Aesthetica Issue 91 by Aesthetica Magazine

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Welcome Editor’s Note

On the Cover Laura Perrucci and De Santis Matteo are a creative duo based in Italy. They push the boundaries of photography, developing and questioning the definition of imagemaking. Experimentation is fundamental to their practice – combining literary and cinematic references. (p. 60)

Cover Image: Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, November 9, 2018, Sabaudia, Italy.

The number of times I have said “we are living in uncertain times” is adding up. From the deep political crisis of Brexit and the rise of the right-wing Populism to the displacement of refugees and migrants, as well as the alarming rate of environmental destruction – we’re in a turbulent state. What can we do as individuals to ameliorate the situation? The saying “think locally, act globally” was coined 40 years ago. Even Dr. Seuss was talking about environmentalism in the early 1970s with The Lorax. I even remember my first Earth Day in the 1990s. It’s so easy to get consumed by mass media. It leaves a constant feeling of powerlessness. However, it’s important to think about the things you can achieve everyday. When was the last time you helped a stranger? It’s worthwhile thinking about that. This issue tackles subjects such as race and power through the Shirin Neshat exhibition at The Broad in Los Angeles. In a time where national identity is being used as a tool to galvanise the right, and increased racism has been occurring, it’s never been more relevant for this retrospective. As the Founding Director of The Broad has said, Neshat “gives voice to outsiders and exiles who have left their countries in the wake of political conflict.” We also look at Antwaun Sargent's The New Black Vanguard, which celebrates black fashion photographers such as Tyler Mitchell, Micaiah Carter, Arielle BobbWillis, Nadine Ijewere and Namsa Leuba. It also includes non-western image-makers such as South African artist Jamal Nxedlana and Nigerian creatives Daniel Obasi and Stephen Tayo. This publication asks: why was it only in 2018 that the first black photographer shot the cover of American Vogue? Also inside this edition are works from the following photographers and designers: Greg White, Benedict Adu, Six N. Five, Daniel Forero, Linda McPhee, Roderick Vos and Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo. This issue of Aesthetica is about celebrating the diversity of the world around us and rejecting the divisions that are being brought about by certain global leaders. We must stand together. Cherie Federico

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Art 28 Dynamic Storytelling Jimmy Marble's new photobook boasts playful and inventive images set in effervescent worlds, inspired by the sunny California landscape.

34 Graphic Suburbia Linda McPhee focuses on manicured gardens, orderly green hedges and geometric concrete; each photograph elevates the commonplace.

44 Paired Direction Clean white stripes. Blanket blue skies. Benedict Adu demonstrates a dynamic sense of energy, playing with the aesthetics of track and field.

54 Breaking New Ground Judith Chafee was an architectural pioneer and an inspiring environmental steward. Her buildings reference modernism and wild organic forms.

60 Portraits Reinvented With crumpled paper, paint strokes and mirrors, Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo's collaborative images blend into oceans and seamless horizons.

70 Growing Awareness Edward Burtynsky draws attention to the climate crisis; sweeping aerial photographs highlight the effects of globalisation and mass consumption.

76 Tranquil Environments Six N. Five design studio offers serene landscapes with one-of-a-kind sculptures and objects; metal, stone and light bulbs nestle into jagged rocks.

86 Glacial Topographies Thick velvet snow contrasts with inky night skies; Greg White presents icy territories in Arjeplog, Sweden, with a cool sense of detachment.

96 Radical Transformation A new generation of black photographers bursts onto the scene with powerful images that address concepts of gender, identity and sexuality.

102 Polished Arrangements Paper planes fly through portal-like windows; mist descends onto a dinner table. Roderick Vos' interior worlds explore contemporary design.

112 Playing with Light Tension, irony and humour are the driving forces behind Daniel Forero’s practice. Balls, bars and mirrors are organised for a trompe-l’oeil effect.

124 Beyond Borderlands The Broad celebrates Shirin Neshat, an Iranian artist that has consistently addressed turbulent worlds of displacement, loss and migration.

Exhibitions

Film

Music

130 Gallery Reviews This edition includes Julie Cockburn at Flowers Gallery, Brassaï at Foam Amsterdam, as well as Garden of Earthly Delights at Gropius Bau, Berlin.

134 At the Frontier Alejandro Landes' second feature Monos follows a group of teenage guerrilla soldiers and their unravelling against the looming threat of war.

136 An Intimate Awakening Girl Wilde releases a debut EP – an evocation of angst, vulnerability and empowerment. Intangible concepts are transformed into slick alt-pop.

Books

Artists’ Directory

Last Words

138 Symbolic Infrastructure The way a city is made reveals information about underlying political ideologies or agendas; this is the message behind Model City Pyongyang.

153 Inside This Issue A selection of talented practitioners experiment with interdisciplinary materials, considering the human experience from the past to the present.

162 Tate Modern Valentina Ravaglia, Curator at Tate, introduces an exhibition of works by Nam June Paik, comprising dozens of CRT monitors and tropical plants.

Aesthetica Magazine is trade marked worldwide. © Aesthetica Magazine Ltd 2019.

The Aesthetica Team: Editor: Cherie Federico Assistant Editor: Kate Simpson Digital Assistant: Eleanor Sutherland Staff Writer: Olivia Hampton

Advertisement Enquiries: Jeremy Appleyard (0044) (0)844 568 2001 advertising@aestheticamagazine.com

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

Artists’ Directory Enquiries: Katherine Smira (0044) (0)844 568 2001 directory@aestheticamagazine.com

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

Production Director: Dale Donley Operations Manager: Cassandra Weston Designer: Laura Tordoff Technical Coordinator: Andy Guy Marketing & Administration Assistant: Kathryn Pearson Festival Assistant: Beth Prior Interns: Rebecca Gallon, Kat McCullan Contributors: Alexandra Genova, Diane Smyth, Beth Webb, Louis D'Arcy Reed, Charlotte R-A, Gunseli Yalcinkaya.

Printed by Warners Midlands plc. Reviewers: Kyle Bryony, James Mottram, Daniel Pateman, Hunter Dukes, Thomas McMullan, Monica De Vidi, Matt Swain, Julia Johnson, Verity Seward, Marie Salcido.

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Alfredo Jaar, The Garden of Good and Evil, 2017. Courtesy the artist, New York, a_political and YSP. Image: © Jonty Wilde.

Light and Darkness ALFREDO JAAR: THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL Step into Alfredo Jaar’s (b. 1956) The Garden of Good and International Day of Peace. It coincides with the beginning of “Time has transformed Evil and you’ll get a jolt. At first, it’s a pastoral scene – the YSP's fifth decade as one of Yorkshire's best attended venues. the elegant metal Time has transformed Jaar's metal structures; they have structures, which sun piercing through leaves, rustling in the wind in the middle of a grove. But these dreamy visions suddenly give way to become a part of the woodland, nestling into mounds and have become a part a concealed steel cell, and another, and yet another. There surrounded by leaves. Some are partially submerged in a of the woodland, rust are 10 of these cages in all, metaphors for CIA black sites lake. Each cell has a one-metre-square base, in reference to growing over the once where “terror” suspects are detained, tortured or killed around One Square Metre of Prison (1986) – a poem by Palestinian polished steel exterior. the world. Despite these heavy-hitting concepts, the act of activist Mahmoud Darwish (1942-2008), who spent much of Some are partially contemplating the cages transforms the viewer into a witness his life in prison or exile. The structures evoke stories from submerged in a lake.” – one with relative freedom: of speech and movement. The some of the most turbulent periods in recent history. Jaar, who fled his native Chile in 1981 at the height of the Picontrast is stark enough to briefly pause from the constant, ADD-inducing distraction brought on by the demands of our nochet regime to launch his career in art and activism, says he plugged-in, online lives that leave little room for observation. considers himself “an architect making art.” This background A precursor to what has now become a permanent installa- is evident in the way he cuts through spaces and makes use of tion was launched two years ago, when 101 evergreen trees light and darkness to desired effect. Built in varying heights, were neatly arranged in wooden planters for an exhibition some of the cells prevent light from ever entering inside, at YSP. A gallery space hosting a retrospective at the time others feature solid walls and a skylight, or bars. Jaar also opened with a bank of lights, The Sound of Silence (2006), achieves a delicate balance between information and poetry for viewers to “clean up their brains.” Once the cleansing that underlines some of the direst situations brought on by was complete, they could absorb the story of South African contemporary geopolitics. It’s a new way of seeing that takes photojournalist Kevin Carter, who committed suicide after re- into account what the eye cannot perceive alone. As a platform for debate around today's most pressing YSP, Wakefield ceiving a Pulitzer Prize for his 1994 photograph of a starving Sudanese child and a vulture, an image that also triggered issues, this exhibition continues an important and popular Opened 29 September an outpouring of international aid. The current edition of The strand of Yorkshire Sculpture Park's programming that has Garden was unveiled on 29 September – the United Nations included Shirin Neshat, Amar Kanwar and Yinka Shonibare. ysp.org.uk

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Magical Realism EATING FLOWERS: SENSATIONS OF CIG HARVEY a wooden table like bloody specks; miniature red footprints are left around a bowl of cherries; a rainbow cake is set against an all-grey background. These familiar domestic scenes elicit memories from alternative lives. Serene and incredibly quiet as they may seem, the scenes also appear to teeter on the edge of disaster or climax. In Blizzard on Main Street (2017), for example, car lights peer out in the background, cutting through a quiet winter wonderland blanketed in snow, disturbing the peace of a woman standing on the edge of the road. In Kendall at Beauchamp, Camden, Maine (2014) – pictured below – a young girl looks mournfully, apprehensively behind her. Viewers are left wondering why she's alone in the woods, or what events have taken place beforehand. Harvey’s unique juxtapositions can also produce tonguein-cheek results. In a bed of tulips in the gardens of the Ogunquit museum, located along the coast and linked to one of the earliest art movements in the American Modernist era, a neon sculpture directs the viewer to “Eat Flowers.” At the show’s opening reception, Harvey did just that, serving dandelion sandwiches and edible blooms to guests. Another neon sign near the main entrance inside calls for an active and multisensory experience, to “Suck, Smell, Stare, Scratch, Sigh.” For this mid-career survey, written-word pieces have been printed in letterpress and hung amongst the photographs. Viewers are reminded to "Stare at the Sky."

“In elevating the seemingly mundane, Harvey dishes out a feast for the eyes. The Devon native, who won last year’s Prix Virginia for women photographers, lives and works surrounded by the ocean and lakes of Maine.”

Ogunquit Museum of American Art, Maine Until 31 October ogunquitmuseum.org

Cig Harvey (b. 1973), Kendall at Beauchamp, Camden, Maine, 2014. Chromogenic color print, 28 inches x 28 inches. Courtesy of the artist.

In her first USA solo museum exhibition, Cig Harvey (b. 1973) teases out the senses through dreamy montages that simultaneously evoke memory sight, smell, sound, taste and touch. Live plants and flowers populate striking compositions filled with vivid colours. These meditations – incorporating photographs, videos and mixed media – focus on the changing and even arresting aspects of the everyday. In elevating the seemingly mundane, Harvey dishes out a feast for the eyes. The Devon native, who won the 2018 Prix Virginia for women photographers, lives and works surrounded by the ocean and lakes of Maine. This landscape is often present in her semi-autobiographical pieces, serving as an atmospheric backdrop. Deceptively simple vignettes are filled with a sense that the protagonists are dreaming whilst wide awake. In Devin and the Fireflies (2010), a girl on the cusp of adulthood stands on a rock in a green meadow at dusk with the ocean behind her in Rockland. Gazing directly at the viewer, she holds a small wooden birdhouse and the last rays of sunlight give a glow to her face. Fireflies flutter all about her and are still in movement, Harvey having subtly animated the image with computer programming. The rest of the image remains still, so that only the environment, not the subject, comes alive. The collected works feature a range of visual metaphors and powerful storytelling. Pomegranate seeds are scattered across

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Henry Jay Kamara, Forbidden Fruit. Courtesy of the artist and Parker Harris.

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Inclusive Curation ING DISCERNING EYE The ING Discerning Eye Exhibition returns for 2019, offering and inherently varied. Featured works explore a range of “The 2019 edition both emerging and established artists a platform to propel themes including physicality, history and memory. From is both imaginative their practice to the next level. The annual show – and the invited artists, Henry Jay Kamara (featured above) and inherently varied accompanying prizes – are renowned for taking a unique challenges negative stereotypes of Africa and its cultural across a range of curatorial approach. Bringing together a panel of two identity as a diverse and hugely complex continent. He media – showcasing artists, two collectors and two critics, these leading figures notes: “Primarily, those of us who live in the west encounter a diversity of voices select over 450 artworks sourced through a combination Africa only through myths from the media.” As such, his across painting, of invitation and selection. As the prize only accepts small images are part of a wider conversation and goal to drawing, print, works, the exhibition is popular with the city-living collector “redefine the continent’s representation.” Kamara brings a sculpture, photography polished sense of direction and balanced composition to and film.” looking for display pieces where space is at a premium. This year’s selectors include Artistic Director of the Young intimate images, having shot for the likes of Nike and Puma. Other exhibited projects are also a testament to experiVic Kwame Kwei-Armah; Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony award-winning lyricist Sir Tim Rice; illustrator Gill Button, mentation, innovation and craft, from James T. Merry’s whose commissions include Vogue and Gucci; Professor of otherworldly costume designs for Björk, to Charley Peters’ Fine Art at London College of Fashion Charlotte Hodes; exploration of paint through layering, opposition and juxformer Associate Culture Editor for The Sunday Times Louis taposition – abstract forms that are synonymous with a Wise; and John Penrose, a former Discerning Eye Chairman. post-digital, mass-media world. From the open submission He notes: "What appeals to me about the exhibition is that it process, artists such as Dawn Beckles, Céline Bodin, Ilsa presents the work of artists, both unknown and established, Brittain and Serena Curmi play with the ideas of imagein all styles and at varying levels of execution – to the making through negative and over-exposed photographs, widest of audiences. The pieces can be challenging, but and painted portraits obscured by iPhones. Mall Galleries, London Over the last 20 years, ING Discerning Eye has exhibited 14-24 November essentially they are engaging, accessible and affordable.” This year there is a 50/50 split between works by invited around 10,000 artworks. Małgorzata Kołakowska, UK CEO, artists and works entered through the open submission notes: “We empower people to realise their ambitions at the thediscerningeye. process, meaning that the 2019 edition is both imaginative highest level – both in art and in business." artopps.co.uk.

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Coastal Exploration 10 YEARS OF MKDW Edvard Munch and Piet Mondrian, as well as contemporary “Ellen Kooi’s pieces are creations by Joakim Eskildsen, Nan Hoover and Mila Te- especially painterly, shaieva. Hints of Norwegian Romanticism, the realistic lean- with the airy quality ings of the Hague School and other stylistic influences can of an Andrew Wyeth be found in the featured photographs as well. Ellen Kooi’s painting as a woman stand-out pieces are especially painterly, with the airy qual- makes her way through ity of an Andrew Wyeth piece as a woman makes her way tall grasses to reach through tall grasses to reach a house upon a dune under a a house upon a dune under a gloomy sky in gloomy sky in Bergen – Dünenhaus (2009). In Oosterplas – Cairn (2018), a figure stands submerged Bergen – Dünenhaus.” in a lake; a young child rests upon his head, looking out towards the background scenery. It is both visually arresting and slightly unnerving, as the presumed father sinks into the glassy water – silhouettes stacked as a totem in the reflection. Dramatic landscapes also feature in prints by Anja Jensen, who has previously held a residency at Alkersum on the island of Föhr. In Ahnung (2019), a woman clambers up an uneven dune, her back turned to the orange and red streaks across the sky whilst dressed in a traditional costume. The title means “idea,” so she may not be so impervious to the scenery after all. A violent storm has left large puddles and Museum Kunst der caused the sky to bleed out in Witterung (2019). There, a Westküste, Alkersum woman loads her shotgun nonchalantly, gazing past the Until 12 January viewer. Each of the four practitioners also has a single piece on view at the upscale Namine Witt bistro in Nieblum. mkdw.de

Bergen – Dünenhaus, 2009. C-print, Diasec, 100cm x 156cm.© Ellen Kooi, Courtesy Torch Gallery Amsterdam. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019.

The sea serves as an eloquent reminder of just how vast and profound nature can be, with endless cycles of waves crashing on the shore. The organic world is supreme, powerful and authoritative, despite our consistent efforts to control, deplete or damage it. In Joakim Eskildsen’s Skagen IX (2008), a woman stands alone, ankle-deep in the ocean, and takes a selfie, with the horizon serving as the water’s only limit. Her skin and blond hair find their mirror image in the sand visible beneath, the blue of her dress echoed in the waves. The print belongs to a series of photographs by four artists from Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Norway that engage in a dialogue with the MKdW’s collection of paintings and prints from Romanticism to Modernism in celebration of the museum’s 10th anniversary. The countries all share coasts along the North Sea, and the everyday lives of people serve as the artists’ canvas and inspiration. A family of five warms up by a fire, squinting through the smoke on the side of Norway’s Godfarfossen waterfall in Mette Tronvoll’s image of the same name (2013). Only the blaze and sunlit rocks are sharp; the trees and figures are all more of an evocation, an impressionistic moment. In another print, a woman washes fish roe in a composition that’s all light and reflections. MKdW’s collection includes more than 800 paintings, oil sketches and works on paper created between 1830 and 1930 by painters such as Max Liebermann, Emil Nolde,

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Tatiana Bilbao Estudio, Villa Ventura, 2011. Image: Iwan Baan.

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Conscious Architecture THE ARCHITECT’S STUDIO: TATIANA BILBAO Long before setting the cornerstone of any new building, surrounding rooms. It’s part of a government commission “Passionate about Mexican architect Tatiana Bilbao (b. 1972) studies the geo- under a programme that subsidises half the cost of homes providing shelter for graphical and social landscape. This multidisciplinary explo- and provides the remainder as credit so that people with low those in need, Bilbao ration of culture allows her structures to emerge and thrive incomes may purchase them. Bilbao’s units tend to be larger has created a flexible organically in a given environment whilst also fulfilling their than most other social housing projects. Natural, urban and prototype to help address Mexico's severe functional roles with maximum efficiency. Even the most even interior landscape are critical in these designs. Often shunning expensive materials, Bilbao also seeks out housing shortage crisis geometric designs seem to grow out from their surroundings. The Ventura House, for example, is a series of pentagonal local hand labour to bring blueprints to life, including for in which millions of blocks with sweeping views of Monterrey, Mexico. It sprouts the vacation home of artist Gabriel Orozco that put her on homes are needed out of the hillside. Contrasting with the raw concrete are the map in 2006. Observatory House is located in a remote or overused.” wooden walls, floors and accents. Large planters hang in the seaside area near Puerto Escondido. Some of her creations atrium. A light, sensitive touch tempers the heavily muscular, have even incorporated the ancient method of rammed brutalist-like shell. Rather than removing all the trees from earth, for adobe-like walls made out of a compressed sandy the foundation site in a densely forested area, Bilbao carved mixture. In Mexico City, Bilbao has devised a lit path to out space for them, enclosed within glass to contemplate or ensure that women are able to walk home safely. She has been at the forefront of rising Mexican women allowed to grow thanks to a hole cut in an overhang. Passionate about providing shelter for those in need, Bilbao entrepreneurs after decades in the shadows. Bilbao, Ferhas created a flexible prototype to help address Mexico's nanda Canales and Frida Escobedo – who built a "woven severe housing shortage crisis in which millions of homes tapestry" of concrete tiles with a mirrored ceiling and a are needed or overpopulated. She has created a low-cost triangular pool of water for last year's Serpentine Pavilion housing system that can be expanded for a growing family – are now amongst the country's most celebrated architects. Louisiana Museum of and adapted to the seven climate zones across the country, The exhibition is part of Louisiana Museum of Modern Art’s Modern Art, Humlebæk thanks to varying spatial arrangements and materials. third instalment of The Architect’s Studio, which focuses on 18 October - 16 February Concrete blocks form the core of these buildings, whilst some of the most innovative designers addressing challengwooden pallets and other lightweight materials take over the es with sustainable and socially aware practices. louisiana.dk

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Ethereal Construction SERPENTINE PAVILION 2019 cades off the tiles like a small waterfall. The tips of the design “The structure takes seemingly reach down to touch the concrete flooring, which its inspiration from itself reaches up towards them so that the roof appears to slate roofs that can be billowing. The minimalist tables and chairs in the space be found across the underneath were conceived to resemble lily pads in yet an- world, using ancient other reflection of Ishigami’s “free space” approach, seeking techniques to form a harmony between man-made structures and natural ones. domestic space that However, sometimes dreams face compromises when is universal in its confronted with reality. Polycarbonate barriers and extra appeal and materials. columns were installed that restrict movement in a space ini- The tiles are shaped tially envisioned as open and encouraging movement after and scattered to Aecom engineers warned of an excessive wind risk. It did not appear less artificial.” help that Ishigami was afforded very little time to build the temporary commission, his first in the UK. The overall design and concept is impressive but these modifications leave visitors hungering for what could have been. At just 45, Ishigami has produced a number of innovative and thought-provoking projects that move seamlessly between glass, water and concrete, blending the organic and the manmade through ethereal construction. His 2008 Venice Biennale Pavilion was designed without air-control Serpentine Galleries, systems or doors to make the boundary between nature London and architecture indistinguishable. In 2014, Ishigami won Until 6 October the proposal for Copenhagen's House of Peace, with a 3,000 square metre cloud-like structure on the Nordhavn harbour. serpentinegalleries.org

Junya Ishigami (b. 1974) turns fairytales into reality. Amongst the most experimental young Japanese architects, this conjurer of sorts has dreamt up structures as thin as air and as light as clouds, including a huge cuboid metal balloon that floats and random patterns modelled after trees in a forest. It’s the kind of ingenuity that defies physics – forgetting what we have been told is impossible. For the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, he has created a gently sloping slate canopy that seems to emerge organically out of Kensington Gardens. Slender steel columns randomly arranged effortlessly hold up 61 tonnes of Cumbrian slate tiles that shelter a cave-like triangular seating space underneath. A steel mesh supports the mass of stone, imbuing it with a weightless quality so that from the outside it could very well mimic a bird in flight. The structure takes its inspiration from slate roofs that can be found across the world, using ancient techniques to form a domestic space that is universal in its appeal and materials. The tiles are irregularly shaped and scattered to appear less artificial. Together, they form a unique scenery that both blends into the surroundings and punctuates them. Built in 1934 as a tearoom, the classical-style Serpentine Gallery peers out from behind the slate curve in the same way that a mountain or forest in the distance provides the background in Japanese gardens following the principle of “shakkei,” or borrowed scenery. When it rains, the water cas-

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10 to See RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

This edition's must-see shows engage with both historical and contemporary works, from the legacy of surrealist photographer Dora Maar and 20th century inter-war films, to the latest edition of the renowned Turner Prize and a survey of artists addressing the climate crisis.

When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration through Contemporary Art

ICA Boston | 23 October - 26 January

icaboston.org An estimated one out of every seven people has migrated internationally or been internally displaced by choice or force. Kader Attia, Hayv Kahraman, Yinka Shonibare and Do Ho Suh are amongst 20 artists, chosen from more than a dozen countries, who reflect on the magnitude of human migration. Paintings, sculptures, videos and installations – all created this century – incorporate personal elements or comment on the tragic truth of displacement.

Cerith Wyn Evans, “… the Illuminating Gas” Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Milan | 31 October - 23 February

pirellihangarbicocca.org Provoking fluid contradictions, Cerith Wyn Evans (b. 1958) questions the intangible notions of reality, perception and subjectivity. His investigations of light and sound take place across monumental neon installations, as well as sculptures, photography and film. Serving as catalysts for change, Wyn Evans’s works transform how space is experienced through innovative dialogues between various components. This is the largest exhibition of his work ever held in Italy; it examines the past 30 years of an acclaimed career.

Dora Maar Tate Modern, London | 20 November - 15 March

tate.org.uk During the 1930s, Dora Maar’s (1907-1997) provocative photomontages became celebrated icons of surrealism. An ambitious retrospective at Tate highlights the versatility and breadth of Pablo Picasso’s muse in her own right, beyond the troublesome relationship for which she is known. Over the course of a long career, Maar took turns as photographer – shifting seamlessly between commercial, social documentary and surrealist montages – painter and poet. This diverse output is explored through more than 200 works and documents.

Henrik Spohler: Parc du Doubs MBAL, Le Locle, Switzerland | Until 13 October

mbal.ch Over the course of a residency at the Museum of Fine Arts in Le Locle and the Doubs Park in Switzerland, German photographer Henrik Spohler (b. 1965) considered the very definition of nature, grappling with the climate crisis and its wider impacts on society. Spohler focused on how human activity shapes the landscape whilst also aiming to protect it. These tensions between built and natural environments come alive in highly controlled and, at times, sterile scenes, such as an alpine vista interrupted by the cold metal casing of a windmill.

Shot in Soho The Photographers’ Gallery, London | 18 October - 9 February

thephotographersgallery.org.uk Daragh Soden and Clancy Gebler Davies join an impressive list of photographers including William Klein, Anders Petersen and Corrine Day at The Photographers’ Gallery this autumn. Together, they reflect on Soho’s unorthodox history as a site of resistance. A tight street grid has kept the square-mile area as an enclave of its own – home to fashion, music, film and even the sex industry. It is also a multicultural haven for various immigrant communities. It is a place undergoing rapid gentrification at the same time as celebrating difference.

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Txema Yeste: Crossroads Staley-Wise Gallery, New York | Until 2 November

staleywise.com Staying true to photojournalistic roots, Txema Yeste (b. 1972) focuses on powerful, individual characters when shooting for top fashion magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair. It’s about the allure – the story of a given piece of clothing or landscape. The colours are bold, the image unexpected, the faces arresting. Amongst the featured images are bodies splashing into water, standing against saturated skies or open deserts. Dye-transfer prints are made with four separate colour plates, using one of the oldest methods of printing photography.

Private Lives Public Spaces MoMA, New York | 21 October - 20 July

moma.org With the advent of affordable film during the interwar period, individuals across the world turned the camera on themselves and their communities. This immersive 100-screen presentation of rarely seen homemade works – created between 1907 and 1991 – provides intimate portraits from a pre-social media era. Artists, tourists and the general public made vignettes with 8- and 16-millimetre film, producing films that were vigorous, sentimental, frank, and at times, transgressive. At MoMA, these videos finally emerge out of the shadows.

On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work

Turner Prize 2019

Leslie-Lohman Museum, New York | Until 19 January

leslielohman.org Leslie-Lohman describes itself as the "only dedicated art museum in the world to exhibit and preserve artwork that speaks about the LGBTQ+ experience." On Our Backs examines the role that queer and transgender sex workers play in community building and activism. Organised by curator Alexis Heller, the show also delves into the use of pornography in the gay rights movement. In one subversive piece, Juniper Fleming reappropriates Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) in a montage showing the barmaid as queer.

Turner Contemporary, Margate | Until 12 January

turnercontemporary.org The renowned Turner Prize celebrates Britain’s most promising artists, showcasing across a range of media and techniques. This year, Lawrence Abu Hamdan addresses the architectural qualities of sound. The layered social histories of Northern Ireland, and the role of women, are at the heart of Helen Cammock’s practice. Meanwhile, Oscar Murillo’s pervasive use of found materials illustrates his sense of displacement, whilst Tai Shani creates an allegorical city of women filled with imaginary characters. The winner is announced 3 December.

Eco-Visionaries Royal Academy of Arts, London | 23 November - 23 February

royalacademy.org.uk It’s becoming harder than ever to ignore: the exploitation of natural resources is wrecking the planet and harming its species irrevocably. The responses of architects, artists and designers serve as a wake-up call for greater awareness of ecological destruction. Featured practitioners at Royal Academy of Arts include Olafur Eliasson, Ant Farm and Rimini Protokoll. Some offer alternatives for a more sustainable future, such as Malka Architecture’s project The Green Machine (2014), a mobile city that regenerates desert landscapes and their vegetation.

1. Yto Barrada, Salon de première – Ferry de Tanger à Algesiras, Espagne – 2002 (First class lounge – Ferry from Tangier to Algeciras, Spain – 2002), 2002, from the series A Life Full of Holes: The Strait Project, 1998-2003. Chromogenic color print, 60cm x 60cm Courtesy Pace Gallery; Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg, Beirut and Galerie Polaris, Paris. © Yto Barrada. 2. Still life (In course of arrangement...) V, 2017. Turntable with Phoenix roebelenii, 45cm. Installation view, Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich, 2017. Image: Stefan Altenburger. Courtesy Museum Haus Konstruktiv. 3. Untitled (Hand-Shell), 1934. Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper, 40.1cm x 28.9cm. Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris. Image © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / image Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2019. 4. Henrik Spohler, Mont-Soleil and the Parc du Doubs in background, September 2018. © Henrik Spohler, courtesy of the artist. 5. John Goldblatt, Untitled, from the series The Undressing Room, 1968. © John Goldblatt. Courtesy of the artist’s estate. Shot in Soho will be on display at The Photographers’ Gallery, London from 18 October 2019. 6. Txema Yeste, Heat, 2016. Courtesy Staley-Wise Gallery, New York. 7. Mr. Kenneth Marvin’s Wedding, 1914. Unidentified Filmmaker, from 16mm. Courtesy Museum of Modern Art. Image part of Private Lives Public Spaces programme. 8. Efrain John Gonzalez, Little West 12th Street, 1986/2019, digital print. Courtesy of the artist. 9. Turner Contemporary. Image: Carlos Dominguez, courtesy Turner Contemporary. 10. Unknown Fields, The Breast Milk of the Volcano, 2016-2018 (video still). Video, sound, colour; 10 minutes. Courtesy of the artists.

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Dynamic Storytelling Jimmy Marble THE LOS ANGELES-BASED DIRECTOR, PHOTOGRAPHER AND DESIGNER RETURNS WITH A NEW PUBLICATION OF COLOURFUL AND PALPABLE IMAGES FROM EFFERVESCENT WORLDS.

Jimmy Marble (b. 1985) is a Los Angeles-based photographer, director and designer who has been widely recognised for creating vivid and tactile images that exist within colourful worlds. Boasting a range of high-profile clients that include Nike, Android, HP, Time Magazine, Apple, TK Maxx and Jack Daniels, Marble has built a portfolio that is infectiously energetic, inviting viewers to imagine and share in the possibilities of dynamic landscapes. The images explode with potential; both photographic and video works adhere to an enthusiasm for hand-crafted sets and characters without inhibition. Dream Baby Dream, Marble’s new photobook published by Chronicle Books, is the culmination of five years’ work. It spans from 2013 to 2018, from iPhone to camera, from emerging to established. It is a testament to a playful disposition and the organic progression of experimentation and intuition into an acclaimed photographic career. A: You note that your first camera was an iPhone 3 – how do you think the creation and circulation of smartphones has changed the perception of photography. How has it helped to redefine the medium as inclusive and accessible? How did it help you to kick-start your career? JM: “Real” cameras intimidated me when I was young. I had too much pride to ask how they worked, and I was kind of ashamed that my brain couldn’t remember what an F-Stop was, or what shutter speed did. I couldn’t focus things properly. Meanwhile, the iPhone 3 was as easy as you could get in terms of pointing and shooting. You could see the picture already. You just had to hit the button. At first, I was just taking

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images to help me remember things: cool graffiti on a building, or a passing moment that made me laugh. I was already making short films and music videos, so it wasn’t like visuals were outside of my everyday practice. Then all of a sudden, one of my short films went viral, and blogs that I’d always read and enjoyed were starting to pay attention to me. The power of the internet made sense to me. This all happened about a year into me having and using Instagram regularly. I said to myself that I only needed to post interesting photos. I never really thought about taking beautiful images, but almost instantaneously, I was trying to look for them. Even when I used a high specification camera, if I felt I couldn’t pinpoint what I was looking for, I’d bring out my iPhone again to find the perfect composition – willing it into existence. A: How did this spontaneous creative process grow into something much larger-scale, with elaborate planned set designs and bigger compositions / ideas? JM: Los Angeles was the set for much of my early photography. It’s a beautiful city, and it has an amazing quality of light almost every single day. My friends would be laying by the pool, and it was easy to take a photo that looked good. But I was still focused on directing, and in 2013 I got to a point where I started pitching ideas for music videos. Everyone hated my ideas, and no one said yes. I had all these fun concepts, and I was enjoying photography, so I just started translating the ideas into images on my own. I posted them onto Instagram. Before I knew it, I had an agent and I had jobs booked in. I didn’t even own a camera yet. It was wild.

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Jimmy Marble for Allbirds, 2018. Los Angeles, CA. Courtesy of the artist.

“I like images that feel like they’re a snapshot, or an accident, or like it’s a moment that could never be duplicated. Even in a highly constructed scenario, it’s the moments that are in between that I always pull during my selects.”

Previous Page: Jimmy Marble, Nika de Carlo in Poor Cherries, 2017. Malibu, CA. Courtesy of the artist. Left: Jimmy Marble for Besito, 2018. Los Angeles, CA. Courtesy of the artist.

A: What principles did you take away from your early days working on camera phones to today working with more conventional camera equipment? JM: I think that the iPhone helped me to get over my fears about photography. I finally picked up a “big” camera and realised it was basically just about twisting buttons until it looked right. Not exactly rocket science. That kept everything feeling relaxed – regardless of the scale or prestige of the project. At this same time, I was shooting a “behind the scenes” video for Flaunt Magazine, which put me on a number of photo sets with very established, famous photographers. So, I was this kid – who had never even really assisted on a set – getting to be a fly on the wall, watching these experts work. I learned a lot about creative process, as well as how to collaborate with a client, and how to run a set by first-hand experience. It was invaluable. Now, I mostly use a Canon 5d and Contax G2. My iPhone is just for fun. A: Your images have an incredibly recognisable aesthetic, with bold poppy colours, sun-soaked landscapes, coordinated textures and, sometimes, brightly painted set designs. Where do you get your ideas from? Who, or what, are you most influenced by on a daily basis? JM: I’m influenced by the past a lot. I love looking at historic photographers and outmoded styles to gain inspiration. I studied art history in college, and so I love drawing from old paintings. I also write a lot and am constantly trying to articulate in my notebooks what I think is cool, or what I want to accomplish with my life. These notes reinstate why I want to still be making stuff and remind me of what's important – repurposing memories and ideas as a tapestry. In terms of

artists, I never get tired of John Rawlings, Man Ray, Viviane Sassen, Harley Weir, Erwin Blumenfeld and William Klein. A: Platforms like Instagram have helped to foster a new digital generation of artists – sharing, developing and commenting on work as part of an online community. How does your practice fit within this network? JM: I can only speak from my experience – the digital age from my era of working – but knowing how to self-distribute content on the internet is just as important as knowing how to make the stuff. So, my pieces fit pretty square within that parameter. I basically discovered photography and had a career within the span of a year by following this principle. I don’t think that kind of speed could happen in the same way without Instagram – not without a massive amount of luck. It still took a lot of luck even in this age of digital sharing. A: What, in your view, are the most important elements to consider when taking a photograph? How would you define a successful image? Are you looking for a certain sense of meaning in the composition? JM: I like images that feel as though they’re a snapshot, or an accident – like it’s a moment that could never be duplicated. Even in a highly constructed scenario, it’s the moments that are in between that I always pull during my selects. I'm reminded of the famous photo taken by astronauts – the earth rising over the moon. It's close to perfect in my books. Even though that’s a pretty extreme example, you can feel how fleeting, perfect and once-in-a-lifetime it was. I think that’s one reason I started moving away from shooting in the studio recently – because you can really duplicate sets

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Jimmy Marble, Georgia Stockwell and Lauryn Holmquist in Drama, 2014. Malibu, CA. Courtesy of the artist.

pretty easily. There are places in this world that are hard to find, hard to get to and that are unique in beauty. To be able to shoot that particular photograph is wonderful.

we're finding the right idea and making it the best it can possibly be. Every shoot I walk away feeling 100000% like I just got the best images I've ever taken in my life.

A: Your work draws a line between commissions, for the likes of Time, NY Times and TK Maxx, as well as personal series. How do you balance interpreting a creative brief whilst maintaining a sense of individuality? JM: I trust my creative process a lot. I am who I am, and my photos are going to look like I took them, much in the same way that my handwriting is always going to look the same. I get excited when I hold a camera and have something interesting happening in front of me. There’s always that chance it’s going to be the best photo I’ll ever take. Everyone has a different idea of how any given job is going to go. Sometimes I come in and the image is already sketched out in pretty good detail, and what I'm bringing to the table is more direction on styling, props and casting, as well as finding and capturing certain emotions from the model. Other times, people just tell me to do my thing. Most often, the client is physically there on set telling me whether I'm doing a good or bad job. I think that this type of dynamic bothers a lot of artists, but I usually only take jobs with people I trust. I genuinely love the collaboration. In many ways, I feel as through there are two sides to my personality: the artist who needs to be making work that's expressive and personal to stay happy and healthy, and then there's the photographer who needs to pay for rent and dinner for my kids. I have to respect both versions. They're both super important to maintaining a sense of equilibrium. I work closely with the creatives from the brand, magazine or agency to make sure

A: This book charts five years of your work, from when you started in 2013 to when you started compiling the publication in 2018. What journey do you feel the images take – and what decisions did you make in terms of their layout, either thematically or chronologically? JM: For one, hopefully the photos have become stronger over the years. I moved to LA to be an artist 10 years ago, and my number one goal was to be prolific. I figured that if I just made a ton of stuff, I’d luck out eventually and some of it would be good. When I look through Dream Baby Dream, the cohesion really stands out. I do try hard to experiment with new ideas and to break with my instincts to see what pushing boundaries and concepts might look like. The book’s laid out sort of thematically but super loosely. It’s a little stream of conscious, and it’s full of written memories, too.

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A: Dream Baby Dream is released 1 October. What do you have planned for the rest of 2019 and beyond? JM: There’s so much to do. This book is part of the first wave, and hopefully there are many more instalments to come. I don’t believe in finish lines, or working towards an ultimate goal – anything like that. Like Sister Corita told us: “The only rule is work.” So more work will always come. A: What advice would you give aspiring photographers? JM: Be as prolific as you possibly can; that's the most important thing. Work harder than anyone you've ever met.

Right: Jimmy Marble, Melany Bennett in Swimteam, 2018, The Valley, CA. Courtesy of the artist.

Words Kate Simpson

Dream Baby Dream is published by Chronicle Chroma. jimmymarble.com abramsandchronicle.co.uk

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Graphic Suburbia Linda McPhee

For Linda McPhee, composition is crucial – exploring the place where light, form and colour come together to elevate the commonplace. She continues to hone the creative impulse through structural photography, having moved on from a career in graphic design. The featured images demonstrate a love of suburban nostalgia – manicured back gardens cut evenly against fences; orderly green hedges line up against blank concrete. Paired with these unnerving domestic worlds is a fascination with urban emptiness. A lonesome cloud hangs over a bleached white wall. A vacated dining booth shines pillar-box red. A veiled car is left parked and unused. Absence permeates the photographs, whilst maintaining an infectious sense of wonder. McPhee’s bright, ensnaring images pull the viewer into abandoned settings where humanity seems to have disappeared overnight, leaving only traces of its existence. IG: @loulou_mcphee.

Linda McPhee, White Cliffs. Courtesy of the artist.

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Left: Linda McPhee, Know Your Boundaries. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Linda McPhee, Nuclear Fallout. Courtesy of the artist.

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Left: Linda McPhee, Our Nic Sat Here. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Linda McPhee, Veiled Vehicular. Courtesy of the artist.

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Left: Linda McPhee, Wagga 10:01am. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Linda McPhee, Tree to the Power of Sixty. Courtesy of the artist.

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Left: Linda McPhee, Limitless. Courtesy of the artist. Right: Linda McPhee, Cirrocumulus Ride. Courtesy of the artist.

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Paired Direction Benedict Adu

Immaculate green lawns. Clean white stripes. Blanket blue skies. These photographs are a masterful concoction of creativity and dynamic energy, playing with the aesthetics of track and field. In primary colour worlds, bright red clothing contrasts brilliantly with white knit jumpers; curving lines juxtapose with straight painted courts. Positioned in tandem, the models are paired through monochromatic clothing and creative direction. They mirror one another – laying across tarmac, sitting on benches and playing with light and shadow. These visuals are an inventive response to athleticism and competition. Portrait photographer Benedict Adu (b. 1992) created both the Kinship and Practice series in collaboration with Sunday School – a Toronto-based creative agency launched by Josef Adamu. Sunday School’s ethos is built upon bold visual storytelling, valuing the universality of images in expressing a range of cultures and perspectives. benedictadu.com | ssunday.co.

From the Kinship series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Retouching: Josef Adamu. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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From the Practice series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Story: Ronny Ackah. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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From the Kinship series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Retouching: Josef Adamu. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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From the Kinship series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Retouching: Josef Adamu. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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From the Practice series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Story: Ronny Ackah. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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From the Practice series. Photography: Benedict Adu. Creative Direction: Josef Adamu. Story: Ronny Ackah. Models: Ronny Ackah & Josef Adamu.

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Breaking New Ground Judith Chafee THE WORK OF JUDITH CHAFEE ESTABLISHED A SENSE OF STEWARDSHIP WITH THE LAND. HER BUILDINGS CONTINUE TO BE A SOURCE OF INSPIRATION IN THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY.

“About one third of the world’s land mass is covered by desert. The vastness of this arid terrain embodies a mythical quality that instils a fascination. The tremendous sense of emptiness and the never-ending horizon paradoxically prompts feelings of possibility. The harsh conditions seem to stimulate human yearnings for discovery, challenge and freedom.” (Living in the Desert, 2018, Phaidon) At the age of two, Judith Chafee (1932-1998) moved from Chicago, Illinois to Tucson, Arizona. The move was instrumental – almost gravitational. Entering a new landscape of hot desert climates, deep valleys, clear blue skies and clustered mountain ranges, Chafee was instantaneously inspired by the rugged geography. This relocation sparked a life-long passion for the southwestern state and its extreme environments, providing the anchor for her career, which challenged a male-dominated industry and demonstrated a consistent sensitivity to the land. A new survey from Princeton Architectural Press outlines Chafee’s outstanding contributions and the wider legacy she left behind, as told through the words of Christopher Domin and Kathryn McGuire – who worked with her for 18 years. As McGuire outlines, Chafee’s early education was entirely transformational. Formed under the guidance of her mother, she learned key concepts from anthropology and theology – combining studies of how humans interact and learn from the landscape. “Chafee took refuge in the interweaving of democracy and social justice in emotional and intellectual concepts,” writes Domin. “She developed the need to consider a holistic approach at a time when

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science was considered the dominant reference.” Chafee gained an inherent understanding of different cultures and ecosystems, forming a wider respect for the natural world. Such groundbreaking thinking was further encouraged by strong female role models; noteworthy acquaintances included Eleanor Roosevelt. McGuire recalls that Chafee was surrounded by pioneering women, who were “well-educated and politically active.” Later attending the all-women’s Bennington College, Vermont, Chafee began to hone a thirst for design, to create for both the planet and its inhabitants, no matter who or what stood in the way. As she later wrote for Mademoiselle in May 1966, “from childhood, women are concerned with maintenance of the family; we are trained to provide comfort for those around us. When we cook, knit or arrange a room, we are involved – as in architecture – in a selection of tools and textures. As architects, our chief concern must not be just the relationship between buildings, but the relationship between buildings and people.” Chafee went on to study at Yale School of Architecture. Even though she was told by many faculty members that she was “taking a man’s seat at the table” and being refused entry into some classes and libraries, she graduated – the only female in her class – in 1960. This set the course for her future success, despite the systemic problems in the American education system. Though challenged daily by the university’s in-built inequality and uniform student body, Chafee thrived under the tutelage of American Modernists such as Philip Johnson, Paul Rudolph and Louis Kahn – figures known for monolithic buildings that utilised

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“Clarity of purpose drove Chafee to define her path in architecture as an unrepentant modernist, an environmental steward, a social justice advocate, and a demanding teacher.”

Previous Page & Left: © Bill Timmerman

architectural concepts that both respected and amplified heavy concrete and a deft utilisation of natural sunlight. In Yale’s studios, she was able to fuse a growing love of the beauty of the organic world. The home embraced light minimalism with the Native American designs from her and shade in high contrast, highlighting the link between childhood, placing high value on the beauty of organic physical and sensory experiences. Referencing Louis Kahn, forms and working with, rather than against, the landscape. who professed that “architecture is the thoughtful making As Domin continues, “clarity of purpose drove Chafee to of spaces,” Chafee weaved Modernist forms with the forest, define her path in architecture as an unrepentant modernist, until the structure seemed to grow out of the earth, rather an environmental steward, a social justice advocate, and a than being planted on top of it. For McGuire, “there’s a sense demanding teacher. Her architecture combined sensitivity to of mirroring” in the Merrill Residence “of exterior and interior place with an uncanny ability to employ brutalist materials talking to each other,” embodying the instincts of site and the careful programming of rooms like parts of a body. with sophistication, grace and indigenous influences.” Commissioned by her mother to construct a home for After graduation, Chafee worked for many firms and leading figures, including Eero Saarinen, Paul Rudolph, retirement, Chafee demonstrated an irrevocable ability to Edward Larrabee Barnes and The Architects Collaborative incorporate local vernaculars within Modernist approaches. (Walter Gropius). Through these experiences she formed Viewpoint – completed in 1972 – combined the structural ideas that would later be included in a range of seminal freedom of reinforced concrete to chasten the extreme buildings. In spite of her successes, Chafee began to find environmental conditions and has “inspired architects in the industry limiting – notably, the imaginations and Arizona for decades because of its reputation for economy, administration of her male colleagues – and so in 1969 environmental adaptation and cultural connectivity.” The building rises from the desert space between the she returned to Arizona to launch her own practice and reTucson and Catalina mountain ranges in staggered planes of engage with the freedom and influence of the land. The Merrill Residence, completed in 1969, heralded a key concrete, punctured by clerestory windows and thick, heavy moment. It was accompanied by a cover feature on the extrusions that act as deep brise-soleils, or solar shades, Architectural Record, which was a momentous shift for both from the relentless heat. Adopting a compact footprint, the Chafee and other women architects; the work was the first structure displays Chafee’s confidence in subtle, stepped from a female architect to appear on the cover. It brought elevations that open a dialogue between the home’s pure Chafee national exposure and confirmed her status as a form, the coarse ground, and the jagged mountains. In the making of the Ramada House (1975), Chafee stood powerhouse, winning three Record House Awards. By embracing the “basic sensibilities” of a six-acre site, out to the clients immediately through a concern for what Chafee connected the house’s location – a Connecticut the owners wanted in a home. They had already interviewed woodland adjacent to a rocky coastline – with key several architects – all men – only to find them “conforming

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to prevailing gender stereotypes of the day, directing the through the use of solar panels to heat the water and winter most substantial questions and serious discussion to the heating systems. It was entirely ahead of the mainstream – husband.” Owing to Chafee’s glowing references from the early 1980s saw federal tax cuts for renewable energy the east coast, the commission allowed for what Domin systems. McGuire insists that, “at that time, it was quite describes as a “rigorous exploration of other desert-dwelling outrageous to see solar panels across part of the landscape.” Chafee’s position as a pioneering Modernist was estabcultures that feels both inevitable and revolutionary.” The Ramada House's main hub emerges from undulating lished by the completion of the Rieveschl Residence (1988), deserts in heavy concrete block elevations, disguised as “providing her answer to several grand villas in the modern adobe walls and broken by staggered rectangular windows – tradition: Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Mies van der Rohe’s a nod to Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. In designing the structure, Villa Tugenhadt, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and McGuire recalls there was “the feeling that buildings should Alvar Aalto’s Villa Mairea.” The transformational nature of be nestled into the landscape.” The house is in harmony the Rieveschl Residence revealed a matured and inspired response to a challenging landscape. Much like Lloyd with the natural rise and fall of the land’s topography. Chafee also suggested that the house should have dual Wright’s Fallingwater, Chafee connects site and structure roofs: a lattice made of local timber, mindful of traditional through a projected cantilever, supported by columns to mesquite logs and saguaro ribs to shade the structure, with a embrace the canyon below. Referencing Le Corbusier again conventional, flat “sleeping roof” to exist beneath – thereby is a processional walkway which is burrowed into the landenabling the owners to take advantage of the significant scape. Acting as “a ceremonial route through a sequence of temperature changes of the desert. As Domin notes, spatial relationships between a site and building,” it bridges “Historically, sleeping porches were part of the summer the open sky and the canyon’s vastness with an intimate rhythm, providing a cooling effect and a psychologically journey between light, dark, ground and sky. Amidst humanity’s growing concern for the climate crisis, comforting ceiling.” The Ramada House celebrates Chafee’s ingenious sustainable solutions way ahead of their time – a the work of Judith Chafee re-establishes today’s much triumphant example of architecture responding to human needed stewardship of the land. It is an essential reminder of need: providing sheltered protection from the enduring sun. what architecture can and should be – governed by a respect In 1977, upon completion of the Jacobson Residence, for the planet. Whilst male architects long dominated the Chafee’s unyielding concern for climate change was profession, Chafee was the first woman in Arizona to be yet again demonstrated. Designing another structure named a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. Like submerged into the earth, she coaxed and accentuated the desert, Chafee’s work is rich in possibility and offers a natural ventilation to circulate and cool the home’s lower place for discovery and contemplation about how to create levels. She also tested the skills of mechanical engineers with as little impact as possible in our current emergency.

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Right: © Bill Timmerman

Words Louis D'Arcy-Reed

Powerhouse: The Life and Work of Judith Chafee is published by Princeton Architectural Press, 8 October. papress.com

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Portraits Reinvented Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo

Rolling waves, handheld mirrors and animated paintstrokes. The accompanying subjects in these vibrant portraits are seemingly simplistic yet awash with sensory and visual information. The selection is characterised by a sense of playfulness and spirited spontaneity, located in seamless environments where summer never seems to end. Each vignette offers a sophisticated and well-presented palette of colours, with arresting blues, striking reds and bright white accents. These appear alongside an intriguing mix of textures and layers â&#x20AC;&#x201C; crumpled paper, blurry plant life and seamless horizons that blend into rippled oceans. Laura Perrucci and De Santis Matteo are a creative duo based in Italy. They push the boundaries of photography, developing and questioning the definition of image-making. Experimentation is fundamental to their practice â&#x20AC;&#x201C; combining literary and cinematic references. IG: @ellegramm | @hereistheo.

Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, November 9, 2018, Sabaudia, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, December 5, 2018, Ceccano, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, December 29, 2018, Ceccano, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, October 24, 2018, Ceccano, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, October 23, 2018, Ceccano, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, June 27, 2018, Sabaudia, Italy.

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Laura Perrucci & De Santis Matteo, Untitled, May 10, 2019, Sorrento, Italy.

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Growing Awareness Edward Burtynsky A NEW SERIES AND COLLABORATIVE PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS THE EFFECTS OF THE ANTHROPOCENE, A GEOLOGICAL AGE DEFINED BY HUMANITY'S IMPACT ON THE PLANET.

July 2019 was the hottest month on record. Humans have pushed the planet to its absolute limits, affecting its natural processes more than all other living forces combined. In a new multidisciplinary body of work entitled Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky – in collaboration with Canadian filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier – investigates humanity’s indelible, irrevocable and deeply complex influence on the Earth. The series is fuelled by a combined passion for understanding our relationship with deep geological time and the rise of technological advances. It appears as a feature documentary film (available to stream in the USA on Kanopy from 1 January 2020), a photobook and a travelling exhibition, which is currently on display at MAST Bologna until 5 January. Burtynsky (b. 1955) is a Canadian artist known for large-format photographs that depict the effects of industry on the landscape. His images evoke an almost painterly quality to salt pans, quarries, mines and oil fields. A: Your entire portfolio is a testimony to a wider interest in organic ecosystems, patterns and altered geologies. When did your interest in geography begin to develop and was it always linked to photography? EB: My earliest understanding of deep time and our relationship to the geological history of the planet came from my passion for being in nature. As a teenager I loved to go on fishing trips, canoeing along the pristine isolated waterways of Ontario’s Haliburton Highlands. That experience of wilderness left an enduring mark that still informs my

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response to landscape. I came to appreciate a state that exists without human intervention. I can remember learning, for example, that 12,000 years earlier, in place of the lakes and trees where I cast my lures, a solid sheet of ice three kilometres thick had once covered the land. I realised that it was not only these wild places, but the planet as a whole that is, and always will be, an ever-changing system. A: Your practice is, amongst other things, a direct response to the climate crisis in all its alarming facets. It's true that we are constantly feeding into the industry by what we consume on a daily basis. What truths are you hoping your works reveal in today’s age of overconsumption and mass-production? EB: Our planet has borne witness to five great extinction events, and these have been prompted by a variety of causes: a colossal meteor impact, massive volcanic eruptions and oceanic cyanobacteria activity that generated a deadly toxicity in the atmosphere. These were the naturally occurring phenomena governing life’s ebb and flow. Now it is becoming clear that humankind, with its population explosion, industry and technology, has in a very short period of time also become an agent of immense global change. Arguably, we are on the cusp of becoming (if we are not already) the perpetrators of a sixth major extinction event. Our planetary system is affected by a magnitude of force as powerful as any naturally occurring global catastrophe, but one caused solely by the activity of a single species: us. Between 1900 and 2000, the increase in world population

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Clearcut #1, Palm Oil Plantation, Borneo, Malaysia 2016 from The Anthropocene Project. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.

“I have come to think of my preoccupation with the Anthropocene as a conceptual extension of my first and most fundamental interests as a photographer. I’ve always been concerned with showing how we affect the Earth in a big way.”

Previous Page: Polders, Grootschermer, The Netherlands 2011 (detail) from Water. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto. Left: Clearcut #4, Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada 2016 (detail) from The Anthropocene Project. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.

was three times greater than during the entire previous history of humankind – a quadruple increase from 1.5 to 6.1 billion people in just one hundred years. This phenomenal growth has coincided with a period of great scientific, cultural and economic achievement, a deeper understanding of who we are, what we are capable of, and our relationship to the universe. However, as we access an ever-increasing body of knowledge, we are also becoming more aware that this progress provokes as many questions as answers, with countless more people living in abject poverty than those few with seemingly unassailable comfort, wealth and power.

overviews of the subject matter. For my China and Oil projects I rented mobile scissor-lifts and bucket-lift trucks, raising myself up from the earthbound vantage points of my earlier work, taking in the wider spectacle. The year 2006 marked a major change towards digital technology and a new way of generating work. I could mount and electronically control my camera from a 40-foot pneumatic monopod. By using drones, airplanes and helicopters, I could also achieve a bird’s-eye perspective, rendering subjects such as transportation networks, and industrial infrastructure more expansively, capturing vistas that had eluded me until then.

A: Your portfolio has moved seamlessly from ground- A: Though the rise of the digital age plays a role in some level shots to sweeping aerial perspectives, transform- of the wider issues the planet is facing, how has it enaing landscapes into almost abstracted plots of shape bled you to further explore expansive and challenging and colour. Can you describe your working process? landscapes? How are you embracing new technologies How has your methodology taken shape and how it has and finding new pathways into photography? EB: The internet has become an invaluable tool, enabling since developed in recent years? EB: I have come to think of my preoccupation with the An- extensive location research but also allowing me to capture thropocene as a conceptual extension of my first and most subjects from even greater distances. Using high-resolution fundamental interests as a photographer. I’ve always been satellite imaging, I have begun making compositions that concerned with showing how we affect the Earth in a big way. extend an earlier interest in agriculture and its geometric To this end, I seek out and photograph large-scale systems interventions in the landscape, evident in my photographs that leave lasting marks. At the heart of my challenge has of pivotal irrigation sites from 2011. The image Satelbeen the pursuit of vantage points that best enable me to lite Capture, Near Buraydah, Saudi Arabia is the product of picture the relationship of these systems to the land. From these new possibilities, gathering the visual data from a my earliest shooting trips in the 1980s, I always sought to 160-square kilometre sweep of industrial desert agriculture free my lens from ground level. In the early work on rail- into one detailed image. Extending the lens even further by cuts, homesteads, quarries, mines and shipbreaking yards, using specialised 3D software, I am now able to capture and I tried to find elevated spots to plant my tripod: a berm, a stitch together thousands of images of an object, or a place, bridge, a rooftop or overpass; a perch that offered sweeping and render such scenes in full detail – as images that may

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Row-Irrigation, Imperial Valley, Southern California, USA 2009 from Water. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.

be experienced in all their dimensionality. This has reignited my interest in looking at picture-making as a form of sculpture – something I experimented with, albeit more crudely, more than two decades ago. Dimensional imagery can now be experienced through Virtual Reality using headsets, and Augmented Reality-enabled devices such as smartphones and tablets. I continue to be challenged by my practice, learning about technique and about the world around me. A: How do the images in Anthropocene differ from your previous series, such as Oil, Salt Pans or Water? What new perspectives are you taking in depicting the Earth and its changing ecosystems? EB: Several of the photographs in The Anthropocene Project record some of the most verdant and transcendently beautiful places I have ever seen. Coming full circle, I return firmly to ground level and my reverence for the untouched wilderness I experienced as a teenager. I visited the remaining ancient redwood stands of British Columbia. It was important to me that this projects should also bring into sharper focus some of the wondrous ecosystems that are endangered – the beauty and biodiversity that we are at risk of losing. This was particularly true of my first venture into underwater photography in 2016. In that year, I travelled with a support team to the Indonesian Island of Komodo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, to dive and photograph some of the most pristine coral reefs still in existence. Using an underwater camera with high-powered flash units, and with the technical assistance of 12 divers, I spent several days mapping a specific section of coral wall, making several hundred high-resolution exposures, overlapping frames that could later be stitched together as a single continuous image. My

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ultimate goal was to create a finely detailed mural measuring 10 by 20 feet – as close to actual scale as possible. Notably, this coral lies 60 feet beneath the ocean’s surface. At that depth it appears as a dull, monochromatic blue. It wasn’t until we began reviewing the shots that the full range and nuance of colour became breathtakingly apparent. The work at Komodo was perhaps the most challenging technical feat of my career, but it was also a headfirst plunge into one of the planet’s most complex and dazzling ecosystems.

Right: Salinas #5, Aquaculture, Cádiz, Spain 2013 (detail) from The Anthropocene Project. © Edward Burtynsky, courtesy Flowers Gallery, London / Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto.

A: The project has expanded into something much more collaborative and immersive, crossing genres and media in its presentation. What do you hope viewers take away from the exhibition, film and book? EB: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier and I believe that an experiential, immersive engagement with our work can shift the consciousness of those who engage with it, helping to nurture a growing environmental debate. We hope to bring our audience to an awareness of the normally unseen result of civilisation’s cumulative impact upon the planet. This is what propels us to continue making the work. We feel that by describing the problem vividly, by being revelatory and not accusatory, we can help spur a broader conversation about viable solutions. We hope that, through our contribution, today’s generation will be inspired to carry the momentum of this discussion forward, so that succeeding generations may continue to experience the wonder and magic of what life, and living on Earth, has to offer.

Words Kate Simpson

Burtynsky expands upon the ideas in this interview in the essay, Life in the Anthropocene, which appears in the Anthropocene book, published by Steidl.

edwardburtynsky.com theanthropocene.org

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Tranquil Environments Six N. Five

The Co-Existe series is a collaborative project realised with Six N. Five design studio, photographer Cody Cobb and spatial designer Ben Willett. The project was fuelled by a shared love of finding tranquil moments in an otherwise chaotic world. Each image carries a consistent design – a serene and polished visual language that envelopes and calms the viewer. One-of-a-kind sculptures nestle into their distinct environments, which complement each other in form, colour and material. Rust-orange shapes stand out against bright white cliffs. Pink sunsets reflect off smooth silver metal. Iridescent white light bulbs pop against the shadows of rock formations. These images settle the mind through magnetising simplicity, drawing onlookers into glossy lakes and pearly skylines. Six N. Five – directed by Ezequiel Pini (b. 1985) – specialises in still life visuals and videos with a clean and modern aesthetic. sixnfive.com.

Bush, from the Co-Existe series. Imagery & 3D development by Six N. Five. Photography by Cody Cobb. Concept by Willett.

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Oxide, from the Co-Existe series. Imagery & 3D development by Six N. Five. Photography by Cody Cobb. Concept by Willett.

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Mirror, from the Co-Existe series. Imagery & 3D development by Six N. Five. Photography by Cody Cobb. Concept by Willett.

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Glass, from the Co-Existe series. Imagery & 3D development by Six N. Five. Photography by Cody Cobb. Concept by Willett.

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Water, from the Co-Existe series. Imagery & 3D development by Six N. Five. Photography by Cody Cobb. Concept by Willett.

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Glacial Topographies Greg White

Greg White (b. 1978) is a London-based photographer who focuses on the graphic elements of architecture and landscapes. The following pages present the icy territories of Arjeplog, Sweden, ruminating around frosted car grills, intricate branches and driveways. Thick velvet snow covers the roofs of panelled houses and gathers at the roadside. The cold white mounds are contrasted by inky night skies that plume from deep blues to purples. Whiteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work reveals a love of both function and mystery, expressing a sense of cool detachment through super-watt bulbs that drench locations with bright white light. He is currently working on a new book about a small Welsh slate mining town where declining industry has seen an unusual rise in tourism. White shoots regularly for Wired, Wallpaper*, The Times and Avaunt and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, Atlas, Creative Review and Viewpoint. gregwhite.tv.

Greg White, Arjeplog, Sweden. Courtesy of the artist.

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Greg White, Arjeplog, Sweden. Courtesy of the artist.

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Greg White, Arjeplog, Sweden. Courtesy of the artist.

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Greg White, Arjeplog, Sweden. Courtesy of the artist.

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Greg White, Arjeplog, Sweden. Courtesy of the artist.

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Radical Transformation The New Black Vanguard ANTWAUN SARGENT'S BOLD PUBLICATION ADDRESSES A HISTORY OF EXCLUSION, PROVOKING DIALOGUES ABOUT REPRESENTATION, SEXUALITY, GENDER AND IDENTITY.

In September 2018, American Vogue published an issue with two ground-breaking covers. Both featured the singer, songwriter and all-round superstar Beyoncé KnowlesCarter. What was remarkable wasn’t the cover star, but the person who had shot the photographs. At just 23 years of age, Tyler Mitchell became the first black photographer to shoot a cover for the influential fashion magazine. It seems remarkable that this was such a feat, and that it took so long to be accomplished, but for art critic and writer Antwaun Sargent (a regular contributor to the likes of The New York Times, The New Yorker, VICE and many museum publications) what’s most interesting is the groundswell of activity that finally made this key event happen. How did it come into being? He’s just created a book with Aperture titled The New Black Vanguard, tracing the work of 15 young and innovative image-makers who have burst onto the international scene – with Tyler Mitchell amongst them. Featuring fast-emerging names from the African diaspora such as Micaiah Carter, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Nadine Ijewere and Namsa Leuba, it also includes non-western image-makers including South African artist Jamal Nxedlana and Nigerian creatives Daniel Obasi and Stephen Tayo. As Sargent points out, these practitioners have all had different experiences, and they all offer distinctive, individual work built on a rich tapestry of ideas and expressions. What they share is the desire to “take back images and ideas around the representation of black bodies,” he notes. “What’s profound is the way they are taking ownership of what beauty, gender or power looks like through the eyes

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of a black photographer. In the media, what we’ve seen are images of black bodies laced with stereotypes or layers of someone else’s ideas about sensuality or gender or race,” he adds. “If you think about the ‘black issue’ of Italian Vogue in 2008, it sold out. It included amazing shots – but not one of the photographers involved was black, though all the models were. In this day and age, that would be unconscionable. You can also pick up so many photobooks or magazines and not see a single black or Asian person – someone who is outside the traditional norms of beauty,” he continues. “I thought it was really important to show this concept published – what it means to be a young black photographer, creating right now, thinking about blackness.” Sargent’s book starts with a fascinating contextualising essay, which he’s opened with a quote from Thelma Golden, Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem: “There is no question that representation is central to power. The real struggle is over the power to control images.” Pointing out that black portraiture has existed since the start of photography, Sargent traces an under-represented history of black image-making that includes figures such as James Van Der Zee and Cornelius M. Battey, and continues through the work of Malick Sidibé, Samuel Fosso and Seydou Keïta during the African independence movements of the late 1950s to 1970s. It goes on via names such as Kwame Brathwaite in the “Black Power” and “Black is Beautiful” movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and on up to the hip-hop-inspired street style of the 1980s and 1990s. As Sargent points out, there has been no shortage of tal-

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“‘Social media has allowed these artists to have their voices heard and to control their own narrative, building their own audiences. Mainstream media has had to catch up to that.’”

ented black image-makers, and yet the opportunities for them to – for example – shoot the front cover of American Vogue have not been there. Anthony Barboza, the first practitioner to shoot the American-Somali supermodel Iman (otherwise known as Zara Mohamed Abdulmajid) in the 1970s, published an Instagram post just a few days before Mitchell’s Vogue cover, including an image of a 10-page spread titled A Black Woman’s Beauty – taken from Vogue’s title Beauty Book in the 1980s plus a text reading “As a #BlackPhotographer with a history of photographing black people in fashion, I was never considered for shooting a cover of #Vogue magazine then or even now, apparently.” The New Black Vanguard is now managing to break through that harsh glass ceiling and yet, argues Sargent, it’s only doing so because the practitioners involved have insisted on it – they have pursued it creatively, professionally, independently and unendingly. He points to the influence and potential of the internet and social media – the ways in which they have allowed young black creatives to take hold of their own careers, publishing their perspectives on beauty and identity, and building audiences that became so huge the mainstream press couldn’t ignore them. Sargent cites Awol Erizku’s images, which celebrated and publicised the then-pregnant Beyoncé. The posts were uploaded swiftly and directly to the singer’s website page and Instagram feed, “cutting out traditional gatekeepers.” He notes: “Social media has allowed these artists to have their voices heard and to control their own narrative, building their own audiences. Mainstream media has had to catch up. These artists have the technology to propose their own ideas and show photography and fashion and art.”

And, he continues, the internet has also allowed some of this new wave of talent to get started in the first place because, whilst some of the artists he identifies in The New Black Vanguard have studied photography and art, others have not. “There are so many stories in and out of the book,” he says. “I say: ‘how did you learn about how to shoot on film or control aperture?’ and they say, ‘Oh I looked it up on YouTube’ or ‘I started to shoot with an iPhone’ or ‘I begged my mom to buy me a camera and started to figure it out.’” This unfolding process of cultural progression and changing representation is still playing out, and has a long way to go, says Sargent, but he was keen to capture its spirit now, rather than waiting to publish a retrospective. “Because we are right in the middle of it, it’s time to write a book like this. So often black artists have had to wait a long time for their contribution to art and culture to be recognised.” However, despite the massive shift brought on by the digital mass-communication age, he believes the mainstream press remains key to global shifts; publications still have such enormous influence – and such huge audiences. He notes how fascinated he was by i-D magazine when he was growing up in Chicago, taking a bus for 45 minutes to get to the one bookstore that sold it; by the same token, some of the photographers he’s picked out – and many of the people they hope to reach with their work – will be much more familiar with fashion and portrait images than fine art. “I think the younger generation, are very savvy – they make images which will be seen not just in an art context, not just in museums, because that way they can reach a wider audience,” he says. “They are very interested in fashion photography because it is the biggest platform – these types

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of audiences are larger than any others in terms of how far those images travel. There’s a sophistication, in terms of presentation, in saying ‘We don’t care about the established relationships in art versus fashion, we’re thinking about how we can use elements of each to make the kind of photographs we want to see in the world around us.'” “Art has appealed to a very limited audience for a very long time,” he continues. “That is changing, but I think there are still some real issues to explore. People may feel they are talked down to whilst visiting museums, or don’t feel comfortable in them because of the way they are curated, or the prevailing ideas behind them. Against that, it’s very smart to appeal to the widest public possible and say, ‘I want people to see my images.’ It’s the responsibility of the artist to try to engage with their audience in general.” The publication is a demonstration of responsibility. The artists sense that they’re making an important intervention – not just pretty pictures. Sargent mentions a comment made by Stephen Tayo, that he wanted to make images because he never had photographs of himself as a child – and therefore felt the need to make sure other young Nigerians had visuals that reflected them and their lives. In his introductory essay, he picks out a comment by Nadine Ijewere, in which she states: “As a girl, I never identified with anyone in the pages of magazines. Now, we’re sending a message that everyone is welcome in fashion. There are so many different types of beauty in the world. Let’s celebrate them all!” Sargent also points out that the photographers he’s selected for The New Black Vanguard have many other concerns – very contemporary associations with gender, sexuality, power and identity. Jamal Nxedlana’s practice, for example,

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engages with LGTBQ+ communities, whilst Quil Lemons’ Glit- Right: Nadine Ijewere, Untitled, 2018. Copyright terboy reflects concerns with gender via models who identify ©Nadine Ijewere. Courtesy Aperture. as straight, queer and everything in between. Renell Medrano, meanwhile, shows women who “take up space,” instead of conforming to tropes of gentle, self-effacing femininity more familiar from fashion and society’s mainstream. Micaiah Carter is quoted in the book as saying, “Blackness can get pigeon-holed into a one-dimensional viewpoint, but in reality, it is as diverse as the galaxies.” Whilst Sargent has drawn together The New Black Vanguard as a group – a kind of collective showcase – he also hopes to emphasise the artists’ individual concerns, giving each name an individual introduction and an extensive portfolio of images in their own right. “Take someone like Jamal Nxedlana in South Africa or Tyler Mitchell in the USA – Tyler is interested in southern black youth often not represented in images of America; Jamal is talking in the context of magazines which, under Apartheid, under-represented images of blackness in a majority black country. If you put their images next to each other, one of the things that emerges is that they are totally different people. It’s important to acknowledge race, but it’s also important to address other concerns.” And in doing so, he adds, The New Black Vanguard is “recording and imagining and revealing new ideas around Words power, gender, identity and fashion” – ideas which are rel- Diane Smyth evant to all human beings regardless of their background or skin tone. “In that sense I’d say this work also invites other people to view or see the universality of blackness,” he con- The New Black Vanguard cludes. “So, if you look in these images and see them only is published by Aperture. in terms of colour, you’re missing a fundamental shift, and a fundamental generosity from these photographers.” aperture.org

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Polished Arrangements Studio Roderick Vos

In 1999, Claire & Roderick Vos launched an eponymous design studio, based in the Netherlands. Deeply influenced by early years spent in Indonesia, their collaborative practice reflects a knowledge of rattan furniture and textile production, reinterpreting traditional techniques whilst injecting contemporary details. Roderick Vos has worked on a range of lighting, textile and furniture projects for Driade, Moooi, Linteloo and Cor Unum. In 2016, both Claire and Roderick became Art Directors of PODE, whose designs demonstrate a meticulous passion for technology, material and colour. The following photographs, shot by Arjan Benning, present polished, inventive rooms. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a Hopperlike sense of mystery; paper planes fly through portal-like windows; mist descends onto a dinner table. Stairs lead to nowhere. Characters are poised in curious acts. The series is a meditation on contemporary aesthetics. roderickvos.com | benning-gladkova.com.