests and bullwhips, the musical dexterity is immediately apparent.

The lovelorn Sister Pain harbours a hidden, blues-y, pulling listeners into a contemporary setting replete with

strident, clamorous guitars and dramatic sound effects.

Meanwhile, sorrowful love songs like The Visit and Hymn possess a ragged finesse drawing us into a place of otherworldly realism. The authenticity then hits in If I Could Start Again where a man recounts his misspent life from a prison cell. Alongside Gilpin and Hacker, Alan Cook’s sublime pedal steel guitar is omnipresent throughout the album, making it a rewardingly cohesive whole.

Black Angel Drifter is one of those albums that sits at the intersection of music, art and film. All of the tracks could sit quite comfortably on a film soundtrack and its stylistic noise is exactly what the world needs right now. Morton Valence is extremely good at being curious. The duo are seemingly on a mission to find inspiration from some other world – another plane of existence – intelligently merging timeless with original, new and exciting.

Words Matt Swain

mortonvalence.com

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Babeheaven HOME FOR NOW

West London duo Babeheaven peacefully launches an ethereal highlight, with its synthesised twists and turns Home For Now – channelling classy breakbeat and matching Anderson’s emotive and heart-wrenching tone. classic trip-hop tropes to hypnotising effect. With The vocals bounce delicately between Sade and a more Nancy Anderson on purposefully and excellently lazily powerful Florence and The Machine-esque vibe as they delivered vocal duties, and Jamie Travis providing the project into full force. For a debut to sound this cohesive production prowess, these are 14 tracks of easy listening. is no easy feat; these two have it mastered.

Clearly inspired by the electronic jitters of Little Dragon, The live instrumentation is equal parts BadBadNotGood the wavey nature of Portishead and the deep, rich as it is reminiscent of the sample chop manipulation of feels of Cinematic Orchestra, Babeheaven has taken its Madlib, shown on the devastatingly short Interlude: 6 influences and made them very much its own.

Times Round which at only 39 seconds is nothing but The consistent drum patterns throughout ring with infuriating. Craziest Things brings poppy on the beach monotone at points, but it is this downbeat charm that energy, encapsulating the head-nodding floaty appeal brings a constant ticking clock of familiarity. The autum- of this extremely listenable project that houses no nal opener November is a trippy, weepy, late morning weak links or skippable moments. With an album this car drive of a song – starting the album on as strong a impressive – and completely engrossing – these lifelong footing as humanly possible. The beautiful In My Arms is friends have a very bright future ahead of them.

Words Kyle Bryony

babeheavenband.co.uk

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book reviews

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M to M (Vol. II) M/M (PARIS)

Michaël Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak established graphic design studio M/M (Paris) in 1992, after meeting at art school. Since then, they have become one of today’s most revolutionary creative practices – working on experimental projects right across the cultural sphere.

“Our work is about expressing the idea of a dialogue,” the duo has said. “We transfer elements from fashion to music to art and back again, using different mediums.”

Indeed, the art directors have an impressive and widereaching list of collaborators: brands Alexander McQueen and Louis Vuitton; musicians Björk and Madonna; plus contemporary artists including Pierre Huyghe. M/M has co-curated exhibitions at Centre Pompidou and Tate Modern, whilst providing a radical rethinking of iconic print titles Interview magazine and Vogue Paris. This dual

practice is one which defies complete categorization.

Thames & Hudson’s title is a companion to M/M’s previous monograph, which was published in 2012 to mark their 20th anniversary. It surveyed hundreds of projects and relationships in-depth, providing a “visual atlas” of the arts landscape since the early 1990s. It also looked behind the curtain, revealing M/M’s inner workings.

Volume II provides conversations with well known peers, including fashion designers Miuccia Prada and Jonathan Anderson; artist Francesco Vezzoli; cinematographer Darius Khondji; chef Jean-François Piège; theatre director Arthur Nauzyciel and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.

This book is bright and bold, with over 850 images. The layout mirrors the eclectic mix within. It is an illustrated A to Z which begins and ends with the letter M.

Words Eleanor Sutherland

thamesandhudson.com

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The Whole Picture ALICE PROCTER

Museums are places we put things in so that we don’t forget them. They are buildings that look after memories and tell stories from the past. They are important because they educate us, celebrate culture, memorialise history, and ultimately feed our conception of national identity. But what if museums, the places we entrust to do all these things, have been getting it wrong?

According to Alice Proctor, this is precisely what has happened. Her compact, historically rich book, The Whole Picture: The Colonial Story of the Art in our Museums & Why We Need to Talk About It, unpacks in shocking detail a long-standing discrepancy between institutional and cultural memory. From corrupt British diplomats jimmying Egyptian relics (like “a 19th century Indiana Jones”) to borderline racist paintings exhibited in the Foreign Office, Proctor’s alternative guide fills in

where museums conveniently leave off in the official tour.

Proctor focuses on art, but she might well have written about natural history or archaeology. The story of museums as institutions of British Imperial achievement since the 19th century is, by and large, the same. Though the sheer extent our colonial past influences practices today remains astounding. Recently, the British Museum denied the return of seven mokomokai – a collection of ritually severed, preserved human heads of the Māori people – despite requests for repatriation by the indigenous community. This alone is urgent evidence of why we need to have this conversation.

It’s a vital starting point for fundamentally reframing museums as emotional and political spaces. They always have been and the book convincingly advocates making good trouble to challenge the status quo.

Words Jack Solloway

octopusbooks.co.uk

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The Story of Contemporary Art TONY GODFREY

The sixth chapter of Tony Godfrey’s Story of Contemporary Art recounts the fallout from the exhibition Magiciens de la Terre, staged in Paris in 1989, which placed work by 50 well-known western modern artists in dialogue with “mainly unknown, ‘outsider’ artists from the so-called Third World.” Though well-intentioned, the show was decried for its colonial perspective on the relationship between contemporary art and global creative traditions.

Rational innovation, irony, intertextuality: these were the domains of western art. The art of the Orient, Africa and so on, was, by contrast, to be celebrated for a kind of untutored expressive vibrancy, which would find itself in unwitting synchronicity with avant-garde mindsets.

Godfrey seems to have set himself the unenviable task of rethreading the narrative that the Parisian curators fudged: that of the relationship between “contemporary

art” and the myriad, intersecting and porous geographical (and identity-based) traditions that make up the contemporary art world. However, perhaps recognising this as an impossible task, Godfrey quickly abandons a movement-to-movement shuffle in favour of a more thematic perspective, framed by various broad social, economic and technological phenomena: the biennale, the booms and busts of the auction market, the rise of the internet. Against this backdrop he uses works from a diverse global cast to pose open-ended questions: do contemporary artists still work with narrative? Are they concerned with small or large-scale creation?

The underlying question Godfrey poses is adapted from the critic Donald Kuspit: are you an Andy Warhol or a Joseph Beuys? Do you see art as a celebration of surfaces or a means of psychological and social healing?

Words Greg Thomas

thamesandhudson.com

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The Destination for Art and Culture

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artists’ directory

OLGA DEMA

Antonia Glynne Jones is a Kenyan painter based in the UK. Colour, light and texture are of paramount importance in the creation of her semi-abstract landscapes and seascapes, blurring boundaries between reality and illusion.

Rome-based fine artist Olga Dema is inspired by the ancient art of orthodox icons, reinterpreted in contemporary ways. She creates abstract and conceptual works to help access the deeper reality of the universe and push the viewer towards new discoveries. The artist explores numerous ideas – within the supernatural, eternal and infinite – and their relationship with the terrestrial world. The immanent-transcendent world is represented by the use of ancient and contemporary techniques, learned through years of specialised study at academies in Florence, Rome and Saint Petersburg.

www.antoniagj.com I Instagram: @antoniaglynnejones

www.olgadema.com I Instagram: @artolgadema

ANTONIA GLYNNE JONES

LUCIANO PINHEIRO Luciano Pinheiro is a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist who is currently studying for an MA in Textile Fibres at the University of São Paulo.

His artistic practice explores contemporary social and environmental issues through the use of natural, local materials and pigments.

The current series – A Favela Resiste! – is a representation of the favela as a place of exclusion and resistance. The construction of the large-scale work itself is key for Pinheiro, who notes: “The fabric pieces are cut and assembled in a tight, crowded manner, to create a sinuous structure, as a reference to the favela’s complexity. Everything is fragile and precarious due to lack of an inclusive policy.”

Instagram: @lucianopinheirodesign

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SINE ZHENG BERTA JAYO

Sine Zheng is a London-based Chinese photographer and graduate of the Royal College of Art. Her work focuses on the relationship between humans and the natural world, and questions the impact of modernisation.

Berta Jayo is a multidisciplinary conceptual artist living between Santander and London. Her work has been exhibited in numerous art fairs including Swab Barcelona, Frieze London, Art Basel and most recently the Miami New Media Festival 2020. Jayo’s latest work is a video entitled Devil Portraits, featuring leaders of the governments of eleven countries. She notes: “We see politicians concerned with remaining in power rather than for the common good; driven by greed and ambition, they deprive the people of freedom.”

Zheng believes that with the continued development of urbanisation, people gradually become lost in a “dazzling steel forest.” Surrounded by humanmade objects creates an obscured reality in which people can lose sight of the boundaries between reality and illusion.

www.bertajayo.com I Instagram: @bertajayo

www.sinezheng.com I Instagram: @sine_xuanzheng

The award-winning Wild Dwelling series has been displayed in a number of solo and group exhibitions throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

YUKAKO TANAKA Yukako Tanaka’s work focuses on the traces left behind by humanity, as proof of our existence on the planet. In her multidisciplinary practice, the artist references philosophy, physics and geometry. Memory of a Ghost considers gravitational waves – as memories left behind by black holes and neutron stars. This work visualises the memory of a dead star; the viewer sees only water vibrating as the result of a barely audible sound wave. Tanaka is currently studying for an MA at the Royal College of Art; she is also participating in the prestigious #SciCommHack at CERN, in preparation for installations at their new Science Gateway facility, opening in Geneva in 2022.

yukako-tanaka.com I Instagram: @ yukako_tanaka_

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

aliza thomas

Berber Theunissen

Aliza Thomas is an Israeli artist and papermaker based in The Netherlands.

She works primarily with paper pulp utilising Asian techniques, along with acrylic on canvas painting. Many of the resulting double-sided yin and yang paper figures are dreamlike in their composition. Thomas notes a connection with shamanism and her creativity: "It’s like a dance in the universe interwoven by relations to the thread of life." IG: @thomas.aliza

Berber Theunissen is an award-winning Dutch artist whose images capture honest, intimate moments in the everyday lives of family and friends. This focus allows her to ruminate on the nature of her own existence, as well as personal feelings and relationships with others: “Photography offers a foothold, enabling me to observe my life in a more objective way." www.berbertheunissen.nl I Instagram: @theunissenberber

Elena Dobrovolskaya

Gyonyoung Yoon

Elena Dobrovolskaya is an oil and pastel portraitist based in New York.

Her works are delicate and romantic, featuring both modern and classical elements. A combination of warm sanguine for the face and body with colourful pastel hues for the clothes is a hallmark of her artistic style.

Dobrovolskaya has exhibited pieces at numerous international art fairs. www.elenadobrovolskaya.com I Instagram: @ladyvictoria2007

Seoul-based artist Gyonyoung Yoon interested in the idea of digitising a life. She believes that everything – experiences, relationships and even human beings – can be uploaded and downloaded. By converting and uploading herself, she aims to break down limitations of space and time, with the eventual possibility of creating a "backup" of her present mind. www.studiogyo.com I Instagram: @gyogyo13

Jelena Garic "Lextor"

Josseline Engeler

A multimedia artist from Montenegro, Jelena Garic's animation work was selected for the Heineken Open Your World campaign. A background in advertising fuels an investigation into the connections between consumer campaigns, fashion and animals; her latest work in the CACI series is Beware of Humans! (Stop Covid-19) in which she aims to raise awareness of animal rights. www.saatchiart.com/jelenagariclextor I IG: @artbylextor

Austria-based Josseline Engeler is an interdisciplinary artist and lecturer at the University of Art and Design Linz, with a background of ceramic art study in Germany, Austria and Portugal. As such, she often combines handcrafted elements with conceptual modern art, supported by a passionate interest in creating site-specific and socially-engaged projects. www.josselineengeler.com I Instagram: @josseline_engeler

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lunhua kong

max yasmeen

Chinese artist Lunhua Kong is an MA student at the Royal College of Art, London. She seeks to manipulate the narrative potentials of photography and video installation, interrogating the gap between concepts and images through holistic audience communication. Kong's work was selected for the New Horizons 2020 exhibition sponsored by the China Design Centre. www.lunhuakongstudio.com I Instagram: @lunhua.kong

Max Yasmeen is a British-Kashmiri artist based in the UK. A Goldsmiths Fine Art alumnus, her conceptual art practice is based upon magical formations connecting with the primal space of collective consciousness to promote healing. Yasmeen combines Jungian ideas with elements of primitivism, Sufi mysticism, rave culture, Krishna consciousness and ritual magic. www.theantlerhead.com I IG: @rabbithowls

Rebecca Brook

Sachi Satomi

UK-based artist Rebecca Brook explores psychology and the important connection colour has with adornment. Taking inspiration from art deco, art nouveau, architecture as well as conducting extensive research of Japonisme, Brook experiments with new ways of working: the pieces are made using 3D printing combined with the lost wax casting process. www.rebeccabrook.co.uk I Instagram: @rebeccabrook_jewellery

Sachi Satomi is a Japanese artist based in Venice; her practice includes painting, sculpture and installation. Extensive research is undertaken before preparing her installations – with the aim of encouraging people to interact with the work and view the world from a different perspective.

She notes: “Often the important things are not visible to the naked eye and these are what I would like to shed light on.” www.sachisatomi.com

VERÔNICA ALKMIM FRANÇA

Yulia Dotsenko

Brazil-born Verônica Alkmim França is based in Stockholm. She is interested in humanity’s current culture of excess; her latest work, TRANSILIS, depicts a kind of ritual gathering, reflecting upon the often-elusive consumer market and what we consider to be art. Alkmim França experiments with the idea of a single moment and the wider parameters of ethics and aesthetics in today’s society. www.veronicaaf.com I Instagram: @veronicaalkmimfranca

Yulia Dotsenko is a UK-based visual artist and art historian who graduated from Christie’s Education. Her current work focuses on environmental concerns such as climate change and rising sea levels; as such she aims to raise awareness of these issues. Dotsenko’s paintings are exhibited internationally and are held in private and public collections worldwide. www.yuliadotsenko.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

Andrea Jose

Elise Bikker

Peruvian artist Andrea Jose holds an MA from Central Saint Martins.

She strives to transform the way we view the resourcing and production of jewellery. Whilst working in social development for mining projects, the male-dominated industry inspired her to value the work of strong female community leaders.

Her practice celebrates a reciprocal approach within the jewellery system. www.andreajose.com Instagram: @andreajosedesigns

Elise Bikker holds an MA from Leiden University; she is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of York. Boundaries between the organic and the artificial drive both her academic work and sculptural art practice. Key subject matter is a primal bestiary, as seen in Figures of Speech. Bikker uses the subhuman creatures to examine idiosyncrasies of human psychology. www.elisebikkerartist.co.uk Instagram: @elise.bikker.artist

elvira Lepikhina

haruka

Elvira Lepikhina attends the Moscow State Stroganov Academy of Design and Applied Arts, specialising in Textile Design. She is currently experimenting with plastic and creating new fabrics for a collection of outerwear. An award-winning artist, Lepikhina has participated in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia as well as in numerous festivals and events throughout Europe and Asia. www.livemaster.ru/elviralepikhina Instagram: @elvira_lepikhina

Tokyo-based Haruka explores optics and applies its theories to create work that breaks stereotypes and provides realistic visual experiences.

The resulting pieces contain contradictory elements such as light and dark, natural and artificial.

Haruka presents ideas through sculpture, photography and video in numerous countries around the world, as well as permanent public art installations in Tokyo. www.harukafujita.com

jad oakes

JAHAN GERRARD

Jad Oakes explores the possibilities of photography and moving image for installations, prints and drawings.

The Passing is part of the Vessels collection and was created during lockdown in London. Made using a variety of woods, the sculpture features a plano-convex lens; rays of light are captured in a silent film.

The intimate, emotive work entices contemplation and memory. www.jadoakes.studio Instagram: @jado_studio

Jahan Gerrard is a USSR-born, UKbased painter whose upbringing in an artistic household has shaped both her inspirations and career.

The bold, colourful works are created via a dialogue between Gerrard and the canvas; it is where drama unfolds – happiness, anger, fear, sadness and struggle. The intention is for the artist to surprise herself. www.jahangerrard.co.uk Instagram: @jahangerrard

KATRIN LOY Katrin Loy is a graduate of the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts and a Master’s Degree student of Professor Jannis Kounellis. In the photographic series Dream Pictures – Life is a Dream she deals with changed and expanded states of consciousness, which can be experienced in dreams, madness, ecstasy, meditation and in neardeath experiences, amongst other things. www.artpal.com/katrinloy Instagram: @katrin.loy 144 Aesthetica

katya derksen Inspired by architecture, geometric patterns and processes, Katya Derksen works across drawing, typography and screen printing.

Space often defies the dimensions and materiality of the work, utilising the arrangement of lines and how they affect one another through the experimentation of colour and composition, which are fundamental aspects visualised through 2D and 3D work. www.katyaderksen.com Instagram: @xkxtya

Kit Yan Chong

Lucinda Beatrice McLaren

Kit Yan Chong explores conflict and control in the Altered Landscape series of drawings. These probe the idea of construction and destruction and their synergistic relationship.

The idea that order and calm arise from chaos, that discord leads to harmony, and hostility to peace is examined in these landscapes which question whether these mutual relationships can actually exist. www.kityanchong.co.uk Instagram: @kityanchong

A Politics graduate from Durham University, Lucinda Beatrice McLaren is a law student and multidisciplinary artist. Layers are a cornerstone of her artwork, used to convey a depth of meaning on a number of socio-political and legal issues. McLaren utilises a variety of media to express her ideas and observations, from graphic art pieces to a sculpture series made from plastic and steel.

Instagram: @type.fun

Marie Kotschedoff

Marina Heintze

Marie Kotschedoff is a New Yorkbased artist. Her images explore the fragility and wonder of nature; the works draw the viewer into a mysterious world of beauty and decay. Some of the photographs may include random people that become part of the landscape, or objects that are incorporated with natural or artificial flowers, becoming a still life composition.

Instagram: @mariekotschedoff

New York-born Marina Heintze is a graduate of CalArts and Parsons School of Design. Her research in medical science informs her ultramod graphic assemblages made from unconventional materials.

The works address zoonotic transmissions, epigenetic trauma and sexual violence. Heintze currently works from her studio Minutiae in Los Angeles. www.marinaheintze.com Instagram: @marinaheintze

marta soul

Oliver Haussmann

Marta Soul is a Spanish artist based between Madrid and Sheffield. The Tras las huellas de Corín series is a homage to Corín Tellado, the most widely-read author in the Spanish language. Through photography, Marta Soul has reinvented scenes from Tellado's romantic fiction books, exploring the identities of couples within a number of contemporary social contexts. www.martasoul.com Instagram: @martasoulq

What influence does digitalisation have on our perception? The works of German artist Oliver Haussmann move between analogue and digital aesthetics. Through a material dialogue and experimentation, he resolves apparent contradictions.

Oscillating liquids meet digitallygenerated arrangements and question the production process of classical painting.

Instagram: @oliver.haussmann

PETER NORTON

Pioni Design

UK-based Peter Norton's images focus on abstract beauty in nature.

These faithfully-reproduced pictures are drawn from the seascapes and rivers of Norfolk; he finds the isolation and expansiveness a sublime experience. His current series of large-scale works are imbued with a sense of magical energy. Some of Norton's work is in combination with poems by the award-winning writer Mary Gilonne. www.sublimenorfolk.co.uk

Jaana Junkkaala is a Helsinki-based jewellery designer. The founder of independent label Pioni Design, she creates sustainable collections.

Each unique piece tells a story through natural materials such as recycled gold and silver. Although Junkkaala is inspired by her extensive travels and meeting new people, all of the pieces are handmade in her studio in Finland. www.pionidesign.com Instagram: @pioni_design

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

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Self-portrait as My Father by Silvia Rosi, 2019.

last words

Magda Keaney Senior Curator, National Portrait Gallery

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The annual Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize is organised by the National Portrait Gallery. It is one of the most prestigious photography awards in the world. The 54 portraits – selected for the final exhibition by a panel of judges including British Vogue Editor-in-Chief, Edward Enninful; photographer Mark Neville; and Penny Martin, Editor of The Gentlewoman – demonstrate a wide range of themes and styles reflecting the international mix of entries as well as the photographers’ individual and varied approaches to portraiture. Though it is judged anonymously, we were excited that, for the first time, the three finalists are all women and that there is more diversity in photographers and sitters than ever. This year’s exhibition is online and available to view through NPG's website. npg.org.uk/photoprize.

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