Aesthetica Issue 92

Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 92 December / January 2019

POWERFUL STORYTELLING

SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

MORE TO THE PICTURE

Doug Aitken’s latest installations experiment with the gallery space

Pieter Henket and Eva Vonk highlight narratives and tradition in the Congo

Eddo Hartmann takes viewers on a journey through Dutch ecosystems

Dawoud Bey’s portraits connect to the wider sense of community

UK £5.95 Europe €11.95 USA $15.49

ART FOR CONNECTIVITY

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Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 92 December / January 2019

ART FOR CONNECTIVITY

POWERFUL STORYTELLING

SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

MORE TO THE PICTURE

Doug Aitken’s latest installations experiment with the gallery space

Pieter Henket and Eva Vonk highlight narratives and tradition in the Congo

Eddo Hartmann takes viewers on a journey through Dutch ecosystems

Dawoud Bey’s portraits connect to the wider sense of community

Welcome

UK £5.95 Europe €11.95 USA $15.49

Editor’s Note

On the Cover Reflected mountain ranges. Splashes of water hanging in mid-air. Seats suspended in glassy lakes. Julia Morozova’s images seamlessly complement natural elements with bold, colourful fashion collections.

Each story contains a multitude of textures, arrangements and patterns. (p.56) Cover Image: Faded Forests. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Alya Spyr @monster. Stylist: Francesca Martorelli & Rafaela Rusca. Art direction: Vladimir Soto. Mua: Monica Cena.

Innovation keeps me going. I feel so very honoured to see so many wonderful artworks on a daily basis.

It gives me inspiration. It takes me to new places, teaches me, makes me laugh and cry. Constantly, I am reminded by the shared experience of what it means to be a human being in 2019.

We all know that the world has transformed, yes, through technology – and with it comes the idea of progress – but I’ve started to think about progress and what really defines it. We can communicate with anyone, anywhere – but the constant desire to check your phone from the minute you wake up until the minute you go to bed doesn’t come without repercussions. Once we move into 5G, this is the future.

We are evolving emotionally. This can’t be understated in terms of how this will affect humanity – and future generations. Politically, the world has been in turmoil since 2016: the year of the Referendum and Trump making his way into the White House. We’ve seen and heard things that shouldn’t be happening.

This is the 21st century – a time of progress. We shouldn’t be seeing women’s rights surrounding their own bodies being revoked, and the climate crisis being denied. It’s supposed to be better now, right?

This issue of Aesthetica invites you to engage with the key themes of our times. The artists included are making sense of the world through new visual narratives. Doug Aitken’s latest installations explore the space between physical and virtual worlds, commenting on the ways that communication has changed.

Eva Vonk and Pieter Henket consider the role that the Congo Basin plays within the wider geological balance, drawing attention to the importance of oral culture, history and tradition.

In photography, there are seven outstanding practitioners who present bold and exciting series. They question the idea of home and identity, highlight the beauty of everyday objects and play with the notion of anonymity. Finally, the Last Words goes to Sarah Cook, Curator, who discusses Somerset House’s latest exhibition, 24/7. The show looks at our non-stop world and asks us to pause.

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Art 24 More to the Picture Portraits reveal information about the human condition; Dawoud Bey explores the dialogues between sitter, photographer and community.

30 Subtle Framing Ian Howorth’s works slip from indoor to outdoor through a nuanced persuasion of colour. Gradient sunsets, neon signs and diffused lamps feature.

40 Fluidity and Invention From the centenary of the Bauhaus to post-war Brutalism, a new publication celebrates an age of innovation and experimentation with concrete.

46 Playful Silhouettes So AsA is influenced by the street activity on the island of Corsica, catching the shadows of strangers as they pass by alleys and walkways.

56 Qualities of Daylight Julia Morozova plays with natural elements and clean-cut tailoring; bold fashion collections are paired with glassy lakes and piercing sunlight.

66 Art for Connectivity Doug Aitken is at the frontier of 21st century communication, presenting imaginative worlds that are between the physical and the virtual.

72 Panning the Landscape Broken ice. Snow-capped mountains. Guillaume Simoneau moves around Canada’s open planes, from Saint Pierre and Miquelon to Pond Inlet.

82 Scientific Perspective Investigating the work of environmental scientists, Eddo Hartmann urges viewers to consider the wider impact on the planet from the ground up.

88 Deserted Locations How do we define home? What happens when a house is left behind? Gohar Dashti’s works reveal the power of nature to consume and conquer.

98 Powerful Storytelling The Congo Basin is a tropical rainforest second only in size to the Amazon. Eva Vonk and Pieter Henket uncover its traditions and oral culture.

104 Distant Suburbia Thomas Jordan is influenced by the northwest Chicago suburbs, looking for moments of clarity as the sun sets and quietude falls upon the day.

114 Animating the Everyday Olivia Jeczmyk experiments with images as a way to breathe life into objects. Her photographs place items subtly amongst minimal set designs.

Exhibitions

Film

Music

130 Gallery Reviews This issue covers Maroesjka Lavigne’s Lost Lands at Robert Mann Gallery, as well as a group show of female practitioners at NMWA, Washington DC.

134 Inspired by Ideas The Aesthetica Short Film Festival returned this November, with over 400 films in competition.

Read about this year’s winners and key events.

136 Personal Evolution Alani Charal (moniker ALA.NI) has found a niche in a capella. Her latest album, ACCA, samples and loops vocals, creating percussive basslines.

Books

Artists’ Directory

Last Words

138 Radical Design Photographer and architect Kris Provoost depicts rapid growth in China, spanning buildings from Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid and Ole Scheeren.

152 Inside this Issue This edition’s directory experiments with alternate perspectives. Multimedia practices offer different points of view, using materials in new ways.

162 Somerset House 24/7 is concerned with a non-stop world; it offers a picture of a current state of distraction, asking audiences to rethink the way they live and rest.

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

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

Advertisement Enquiries: Jeremy Appleyard (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.

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 Marketing & Administration Assistant: Kathryn Pearson Festival Coordinator / Technical Advisor: Andy Guy Intern: Kat McCullan

Contributors: Alexandra Genova, Jessica Mairs, Diane Smyth, Charlotte R-A, Gunseli Yalcinkaya.

Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

Reviewers: Kyle Bryony, Matt Swain, James Mottram, Daniel Pateman, Chris Webb, Hunter Dukes, Erik Martiny, Charlotte R-A, Robyn Sian Cusworth, Jennifer Sauer, Gunseli Yalcinkaya, Ashton Chandler Guyatt.

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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Lawrence Abu Hamdan, installation view of Walled Unwalled in The Tanks, Tate Modern London 2018. Photo by Tate Photography.

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Engaging Installations TURNER PRIZE This year’s four shortlisted Turner Prize candidates focus on the boundaries, real or imagined, that divide us from one another. They offer new worlds of contemplation and sensory stimulation. For the group exhibition, presented outside of London, as is the tradition every other year, Colombian-born Oscar Murillo (b. 1986) has blacked out a huge bay window at Turner Contemporary in Margate. He has achieved this with a makeshift canvas curtain saturated with paint marks.

The piece faces the absent view of the North Sea that inspired William Turner (1775-1851) – whose name is leant to both the award and the gallery. The papier-mâché effigies of Collective Conscience offer a cast of workers and migrants surrounded by unstretched painting. It is a visionary work that reflects upon the socio-economic realities of capitalism.

The other candidates also present both critical and creative perspectives. Spanning multidisciplinary techniques, they utilise art as a mechanism to understand our changing world.

Lawrence Abu Hamdan (b. 1985), who calls himself a “private ear,” addresses the structural qualities of sound with three time-based installations. Collaborating with Amnesty International and the Turner Prize-nominee collective Forensic Architecture, Abu Hamdan offers “earwitness” testimonies. He recreates physical and conceptual space through the audio memories of six survivors from the Saydnaya military prison, located outside Damascus, which has been used to hold

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civilian detainees and anti-regime rebels. The prisoners de- “The candidates veloped an acute sensitivity to sound because they were offer a range of kept in darkness, or had their eyes covered. Jordan-born critical and creative Abu Hamdan calculated that detainees, under constant sur- perspectives. Spanning veillance and facing death if caught speaking, would have multidisciplinary to whisper 19 decibels quieter than usual in order to com- techniques, they municate undetected. Abu Hamdan’s projects articulate their redefine the stories through fluid movements between sound, memory, parameters of art design and language. “Sound can’t be contained, you can’t as a mechanism put it in a box. It will always leak,” he explains. to understand our The layered social histories of Northern Ireland, and changing world.” the role of women, are at the heart of Helen Cammock’s (b. 1970) work. The shortlisted project, The Long Note, is an aptly named narrative film that uses both interviews and archival footage to depict the overlooked role of women in the civil rights movement in Derry, Northern Ireland.

Tai Shani (b. 1976) creates an allegorical city of women filled with imaginary characters. Velvet arms, geometric stairs, disembodied green hands and hanging red moons are just some of the protagonists. These worlds are dark, fantastical, utopian and reflective. They make an effort, Shani says, to Turner uncover “what can be salvaged from a history of femininity, Contemporary, Margate to think about ways out of where we are now.” The title refers Until 12 January to an Assyrian queen who became a mythical figure thanks to a reign that helped stabilise the empire after war. turnercontemporary.org

Illuminating Audiences CANARY WHARF WINTER LIGHTS FESTIVAL

Squidsoup, Aeolian Light, 2014-2015. 10m x 10m x 5m.

Lips are the one of the most sensitive parts of the body, thanks at specific intervals to form the word, reflecting the transient, “For its sixth edition, to more than a million nerve endings. Objects of desire, they easily manipulated nature of online information. Each drop the Canary Wharf evoke lust and sensuality but also serve as the delivery vehi- of water becomes a liquid pixel of sorts, or a representative of festival presents light works by practitioners cles for words and innermost emotions. Taiwanese collective a bit – the smallest unit of measurement of data.

Transforming an outdoor seating experience, LBO Li- from around the UxU studio plays with these different associations in Desire (2017-2018), made from 1,500 LED lights. This imaginative chtbankobjekte’s Lightbenches encourages pedestrians to world, set against piece is amongst more than 25 other large-scale installations sit and converse with strangers. Illuminated by hundreds of the background of LEDs, the benches are composed of translucent opal white the business district’s populating London’s annual Winter Lights festival.

For its sixth edition, the Canary Wharf festival presents light acrylic glass light beams, each measuring six millimetres. bright towers. Some works by practitioners from around the world, set against the These weather-resistant strips change colour every 2.5 min- are marking their background of the business district’s bright towers. Some are utes. Many audiences first check whether the seat or backrest debut in the UK.” marking their debut in the UK alongside commissioned works is hot before sitting on light, though they do not release any and popular pieces from previous years. In an early preview, heat at all. It is an interesting remark upon human behaviour. designed to attract the broader public of all ages and back- “The emotional interaction of light and colours should take grounds, a glowing neon sculpture spelling out Mi-e dor de the park bench out of its conventional context and open up new perceptions,” explains designer Bernd Spiecker. tine (“I miss you” in Romanian) was installed in November.

Another effort to challenge an increasing sense of disconTechnology plays a key role in most of the works, such as Julius Popp’s (b. 1973) Bit.Fall. It comprises a waterfall of cas- nect is Gali Lucas’s Absorbed by Light. The sculpture, a colcading words obtained from live online newsfeeds. It trans- laboration with Karoline Hinz, shows three people sitting on lates the never-ending flow of information in the digital age a bench ignoring each other whilst completely immersed in into a visual tapestry. A single word appears at a time on the their mobile phones, which shine a dim glow on their faces. work’s large digital curtain before rapidly dissolving to make The harsh, white light from the devices gives an eerie atmos- Canary Wharf, London way for another. The words are generated by a computer phere to the swiping, typing trio. In this way, the event is self- 16-25 January programme that filters relevant terms using a statistical algo- conscious, reflective, immediate. It brings audiences together rithm. A control unit then releases hundreds of drops of water to sit, dance, play and absorb the colourful illuminations. canarywharf.com

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Sea Lane House, Angmering-on-Sea, West Sussex, 1937 by architects Yorke and Breuer. © Dell & Wainwright, RIBA Collections.

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Collaborative Philosophy BEYOND BAUHAUS: MODERNISM IN BRITAIN The 1930s were a particularly fertile moment in British architectural history. Bauhaus alumna Marcel Breuer, alongside Walter Gropius and László Moholy-Nagy, lived and worked in Britain after fleeing Nazi Germany, where they profoundly influenced the development of modernist architecture. On the occasion of the centenary, RIBA, London, sheds light on new critical ways of thinking about design and tradition.

Illustrations, sketches, personal photographs, correspondence and archival films attest to the depth of the partnerships struck during the trio’s time in the UK, lasting from just 1934 to 1937. Gropius, Moholy-Nagy and Breuer all pushed for an uncompromisingly modern aesthetic. Their designs were reviled in many quarters in Britain – few buildings in the country clearly identified with the Bauhaus. However, by the time the three left for the USA, in 1937, Britain was developing a reputation as Europe’s hub for innovative structures that tied into the philosophy of modernist avant-garde. Their stay in the UK was short-lived, but inherently powerful, much like the Bauhaus itself, which remains a critical influence on the school of art, architecture and design.

The functionalist legacy of the Bauhaus is especially notable in postwar designs, presenting a collaborative philosophy that deployed contemporary materials and technologies with a clear sense of social purpose. These ideas were especially championed when architects including Mary

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Crowley (later Medd) and Denys Lasdun were tasked with “The functionalist creating social housing and public infrastructure after WWII. legacy of the The exhibition delves into many branches of blueprints, Bauhaus is especially occupational conversations and imagined plans. In a short- notable in postwar lived dialogue between Gropius and Maxwell Fry, they designs, presenting a jointly produced various drawings, including sketches for collaborative philosophy the renowned Isokon building, now tucked away in a quiet that deployed corner of North London. Also known as the Lawn Road Flats, modern materials the structure boasts horizontal strip windows and overhang- and technologies ing concrete balconies. The designs, at the time, proved too with a clear sense radical to leave the page. They adopted a vision of urban of social purpose.” living that was affordable, communal and innovative. However, though the ideas were highly progressive, the version of the Isokon block of flats that did make it to Hampstead was conceived for the middle class. Its past residents included Bauhaus members, artists, authors like Agatha Christie and even a Soviet spy, as with Arnold Deutsch.

RIBA’s show also examines contributions from a group of pioneering women. Little known and rarely shown works

by Elizabeth Denby, Sadie Speight, Margaret Blanco-White, Norah Aiton and Betty Scott demonstrate how important female architects were amongst their male counterparts, RIBA, London giving them fair representation amongst the names associ- Until 2 February ated with the innovative Bauhaus movement. This exhibition provides an important cross-section of British design. riba.org

Inquisitive Photography SALLY MANN: A THOUSAND CROSSINGS

Sally Mann (American, born 1951), The Turn, 2005, gelatin silver print. Private collection. © Sally Mann.

In December 2017, Sally Mann (b. 1951) invited Bill T. Jones the 1955 murder of 14-year-old African American Emmett “Mann, who has (b. 1952) for a photo session at her country home in Virginia. Till, accused of seducing a white woman. In another, dust spent much of Death – its menacing approach or dark legacy – looms large has formed on the plate, creating bullet-like dots on her career asking in Mann’s work, and it’s no surprise to find the dancer-chore- 2003’s Battlefields, Cold Harbor (Battle), a reminder of the unsettling questions, ographer’s high cheekbones made skull-like behind the lens. destruction that once was a cry against nature’s indifference. documented the The exhibition opens in chronological order, where Mann’s southern landscape “Almost a death mask,” she concludes in a video of the twoday encounter, shown in the major survey making its sixth career really started, with the Immediate Family series. This out of “shame and included portraits of her husband and three young children, some inchoate sense of and final stop at High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Sitter and photographer, both in their late 60s, are keenly all caught in intimate, unguarded moments. The works cata- accountability.” She aware they have entered their final chapter. Growing up in pulted Mann to fame in 1992, depicting family members in focused on markers the American south, Mann’s work has often been concerned various stages of undress and activity at their remote summer of a violent past.” with slavery and the racism that replaced it. Jones, in part, in- cabin – open and vulnerable. A quarter-century later, the inspired her monumental portraits of black men as she sought tense controversy generated in the midst of America’s culto reach across the “seemingly untraversable chasm of race.” ture wars by these images of youth – latent with sensuality, In order to delve into these still prescient issues, Mann re- violence and even death – seems a distant past.

Yes, the blood streaming from Emmett’s Bloody Nose (1991) sorts to 19th century techniques and makes her own prints, at a time when most artists have replaced the dark room with an or Virginia’s seemingly lifeless body in Last Light (1990) are inkjet printer. She pours syrupy collodion on a glass plate still startling. But, contextualised, they appear as brutally from her large format camera, then dips it in silver nitrate. It’s honest depictions of fleeting hedonistic moments made with bulky, messy work, but Mann embraces the imperfections of great maternal care and awareness of lurking danger. Mann uses the worn, cloudy surface of ambrotypes, or collodion the materials, calling upon the “angel of uncertainty.”

Mann, who has spent much of her career asking unsettling positives, to gaze at her own mortality in often solarised or High Museum of Art, Atlanta questions, documented the southern landscape out of overexposed self-portraits after a riding accident left her Until 2 February “shame and some inchoate sense of accountability.” She bed-ridden. This show is a groundbreaking finale to Mann’s focused on markers of a violent past, including the site of longstanding tour of important institutions across the USA. high.org

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Image: Winter at Tantora.

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Cross-Cultural Dialogues WINTER AT TANTORA Over the course of 12 weekends from December 2019 to crossroads of trade along the incense route between Egypt March, an art, music and culture extravaganza descends upon and the historical region of South Arabia. A necropolis was the Al-Ula region home to Saudi Arabia’s first UNESCO World carved out of stone in Hegra, making it the Nabatean kingHeritage Site, Hegra. It is anticipated that over 40,000 people dom’s second largest settlement after Petra. “It was a port of will attend the Winter at Tantora Festival – sizable crowd num- trade and a gateway between cultures, enabling dialogue bers predicted by art exhibitions and performances that deliver and diversity,” explained Amr Al-Madani, CEO of the Royal mass appeal through soft, lush music. Shopping, dining and Commission for Al-Ula. “With the festival, we are celebrating folk culture experiences, dubbed a “feast for the senses” by Al-Ula’s historic role in this region as well as its long tradition organisers, further entice others to make the journey to this of bringing together varied voices and ideas.” ochre desert landscape dotted with sandstone outcrops.

For those interested in music, a celebration of the 250th Amongst new and innovative artworks, there’s a sense of anniversary of Beethoven’s birth takes place in January with opulence in the accompanying events: a hot air balloon performances by French groups including the Orchestre Nafestival, vintage aircraft flights, meals prepared by Michelin- tional du Capitole de Toulouse. Egyptian composer, pianist starred chefs, traditional souks, pop-ups and tours of ancient and conductor Omar Khairat performs in December, whilst archaeological sites. Visitors can enjoy this incongruous mix the Caracalla dance performance Jameel Buthainah that of experiences alongside performances of pop, opera and narrates traditional folklore takes place in February. The classical music. During its inaugural edition last year, the 500-seat concert hall was built with shimmering walls of mirWinter at Tantora Festival welcomed more than 37,000 visi- rors to resemble a mirage emerging from the landscape. Festors who travelled far and wide to take in blind Italian tenor tivalgoers will get a taste of Al-Ula, its arid land, vast canyons Andrea Bocelli, Lebanese soprano Majida El Roumi, Chinese and 200,000 years of history before it officially opens to the concert pianist Lang Lang and Greek composer Yanni. public as a tourist destination in October 2020.

In an effort to bring ancient cities of the area back to life, The ancient site and diverse programming firmly places imaging technology and Augmented Reality transport this event on the list of the most innovative winter festivals visitors to the 1st century AD, when Hegra and Dadan’s pre- – bringing ancient cities and monuments to life, whilst explorIslamic communities were thriving in an oasis culture at the ing some of the latest in virtual, expansive technologies.

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“In an effort to bring ancient cities of the area back to life, imaging technology and Augmented Reality transport visitors to the 1st century AD, when Hegra and Dadan’s preIslamic communities were thriving.”

Al-Ula, Saudi Arabia 19 December - 7 March experiencealula.com

Celebrating Female Practitioners MAX MARA ART PRIZE

“For these practitioners – women living and working in the UK – the shows mark their first major surveys.

‘For too long women have had to fight for recognition,’ says Whitechapel Director Iwona Blazwick. This puts prize-winners on the map.”

Winner announced in spring 2020.

Whitechapel Gallery, London, and Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia. whitechapelgallery.org collezionemaramotti.org

Hanna Tuulikki, Away with the Birds (performance), 2014. Image: © A Boyd.

The long-standing under-representation of women in art inOn the tiny Hebridean island of Canna, 10 women face the wind and chant as they stand on a wooden platform sub- dustry, especially in the first half of the 20th century, inspires merged in water. They wear black dresses and red tights to Schwab’s wider practice. Her pieces are heavily patterned as a resemble the oystercatchers and other waders, wildfowl and result, having often collaborated with ceramicists and weavers. seabirds whose calls they imitate. This tapestry of sound, In the process, she explores how “knowledge can be shared.” rooted in Gaelic mimetic tradition, is part of Away with the Katz, who works primarily in painting and ceramics, begins Birds (2014) by Hanna Tuulikki (b. 1982), one of five short- the process with a simple daily gesture that is also incredlisted artists for the Max Mara Art Prize for Women. ibly idiosyncratic: handwriting. “It is my sensibility coming The only visual art award for women in the UK, the prize is through,” she explains. “It is the possibilities and the limitdue to be announced in early 2020, as a six-month Italian lessness of painting itself that allows for this full breadth of residency to create a new project presented during solo ex- expression.” Rejecting assumptions that self-portraiture is hibitions the following year at London’s Whitechapel Gallery autobiographical, she combines personal images with more and Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia, Italy. For these universal ones. In turn, voice and gesture are at the heart of practitioners – women living and working in the UK – the Tuulikki’s practice, which spans visual arts, music and perforshows mark their first major surveys. “For too long women mance with roots in traditional cultures. have had to fight for recognition,” says Whitechapel Director Talbot’s women, whether sculptures or paintings, search for Iwona Blazwick. This puts prize-winners on the map. meaning through their faceless gazes. “In my mind, those figFor the eighth edition, Allison Katz (b. 1980), Katie Schwab ures are me … They’re how I imagine myself from an internal (b. 1985), Tai Shani (b. 1976), Emma Talbot (b. 1969) and Tuu- view,” she explains. Their lack of facial features allows viewers likki are shortlisted. Central to the work of all five competitors to project their own personal narratives onto the protagonists. is the physical body and feminine experience. The previous Mythical installations populate Shani’s approach to what she winner is Helen Cammock (b. 1970), who created Che si può calls “world-making as a feminist strategy.” The bulk of her fare (What can be done), a multimedia project that takes its title work emerges out of text-based material placed within reimfrom a 1664 Aria by composer Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) agined or dismantled architectural structures and body parts. and revolves around expressions of emotion in Italian art.

Performances in those complex spaces bring them to life.

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10 to See RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

This selection of exhibitions spans renowned institutions such as NGV Melbourne, ICA London and Foam Amsterdam. They consider some of the most pressing issues of our time – notions of belonging, the presence of borderlands and the representation of dual heritages.

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Lorenzo Vitturi: Materia Impura Foam, Amsterdam | Until 19 January

foam.org In a new series entitled Caminantes (2019), Lorenzo Vitturi (b. 1980) draws on his father’s journey in the 1960s from Italy to Peru. Once settled, his father opened a Murano glass factory and, soon after, met Lorenzo’s mother. Vitturi combines objects obtained during trips to each of the two countries. They are laden with local meaning and contextual readings, combining glass with a variety of raw materials to create temporary interventions. In a Venetian Lagoon, he offers a series of sculptures with items from both locations.

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Petrina Hicks: Bleached Gothic NGV, Melbourne | Until 29 March

ngv.vic.gov.au At first glance, Petrina Hicks’s (b. 1972) images seem both pristine and hyperreal, echoing her past as a commercial photographer. Behind all the veneer, the Australian artist charts the human experience. She takes an inexorable path toward decay and death by revealing physical marks of trauma such as fading bruises or wounds. Her first major survey features more than 40 photographic prints and video pieces created between 2003 and 2019. They primarily feature young women, whilst taking inspiration from mythology and art history.

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Honey-Suckle Company: Omnibus Institute of Contemporary Arts, London | Until 12 January

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ica.art Honey-Suckle Company expresses itself through fleeting fashion, music and art interventions focused on shared consciousness. The collective was founded in 1994 as Berlin charted a path forward following reunification. The group’s first official exhibition includes a new multisensory installation at the nexus of a theatrical set and a post-apocalyptic archaeological dig and NEUBAND (2000-ongoing), featuring mannequins wearing Kazimir Malevichinspired geometric outfits with odd appendages and self-playing instruments.

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The Place I Call Home Ffotogallery, Cardiff | Until 21 December

ffotogallery.org Reflecting on shifting notions of home, photographers based in the UK, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain challenge stereotypes through explorations of culture and heritage. The show, commissioned by the British Council and curated by David Drake, has stops in the UK and the Gulf’s Arab states. Sara al-Obaidly chronicles the dizzying economic boom that has transformed Doha with desolate landscapes and soon-to-be-developed deserts. Other artists include Mohammed al-Kouh, Mai al-Moataz and Gillian Robertson.

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Walls: Defend, Divide and the Divine Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles | Until 29 December

annenbergphotospace.org Throughout human history, walls have defined how people live, where they can go and how they distinguish one another. They provide places of reflection, imprisonment, safety and segregation. This exhibition is split into six sections: Delineation, Defense, Deterrent, The Divine, Decoration, and The Invisible. These categories overlap and change meaning according to context, much like walls. More than 70 artists document and probe the myriad definitions and possibilities of these structures. A timely and necessary exhibition.

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JR: Chronicles Brooklyn Museum, New York | Until 3 May

brooklynmuseum.org For the third iteration of a series inspired by Diego Rivera, JR has created a huge mural, entitled The Chronicles of New York City, featuring more than 1,000 people photographed and interviewed last year. This largest solo exhibition to date also includes some of the French artist’s most celebrated projects over the past 15 years, which sits at the intersection of photography, social engagement and street art. These include Face 2 Face (2007), portrait diptychs of Israelis and Palestinians pasted on either side of the separation wall.

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Unseen: 35 Years of Collecting Photographs Getty Museum, Los Angeles | 17 December - 8 March

getty.edu The Getty has gone on a deep dive through its collection of more than 148,000 prints to present 200 works shown here for the first time. Spanning the development of the medium’s history, they include cyanotypes of Anna Atkins, Polaroids by Mary Ellen Mark and a glass-mounted architectural photographic silkscreen by Veronika Kellndorfer.

There are newly-acquired works by Laura Aguilar and Osamu Shiihara, and some gems

by Horst P. Horst. This show illuminates the breadth of the Getty’s holdings and reputation.

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Preview: Orlando, Inspired by Virginia Woolf Literaturhaus München | Until 12 January

literaturhaus-muenchen.de Some 27 years after starring in Sally Potter’s period drama Orlando, Tilda Swinton (b.

1960) invites writers, artists, filmmakers and photographers to contribute work to a touring exhibition inspired by Virginia Woolf’s eponymous novel. Swinton argues that the story extends beyond gender to address the “flexibility of the fully awake and sensate spirit.”

Specially commissioned prints by Mickalene Thomas, Paul Mpagi Sepuya and Carmen Winant are featured alongside texts by Maggie Nelson, Lynne Tillman and Marina Warner.

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Direct Message: Art, Language and Power Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago | Until 26 January

mcachicago.org Jenny Holzer (b. 1950) subverts language. She deconstructs words until they are stripped of their meaning – reversing power dynamics in the process. Her installation For Chicago (2007) was dotted with her signature LED lights. It returns to MCA Chicago for the first time in 10 years this winter. Direct Message also presents works by Barbara Kruger (b. 1945), who harnesses the language of advertising to deliver a feminist critique, along with other text-based works by Richard Serra, Jamal Cyrus, Enrique Chagoya, Hans Haacke and Lorna Simpson.

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Peter Hujar: Speed of Life Jeu de Paume, Paris | Until 19 January

jeudepaume.org Between the 1960s and 1980s, many photography aficionados fell in love with Peter Hujar (1934-1987). This show, featuring more than 150 images, reveals the earthiness in Hujar’s work, delving into worlds of the avant-garde, dance, music, art and drag. He chronicled New York’s LGBTQ undercurrents – along with its underground scene of artists and writers like John Cage, Susan Sontag and Robert Wilson – with a gentle sense of humanity. This show contains, in the artist’s words, “uncomplicated, direct photographs of complicated subjects.”

1. Green Cotisso, Mantas, Foam, Green Fortuny, Mask, Wicker Vase, Blue Plastic in Paracas, from the series Caminantes, 2019. © Lorenzo Vitturi. 2. Petrina Hicks, Peaches and velvet, 2018. From the Still Life Studio series, 2018. Pigment inkjet print, 120cm x 120cm. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Purchased, Victorian Foundation for Living Australian Artists, 2018. 3. Honey-Suckle Company, Mit Musik geht alles besser, 2005. Courtesy Honey-Suckle Company. 4. © Abi Green, Mysteries of the Horizon. Courtesy of the artist and Ffotogallery.

5. © Ami Vitale, courtesy of the artist and Annenberg Space for Photography. 6. JR (French, born 1983). The Chronicles of New York City, 2018-19 (detail). © JR-ART.NET. 7. See No Evil, 1992. Carrie Mae Weems (American, born 1953). Dye diffusion print.61cm × 50.5cm.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Gift of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser. © Carrie Mae Weems. 8. Collier Schorr, Untitled (Casil), 2015-18. © Courtesy the artist and 303 Gallery, New York. 9. Jenny Holzer, For Chicago, 2007. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, commissioned through the generosity of the Edlis/Neeson Art Acquisition Fund. © 2018 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago. 10. Peter Hujar, Susan Sontag, 1975. Printed on silver gelatin, The Morgan Library & Museum, bought in 2013 thanks to Charina Endowment Fund. © Peter Hujar Archive, LLC, courtesy Pace/MacGill Gallery, New York and Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

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More to the Picture Dawoud Bey PORTRAITS REVEAL MANY TRUTHS ABOUT THE HUMAN CONDITION – HOW WE PRESENT OURSELVES TO THE WORLD. BEY EXPLORES THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN SITTER AND SUBJECT.

Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) is an International Center of Photography Infinity Award winner. He has received grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship and the MacArthur Fellowship (aka a “genius grant”) and has exhibited at the George Eastman House, the Walker Art Center, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Indianapolis Museum of Art and many more. You wouldn’t know any of this from his latest publication, On Photographing People and Communities, recently published by Aperture Foundation. Part of The Photography Workshop Series, the book is an extremely approachable and modest guide to shooting portraits, in which Bey adopts a friendly, informal tone. His notes are penned with honesty and vulnerability – much like many of his sitters from over the years. Writing about one of the most famous shots, which depicts a young man in shades outside a cinema lobby, Bey remarks: “He is stylin’ big time. He’s cool with his grape drink, his aviator sunglasses, his tracksuit and white sneakers.”

Though approachable, Bey is also extremely thoughtful in his process and self-reflection – raising and discussing issues of representation and the “question of outsiderness” from the outset. He insists on the photographer’s responsibility to be informed – both about the people they’re working with, and also the history of image-making as a whole. The Photography Workshop Series is one of Aperture’s ongoing projects which has so far included books by Mary Ellen Mark on the portrait and the moment, Larry Fink on composition

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and improvisation, and Alex Webb & Rebecca Norris Webb on street photography “and the poetic image.” Bey’s compelling contribution focuses on how portraits might represent both individuals and the communities they come from as part of a kind of dual exploration and cultural commentary.

“Dawoud was one of the first people I approached for the series; we’ve been talking about this book since 2013,” says Senior Editor Denise Wolff. “It’s just taken time to find room with his career in full swing. At some point about a year ago, we decided that it was unlikely things were going to get less busy for him, so we just went for it. The series generally works with photographers who have taught in some way, and Dawoud has been a beloved Professor of Art at Columbia College Chicago for 22 years. We’re bringing his teaching to a wider, global audience.”

Born in Queens, New York, Bey got into photography when he was 15, after inheriting his godfather’s camera. It was a small gesture – but one which wasn’t taken lightly by any means. He started taking a class and reading a variety of books and magazines, educating himself about “what one does with all the numbers on the lens and the side of the camera.” He states wryly, “It turns out that as you change the shutter speed from 1/30th to 1/250th, the shutter opens and closes either quicker or slower. That’s how I started.” Part of this self-education included visiting a limited number of galleries in New York that showed photography at the time, found via the listings in The New York Times. Going to these exhibitions was “pretty intimidating,” he admits, especially as he often had to go to them alone. “There was no one in

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Dawoud Bey, Four Childrenn at Lenox Avenue, Harlem, 1977; from Dawoud Bey on Photographing People and Communities, (Aperture, 2019). © Dawoud Bey.

“Like many great portrait photographers, Bey says Richard Avedon was a key influence. This was, in no small part, because of his timeless inspirational quotations and advice: ‘the surface is all you’ve got.’”

Previous Page: Dawoud Bey, A Girl with a Knife Nosepin, Brooklyn, 1990; from Dawoud Bey on Photographing People and Communities (Aperture, 2019). © Dawoud Bey. Left: Dawoud Bey, A Couple in Prospect Park, Brooklyn,1990; from Dawoud Bey on Photographing People and Communities (Aperture, 2019). © Dawoud Bey.

my neighbourhood I could ask: ‘Hey Tyrone, want to go to he’s from, something which “weighed on his mind” when he 57th Street and check out Richard Avedon?’” he writes. “So, started documenting the place. Bruce Davidson (b. 1933) and Aaron Siskind (1903-1991) were both individuals on this was a solitary process for me.”

However, this process worked. Like many great portrait the periphery – who worked in Harlem. In fact, given that photographers, Bey says Avedon (1923-2004) was a they were white and not from the community, they were key influence. This was, in no small part, because of his “double outsiders,” he says. But he adds: “Whilst I may timeless inspirational quotations and advice: “the surface have been African American, I was still an outsider. I was is all you’ve got.” Through this small but necessary piece a photographer from Queens attempting to represent their of direction, Bey realised that the way a person looks, or community.” His solution was not to abandon the project presents themself to the wider world, contains a bank of “rich but to try to think through these differences, these “inherent information.” Visiting an exhibition of Irving Penn’s (1917- challenges,” and directly engage with them.

“I try to address questions like: ‘is it possible to transcend 2009) Small Trades, Bey realised that this was also true when images are taken in the studio, away from their natural the boundaries of difference and make a meaningful surroundings. Gathering more inspiration from image- representation of a subject?’” he writes. “Does one have makers such as Roy DeCarava (1919-2009) and James Van to be 25 years old and black to speak credibly to the Der Zee (b. 1983), he started to see a way forward – taking experience of someone who is 25 and black? Does one have portraits in Harlem, the place where both DeCarava and Van to be gay and white in order to speak legitimately about Der Zee had worked, and also the home of important “black that experience? Is it possible to make it work with some socio-cultural production” – harking back to the Harlem common denominator that transcends lines of difference?”

Aperture’s Editor Denise Wolff expands: “Dawoud has spent Renaissance, Marcus Garvey and James Baldwin.

“I wanted to make images that contributed to the long his entire career and practice thinking about transcending conversation about Harlem in visual culture,” Bey writes. “If difference. Therefore, he can speak deeply, thoughtfully you’re serious about learning your art form, it’s important to and authoritatively on the subject.” Refreshingly, Bey learn about the history of the subject you want to speak to. doesn’t just talk in general or philosophical terms about Because there’s a long table full of people who have done photography – he also elaborates on the nuts and bolts of significant things, and then you come along and there’s an putting projects together, thinking about the technical and empty seat. But you gotta have something to say. You don’t physical qualities of a shoot. For instance, there’s a famous want to repeat what has been said and you also don’t want piece which shows a young couple embracing beside a tree. to say something completely out of sync. You have to share Though seemingly spontaneous, there was a strong sense of craft and building that went into the composition. Bey a language even if you don’t share an intention.”

Bey has family connections with Harlem but it’s not where writes that “I was already set up and waiting for someone to

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Dawoud Bey, A Couple at a Main Street Bus Stop, Rochester, New York, 1989; from Dawoud Bey on Photographing People and Communities (Aperture, 2019). © Dawoud Bey.

come by” – having spotted a nice framing backdrop. From there, he gave the subjects space to be themselves on the grounds that “if the pose comes from the subject, it will ring truer than anything I could direct.” He then carefully picked out the best way to construct the photograph, making sure it ended below the woman’s skirt but above the couples’ heads. He also waited, laboriously, for three cyclists to go past, just in order to fill up some of the empty space.

“I’m looking at the couple, but I’m also waiting for the bicycles to come into the frame,” he writes. “It’s funny because I can’t tell them, ‘Hey, just hold it because I’m waiting for something to fill in that space.’ I’m just hoping the bikes go by soon. It’s all about being responsive to the shape of the things in front of you. You don’t want to disrupt the form of the content. You have to be able to see deeply.”

Seeing intently also means picking up on the smaller and more nuanced details that might evade most people – the knife stud in a young girl’s nose, for example. As Bey cheerfully admits, sometimes capturing those elements is about choosing the right camera too, as when he swapped the 35mm – that he used for the Harlem work – to 4x5 large format. “At that point, I didn’t know that certain types of cameras are used to make different types of pictures,” he writes. “I was working in a slow, deliberate way with a handheld that was better suited to quick, unobtrusive shots.”

Not only does the larger lens pick out all the details clearly, it also changes the relationship between the subject and the artist, making the images more collaborative. Large format equipment has to be set up on a tripod, meaning the photographer has to tell their subject where to stand; but, as they have more time to compose themselves, those subjects

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also “have more ownership of the space.” For Bey, that gave a way to address the hierarchy between photographer and the subject, addressing some of its inherent tensions.

However, image-making isn’t just about the individual shots, it’s also about the connection between the photographs, and the way they build “a more extended statement” about what it means to sit alongside one another.

They construct a visual narrative that weaves and bends. In fact, in the Strangers/Community project he paired up two individuals who didn’t know each other. These sitters “form a new community momentarily in front of the camera,” he says, adding that one person often ended up mimicking the other’s pose, offering “a way of silently bonding with another human being.” It’s a warm note – an insistence on shared commonalities that perhaps runs through all of Bey’s work.

It also runs through his practical advice to readers, to look beyond and collaborate. He writes: “So much of my career has been made possible through relationships spanning many years, ones which I applauded the work of others as they applauded mine. It can be this way for you as well.

Take the opportunity to encourage one another. Embrace it.

There is room for more than one person at the table.”

In our fractured political times, this sense of community is absolutely worth holding onto and valuing for all it’s worth.

It is something to cherish in our rapidly expanding visual culture. As Bey writes: “Just make work that you believe matters and that has the capacity to transform the viewer.

Having seen your work, audiences have the potential to go back out into the world with new information, and new perceptions – a transformed world view. This may sound like an overly ambitious agenda, but it is the only agenda.”

Right: Dawoud Bey, A Young Woman Between Carrolburg Place and Half Street, Washington, DC, 1989; from Dawoud Bey on Photographing People and Communities (Aperture, 2019). © Dawoud Bey.

Words Diane Smyth

aperture.org

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Subtle Framing Ian Howorth

“Photography is about exploration – nothing has taught me more about the world and myself, spending hours walking alone, dissecting the reasoning behind it.” Ian Howorth is Brighton-based, covering a wide range of subject matters and styles, from cinematic to street documentation. The images, captured through analogue film, revel in the authenticity of opportunity, spontaneity and chance, flowing past characters and locations. Presenting the works as series is to understand the artist’s process for selection and composition; he searches for landscapes that translate the emotion of cinema, transitioning from one scene to the next, revelling in the control of exposure and timing. The featured works slip between indoor and outdoor settings through a subtle persuasion of colour – gradient sunsets, neon signs, brake lights and table lamps cast a diffused glow across the film. Howorth’s photo-book, Arcadia, is available from Setanta Books. ihoworth.com | setantabooks.com/book_author/ian-howorth.

Ian Howorth, Lady is a lamp, 2018.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Untitled, 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Shake, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Charger, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Parallels, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Phoebe, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Besame, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Blooms, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

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Ian Howorth, Untitled, 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

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Fluidity and Invention Concrete Houses A NEW PUBLICATION FOREGROUNDS AN AGE OF INNOVATION AND EXPERIMENTATION, PUSHING THE BOUNDARIES OF ARCHITECTURE THROUGH POETIC AND GEOMETRIC FORMS.

Villa Além (2014) stands in a cork forest in Portugal’s Alente- sharp angles and sinuous curves of any given mould, before jo region. It’s a striking and compelling house – nestled in a setting into its permanent state. Concrete’s surface is created rugged, rural setting – not least because of its unique and in any number of ways – from the board-marked textures of unexpected appearance, but also its thick, angular concrete. Modernism to the bush-hammered language of Brutalism, It boasts flaps that splay skyward like an opened cardboard as well as the trend for tinted and polished finishes today. box. It was self-designed as a home for the Swiss architect It’s a material that has consistently sparked curiosity in deValerio Olgiati (b. 1958). Minimal and geometric, it is one of signers, pushing the boundaries of form work and inventing the most staggeringly beautiful examples included in Con- new possibilities for fluid constructions.

Rollo explains: “You can achieve a multitude of shapes crete Houses, a new publication by Melbourne-based writer Joe Rollo. The 312-page tome is released by Thames & that you would not otherwise achieve easily.” In this way, he Hudson Australia, and is an ode to concrete – to which Rollo views the featured buildings as a source of idea generation has dedicated his entire career. He has been the Editor of for both architects and clients about what happens when C+A Magazine for the last 15 years – a biannual publication you really push the limits. Advances in technology have expromoting the breadth of possibilities offered by the mate- panded this further. “Computers and CAD drawings enabled rial. Though this work has stretched into the better part of designers like Zaha Hadid to manifest extremely complex two decades, his passion is unwavering: “Concrete offers an shapes,” he says, referring to the characteristically swooping unlimited exploration of structure and shape. It has convic- shapes deployed by the late Iraqi architect and innovator.

Rollo presents a snapshot of what concrete can be – tion, strength and directness, but plasticity, too, which makes beyond the material’s history. He offers a collection of 19 the possibilities for form-making almost endless.”

In its earliest usage, concrete can be traced back to the houses constructed between 2007 and 2018. They have all pyramids of Egypt, but the Romans were the first to take it been plucked from the pages of C+A, a kind of “best list” of to full effect – moulding impressive decorative structures projects that have landed on his desk over the last decade. like the dome of the Pantheon. Concrete’s use has ebbed They take us on a journey from Australia to Japan, Sweden and flowed since, being overlooked for a period before to the USA, and through world-class practitioners including widespread use by Modernist architects such as Frank Lloyd Sou Fujimoto, Marcio Kogan and Tom Kundig.

With Villa Além, Rollo explains how the traditional walled Wright, Oscar Niemeyer and Walter Gropius – who experigarden has been reinterpreted and given a “monumental mented when building the Bauhaus school in Dessau.

Poetic, hard-wearing, heavy, malleable, concrete’s mix of character.” A red tinge has been added to the mix – a conwater, aggregate and cement is fluid enough to explore cession to the house’s context, helping the walls harmonise

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Camberwell House, Melbourne, Australia, 2015. Architect: ANDRÉS CASILLAS DE ALBA AND EVOLVA ARCHITECTS. Photograph: John Gollings and Jeremy Weihrauch.

“Opinion of the Brutalist style has swung from positive to negative and back again, especially as so few examples of the movement remain intact. But the Bauhaus centenary has done wonders to bolster positivity toward concrete.”

Previous Page: Dovecote Braga, Portugal, 2016.

Architect: AZO SEQUEIRA ARQUITECTOS ASSOCIADOS. Photograph: Nelson Garrido.

Left: Lune de Sang Pavilion, Northern New South Wales, Australia, 2018.

Architect: CHROFI. Photograph: Brett Boardman.

with russet soil. The building is connected with the colour and texture of the earth, as if planted there. Walls reaching up to 5.5 metres fold over as flaps that provide necessary shading. The architect, Valerio Olgiati, described these elements as “petals.” They’re fundamental to the play between light and shadow that keeps a succession of austere and practical rooms cool. “Thermally, concrete is an incredibly well-suited material for heat retention and for cooling – in countries like Australia, Spain, Brazil and Portugal.”

Another structure that is deeply integrated into forestry is Hiroi Ariyama and Megumi Matsubara’s It is a Garden (2016), in Japan’s Nagano Prefecture. The building casts assumptions aside that concrete is conducive with hermetic spaces. Conceived as a guest house, It is a Garden includes a series of five courtyards to let the woodland break through and open up the building into the sky. Huge panes of glass, clean lines act as a framework, which ensure the canopy is always visible – always to be recognised. “From just about anywhere you get glimpses of the woodland,” says Rollo, “whether you’re looking up or inwards.”

Whilst concrete is used as a framing device in Villa Além and It is a Garden, the smooth walls of Tom Kundig’s The Pierre (2011) are masterfully spliced with a craggy rock on Lopez Island, Washington, facing the sea. Set on the shoreline, the chunky residence seems purposefully wedged in stone, as if the weather might otherwise carry it away. The American architect is famed for joyful contraptions – pulleys, levers and rollers – but the playfulness in this project comes from the pairing of natural and manmade elements.

A tiny cave-like bathroom is carved into the rock and the waste is used as aggregate for the terrazzo flooring in the

living space, where an outcrop of stone is met by smooth, vertical concrete wall to form a hearth. It’s a clever intervention impossible to imagine with any other material.

If The Pierre seeks to make a statement, Dovecote (2016)

by Azo Sequeira Arquitectos Associados is about subtly preserving a historic way of life. The house, situated in Braga, Portugal, is in fact a playroom that replaces a derelict dovecote in the garden. Poured within a wooden mould, the walls are veined with the faint impression of the grain. A small triangular opening, cut into the apex, is a nod to the doves that once flew through such an opening to roost.

These understated details show how delicately concrete can be employed, poured and, eventually, decorated. “It became an exercise in replacing the previous form.” says Rollo. The showstopper is the small gap at the base of the house, which creates an illusion of levitation – enabling light to seep through. “From some angles it looks like it’s floating,” says Rollo. Azo Sequeira adds: “We wanted the room to be inspired by magic, fantasy and also by childhood dreams. We decided to transform the old blueprints into a minimal tree house that represented memories and imagination of purity of light and peace.”

An architecture publication penned by an Australian writer would not be complete without the inclusion of Peter Stutchbury. Invisible House (2012) is sheltered by the Blue Mountains under a vast cantilevering roof. It acts as an awning to shelter a terrace bound by walls compiled from cuts of mesmerising pink sandstone and supports a suite of rusted steel boxes that act as periscopes. Whilst considered a relatively low-cost material in the UK and the USA, the intensive labour involved in producing a concrete building

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It is a Garden, Nagano, Japan, 2016. Architect: ASSISTANT. Photograph: Daici Ano.

makes it a luxurious choice. “As much as I’d love to have a house like this, I couldn’t afford one,” Rollo states wryly.

In an inner-city context, set amidst Edwardian-era dwellings in Melbourne, Andrés Casillas De Alba and Evolva Architects’ Camberwell House (2015) draws inspiration from Pritzker Prize-winning architects Luis Barragán – known for brightly coloured, geometric forms – and Tadao Ando – acclaimed for using raw grey concrete. The pock-marked rectilinear walls and a pop of lurid pink paintwork pays homage to them both. “Camberwell House was designed by an architect who had worked with Barragán. However, it actually fits in with the streetscape – the house has that warmth that you wouldn’t normally expect of a modern building.”

For the home of an art collector in Sydney, Indigo Slam (2016), Smart Design Studio created an experimental design that brings together expressed barrel vaults, tilted skylights and smooth curves in a single sweep – rightly described by Rollo as taking on the appearance of a pop-up book. “Concrete has gone from a purely utilitarian material for industrial applications to being used in much more creative ways,” he says. At first glance the heavy use of the material does not appear conducive to the environment, but the angles and openings help to channel in natural light and aid crossventilation. Geothermal heating and cooling are also present, as well as solar panels and rainwater harvesting. Inside, the spaces are bright and tactile, the curves softened by white paint and a palette of stone, brick and wood. “Internally it need not be a cold material to live with,” says Rollo.

Whilst the climate crisis has sharply highlighted concrete’s negative traits – if it were a country it would be the world’s third largest carbon emitter after China and the USA –

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environmental damage has also brought an impetus for Right: is a Garden, Nagano, Japan, 2016. innovation across all fields of study and construction. The ItArchitect: ASSISTANT. Photograph: Daici Ano. plasticity of fibreglass is a starting point. Fibre concrete negates the need for steel reinforcing rods and has been used by the likes of Zaha Hadid Architects in projects such as the Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku (not included in the text). “Technology and the new developments of CAD designs mean that we can create shapes that would have been so laborious and time-consuming that the costs would have been prohibitive,” says Rollo. The continually developing world of 3D printing has also brought an economic use of resources with its ability to create structures without form work, whilst researchers at ETH Zurich have also done away with ridged moulds to come up with a digital fabrication technique using woven yarn known as KnitCrete, which ensures that building in concrete will become more sustainable in years to come.

Across Europe in particular, concrete has long been associated with an intensive period of postwar construction.

Many of these public buildings and housing estates now face demolition or remodelling, such as the Birmingham Central Library which was ripped down in 2013. Opinion of the Brutalist style has swung from positive to negative and back again, especially as so few examples of the movement Words remain intact. The Bauhaus centenary has changed many Jessica Mairs perspectives once again, asking questions about beauty and function through open interiors, minimal aesthetics and a lack of ornament in an age of over-distraction. Rollo’s col- Concrete Houses lection, with its sweeping curves, block-minimal lines, monu- is published by mental towers and mesmerising spaces, does the same. It Thames & Hudson. offers architecture as a poetry of geometry and mathematics – blueprints pushed to the limits of gravity and perception. thamesandhudson.com.au

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Playful Silhouettes So AsA

Based on the small, Mediterranean island of Corsica, So AsA’s main inspiration comes from busy street activity. The artist began to build up a portfolio of silhouettes, having originally shot in black and white. When the sun hits buildings, passers-by are thrown into anonymity. Colours burst against the illuminated walls in bright oranges, yellows and reds. Meanwhile, shadows outline strangers as they walk amongst the buildings. They stand, talk, play and run through alleyways, outside of market stalls and across roads, never to be truly known or identified. Using only an iPhone, So AsA examines the everyday through a new lens, cradling the shadows of city-goers, parents, children and lone wanderers. Their bodies are like cut-outs from a collage.

These pictures celebrate the energy from a bustling town whilst maintaining a sense of distance, providing an impression of a given moment. instagram.com/so.asa.

So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone.

Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

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So AsA. Shot in Corsica on iPhone. Courtesy of the artist.

art

Qualities of Daylight Julia Morozova

Reflected mountain ranges. Splashes of water hanging in mid-air. Single white clouds drifting past. Seats suspended in glassy lakes. These images seamlessly complement natural elements with bold, colourful fashion collections. Each story contains a multitude of textures, arrangements and patterns. Layered fabrics feature in pillar-box reds, luminous yellows and subtle nudes – an exploration of contemporary styling and clean-cut tailoring. Light also plays a significant role in all the compositions. It bounces off skin, walls, plants and water, creating diffused contrasts that are both soft and bright. Julia Morozova (b. 1977) is a self-taught Russian photographer, working between Turin and Milan. She has collaborated with a number of high-profile clients and publications such as REDValentino, Viktor&Rolf, Emporio Armani, L’Officiel, Marie Claire, Puss Puss, Metal, Wonderland and Hunger, amongst others. juliamorozova.com.

High Life. Photographer: Julia Morozova Model: Sandra Tendo @thewall. Stylist: Francesca Martorelli & Rafaela Rusca Art direction: Vladimir Soto. Mua: Monica Cena.

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Skylands. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Nora Vai @mpmanagemnt Stylist: Erika Barutello. Designer: Greta Boldini. Mua: Gloria Cortigiani. Hair: Hamlet Hair.

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Skylands. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Nora Vai @mpmanagemnt Stylist: Erika Barutello. Designer: Greta Boldini. Mua: Gloria Cortigiani. Hair: Hamlet Hair.

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Faded Forests. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Alya Spyr @monster. Stylist: Francesca Martorelli & Rafaela Rusca Art direction: Vladimir Soto. Mua: Monica Cena.

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Hide &Seek. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Melani Sandow @whynot. Stylist: Giorgia Toscani. Mua: Alessia Stefano. Hair: Eddy Scudo. Casting: Michele Bisceglia. Ph Assistant: Elena Chichkan.

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Ocean Way 505. Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Daira Silva @thewall. Stylist: Vito Carpineto. Mua: Gloria Cortigiani. Hair: Hamlet Hair. Ph Assistant: Elena Chichkan.

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Splash! Photographer: Julia Morozova. Model: Joline @ thelabmodels. Art direction & production: Alessia Caliendo.

Fashion editor: Sabrina Mellace. Mua: Eleonora Juglair.

Hair: Mara Liquadri.

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Art for Connectivity Doug Aitken THE CALFORNIA-BASED ARTIST AND INNOVATOR IS AT THE FOREFRONT OF 21ST CENTURY COMMUNICATION, PRESENTING A SPACE BETWEEN THE PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL.

Doug Aitken’s (b. 1968) practice is in a constant state of trans- Aitken’s pieces are often in conversation with the audience. formation and renewal. With each work, Aitken consistently “Instead of being about the viewer seeing the static object and explores different platforms and materials that turn away judging it, it’s about asking: ‘Can we have a dialogue between from tradition, heading into the unknown. The American the two? A sense of push and pull between the artwork and artist has been featured in numerous esteemed exhibitions the audience?’” In the ambitious and far reaching Station to around the world including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Station (2013), a kinetic light sculpture in the form of a train Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of Ameri- travelled from New York City to San Francisco making ten can Art, New York. He has also been awarded many pres- stops along the way for a series of “site-specific happenings” tigious accolades such as the International Prize at Venice in various cities including New York, Pittsburgh, Kansas City Biennale, Americans for the Arts National Arts Award: Out- and Oakland. For Aitken, it was about offering a kaleidoscope of possible outcomes and interactions for the viewer. standing Contributions to the Arts and the Frontier Arts Prize.

A sense of limitlessness is also integral. “One piece could be Born in Redondo Beach, California, Aitken is renowned for large-scale experiential installations and films that question defined as political for one person, and it could be a deeply and intersect with the mechanisms of everyday life. “In this personal reflection for another,” he says. “[Art] is the space in moment in history it’s interesting for me to look at alterna- our society that can accompany a spectrum of radical divertives,” he notes. “Where can we go from here? What other sity.” And yet with all these infinite possibilities that contemstructures can be created to house concepts and ideas?” As porary society – most notably, technology – presents us with, he puts it, we have “thoroughly mined the options of the we move further away from what is real and tangible.

One of the biggest questions that Aitken investigates is the white walled gallery space.” What then, can be made beyond role the art plays within our seismic technological shift. The that, in the outside world of infinite possibility?

Aitken’s installations have travelled far and wide across the scale with which the digital age has affected our way of life globe and across topographies. They have been immersed is as monumental as the Industrial Revolution in the 19th in the Pacific Ocean, flown over the state of Massachusetts century. “As we’re moving forward, we find ourselves caught and nestled into the stark white mountainside of the Swiss between two worlds: the screen realm – a zone of exhilaratAlps. Each one is constantly in conversation with its exterior ing information and data – and the other organic, physical surroundings. “My works live through space,” he says. “They plane,” says Aitken. He played with this duality in The Garden, have a connectivity with the landscape, and they are really which recently closed at The Garage, Moscow. Described as timepieces, changing continuously.” a “living artwork,” it was designed to embrace “the dichotomy As well as responding to the planet and its various climates, between a natural environment and a manmade experience.”

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Doug Aitken, installation view of The Garden, 2017. Photograph by Anders Sune Berg. Courtesy the artist and ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum.

“Aitken believes that, as we progress further from the ‘real’, art will become our anchor.

We live in an age of over-circulation, data dissemination and image saturation, where the visual landscape is both fast and shallow.”

Previous Page: Doug Aitken, Mirage, 2017.

Desert X installation view. Courtesy the artist and Desert X. Photography

by Doug Aitken Workshop.

Left: Doug Aitken, New Horizon, 2019. Hot air balloon with reflective surface and kinetic light sculpture, multiple locations across Massachusetts. Image courtesy of the Artist and the Trustees of Reservations; Photography by Carmen Ellis.

Housed inside a concrete warehouse, a stark white glass chamber was surrounded by a humid botanical jungle, glowing under grow lights. When participants entered the glass chamber – which was dressed like a sterile, modern living room – they were given a baton. Many of them smashed up its contents entirely. “We were thinking it could be used as an anger room, where people could destroy everything,” says Aitken. “I was very interested in how the natural landscape plays a part in this world we occupy. I was offering a sanctuary for unlimited freedom or anarchy, in a way.”

This was taken one step further in his most recent exhibition, Return to the Real, currently at Victoria Miro, London, until 20 December, which considers the “condition of the individual” in an age dominated by technology. The show comprises sound, light, form and movement and takes place across several floors. In the ground floor gallery, a figure made from translucent acrylic is centre stage, whilst on another level a woman – carved from Zebrino marble – is split in two, revealing a mirrored chamber. Meanwhile, in the garden terrace, a freestanding sculpture, complete with mirrored chimes, generates hypnotic sounds as the wind moves through it.

The installations are at once intangible and adrift – using kaleidoscope sound, lighting and colour – but rooted in classic media, like sculptures made from marble and stone.

Unlike most of Aitken’s exhibitions, it is housed in a traditional white cube space. This provided much of the inspiration behind the piece. “What was interesting to me was how to make a liquid architecture – something which is a fluid and changing form – inside an already rigid space,” he notes. “How can we create something that’s de-material in a very material space? How can we make something that

can’t really be consumed or bought? This reality that is on view at Victoria Miro is almost hallucinogenic.”

Also on view in London is New Era (2019), a video installation that looks at the first mobile phone call made in 1973.

It is part of Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder, a group exhibition curated by Jefferson Hack at 180 The Strand (open until 8 December). Hack notes: “It speaks to ‘Accelerationism’ – the beginning of hyper-individuality, which fast-forwards to the idea of a fragmented sense of self. We’ve fallen into the screen, right? I think we’re now very used to this notion of existing in a world where we’re in conflict between our humanity and the machine, between nature and technology.”

Aitken draws viewers’ attention to the contrast between natural and synthetic. In doing so, he inevitably points to the climate crisis. Though his works aren’t designed as a call to arms against global warming, they reflect upon our world today – conversations naturally develop about the environment. “I offer different dialogues – I like that,” he says. “Just as a musician would make an album out of different songs, you can offer different levels of intimacy or activism. As an artist you can effectively cut across the spectrum.”

That being said, he has collaborated with a number of highprofile environmental organisations. Underwater Pavilions, moored in the ocean off Catalina Island, for example, was made in collaboration with Parley for the Oceans, a global network that raises awareness about the fragility of marine life, and empowers a range of groups, from brands and designers and scientists. The installation consists of three geometric sculptures made from materials that are harmonious with the seascape. The structures were anchored to the ocean floor off the coast of southern California in 2016 and are

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Doug Aitken, Inside Out, 2019. Installation view from Return to the Real at Victoria Miro, Wharf Road, London, 2 October - 20 December 2019. © Doug Aitken. Courtesy Victoria Miro.

due to reopen in a different ocean soon. The sculptures were mirrored to “reflect the underwater seascape and present an observatory for the viewer.” They were large enough so that swimmers could move through them. Aitken notes: “When we talk about the radical disruption we’ve created within the sea, we’re not quite aware yet how much that’s going to affect us and our lives on land. The ramifications are immense. This is one thing which cannot be exaggerated.”

Meanwhile, in June 2019, Aitken created a flying sculpture that travelled across Massachusetts. Titled New Horizon, it flew over various sites that are managed by The Trustees – the oldest non-profit preservation and conservation collective in America. Aitken consulted with NASA to develop the semi-mirrored textile for the main body, which was intended to reflect the landscape when flying during the day. At night, it was illuminated by LED lights that are hand-sewn throughout the material. “It was about activating the topography by using the concept of disruption; encouraging moments that are uncontrollable and unexpected,” he notes. “It might be rush hour traffic at 8.00 a.m. on a workday and you see this large sculpture floating by, completely unannounced and randomly placed, like a wedge in the plane of reality.”

Paradoxically, Aitken believes that, as we progress further from the “real”, art will become our anchor. We live in an age of over-circulation, data dissemination and image saturation, where the visual landscape is both fast and shallow. “Pictures replace each other at a radical rate, and this is a new condition for us to occupy,” says Aitken. “How won’t this affect what we express?” Though art will no doubt develop in concept and design, paralleled with technology, it may also help us slow down and “freeze a moment in time.” “In many ways I

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think we will find that the value of future artworks will be in re-connecting audiences with the physical world – allowing us to decelerate and engage with the present.”

Of course, this is something that Aitken has already done with Mirage – a mesmerising mirrored house, which has moved from Desert X in Palm Springs via Detroit to its current location in Gstaad, Switzerland. In the tradition of land art as a reflection of dreams and aspirations projected onto the American west, the building presents a dynamic encounter in which subject and object, inside and outside are in flux.

The reflection of the landscape changes as the viewer moves round the structure. A one-storey suburban house becomes a framing device – a perceptual echo-chamber.

Much like Mirage, Aitken’s output cannot be easily contained. It may not be surprising then, that he feels a sense of detachment once the installations are completed. Some of the most valuable moments of creation, he says, are when he has been working on something for some time and it suddenly becomes unfamiliar. “There’s always the question about when a given piece is complete. In my mind, it’s when you’re no longer the author. You’re trying to provide nutrients, to get it where it needs to be. Then it’s no longer yours.”

Though he cannot reveal exactly what’s on the cards for the future, Aitken says that for new projects he’s interested in the mechanisms behind our perception. He notes: “Can a simple idea construct a complex system, and can this have the integrity to form something new entirely?” Aitken has spent an entire career pondering cryptic questions such as these.

When our societies are becoming increasingly fractured, his practice presents a sense of refuge connecting audiences.

Looking ahead to 2020, he will continue to do just this.

Right: Doug Aitken, Mirage Gstaad, 2019.

Installation view at Elevation 1049, Gstaad, Switzerland. Courtesy of the artist and LUMA Foundation; Photography by Torvioll Jashari.

Words Alexandra Genova

dougaitkenworkshop.com victoria-miro.com

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art

Panning the Landscape Guillaume Simoneau

Broken ice. Jagged cliffs. Snow-topped mountains. These images centre around the open blue planes of Canada, from Saint Pierre and Miquelon to Mont-Tremblant and Pond Inlet. The works are crisp, bright and clean, taken from a variety of birds-eye, landscape and portrait perspectives. The photographs sweep from one editorial to the next as a representation of the environment and humanity’s place within it. Bodies float above water, mint-green houses are half-hidden in shade, Inuit communities gather on melting ice.

Guillaume Simoneau presents a diverse and aesthetically compelling depiction of Canada’s diverse regions and topographies. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, as well as Les Rencontres d’Arles, and has worked for clients such as The Wall Street Journal, VICE, The Guardian, and Financial Times. His most recent monograph, Murder, was released this year by MACK. simoneauguillaume.com.

Guillaume Simoneau, Clara Furey for Nouveau Projet, Montreal, Canada.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Mont-Tremblant for re:porter, Saint-Jovite, Canada.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Clara Furey for Nouveau Projet, Montreal, Canada.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Saint Pierre and Miquelon for M le magazine du Monde.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Eclipse Sound for Telegraph Magazine, Pond Inlet, Nunavut.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Saint Pierre and Miquelon for M le magazine du Monde.

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Guillaume Simoneau, Shammy Wan Ping Chan for Suite Magazine, Shirakawa-go, Toyama, Japan.

art

Scientific Perspective Eddo Hartmann SITTING BETWEEN PHOTOGRAPHY AND FIELD RESEARCH, THESE IMAGES DEPICT THE VULNERABILITY OF ORGANIC ECOSYSTEMS IN THE AGE OF POST-INDUSTRIALISATION.

Eddo Hartmann (b. 1973) is an award-winning Dutch photographer best known for depicting complex landscapes – industrial, natural and domestic – with curiosity and artistic responsibility. His projects have documented the model city of Pyongyang, North Korea, as well as abandoned stately homes in The Hague, Netherlands, and isolated villages centred around radio observatories. Crisp and minimal, the images have been a source of acclaim, including exhibitions at Huis Marseille, Amsterdam; The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow; and The Seoul Museum of Art. Hartmann’s Collective Landscape series is part of an annual collaboration with the University of Groningen and Noorderlicht Photography Foundation, entitled Imagining Science.

The works depict the University’s research, facing the urgent challenge of creating a sustainable future whilst managing the demands of a largely populated country, which sits below sea level. In the following images, Hartmann documents various fields of academic study including migratory bird ecology, agriculture and environmental economics. He illuminates the groundwork that is restoring biodiversity.

A: The Collective Landscape series was commissioned to explore agriculture, housing, infrastructure, conservation, energy generation and industry. How did you interpret this brief? Where did your ideas begin?

EH: I was approached by the University of Groningen and Noorderlicht with the task of visualising the research of three professors – Theunis Piersma (migratory bird ecology), Han Olff (ecosystems and nature-inclusive agriculture) and Henk

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Folmer (environmental economics and agricultural diversity) and the people with whom they collaborate. They wanted me to focus on their fieldwork in the Netherlands. It took me some time to come up with a concept; my previous projects have been made in urban environments, so I had to think of a new frame of reference. The resulting images draw attention to the connection between artificial and organic systems – how they influence and respond to one another.

A: The series is, in part, inspired by British architect Geoffrey Jellicoe, who believed that the landscape is a common art form, to be shared by humanity. How have you responded to this concept?

EH: The Netherlands is quite small in comparison to the amount of people that live here. Everybody wants their share of the land for living, working or recreation. This automatically means that any form of natural balance is constantly being challenged and undermined. Nature cannot defend itself – especially when humans see an opportunity for economic profit. Unfortunately, we can now see clearly that we have done a terrible job at maintaining and caring for the planet. It seems that our true intentions are very individual, and not so much about preserving the collective. It’s almost a bit cynical to name this photo series “the collective landscape” – but it’s what we should be striving towards.

A: The works document key research sites such as “exclosure experiments” which measure and compare the biodiversity of field plots. How did you use lighting to

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Eddo Hartmann, Scanning. Courtesy of Noorderlicht Photography Foundation.

“Photography is, inherently, another a form of communication.

Once you understand that fact, it’s all about trying to capture subjects with your eyes, not the information in your brain.”

Previous Page: Eddo Hartmann, Exclosure Experiment 2. Courtesy of Noorderlicht Photography Foundation.

Left: Eddo Hartmann, Green Line.

Courtesy of Noorderlicht Photography Foundation.

draw attention to these locations? How do they illuminate both the artificial and natural elements at play?

EH: I find exclosure experiments fascinating. One of the professors, Han Ollf, really had to point out some of these before I even noticed them. Many of them were just square plots with a simple fence around them, but these borders ensure that the soil and vegetation evolve differently to their counterparts outside the fence. When you monitor these areas over many decades, you can discover many bits of information, which normally would be hard to detect. I realised that I literally had to “highlight” these plots to make them stand out from their surroundings. I made a temporary setup of the experiment without disturbing its research, shedding light on its distinction between “inside” and “outside.”

fit into wider global conversations about sustainability?

EH: Of course, I have read many articles and reports about the climate crisis. The images from this project are not so much about reaching any kind of conclusion, but more about the individuals that are attempting to find out how certain systems work. It’s incredibly difficult to protect the landscape and prepare it for the future at the same time. Any changes or implemented plans usually conjure up serious resistance. It is easy to act irresponsibly in the short term when the consequences for our actions aren’t that visible. Moving forward, we need images like this to ensure that climate research scientists are taken seriously – that their papers aren’t marked as “fake news” if we don’t like what they contain.

A: Which experiment did you find the most interesting?

EH: For this project, I also worked with drones to video and photograph from an aerial perspective, as some of the experiments were very hard to see from ground level. This is true of the research taking place in the Wadden Sea. This is a very important area of the ocean, located along the northern coast of the Netherlands. It is declared a biosphere reserve

by UNESCO. Some of the scientists planted different square of vegetation, in order to better understand why some of the wildlife has disappeared in the last decade. This birds-eye view made a profound impression on me – it was almost like I was overseeing an archaeological site.

A: The series draws a line between fine art and documentary – they are both aesthetically compelling and visually informative. How did you achieve this balance?

EH: Photography is, inherently, another a form of communication. Once you understand that fact, it’s all about trying to capture subjects with your eyes, not the information in your brain. An art teacher once told me: “draw what you see, not what you think you see.” I carry this into my practice every day. Your audience can only see the image that’s in front of them, not all the concepts that danced around in your head whilst you were working on it. As a photographer, you have to translate emotions and ideas – the end result should be a transparent rendering of information.

A: We’re at a crossroads in history – human impact has pushed ecosystems beyond their limits and they are now breaking down, beyond repair. How do the photographs

A: How would you define your images, and the dialogues they create between art and science?

EH: I always find it interesting when art and science meet,

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Eddo Hartmann, Exclosure Experiment 1. Courtesy of Noorderlicht Photography Foundation.

although its usually quite hard to tell when it happens, or Patchwork fields are located next to highways or railways – Right: Eddo Hartmann, Exclosure Experiment 3. when it does so successfully. Science can be very abstract – they blend seamlessly into our flatlands. Unfortunately, Courtesy of Noorderlicht it’s often complicated to perceive or understand. If you are these large areas are defined as “monocultures” and are Photography Foundation. able to visualise information and encourage audiences to devastating for the natural balance between flora and fauna. learn more, then you have created meaningful work. It’s The blocks of vegetation are made to get the most revenue very important to me that my pictures contain a certain possible in the short-term. Though these are beautiful locasense of power in the way that they inspire audiences to tions, when you look closer, things are much more complex look beyond – to find out more about certain subjects that than they seem. This is the process that I try to achieve in my are at play within our complex and ever-changing world. photographs – encouraging onlookers to question and redefine what they think they know. In terms of artists who have A: Why did you choose to portray the sites as beautiful influenced me, most of my inspiration comes from other disciplines. However, I have always admired LIFE photographers and almost ethereal when they are, at times, clinical?

EH: The definition of magical realism is “a situation that’s not such as Gjon Mili and Harold Edgerton. They push technical very likely to happen, but that could be possible.” In all of boundaries whilst creating stunning images. my work I try to push for this. I also try to use a very simple visual grammar. At first glance, an image should not have a A: Many of your other projects have looked for an obvery complicated set-up, so it’s easy on the eyes. The hard jective sense of truth – traversing various socio-political part of working in this way is that the line between simplic- subjects. How does this series differ from your previous ity and insufficiency is very thin. In terms of the ethereal projects? Did you try anything new in the process? colour palettes – these are achieved by working at twilight. EH: In the past, I have mainly worked in documentary. Words If you use long-exposure speeds and low-level light situ- However, this time I wanted to do something different. Kate Simpson ations you often end up with a diversity of unique colour After deciding upon a given route for a composition, some shifts. I also experimented with colour gels and strobe of the researchers would bring their own equipment and lights to accentuate this. I don’t like to spend a lot of time in alter the layout to see what kind of data they could col- Eddo Hartmann: post-production, so I try to do as much “in camera” as I can. lect. For example, mid-way through a shoot they might Collective Landscape catch a bird and fit it with a transmitter to track its behav- is at Noorderlicht A: Where do you get your inspiration? Who or what has iour. In the same way, I brought my own “research” to the Foundation, Groningen, table, with lighting equipment that literally highlighted until 5 January. influenced you the most over the years?

EH: I have grown up surrounded by the beauty and com- certain subjects and altered the perspective. In this way plexity of the Dutch landscape. It’s incredibly organised, I re-direct my audience, just as the scientists re-adjust eddohartmann.nl with geometric shapes, colourful squares and straight lines. their plans based on the spontaneity of the organic world. noorderlicht.com

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art

Deserted Locations Gohar Dashti

How do we define the notion of home? What happens when a house is left behind?

When do interior and exterior worlds collide? These images reveal the power of nature to consume and conquer. Bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens and staircases are taken over by vines, grasses and branches. Walls are left to crack and crumble. Windows are flooded by trees. Gohar Dashti (b. 1980) is a Tehran-based photographer and video artist, who, for the last 14 years, has been working at the intersection of anthropology and sociology.

Her various series ask questions about what happens to the environment when human populations have been displaced by modern conflicts. The images blend memory, environment and visual perception. Dashti’s works are included in some of the world’s most esteemed collections, including the V&A, London; the Smithsonian Museum, Washington DC and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. gohardashti.com.

Gohar Dashti, Untitled from the series Home, 2017. 120cm x 80cm. Courtesy of the artist.

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Gohar Dashti, Untitled from the series Home, 2017. 120cm x 80cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Gohar Dashti, Untitled from the series Home, 2017. 120cm x 80cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Gohar Dashti, Untitled from the series Home, 2017. 120cm x 80cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Gohar Dashti, Untitled from the series Home, 2017. 120cm x 80cm.

Courtesy of the artist.

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art

Powerful Storytelling Congo Tales A GROUNDBREAKING PHOTOGRAPHY SERIES DEPICTS ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT ECOLOGICAL LOCATIONS AS WELL AS ITS DIVERSE CULTURAL NARRATIVES.

The Congo Basin is a tropical rainforest second only in size to the Amazon. It is described by ecologists as the earth’s “second lung” – vital to the climate emergency and just as vulnerable to deforestation as the Brazilian rainforest. Eva Vonk is a Berlin-based Producer and Creative Director of Tales of Us – an ongoing multimedia project that communicates the urgency of protecting the world’s most fragile ecosystems. From 2013, Vonk spent three years working closely with people in the Mbomo District of the Congo Basin to learn about the importance of oral culture and how it has developed through the communities.

Pieter Henket, a Dutch portrait photographer, has translated these stories into spell-binding images inspired by 17th century Golden Age painting. The resulting series, Congo Tales, raises awareness of the rainforest – spanning 500 million acres and six nations. Henket and Vonk speak to Aesthetica about their collaboration and its wider impact.

A: This series took five years to complete. How did the process change from start to finish? How did it develop – both formally and stylistically?

EV: In 2013 my partner Stefanie Plattner and I were asked to create more awareness for the Congo Basin. At the time we both knew very little about this place. I was given the chance to travel to the Mbomo district in November 2013 for the first time. I joined highly ranked biologists, conservationists and other policy makers that were travelling there. Amongst them was a newly built school dedicated to improving early childhood development. It was here that I felt the first source

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of inspiration for a storytelling project. Oral culture is incredibly important in this region. Throughout our subsequent research trips, we were introduced to local knowledge passed on through storytelling. Stefanie and I had worked together as film producers, so our initial idea was to create a documentary. But once the stories started piling up, photography became a more logical medium.

PH: When you’re asked to join such an important cause, you have to ask how you are going to be able to create a group of images for which people pay attention. With 100 million images being uploaded onto Instagram each day, this is a challenge. Eva came to me with a story she had heard: that when an old person dies it’s like a library of stories burning down. I was able to combine that with my life-long wish of making a series of staged fairytale portraits. Each setup was carefully planned and staged. We spent two weeks before we began actually shooting, meeting with the people to discuss what moments and locations were important.

A: The Tales of Us project included spending three years working closely with the people in the Mbomo district in the Congo Basin. Why did you choose this location?

EV: It happened organically. When Stefanie and I were invited to develop an awareness campaign about the Congo Basin we travelled to the Odzala-Kokua National Park. I was very curious to get to know the people who actually live in the forest, and as such I quickly ended up in Mbomo. It is on the border of the national park and can be described as the

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The Night Husband. “Dreams possess a reality whose truths are neither denied nor obscured by real life. .” Photo by Pieter Henket. Edited by Eva Vonk and Stefanie Plattner. Story based on a tale reported by Aïchatou Mboyo Lady and Vulgain Imbonda Teddy. Produced by Tales of Us.

“As you can see, the people are truly telling the stories with their eyes. Instead of asking them to act things out as a performance, they were able to relay the narratives with facial expressions – they are their own stories.”

Previous Page: The Two Nkééngé Sisters. “A strict respect for traditional laws and prohibitions protects against misfortune. The eternal aura of spiritual beings enriches the heart.” Photo by Pieter Henket. Edited by Eva Vonk and Stefanie Plattner. Story told and recorded by Mr. Simon Miakaluzabi N’Sondé in 1999; written version by S.R. Kovo N’Sondé. Produced by Tales of Us. Left: The Woman in the Moon. “Sometimes everything changes except for those spirits who remain in the past.

Although the length of a week has been established, the rhythm of the spirits is still measured in lengths of four.” Photo

by Pieter Henket. Edited by Eva Vonk and Stefanie Plattner. Story told

by Aïchatou Mboyo Lady, Vulgain Imbonda Teddy, Clarisse Houla, and Cathy Evouya Pea at Sanza Mobimba School. Produced by Tales of Us.

capital of this region. There are many reasons why Stefanie and I selected this place, but one of them was the fact that many people in the area had to change their way of living after logging and hunting laws were implemented to protect the forest. Learning about this made us realise that we must pay attention to both culture and conservation working together. This is a somewhat sad reality when you know that these people live in the forest, but they weren’t the ones who endangered it in the first place. This region is a nexus point of nature, the unintended results of laws to protect it, and the wisdom of the people who live there.

A: What were some of the most memorable stories that you were told? How did you decide which to use? How much input did the Mbomo people have in staging?

EV: All the stories are meaningful in their own way. A personal favourite of mine is the story about the woman in the moon. In order to create the pictures, we worked with many women. It was an incredibly empowering process. We chose the stories as a collective. The main things we considered were equality in gender, cultures and religions. The series had to become a broad representation of the people you might meet; we were eager to be sensitive to inclusivity.

PH: As you can see, the people are truly telling the stories with their eyes. Instead of asking them to act things out as a performance, they were able to relay the narratives with facial expressions – they are their own stories.

A: Why was Pieter chosen as the photographer?

EV: I have been a fan of his work for many years. His style has

huge grandeur, described as “celebrity worshipping.” This presented such an interesting juxtaposition for me, and a good approach to bring to Congo Tales. His work is cinematic, and always incredibly respectful and admiring of the protagonists. Thankfully Pieter agreed, and was able to celebrate the often-ignored and undervalued peoples of the Congo, using the same techniques used to commend celebrities.

A: How integral are these tales to the Congolese people?

How does ritual, and the passing of wisdom through oral culture, feed into their everyday lives?

EV: These stories are indescribably important for people in the Congo, but they are also endangered. This question speaks to an ongoing conflict between modernisation and heritage. In the west, we are increasingly removing ourselves from our sense of culture through a rise in globalisation. In the Congo, this is happening slowly but surely as well. However, a big difference is that the history of our western ancestors, as well as their mythologies, are documented in depth.

Some of these stories remain merely echoes or impressions of what they once were, even though their layered narratives are still dictating certain superstitions or habits.

A: This series is both anthropological and fantastical – referencing fable as well as important environmental issues. How does the series balance the two?

EV: I recently read a quote of a French-Canadian astrophysicist named Hubert Reeves. He stated: “Man is the most insane species; he worships an invisible God and destroys a visible nature, unaware that this nature he is destroying is this God he is worshipping.” The stories we were told by

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The Common Eye. “Unless it’s given in a show of generosity, a taste of honey can fuel a quarrel.” Photo by Pieter Henket. Edited by Eva Vonk and Stefanie Plattner.

Story told in Odzala by the late Pierre Mbandzibari, the wise man of Lengui-Lengui, in 2007 during the post-electoral debates. French translation and transcription

by Mr. Maret Mouendet. Mr. Auguste Miabeto records that there is a Mbeti version in the form of an etiological myth; the protagonists are a man and a woman and at the end the gods give them each two eyes. Produced by Tales of Us.

the people of Mbomo still hold a strong human relation to is her favourite child. I cannot choose. I am so amazed by Right: Totems, And Symbols. “In the nature. We seem to be disconnecting ourselves from the or- how the series has turned out and how Pieter captured the Animals, marriage covenant, the ties between woman, man, and totem animal are ganic world more and more in the west. We wanted to bring wisdom, power and beauty of all our friends in Mbomo. an umbilical symbol.” Photo by Pieter awareness to this by celebrating the beauty of the Basin and There is one image that holds a special place in my heart: Henket. Edited by Eva Vonk and Stefanie Story told by Théophane the people who call it their home, rather than just the former, it depicts women holding fire torches on the border of the Plattner.

Bokaka Bouanga. The inspiration which is the more conventional approach to ecological dia- forest. We had asked 10 women to join us, but over 50 for the photograph also comes from storytellers in Mbomo and was logues. All of humankind originates from Africa. Though showed up! It was an inherently powerful moment. researched by Mr. Maret Mouendet.

Produced by Tales of Us. we might have a stereotyped idea of strife on this continent, there’s incredible wisdom to be found. By celebrating con- PH: My favourite image is The Impossible Task. In this story, a boy plays a mole. He asks a sorcerer how to save his nectivity, we can warn against further disconnection. mother from dying. This image was taken during the day, A: How do you think this project sits within today’s dis- as were all the images. Because Mbomo doesn’t have an cussions surrounding the climate crisis? What media ex- electrical grid, we couldn’t shoot at nighttime. So, all nocposure has it accrued and how has this impacted global turnal-looking scenes were shot during the day with powerful strobe lights to mirror darkness and shadows. As I was understanding of the Congo Basin?

EV: By now there have been numerous ripple effects from shooting the image, behind me were excited children, so the this project. Some we were aiming for, some we had only piece had a large sense of the surreal and mysticism. This Words dreamed of, and others we have not expected at all. The pro- particular picture contains everything I love about photog- Kate Simpson ject has had exposure on some of the biggest media outlets raphy – endless storytelling, drama, light and composition. in the world. For me, there is incredible beauty in a newspaper such as The New York Times making a front-page story A: What is your intention for the project, both in terms Congo Tales is at out of the mythologies of a people living in the rainforest. It of viewer perception right now, and the years to come? Museum de Fundatie, proves that news does not always have to be negative. The EV: This is only the beginning for us! Tales of Us is an ongo- Zwolle, until 5 January. short children’s film (directed by Stefanie Plattner) that was ing multimedia series communicating the urgency of promade based on one of the stories – The Little Fish and the tecting the world’s most powerful and fragile ecosystems The series is available Crocodile – has also been featured in film festivals all over and the people who call them home. We are currently re- as a book from Random searching Pakistan, Romania and Iran for the next project. the world; it is an interactive education tool.

House / Prestel.

A: What are your favourite images from the series? Are there any that particularly stand out to you both?

EV: To me this question feels like asking a mother which

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PH: I hope that people feel they have learnt about these wonderful people as well as how to live in balance with nature. I hope they will allow themselves time to really look.

pieterhenket.com talesofus.com museumdefundatie.nl

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art

Distant Suburbia Thomas Jordan

Thomas Jordan (b. 1992) is an American photographer, living and working in Illinois.

He is influenced by the northwest Chicago suburbs, looking for moments of clarity in drawn-out nights. Pylons are set against burnt orange skies; decked houses emanate a warm yellow glow; branches are bleached out with high-contrast flash. These compositions transform everyday icons of roads, trees and houses into jewel-tone utopias. Using longexposure, the images are at once dark and inviting, moving deftly around illuminated windows, artificial streetlights and closed front doors. The viewer is kept close to the buildings yet remains at a distance – never able to move inside, instead wandering around neighbourhoods with a sense of disconnect. Jordan accentuates the anonymity of domestic landscapes – where the sun is always setting and the streets are always empty. His images have been featured in The New Yorker, Aint-Bad and Phroom. thomasjordanphoto.com.

Thomas Jordan, Blackwell, from the series Instant Honey. Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Open Glass, from the series Instant Honey.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Tree Lighting, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Midnight Cross, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Corner Light, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Reflection House, from the series Instant Honey.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Tree Lighting II, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Tree Lighting III, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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Thomas Jordan, Over the Hill, from the series The Fixed Path.

Courtesy of the artist.

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art

Animating the Everyday Olivia Jeczmyk

Olivia Jeczmyk (b. 1983) is a Polish photographer, now shooting between Stockholm and London for a range of high-profile clients including Condé Nast Traveller, Telegraph Luxury, Åhléns and UNICEF. After inheriting a camera from her father – who shot in a photo lab in their household bathroom – Jeczmyk started experimenting with images as a way to breathe life into objects. This series focuses on simplicity and geometry – drawing attention to household items through minimalist design. Each composition includes subtly placed mementos, ornaments and tools. Amber and copper tones provide pops of colour against neutral interiors. Velvet curtains, chess sets, tangerines, dappled windowpanes and waves of auburn hair provide accents against the nude walls. The images provide an alchemy of colours and textures, and ask the viewer to really look beyond the shapes to find jewels of information. oliviajeczmyk.com.

Photographer: Olivia Jeczmyk; Client: Hafa Bathroom Group; Agency: House of Radon; Art Direction: Kevin Olberg & Christoffer McKie; Producer: Amanda Nordlöw & Sergej Israel; Set Design: Fritjof Granström, Milan Rakic & Zeke Söderlund; Makeup Artist and Stylist: Jenny Hansen; Retouch: Julia Hallengren Retouch; Photography Assistant: Richard Bartram.

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Photographer: Olivia Jeczmyk; Client: Hafa Bathroom Group; Agency: House of Radon; Art Direction: Kevin Olberg & Christoffer McKie; Producer: Amanda Nordlรถw & Sergej Israel; Set Design: Fritjof Granstrรถm, Milan Rakic & Zeke Sรถderlund; Makeup Artist and Stylist: Jenny Hansen; Retouch: Julia Hallengren Retouch; Photography Assistant: Richard Bartram.

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Photographer: Olivia Jeczmyk; Client: Hafa Bathroom Group; Agency: House of Radon; Art Direction: Kevin Olberg & Christoffer McKie; Producer: Amanda Nordlรถw & Sergej Israel; Set Design: Fritjof Granstrรถm, Milan Rakic & Zeke Sรถderlund; Makeup Artist and Stylist: Jenny Hansen; Retouch: Julia Hallengren Retouch; Photography Assistant: Richard Bartram.

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Photographer: Olivia Jeczmyk; Client: Hafa Bathroom Group; Agency: House of Radon; Art Direction: Kevin Olberg & Christoffer McKie; Producer: Amanda Nordlรถw & Sergej Israel; Set Design: Fritjof Granstrรถm, Milan Rakic & Zeke Sรถderlund; Makeup Artist and Stylist: Jenny Hansen; Retouch: Julia Hallengren Retouch; Photography Assistant: Richard Bartram.

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Photographer: Olivia Jeczmyk; Client: Hafa Bathroom Group; Agency: House of Radon; Art Direction: Kevin Olberg & Christoffer McKie; Producer: Amanda Nordlรถw & Sergej Israel; Set Design: Fritjof Granstrรถm, Milan Rakic & Zeke Sรถderlund; Makeup Artist and Stylist: Jenny Hansen; Retouch: Julia Hallengren Retouch; Photography Assistant: Richard Bartram.

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art

A Unique Collaboration La Prairie x Art Basel ON THE OCCASION OF ART BASEL, LA PRAIRIE COMMISSIONED THREE SWISS ARTISTS TO REINTERPRET THE FEMALE GAZE, ADDRESSING IDEAS OF POWER, EXPOSURE AND INTIMACY.

Namsa Leuba, Senta Simond and Daniela Droz are part of a new generation of Swiss female photographers. As graduates of Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), they each offer individual styles and techniques – spanning fashion, abstract set design and portraiture. La Prairie teamed up with Art Basel for an innovative exhibition, entitled Eyes in Focus, that breaks the rules of perspective, reviving and redefining the female gaze in an ever-evolving age of beauty standards.

Greg Prodromides, Chief Marketing Officer for La Prairie, discusses the collaboration and the direction behind the images. In an age of data dissemination, where millions of images are shared everyday, these photographs ask the viewer to slow down, to consider their role as a voyeur.

A: Why did you select Namsa Leuba, Senta Simond and Daniela Droz for the commission? Which elements of their practices did you find most interesting? How do they fit in with La Prairie’s wider vision?

GP: When selecting artists, we identify individuals who are inline with our brand values and our aesthetic – who embrace our heritage as a luxury house. La Prairie has many artistic styles and we feel that the diversity of Namsa Lebua, Daniela Droz and Senta Simond’s work shows the many incarnations of our brand. Interestingly enough, all of our artists for this edition are Swiss – this was not an initial prerequisite but unfolded as a valid lead moving forward. Indeed, we always try to embrace our “Swissness” in everything we do. All three practitioners share our birthplace, and this has certainly aided them in understanding La Prairie and applying that

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unqualifiable Swiss sensitivity to their artworks, which goes beyond definitions, perceptions and briefings.

A: Each photographer has brought something unique to the collaboration. Leuba’s images provide a performative, fashion aesthetic; Simond offers an intimate perspective of the female body; Droz explores mirrored surfaces at the intersection between light and shadow. How has each artist interpreted the notion of the female gaze? How did they approach the brief individually?

GP: Our chosen photographers have all been invited to produce an exclusive series of work – their own interpretation of the female gaze, through their eyes. They were given full creative freedom, a “carte blanche” to reinterpret our codes in response to the wider world. Each one gave us a unique point of view: whether abstract and geometric with Daniela Droz, unaffected and raw with Senta Simond or pictorial and graphic with Namsa Leuba. Sometimes the artists take us out of our comfort zone – for instance, Droz going for abstract photography when we initially imagined the works containing a more human element. In the end, transforming the images into mirrors, which then reflect the viewer’s gaze back onto themselves, was the right path to follow.

A: Simond has captured close-up shots of young women.

Instead of using models, she worked with a number of anonymous individuals, selected from her local community and surrounding area. What do these images express in terms of authenticity, intimacy and connection?

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Daniela Droz, Résonances II. Presented at Art Basel 2019. Courtesy of La Prairie Switzerland.

“Through shooting women in a variety of different emotional states, postures and attitudes, the images captivate audiences with their authenticity and intimacy. There is a great deal of introspection and power to be found in the series.”

Previous Page: Senta Simond, Lisa.

Courtesy of La Prairie Switzerland.

Left: Namsa Leuba, Nanihi I. Courtesy of La Prairie Switzerland.

GP: Not only has Senta Simond used women from her surroundings, she has also shot them individually, emphasising the connection between artist and subject. She has taken the time to understand and interpret their identities, rather than using pre-prepped models. In doing so, the images allow viewers to fully immerse themselves in the beauty of the subject’s gaze. Through shooting women in a variety of different states, postures and attitudes, the images captivate audiences with their authenticity and intimacy. There is a great deal of introspection and power to be found in the series.

A: La Prairie has long been inspired by the Bauhaus.

Droz’s images, much like La Prairie’s clean, geometric aesthetic, contains constructivist elements. How do the works tie into the principles of the Bauhaus school?

GP: Daniela Droz has a very particular approach to photography, using lines, shapes and forms to create abstracted pieces. To her, the Bauhaus is synonymous with a new way of seeing the world. When the Bauhaus movement really came forward, there was a real sense of renewal in image-making.

Photographers freed themselves from previous techniques and descriptive functions. Those that started the Bauhaus wanted to bring down the wall of disdain between artisans and artists – to build something that includes form and functionality to generate an unprecedented aesthetic. In this respect, Droz’s process looks at innovative ways to take pictures, like in Constructivism: with an unforeseen point of view outside the generally accepted rules of perspective.

A: Namsa Leuba has added coloured frames around the portraits. What is the relevance of this duality?

GP: Through a juxtaposition of monochrome and multicolour backgrounds, Leuba expresses an impression of the present moment. There is a sense of omnipresence to the works, striking a balance between figurative and abstract techniques. This is done in order to visually translate a multitude of different emotions and dimensions of the subjects, to really think about what they see and feel. These are realised through a number of varying angles. For black and white pieces, the moment is frozen precisely between the photographer, model and spectator. The abstract colour frame is an extension of when one closes one’s eyes – blinking and registering the moment as it passes by. The frames provide an impression of colour and memory. They act as an imprint.

The duality of monochrome and colour also reflects the feelings that are hidden within us and those that we present to the world. In doing so, the works attempt to pierce the veil of public and private, as well as the idea of lived moment and the individual memories attached to it for each of us. This is an approach also influenced by her bi-cultural heritage.

A: Why is the female gaze is important to discuss now?

How do you feel that the collaboration between La Prairie, Art Basel and the artists is tapping into current discourse about how society defines beauty?

GP: As a brand, we focus on the gaze because the eyes are the ambassadors of what we find beautiful. They are also a mirror to the soul. We chose to commission female artists because no one understands women’s desires better than women themselves. This collaboration is about the spectrum of femininity – that which connects and unites. In today’s society, we feel that it is essential to recognise and reinterpret

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Daniela Droz, Résonances III. Presented at Art Basel 2019. Courtesy of La Prairie Switzerland.

the beauty and potential of the gaze – rendering positive emotions when looking inwards on oneself. La Prairie focuses on this dimension of authenticity. Today, perhaps more so than ever, this is a key attribute that clients are looking for and that they find in our brand: to be true to oneself.

aspire for precision and excellence. Addressing one’s emotions and memories, this project alters the dimensions of time – a central value of La Prairie’s endeavour to empower women to hold their lives in their hands. Time transcends the moment; it goes beyond the boundaries of the present.

A: Every day, digital newsfeeds are filled with millions of images that present a certain type of lifestyle, goal or aesthetic. How do the works in this collaboration ask audiences to stop and think about the role of the viewer and artwork – photographer and subject?

GP: These three Swiss photographers emphasise a sense of power and purity in the gaze. Through the use of different photographic techniques – for instance with Daniela Droz’s work Resonances I & II – the viewer becomes the subject.

They are moved into the work and are asked certain questions about what it means to be an onlooker – what it means to be internalising and registering an image. They are urged to consider the placement of their own eyeline.

A: What role does La Prairie have in supporting the next generation of talent? What role does it play in furthering the careers of new, emerging practitioners?

GP: For each Art Basel edition, La Prairie collaborates with different artists using a wide range of media – architecture, photography, film and conceptual art. It is often true that we commission up-and-coming individuals because we believe that it is important to support the next generation as the leaders of tomorrow. We believe that emerging artists have the power to shape the future – to change perspectives and to break down boundaries. They offer a sense of hope.

A: This series, as a whole, is a testimony to the individual experience, rather than objectification or introspection.

How does this link to La Prairie’s ethos?

GP: Eyes in Focus, as a theme, unfolded organically once we created our latest product, Skin Caviar Eye Lift, which had eyes as the area of focus. We strongly felt the eyes were far more than the mirror of time passing, as an indicator of age or physical appearance. For this reason, we decided this group show had to convey the power of the gaze, beyond objectification. These works evoke intensity, passion and purity – elements all related to La Prairie’s universe. We

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A: What other projects does La Prairie have for 2020 and beyond? Will there be any other artistic collaborations?

GP: Art is part of La Prairie’s overall identity. We have always had an organic link to the creative industries, which is why we will continue to nurture our relationship with Art Basel.

For instance, for the next edition, which will be held in Miami Beach, we are collaborating with Spanish artist Pablo Valbuena. He will be constructing a light sculpture for the fair. Our partnership with Art Basel is based on the common values of luxury: “Swissness” and audacity. Through these important collaborations and partnerships, we also fulfill our purpose to educate, share ideas and contribute to making the world more beautiful, more open-minded and meaningful.

Right: Senta Simond, Laura.

Courtesy of La Prairie Switzerland.

Words Kate Simpson

Eyes in Focus was at Art Basel in June 2019.

Art Basel Miami Beach runs 5-8 December. laprairie.co.uk artbasel.com/miami-beach

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reviews

Exhibition Reviews These timely shows provide retrospectives of well known artists, as well as forward-thinking group shows that examine how we might live in a near-future. Aesthetica’s coverage includes exhibitions that are still open to see this winter season.

1Minkkinen: 50 Years of Self-Portraiture ARNO RAFAEL MINKKINEN

This retrospective of Finnish–American photographer Arno Niort, France, 2009 has a similarly surreal quality: a female Rafael Minkkinen (b. 1945) is a sight for sore eyes. Pho- figure in the foreground has a pair of hands growing tentographed across nearly 30 countries and 20 American derly onto her face. Minkkinen’s surreal effects are generstates, the body of work offers a grand tour of nature in ally achieved without digital modification, with the possible many of its manifestations – though Minkkinen has a pref- exception of pieces like Kilberg Vardø, Norway, 1990, which erence for its calmer aspects. The show is reflective both shows a man balanced on his head on the keel of a bark.

The photographs have an appeasing quality, but they literally and figuratively: stilled water abounds.

Most of Minkkinen’s images are conspicuously staged in also manage to exude a strong sense of humour across a manner that recalls Kishin Shinoyama or Edward Weston. the uncanny placements. King of Fosters Pond, Fosters Pond, Nude figures dovetail perfectly with their surroundings to 2013, for example, shows Minkkinen’s floating head seemsuch an extent that viewers sometimes have to look twice ingly mounted on a wooden pedestal. Fosters Pond, 2000 in order to spot them. Väisälänsaari, Finland, 1998, for in- depicts a Loch Ness Monster-like hand about to write on stance, depicts birch trees fitted with human parts that seem water with a pencil, a take on John Keats’s tragic epitaph to grow organically out of the trees. Coralie, Fort Foucault, “here lies one whose name was writ on water.”

Words Erik Martiny

Galerie Camera Obscura, Paris 25 October - 28 December galeriecameraobscura.fr

2 Lost Lands

MAROESJKA LAVIGNE

Lost Lands is the latest series from Belgian photographer Maroesjka Lavigne (b. 1989). This series documents a vast range of evolving landforms including western America, Argentina, Chile and China. Lavigne’s year-long forage into natural worlds brings a spectrum of colour and texture, through rust-coloured hills or the flutter of pink wings.

Landscapes are the focus of Lavigne’s work. With a detaildriven, painterly aesthetic, she combines organic elements with a brushstroke appearance. Death Valley, Namibia (2015) and Colored Hills, Xinjiang, China (2017) capture subtle shifts in ombre palettes, whilst Salinas Grandes, Argentina (2017) offers tranquil illustrations of a world standing still. In these geological portraits, the environments are constantly in flux, on the verge of what they might become.

Metaphors of journey, migration and personal growth are evident in images of birds and open landforms. Pink Feathers (2019) and Leaf (2017) offer vivid depictions of life in the evolving landscapes – flourishing and verdant. Such pieces illustrate a touch of civilisation, found in even the most remote location. This notion intermingles the idea of who we are as being connected with our environments.

Naturally evolving rhythms provide the axis for Lavigne’s imagery. “When you take a picture in a beautiful place, you have to realise that nature isn’t the background for your photograph,” says Lavigne. “Rather, you are its prop.”

Lavigne’s debut monograph, Someone Somewhere Sometime is co-published with Robert Mann Gallery, including works from four series and text by David Campany.

Words Jennifer Sauer

Robert Mann Gallery, New York 24 October - 21 December robertmann.com

3Live Dangerously A GROUP SHOW

Humour, drama, ambiguity and innovation drive the disruptive visions of 12 women photographers at NWMA, Washington DC. The show is a categorical rejection of women purely being represented as erotic, fertile and ultimately powerless creatures. Many of the featured works raise more questions than provide answers, with varied shades of nuance, assessing the female gaze and the body within the landscape.

Janaina Tschäpe’s (b. 1973) body lies prostrate in 100 large-scale photographs. What exactly caused her demise – drowning? Murder? A hard night of partying? It is unclear.

Tschäpe has travelled around the world to produce the tongue-in-cheek theatrics of the 100 Little Deaths (19962002) series, from the foot of the Moai statues on Easter Island to the shores of the Hamptons and Long Beach.

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Anna Gaskell (b. 1969) is similarly ambiguous in 2003’s Untitled #104 (A Short Story of Happenstance), where a figure is either safely suspended from a tree or plunging downward. All we see are legs dressed in a petticoat and black shoes, tights and skirt in this mysterious image. “I want viewers to find themselves suddenly caught up in the same trap as that of the character they are watching,” Gaskell says.

In Ana Mendieta’s (1948-1985) Volcán (1979), the artist lays down in a mound of earth, leaving the imprint to burn and smoke with gunpowder. In another dramatic example, Kirsten Justesen (b. 1943) tested the limits of her body by positioning herself atop blocks of ice whilst nude but for rubber gloves and boots in the Ice Sculpture (2000) series.

Attend NMWA for a searing vision of the female experience.

Words Olivia Hampton

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC 19 September - 20 January nmwa.org

1. Halfway Up Mt. Mitchell, Burnsville, North Carolina, 2013. © Arno Rafael Minkkinen. 2. Colored Hills, Xinjiang, China, 2017. 3a. Graciela Iturbide, Mujer Ángel, Desierto de Sonora (Angel Woman, Sonoran Desert), 1979, (printed 2014). Gelatin silver print, 50.8cm x 40.64cm. National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Cindy Jones. © Graciela Iturbide. Image courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art, New York. 3b. Rania Matar, Rayven, Miami Beach, Florida, from the series She, 2019. Archival pigment print, 112cm x 94cm. Courtesy of the artist and Robert Klein Gallery, © Rania Matar.

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4a. Shahidul Alam (b. 1955, Dhaka, Bangladesh), Smriti Azad at Protest at Shaheed Minar. Shaheed Minar, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1994. Courtesy of Shahidul Alam / Drik / Majority World. 4b. Shahidul Alam (b. 1955, Dhaka, Bangladesh), Protesters in Motijheel Break Section 44 on Dhaka Siege Day. Motijheel, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 1987. Courtesy of Shahidul Alam / Drik /Majority World. 5. Lee Ufan, Relatum – The Shadow of the Stars, 2014. Installation view, Château de Versailles. © ADAGP Lee Ufan. Courtesy the artist, Kamel Mennour and Pace. Image: TADZIO. 6. Cannupa Hanska Luger, The One Who Checks & The One Who Balances. Navajo Nation. Image: Chip Thomas for Return of the Warrior Twins mural, 2018 - Ginger Dunni.

4a

4Truth to Power SHAHIDUL ALAM

A year after his release from a Dhaka jail, Bangladeshi photographer, writer and activist Shahidul Alam features at Rubin Museum, New York. Redefining, reframing and representing the “third world” of South Asia as a “majority world,” Alam’s works are concerned with empowerment and authentic truth. Alam was also named Time’s Person of the Year in 2018, as an advocate in defending social and religious injustice and suppression. His call for positive change sends an emotional, efficacious charge.

Over 40 images encapsulate the solidarity and strife faced by Bangladesh and South Asia. Scenes from daily life – both domestic and of discord – demonstrate how photography can communicate the human condition on a higher level – looking at the concept of dignity. Protestors in Motijheel Break Section 44 on Dhaka Siege Day (1987), for example, shows a surprisingly quiet city centre, except

for a few protestors. The composition takes inspiration from Henri Cartier-Bresson, whilst the content exemplifies a commitment to the possibility of democracy.

Wedding Guests and Abahani Wedding (1988), in contrast, discloses scenes from a prominent middle-class wedding which emphasises the lack of attention to mass floodings which are occurring in the region (as pictured in Woman Cooking on Rooftop and Woman Wading in Flood, 1988.)

Each image is uniquely powerful in its depiction of human struggles against the climate crisis and political strife. Airport Goodbye (1996), in particular, gives an intimate glimpse into the reality and of migrant life. Alam champions hope and evokes a voice for free speech, whilst breaking free from the western stereotypes of Bangladeshi history. This exhibition is a testament to new, unheard voices and perspectives at a time when we need them most.

Words Ashton Chandler Guyatt

Rubin Museum, New York 8 November - 4 May rubinmuseum.org

5Open Dimension LEE UFAN

Do objects have souls? If you embrace the integrity of materials, then yes. At least, so says Lee Ufan (b. 1936). His largest outdoor sculpture project in the USA consists of mostly unaltered boulders and stainless-steel plates arranged carefully to create a “space where you can feel mystery, relatedness” between humans and the natural world. This is also the first site-specific commission by a single artist to fill the Hirshhorn’s, Washington DC, 4.3-acre outdoor plaza, with 10 new works from the ongoing Relatum series.

“Modernism is connected to colonialism and imperialism,” Ufan explains about the inspiration behind the installations.

The sculptures create “cracks” in the museum’s perfect, motionless concrete ring building, designed by Gordon Bunshaft. The wind constantly animates Relatum–Box Garden, spreading ripples across a water pool site, surrounded by four stainless steel sheets, whilst reflecting the sky and

clouds above. In the Relatum–Dialogue, a boulder appears to strike up a conversation with another, which turns away, uninterested. They are placed on white gravel, similar to that found in a Zen garden. Morning shadows are painted on the ground, so that there are two shadows (the “real” and the created one) except for a brief moment each day.

The contrasting juxtapositions are especially evocative because no material is treated as superior to another, whether natural or manmade. Ufan elicits sensations and responses in viewers, rather than offering straight representation. He doubles as an art critic and philosopher, and has lived and worked in Japan for more than 60 years. There, he became a leading figure of the Mono-ha (“school of things”) movement formed in response to the country’s fast-paced industrialisation. This presentation at Hirshhorn urges the viewer to sit, contemplate and revel in everyday objects.

Words Olivia Hampton

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington 27 September 13 September 2020 hirshhorn.si.edu

6Utopian Imagination A GROUP SHOW

Idyllic worlds are the subject of the science fiction-themed exhibition, Utopian Imagination. The third instalment by the Ford Foundation Gallery, a collection of 13 artists respond to the challenges of contemporary life. Curated by Jaishri Abichandani, the works leverage objects, bodies, vessels and fragments, to project a future that is inclusive and free.

The show transports viewers through pieces such as Mariko Mori’s digital dreamscape Miko No Inori and Saks Afridi’s ethereal acrylic sculpture The Prayer Catcher. The narratives become portals to imagined realms, filled with hope.

The included pieces often reflect and refract each other, echoing ideas and physical likenesses. These underpinning similarities anchor pieces from very different times and contexts. Lola Flash’s high-contrast photograph Syzygy depicts a handcuffed spaceman lost at sea, and Farxiyo Jaamac’s collage photograph Android Girl depicts a child abandoned

in outer space. Both works reimagine the self and the other, whilst recreating the physical body in a liberated space.

The show is also in conversation with history. Indigenous elements are evoked by Cannupa Hanska Luger’s performative work, The One Who Checks & The One Who Balances, in which an individual looks out on a mountain sunset. This also occurs in Beatriz Cortez’s fortune-telling Boxes of Wonder. These multidisciplinary works embody a spiritual feeling, whilst becoming a contemporary version of their own mythologies – stories that are retold.

Aspects of the past, memory, heritage, imagination and culture collide within Utopian Imagination. Each practitioner contributes their own background and unique world view, offering a distinct vantage point to the world of tomorrow.

As Curator Abichandani notes: “The artworks connect to both references in history and dreams of the future.”

Words Jennifer Sauer

Ford Foundation Gallery, New York 17 September - 7 December fordfoundation.org

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Thomas Vernay (CUMULUS), still from Miss Chazelles. France, 2019. Winner of Best Drama at ASFF 2019.

film

Inspired by Ideas THE AESTHETICA SHORT FILM FESTIVAL 2019 Great film invites us to see the world in a new way. The 2019 edition of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) took place from 6 to10 November, showcasing over 400 shorts, 16 features and Virtual Reality projects. Screenings spanned from Drama and Documentary to Animation and Fashion genres, showcasing the breadth of independent cinema. 360° and immersive works were shown as part of the Screen School VR Lab, in partnership with London College of Communication.

Over 100 industry events welcomed representatives from leading organisations BBC, Film4, Aardman, Framestore, British Vogue, Dazed and i-D, offering audiences unprecedented insights. Guest speakers included cultural icon Rankin, who presented a career retrospective, as well as Oscar-nominated cinematographer Dick Pope and BAFTA-nominated editor Chris Wyatt, whose work includes This is England and God’s Own Country. Submarine producer Mary Burke was part of this year’s line-up, alongside Turner Prize-nominated photographer Richard Billingham and Boys Don’t Cry editor Tracy Granger. Two-time Oscar-Winning Producer Simon Chinn spoke about The Ethics of Documentary, with other topics including The Future of Storytelling; Redressing the Balance; The Art of Editing; Speaking to Global Audiences; A Reality in VFX and Creating Space for Female Perspective.

This year’s Guest Programmes explored a breadth of identities, cultures and outlooks. BBC Arabic Festival highlighted

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women filmmakers now; Guardian Documentaries looked at life through the eyes of others and the Imperial War Museum marked 75 years since D-Day. Bounce Cinema hosted a celebration of black filmmaking, whilst Underwire Festival championed female talent and Iris Prize showcased a bold selection of LGBT+ shorts. Sundance favourite Apollo 11 chronicled a key moment in 20th century history, as did Skin and Coal: looking at the experiences of black miners and the notion of camaraderie underground. Gucci and Frieze came together to explore The Second Summer of Love.

New for 2019, the festival launched the Industry Marketplace. The first of its kind in the UK, the one-day was a destination for key organisations from across the sector, including international film festivals, screen agencies, sales agents, global distributors and renowned universities. This year’s edition welcomed 40 exhibitors, including BFI Network, Locarno Film Festival, Creative England, Edinburgh Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, Hijack Post and Festival Formula.

As a platform for talent development, ASFF also entered its second year of pitching sessions, inviting filmmakers from across the globe to share projects with the UK’s biggest funding and distribution organisations – including Guardian, Goldfinch First Flights, BBC Films, Babycow and Film4. Offering talent development opportunities amongst a full five days of screenings, this was the largest festival to date.

“Great film invites us to see the world in a new way. The 2019 edition of the Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) took place from 6 to 10 November, showcasing over 400 shorts, 16 features and VR projects.”

Words Eleanor Sutherland

Entries open 1 December. asff.co.uk

The Best in New Cinema PRIZE-WINNERS

“ASFF’s awards recognise outstanding talent in filmmaking – with each work becoming eligible for consideration at the BAFTAs. 2019’s Festival Winner was Kofi and Lartey, directed by Sasha Rainbow.”

Words Eleanor Sutherland

View a selection of this year’s winners: asff.co.uk/asff-2019-winners Password: ASFF2019

Ruper Höller, still from Wannabe – Leyya. Austria, 2018. Official Selection at ASFF 2019.

ASFF’s awards recognise outstanding talent in filmmaking – award for Best Comedy, whilst Leszek Mozga was presented with each work becoming eligible for consideration at the with the Best Animation award for Roadkill.

Tapping into brand ethos, LEONE’s L’Incredibile, in partBAFTAs. Taking home 2019’s prestigious Festival Winner accolade was Kofi and Lartey, directed by Sasha Rainbow. It tells nership with Nike, was awarded Best Advertising, whilst Best the true story of a man from Agbogbloshie, dubbed one of Fashion went to Lola’s Manifesto, directed by Gsus Lopez and the most toxic places on earth. We follow him as he empowers Cristian Velasco. Best Artists’ Film was presented to Rhea Storr for the provocative A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message. two young boys through photography and film.

Narrative and Documentary Features returned for a second Best Experimental was awarded to Samona Olanipekun for year, spanning both personal and universal storylines. Di- Kindred, whilst The Golden Age, directed by Eric Minh Cuong rector Iain Cunningham was awarded Best Feature for Irene’s Castaing was presented with Best Dance. Best Music Video Ghost. Cunningham’s first feature documentary depicts a went to Emmanuel Adjei for Shahmaran – Sevdaliza.

Looking to the future of film, ASFF welcomed Virtual Realsearch for the mother he never knew. 2019’s non-fiction shorts explored equally rich and eye-opening topics. This ity and Immersive films back into the competition. The winner year’s Documentary winner was Charby Ibrahim with Bright was Virtual Viking – The Ambush, directed by Erik Gustavson.

Lights – The Perils of the Pokies. The mesmerising animated Filmed using 106 cameras, it captures Norway’s west coast, marking one of the first techniques in scripted VR drama. work reflects on the devastating consequences of gambling.

New for 2019, the Hijack Visionary Filmmaker Award recDrama reels provided the largest part of ASFF 2019’s short film programme. Best in Category was awarded to Thomas ognised exceptional vision and a unique cinematic voice. It Vernay for Miss Chazelles – the story of two young rivals. was taken home by Ellie Rogers for They Found Her in a Field, Further raising the pulse was Madame, directed by Garth Jen- a rumination on love, friendship and loss. Charlene Jones’ nings, which won Best Thriller. The director is widely known Henceforth looked at similar themes – offering an honest and for family favourites including Sing (2016), Son of Rambow raw portrayal of familial grief. It won The Film Hub North and BFI NETWORK Polaris Award, celebrating the achievements (2007) and Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005).

Comedy and Animation are two of the festival’s best-loved of filmmakers based in the North of England. The People’s genres. Norteños, directed by Grandmas, took home the Choice Award-winner was Garry Crystal for Down.

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Image: © Jean-Baptiste Mondino.

music

Personal Evolution ALA.NI “I find it hard to take orders,” explains Alani Charal. “Not microphone she performed with during that album cycle – a “Using just her voice guidance or suggestions, but corporate orders. Conforming 1930s RCA ribbon mic – further enhanced the allusion to and a laptop, Charal to systems. I prefer to freely lead myself and collaborate in yesteryear magic. But when this cherished set piece gave up creates the kind of dense, intricate shared visions. That way, if I fuck up, I have only myself to the ghost mid-tour, Charal knew something had to give. blame. “I’ve always been like this,” she laughs. “I’m a self- “I was performing in Japan at the time. The mic was sur- compositions you’d rounded by cherry blossoms that the promoter had frozen expect from a small confessed, loud-and-proud control freak! I run solo.”

Charal – a Sylvia Young Theatre School graduate – was and saved since the spring,” she explains. “The engineers orchestra. She does born in west London to Grenadian parents. She currently re- stood in a circle and bowed to it [the mic] like they were this by sampling sides in Paris, where she records under the moniker ALA.NI, saying goodbye [to a person]. I believe in life cycles and per- vocals, using these but is very much a “citizen of the world.” Whilst that fiercely sonal evolution, and that experience really felt like a ritual – sounds deftly to create independent spirit may have hampered some, it’s proven marking the end of one phase and the beginning of the next.” percussion, basslines As signs go, it was successful. “I guess I was feeling a little and melodies.” to be Charal’s metier; she’s found her niche in a capella, a trapped [after You & I ].” For all the accolades, Charal was also medium where her need for creative autonomy is central.

Using just her voice and a laptop, Charal creates the kind of anxious about being pigeonholed; critics had begun describdense, intricate compositions you’d expect from a small or- ing her as a “jazz” singer, a title she has no interest in courting. chestra. She does this by sampling and looping vocals, using “I knew I needed a different energy for this album, so I cut my these sounds deftly to create percussion, basslines and mel- hair off. Dreadlocks gone after 16 years!” With tresses shorn, odies. Then, over this intricately layered bedrock, she lays Charal got to work, writing and recording on her laptop. Sessions took place in various cities – Mexico, Los Angeles, New the vocals. The effect is dazzling – a kind of oral alchemy.

You & I, her 2017 debut, announced Charal as one-to-watch. York, Paris, London, Wales – a creative process bolstered by The Guardian, impressed with her scene-stealing performance herbal tea, weed and hip hop – specifically, Dr Dre records.

Words The resulting album, finished at studios in London and Charlotte R-A of that album’s lead single, Cherry Blossom, on Later With…

Jools Holland, described her as an artist who “harks back to Paris, is discernibly different from its predecessor. ACCA is a time when songbirds glided on gentle orchestral breezes,” kinetic and audacious where You & I was dreamy, softer and all lush, Disney harmonies and gentle, sweeping strings. The sentimental. ACCA is a step up: potent and full-bodied. alaniofficial.com

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Navigating Emotions PHANTOGRAM sings of newfound clarity (“everything is clearer now”) and “It’s not lingering bittersweet changes: “everything is better … wish you could grief that shapes their be here.” At the heart of Ceremony is a sense of honouring latest album so much the dark in all of us, embracing its lessons. as a sense of coming Phantogram has evolved rapidly in the years since the through the other side, 2010 debut, Eyelid Movies, shifting gears from indie trip- fragile but determined. hop to gritty, festival-ready urban electro, or “street beat” as The record, out in they’ve dubbed it. With it, they’ve earned some esteemed early 2020, hums collaborators along the way: Big Boi, Skrillex and The with a sense of hardFlaming Lips. Ceremony is still diligently committed to that earned purpose.” sound: pugilistic and glam, all industrial percussion and arena-flooding synths. Wedged between the more maximalist bangers are a handful of softer, introspective and – unfortunately – rather forgettable numbers. Truthfully, they’re at their best when they remember their trip-hop roots, as witnessed on both the swaggering, standout single Mr. Impossible, and Ceremony’s curiously intoxicating eponymous title track – both of which boast quintessentially 1990s beats.

It would’ve been understandable if, following Three, Phantogram lost some of their steam; grief is rarely easy to navigate, blunting our creativity and darkening paths. Words But almost four years have passed since that last album Charlotte R-A cycle, and no one could listen to this new record and doubt the duo’s commitment. Barthel fully inhabits these songs, shape-shifting her vocals to match the drama of the music. phantogram.com

Image: © Lee Hazel.

For many of us, the term “ceremony” conjures up visions of formal occasions, from the stuffy to the sublime. We might associate them with grand gestures – speeches, toasts, revelry – and spiritual communion (prayer, hymns, homilies), but they’re just as often an occasion for mourning and grief, for eulogies and laments. And it’s easy to forget, as we go through the time-honoured motions of births and funerals, that ceremony serves a significant role in our lives. It’s in these times that we honour our deepest emotions, the feelings in which everyday life rarely allows the time of day.

New York electro-pop duo Phantogram understand the importance of these moments more than most. Their last album, 2016’s Three, was completed in the wake of Sarah Barthel’s sister’s death by suicide. The enormity of that loss prompted Barthel and bandmate / co-vocalist Josh Carter to use their subsequent tours to advocate for suicide prevention awareness, donating portions of their ticket sales to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

It’s not lingering grief that shapes their latest album so much as a sense of coming through the other side, fragile but determined. The record, out in early 2020, hums with a sense of hard-earned purpose: on lead single In A Spiral, Barthel urges herself to “keep your head” despite the surmounting chaos, a chopped-and-screwed high-noon guitar twang giving glam Desperado vibes, whilst Into Happiness

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Kris Provoost, from Beautified China, The Architectural Revolution. Courtesy of the artist.

books

Radical Design BEAUTIFIED CHINA China’s intense urban growth, paired with government investment and the emergence of a wealthy middle class, has created a fertile playground for western architects. The country has a reputation as one of the fastest developing nations.

Beautified China, a new publication by photographer and architect Kris Provoost, explores this rapid growth through striking images of the country’s most innovative structures, including work by renowned architects such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron and Ole Scheeren.

Alongside compelling essays on topics such as The Anatomy of Excess, the book presents a heavily stylised snapshot of China’s architectural boom which has occured in the past decade – a period that’s transformed the country’s cookiecutter urban landscape into a hotbed of experimentation.

There are museums in Beijing that resemble enormous jelly beans and libraries that are made to look like a literal row of books; a national aquatics centre that has a bubble-like surface to evoke water; a museum in Guangzhou with red, Tetrislike blocks; and Suzhou’s infamous Gate to the East, a colossal skyscraper that could just as easily resemble a lavish arch with mirrored walls as a pair of blue jeans.

“Iconic architecture is easily recognisable. A ‘simple’ idea, a pure shape, or a very different colour – these elements make you remember the building within the blink of an eye,” says Provoost. His photographs take on a surreal beauty,

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capturing unconventional angles and juxtaposing the build- “There are museums ings with bright blue backdrops to further highlight their ge- in Beijing that ometry. He continues: “To stand the test of time, they need to resemble enormous be light years ahead of what is currently seen as a ‘building.’” jelly beans and Provoost describes this “radically different” construction libraries that are as serving a political purpose – a way to lift China up in the made to look like a world’s eye as a paragon of modernity. “You could say that literal row of books; architecture creates an impression of a city or region. Well-de- a national aquatics veloped urban areas, with high class architecture represents a centre that has a blossoming economy, a strong power, a bright future,” he says. bubble-like surface Yet with many of the other booming sectors in China’s un- to evoke water.” precedented economic rise, the obsessive drive to build endless cultural facilities has resulted in cluttering of structures, and not enough public interest in visiting them. Provoost asks: “How many theatres, museums and stadiums does one city need?” before expanding: “There has been a strong push from the central government that each city needs a certain Words amount of cultural venues. This has included an enormous Gunseli Yalcinkaya boom of museums, yet many are actually completely empty.

Does that then actually count as a museum or rather just a building?” But in the wake of a 2016 government directive Beautified China is calling for an end to “odd-shaped” structures, Provoost’s published by Lanoo. photographs serve as a time capsule, presenting a slither in China’s architectural development. These images, and the lannoopublishers.com progress they depict, will forever be remembered. krisprovoost.com

Visual Wordplay UNITS a glass bottle broken into tiny pieces, a group of identical- “Each situation, Lower looking swans and a stack of mass-produced tin cans. In each says, speaks of our case, time transforms the materials physically (the swans natural inclination to will fly away, the glass fragments can never again become a project meaning onto bottle), yet it’s the context of these objects within a succession things. He explains: of events that makes them retain their sense of being.

‘We want things to be Each situation, Lower says, speaks of our natural inclination well-defined for the to project meaning onto things. He explains: “We want things sake of communication, to be well-defined for the sake of communication, but in re- but in reality, they’re ality, they’re not so absolute. Situations overlap or change not so absolute.’” whilst their general descriptions remain the same.” However, it’s through our ability, as onlookers, to situate them in a particular context that Units takes on a level of humour too.

One photograph shows stacks of finely cut log firewood wedged between two (living) trees. In another, an unlit stove sits outdoors in the blazing heat. “It’s an example of the kind of inter-image relationship that can often be more interest- Words ing for me than the pictures on their own,” says Lower. “That Gunseli Yalcinkaya element of comedy depends on surprise, meaning pairings need to function in different ways throughout (some formal, some conceptual), in this case through colour and form, and Units is published by part of the humour comes from transferring qualities.”

MACK Books.

In doing so, Units highlights our human desire to define, and make sense of, the items around us, all whilst offering up mackbooks.co.uk some pretty amusing and memorable visual wordplay. sethlower.com

Seth Lower. Image from Units (MACK, 2019). Courtesy of the artist and MACK.

There’s a metaphysical quality to Seth Lower’s images. The Los Angeles-based photographer’s new book, Units, depicts everyday materials and icons – rusty road signs, road markings, a water truck – taken delightfully out of context. A trio of postboxes sits atop an incomplete brick wall; a plastic bag of oranges is strewn on the ground; a road sign is engulfed by a tree. It’s by removing these objects from their expected functions that they take on a completely new identity: what happens to a road sign if it doesn’t show directions?

“The tree image was taken many years ago, but that one in particular seems to be an apt illustration of the project as a whole,” explains Lower, whose book features images taken between 1994 and 2017. “As I discovered in the writings on object-orientated ontology, especially in Graham Harman’s writing on [German philosopher] Martin Heidegger, the idea of objects freed from their utility came into focus.” For Lower, the identity of a given subject is partially dependent on its relationship to other beings. He continues: “If metaphysics is the relationship between potentiality and actuality, the clearest way to observe these shifts is to look at the snapping points, or when one thing changes form, or engulfs another.”

An important part of this is how an item changes over time.

“The project evolved from thinking about evidentiary photographs and considering materials that spell out the past with their physical forms,” says Lower. He gives the example of

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film reviews

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I Lost My Body JÉRÉMY CLAPIN

Adult animation has rarely been so distinct or dynamic as it is with I Lost My Body. Based on the novel Happy Hand (2006) by Guillaume Laurant – the writer previously nominated for an Oscar for scripting Amélie – this awardwinning French-made feature-length cartoon is the story of a severed hand. At the very beginning, the hand – able to move with spider-like dexterity – escapes from a dissection lab. Its mission? Well, that becomes clear.

In another part of Paris, Moroccan-born orphan Naoufel (voiced, in the English-dubbed version, by Dev Patel) struggles through a dreary existence as a pizzadelivery boy. He’s not great at the job but when he arrives at a tower block for his latest delivery, he encounters Gabrielle (Alia Shawkat), a hipster librarian who bemoans his lateness. But gradually they talk – over intercom, as they never meet – and love ensues as it continues.

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It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the hand belongs to Naoufel, and the scenes we are watching are all set before it became separated from his wrist. Weird and macabre? Yes, absolutely. However, viewers become entirely absorbed in this double-sided tale, as Naoufel tracks down Gabrielle to her place of work to befriend her. Meanwhile, his hand faces its own demands, as it scuttles across the drainpipes and rooftops of Paris.

The references here are myriad – everything from The Addams Family to The Incredible Shrinking Man (with the hand, at one point, in a subway station facing off with carnivorous rats, echoing the Grant Williams character’s battle with a spider). The exquisite Rotoscoped animation beautifully conveys a side of Paris tourists don’t see, whilst Clapin similarly refuses to go for the obvious in a daringly mysterious and profound ending.

Netflix netflix.com

Shooting the Mafia KIM LONGINOTTO

Kim Longinotto’s latest feature Shooting the Mafia two eyeballs, crumpled cars and their owners decorated follows photographer Letizia Battaglia as she recounts in glass, children strewn across pavements and a family her career as a photojournalist and political activist in her clutching one another in shock. As the brutal images proliferate, it’s impossible not to feel enraged by the native Palermo, a city defined by mafia violence.

Largely made up of interviews and Battaglia’s images senselessness of the violence, especially given how of victims, the feature manages to convey something beautiful life can be here on the island.

The real profundity of this film, though, stems from of the atmosphere that pervaded Sicily throughout most of the late 20th century. It’s an atmosphere of pure its self-reflexivity. Longinotto questions the ethics of dread, one that for a long time inspired only silence. “shooting” either the dead or those in pain. In one poignBrutal killings, kidnappings and decapitations occur ant moment towards the end, we witness Battaglia placed on a daily basis here, but no one ever claims to have under the same forensic spotlight she used to document heard or seen anything. Shooting the Mafia traces the those who suffered around her. “Why are you making me footsteps of a young woman determined to combat the think about this?’, Battaglia croaks, “I don’t want to.” It’s mafia corruption. Fearlessly, and with an unflinching eye, this moment – an uncomfortable breaking point in which Battaglia begins to document the victims of the “civil war.” we discover the value of documentary photography, and We see a close-up of a limp hand – its palm cradling in extension, film – that reveals the horrible truth.

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Words James Mottram

Words Christopher Webb

Modern Films modernfilms.com

Sonja: The White Swan ANNE SEWITSKY

Sonja Henie – Norwegian figure skater and star of the Hollywood Golden Age – gets the biopic treatment in Sonja: The White Swan. Briefly foreshadowing her downfall, director Anne Sewitsky proceeds from the athlete’s triumph at the 1936 Winter Olympics to her career in live performance, where Sonja draws huge crowds and signs a deal with Twentieth Century Fox. The film’s beats play like Boogie Nights on ice. The Henie clan move to Los Angeles, where Sonja persuades film producer Darryl F. Zanuck to make her a star.

With her debut breaking box office records, cash and acclaim flood in. However, a family bereavement leads the already impulsive Sonja to make a series of bad decisions. Alcoholism, family betrayals and public scandal follow. Increasingly desperate and unwell, she tours Rio de Janeiro, but collapses drunk on the ice mid-

show, effectively ending her esteemed career.

Sewitsky’s biopic is very much of its period visually, although thoroughly contemporary – foregrounded by the film’s anachronistic soundtrack. As we watch Sonja swagger down corridors populated by the Hollywood elite, insistent synths and propulsive beats mimic an unshakeable self-confidence. The jaunty Upside Down

by Paloma Faith plays as the Henie family count Sonja’s millions, whilst over a scene of hedonistic debauchery a lyric repeatedly asks, “Who’s in control now?”

Whilst it does little to earn sympathy, Sonja excels at the patriarchy’s own game. She’s reprimanded for doing so by Zanuck, who reminds her that “You are not a man.”

But, just like the film’s controversial subject, Sewitsky’s feature is unapologetic in celebrating female success: particularly in an industry that is dominated by men.

Words Daniel Pateman

Thunderbird Releasing thunderbirdreleasing.com

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music reviews

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Inside SEA CHANGE

This complex sophomore project from Sea Change is best described as dark Norwegian pop shaped by the intense industrial sounds of Berlin techno. Equal parts emotional electronic with experimental hedonism, the short seven-track album moves fluidly through Flying Lotus or James Blake territory, mixed with pleasingly jarring wails and drum chops, fluttering underneath Ellen Sunde, AKA Sea Change’s dulcet vocals.

Lead single Stepping Out packs a rollercoaster of emotion in a short space whilst the deeply hypnotising and time-switching production of Something Else demands repeated and concentrated listening. It provides a deeply intimate experience, even before you clock the lyrical content itself – which is dark, brooding and marinating almost on the mesmerising, apathetic distraction from pain that a club provides.

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There is a decidedly underwater aesthetic to this record that echoes its lost-at-sea sentiment, all matched with Sunde’s buried in the mix backing vocals and melancholy delivery. Each song blends into the next in a beautifully weaved sad narrative, so subtle you’re not completely sure what the sadness itself is about, but damn, you know it’s heartfelt. Jittering and sometimes too clean electronic flares tie this compact, generally strong but nuanced record together, with the true highlight shining through on the 4am hazy club bop of Scratch That Itch that winds and booms hypnotically.

There’s no hiding from it, this is an entirely enjoyable record, complicated and heart-wrenching in a way that only a Scandinavian temperament could achieve. Inside would comfortably play alongside long, contemplative moments looking solemnly onto a snowy hillscape.

Words Kyle Bryony

Self-Release soundcloud.com/seachanger

3OHA ALEX EPTON & LUCINDA CHUA

SA Recordings presents the soundtrack to Clayton Vomero’s 3OHA (or Zona in English), a docufilm which documents the blossoming of a new cultural movement after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and details how post-Soviet life struggled to adapt to the influx of new western, capitalist-driven agendas. Alex Epton is a classically trained jazz musician who has previously worked with Thom Yorke, David Byrne, Arca and Charlotte Gainsbourg amongst others and is joined here by cellist Lucinda Chua, who has performed live with FKA Twigs, Ben Vince and Nabihah Iqbal.

Recorded in close collaboration with Vomero, the score complements the film’s montage of recollection, aspiration, assimilation, romance and resignation.

Across 13 beguiling tracks, Epton explores otherworldly futurism as a representation of modern consumer desire,

embellished at various junctures by Chua’s meditative strings, synths and vocals. This dialogue between past, present and future is further magnified through the appropriation of Tchaikovsky on Swan Lake Pt1 and Swan Lake Pt2. Reworked and modernised amidst dazzling electronica, the cello sounds are contorted into new shapes and patterns. Other standouts include Bombing, B4RB13 Room and Emillio’s Blotto, each rich in ambience and heavy percussive drama.

Whilst the music serves as an effective accompaniment to the moving image, it also works independently. The sounds and images do cross over and intertwine – at one point, the film’s subjects listen to the Swan Lake piece and comment upon its cultural significance. Ultimately, there is more than enough substance in the soundtrack for the listener to enjoy this as a standalone work.

Words Matt Swain

SA Recordings sarecordings.com

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The Raincoats

THE RAINCOATS

Kurt Cobain labelled The Raincoat’s 1979 debut, a “wonderfully classic scripture.” To the uninitiated, it is immediately apparent why. It shaped the sound of punk and the DIY ethic, and is an unfiltered rag-tag and yet purposeful body of work that sounds as clean in its intentional anarchy as one imagines it did on the cusp of the 1980s. This is the reissue 40 years on.

Opener Fairytale in The Supermarket somehow sounds both as beautifully of its time as well as fresh, even though it is being played nearly half a century later.

The painful clashing Irish strings on The Void feel like medicine, while the garage band motley muddle of the classic Kink’s Lola is a treat. This is punk without the nihilistic misogynistic destruction that the world is taught to expect from the era and from its ensuing fans.

It was deeply and proudly feminist by nature.

Each song is fronted by Ana da Silva and is confidently backed by gang vocals of women that were challenging the way that not only the punk scene, but the world around it, saw them. The passage of time and evolution of pop culture have meant this entire taut and yet personable collection of songs would sit perfectly as a ready-made soundtrack to a lifeaffirming Wes Anderson film. The marching of You’re A Million is droning, yet heartfelt. The vocals and strings are somehow even more out of tune, but they move in waves that, even after all this time, sound so necessary.

This is a timely re-issue and a celebration of genre pioneers. Every chord is purposeful; every lyric sounds as if a battle was fought for it to be said. This is a robust collection of songs that needs to be heard – hopefully inspiring a new wave of uncompromising voices.

Words Kyle Bryony

Self-Release theraincoats.net

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book reviews

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Atlas of Furniture Design MATEO KRIES, JOCHEN EISENBRAND

Vitra Design Museum’s Atlas of Furniture Design devotes unprecedented attention to the objects that bear our world’s weight. The book’s scale justifies its definition of being an atlas: 70 or so authors discuss 1,740 pieces (and approximately 540 designers) across almost 1,000 pages, featuring 2,800 illustrations.

There are the usual suspects: Alvar Aalto’s Paimio Chair and Marcel Breuer’s Model B 3 Chair, and designs by Charles and Ray Eames, but also delightful surprises – pieces you already know, but whose history, until now, remained unclear. Zaha Hadid’s Mesa Table, is one such example, whose shape conjures “water lilies sitting in a pond.” When she first showed sketches for a chair to Rolf Fehlbaum, the then CEO of Vitra, they concluded: “A chair is too complicated, let’s do a building.”

The atlas spills with stories like these, but two key

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aspects elevate the text into an essential purchase. First: the quality of illustrations, diagrams and infographics.

There are beautiful maps of designers’ global movements, visual histories of Scandinavian manufacturing, colourful timelines of the major, overlapping styles between 1750 and 2017, and intricate charts tracking the evolving demand for structural materials. Never before have stools and sideboards teemed with so much life.

The second noteworthy element is the contributors’ critical acumen. The essays, refreshingly, balance aesthetics with histories of production. There is an acute awareness of furniture’s influence on the other arts – the way it facilitates collaboration. Readers learn, for instance, that Frederich Kiesler designed the Correalist Rocker (1942) to maximise the appreciation of painting. This is the true takeaway and what lends the text endurance.

Vitra Design Museum design-museum.de

Sugar Paper Theories JACK LATHAM

Iceland’s winter of 1974 was hard-hearted and historic. It imprisoned. But they are, perhaps, innocent after all.

Taking hold of this two-fold calamity, dubbed as the signposted one of the most controversial murder cases in Icelandic history. The sense of national safety dissolved “Guðmundur and Geirfinnur” case, Latham’s photobook for the tiny population – at that time just 200,000. Until layers images of tasks forces, sightings and conspiracy then, criminal activity had been somewhat humdrum. theories with notes from multiple sources – memories Come spring, the whole country’s psyche was left in a and testimonies overlap and intertwine.

This structure echoes the distressing diary entries collective frenzy of curiosity and scapegoating.

Whether it was the bleak lava fields, icy seawater or from bewildered suspects, now recognised as victims of something else that took the two men in question, there memory implantation that were on the brink of mental is still no answer for their disappearance. This is the basis breakdown. Some of the suspects spent over a year in of Jack Latham’s (b. 1989) Sugar Paper Theories. The solitary confinement, including Erla Bolladóttir – a new recipient of the 2016 Bar-Tur Photobook Award and mother at the time – and Tryggvi Rúnar Leifsson, who shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture Foundation First was confined for 655 days – the most gruelling period PhotoBook, it explores accounts from a young group of of imprisonment recorded outside of Guantánamo Bay. Shrouded in dreams, psychology and conspiracy, friends that were charged with the crime, robbed of their youth, tortured to confession, thrown into darkness and Sugar Paper Theories places the reader as a detective.

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Words Hunter Dukes

Words Robyn Siân Cusworth

Here Press herepress.org

Through Positive Eyes GIDEON MENDEL & DAVID GERE

Through Positive Eyes is a call to action to bring an end to the stigma of HIV. The project began in 2008 as part of the international MAKE ART / STOP AIDS initiative, when award-winning photographer Gideon Mendel with David Gere, Director of the Art & Global Health Centre at the University of California, invited people with HIV and AIDS to create photo stories about their lives. Over the past decade, more than 130 artists and activists – including many first-time image makers – have taken part in global workshops in Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Washington DC, Mumbai, Bangkok, Port au Prince, London and Durban.

Aperture’s publication highlights how the stigma associated with the virus stands as a roadblock to prevention and treatment. Through Positive Eyes is key to wider understanding and change. As Mendel and

Gere note, the book: “paints a vivid picture of the global AIDS epidemic – after its initial outbreak, but before treatment becomes universally accessible.” The book is an education, including self-portraits, documentarystyle images and still lifes. It illustrates deeply human narratives from a variety of cultures and communities.

Each participant is granted an essential space to speak about their experiences. Daily struggles, intimate conversations and inspiring journeys are explored with honesty. The view is often painful, but demonstrative of achievements to be celebrated. Examples include D’Angelo from Washington DC, who explains: “I want to dedicate my life to advocacy work within the LGBTQI community, particularly for youth, so what’s next for me is trying to put my life together and move forward and take care of myself.” This is a groundbreaking text.

Words Eleanor Sutherland

Aperture Foundation aperture.org

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artists’ directory

GUDRUN NIELSEN

Yara El Turk is a Lebanese interior designer whose art series Metamorphosis of Reality focuses on mystery by using different materials, which emanates the idea of a persistent mutation of thoughts and emotions. She explores how lines and shadows can transform the abstract into a solid concept.

Through site-specific, large-scale installations, Icelandic sculptor Gudrun Nielsen addresses human impact within contemporary cityscapes. The Mountain series, showcased here, comprises a collection of works inspired by the location of the artist’s studio – on the site of Iceland’s leading provider of clean energy. The photographs document small but constant changes in the surrounding environment. Nielsen has exhibited widely and is a Fellow of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.

Instagram: @yara_el_turk

www.gudrunnielsen.co.uk

YARA EL TURK

BODYFURNITURES – GIAN LUCA BARTELLONE Gian Luca Bartellone is an award-winning Italian jeweller treading new paths with a combination of daring materials. Moving between papier mâché and precious metals, Bartellone produces one of a kind pieces that are both light and flexible – offering an innovative showcase for gemstones. His work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as the MAD Museum, the Norton Museum of Art and the Grassi Museum.

www.bodyfurnitures.com I Instagram: @bodyfurnitures

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BOB VANDERBOB Brussels-based artist and composer Bob Vanderbob explores the interaction of art, science and science fiction to convey a poetic vision of the techno-human condition. His installations probe our longing for meaning and beauty in the face of technological acceleration.

www.bobvanderbob.com

VOEED

MAGALI CHESNEL

Voeed is the artist name for Chao Wang – an award-winning multidisciplinary practitioner working between Vancouver and Shenzhen. His latest video piece, Walk with Me, explores the powerful yet often unseen influence of architecture on city dwellers. A 3D-scanned view depicts a flâneur strolling through London. Voeed is a winner of the 2019 John Ruskin Prize.

Magali Chesnel is an award-winning painter and aerial photographer based in France. Her aim is to reveal the world from another perspective, providing a unique view of nature’s intricate patterns. Many of the images in the Painting-like series were taken in an ultra light motor aircraft, allowing the artist flexibility and freedom. Chesnel is represented by Gallery Artoui.

www.voeed.com I Instagram: @voeedd

www.magalichesnel.com I Instagram: @magalichesnel

PATRICIA BORGES Patricia Borges is an interdisciplinary artist, with multiple years’ experience in architecture, design, art theory, commercial photography and publishing.

She has exhibited widely and won numerous awards from international organisations. Upcoming fairs include Luxembourg Art Fair and Photo Israel.

JICHANG CHAI Shanghai-based Jichang Chai is an award-winning contemporary jeweller and sculptor. His bold and experimental works combine symbolic materials with absurdist Buddhist folklore. Pictured here is Escape from the Moon, a piece based upon the story of a rabbit, rendered into a geometric sculpture.

www.klimt02.net/jichang-chai

Borges is currently undertaking postgraduate study at the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in Rio de Janeiro, working on photography and storytelling installations that push the boundaries of material and presentation. Shown here is Creature, a photo object which consists of photographic prints on tracing paper, glass and metal.

www.patriciaborges.com I Instagram: @patriciaborges_pb

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

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Angeliki Manta

Bruno Militelli

Athens-born Angeliki Manta first began practising photography in 2016 after studying architecture. Her cinematic and gestural images make use of the human form against the backdrop of natural and architectural landscapes. The ANATOMY (OF) series focuses in the "inner world" we manifest within ourselves, rather than needing to look outwards. www.angeliki-manta.format.com I Instagram: @myangelsdust

Bruno Militelli is an award-winning artist based in São Paulo. He specialises in macro photography, creating abstract images. The colourful, geometric works offer a unique perspective on the natural world, highlighting its details and patterns. Militelli’s images are available in limited fine art prints as well as for editorial, advertising, commercial or educational licensing. www.brunomilitelli.com I Instagram: @bruno.militelli

david dejous

elena kulikova

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

Elena Kulikova first immersed herself in commercial photography as a model in San Francisco. Her experiences helped shape a successful photography career – she is known for vibrant and conceptual images.

Clients include Sephora, Nordstrom, VICE, Swarovski, Condé Nast Traveller, Allure, Virgin Airlines and Interscope Records. Kulikova currently resides in Los Angeles. www.elenakulikova.com I Instagram: @elenakulikovastudio

Garbhán Myles

Giulia Berto

Garbhán Myles is an Irish audiovisual artist working with various media. In the series Blurring the Boundaries, he blends multiple exposure photography with digital drawings created on an Apple iPad; the resulting images traverse the borders between analogue and digital media, graphics and handcrafted techniques. The viewer is invited to examine their own interpretation.

Instagram: @garbhanmyles | Facebook: Garbhán Myles

Dublin-based Giulia Berto is an Italian photographer intent on exploring intimate spaces and personal stories. Anchored to domestic or natural landscapes, the images tether viewers to human narratives revolving around everyday objects. Berto graduated from the International Center of Photography and has been widely recognised for her work. www.bertogiulia.com I Instagram: @berto.giulia

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gregory collavini

Ivan Klem

Gregory Collavini is a Switzerland-based freelance photographer and visual designer. His works focus on human environments, traversing architecture, landscapes and urban planning. Collavini usurps expected scenarios, challenging the everyday – he is fuelled by an unending sense of curiosity. The artist holds a degree from the ECAL University of Art and Design Lausanne. www.gregorycollavini.com I Instagram: @gregoreay

For Nietzsche, the human being is a rope between the animal and the Übermensch (superhuman) – a rope over an abyss. Ivan Klem takes this as inspiration for his work S, the title of which is from the word “shibari”, meaning “to tie” in Japanese. He notes: “A land art project where the forest becomes a theatre of ephemeral installations.” Klem’s previous work, H, deals with quantum mechanics and poetry, and has exhibited worldwide. www.ivanclemente.es

jaana heikkinen

jenni granholm

Finland-based Jaana Heikkinen's practice includes drawing, painting and sculpture. She notes that making art is a journey into an inner world populated by muted colours and intriguing characters. Key inspirations include the symbolism, mythology and mysticism of nature – as seen in current subjects such as the tree of life and white deer. www.jaanaheikkinen.com I Instagram: @jaanaheikkinen_art

Jenni Granholm is a photographic artist who lives and works in Finland. Her work deals with themes of femininity and restraint, entanglement and the desire for freedom coupled with a fear of it. In the Hush and Legacy series, the body plays a central role in her minimal compositions, where a ribbon is used as both a tether and as a trope to harness the impulse to break free. www.jennigranholm.format.com I Instagram: @lumiereproject2

Kalène

kate mountford

Kalène is a Swiss artist settled between London and Belgium. Through her works she examines inconsistencies in human nature – leading the viewer to stand back and observe, seeing patterns or repeated icons in nature and culture. With Pink Flamingo, the artist asks: "Why should a woman look like a wading bird to be attractive?" Kalène has participated in a number of solo and group exhibitions in France and Switzerland. www.kalene-arts.com

Kate Mountford is a Canadian lens-based artist currently residing in London. A hallmark of her work is the hybridisation of historical theory and modern techniques in a completely digital process, using photography to enhance a sense of authenticity and digital painting to unite the sublime. As such, Mountford's interests lie in drawing parallels between truth and fiction. www.katemountford.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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maarten vromans

natalya burgos

Maarten Vromans is based in Delft. Since 2014 he has explored the impact of humans and weather on urban development. The series Urban Erosion concerns the creation of a seemingly ideal world. The photographs were shot in various cities across Europe, revelling in the once clean simplicity of contemporary architecture and its geometric patterns. www.maartenvromans.com I Instagram: @maart_en_vromans

Natalya Burgos is an American painter based in the Texas countryside, where she is inspired by the surrounding fields, trees and a distant horizon.

Specialising in portraits, landscapes and abstracted compositions, she works primarily in watercolour and oil. Aesthetica readers are eligible to receive a complimentary miniature artwork from Burgos' website – celebrating the 150th anniversary of the postcard. www.natalyaburgos.com

Sarita

sei yamazaki

Franco-Swedish artist Sarita is working on a new language of design, connecting Nordic birch to painted abstraction. Her studio is located in a forested area of Sweden, where she explores the textures and shapes of local raw materials. The resulting sculptures are an expression of balance between nature's manifestations and the artist's meditative brushstrokes. www.saritaarte.com | Instagram: @sarita.arte

Sei Yamazaki is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Tokyo.

He has exhibited globally in solo and group shows, with installations that shed light on intangible processes. The founder and director of Seitaro Design, Yamazaki is also a radio personality at FM Yokohama and a Creative Advisor to The Tokyo Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. www.seiyamazaki.com I Instagram: @seid03

Sumit Mehndiratta

Zirong Zhu

Sumit Mehndiratta is a multidisciplinary artist based in Delhi. For 10 years he has exhibited and sold pieces worldwide, working with numerous art galleries and consultancies for private and corporate projects. His practice includes painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media and digital art. In the wall sculpture series Nailed it, Mehndiratta weaves strings of different materials between nails hammered onto panels. www.sumitmehndiratta.com

Zirong Zhu is an emerging Chinese commercial photographer specialising in drinks and luxury goods. In his personal work, the aim is to highlight interactions between individuals and their environments, noting that "images can be a mediator in people’s lives – I always try to connect people through my photography." Zhu holds a degree from Norwich University of the Arts. Instagram: @jerryzhuzirong

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anders olow

andreea andrei

Swedish artist Anders Olow works from his studio in Stockholm's Old Town. After more than 30 years as graphic designer for magazines, newspapers and book publications, he took steps into painting. For over a decade, Olow has worked with abstract colours and shapes, mainly in acrylic on canvas. He is a member of Svenska Konstnärsförbundet (the Swedish Artists' Association). www.anderskonst.se Instagram: @anderskonst

Andreea Andrei is a Romanian visual artist working across portraiture, fashion and social documentary.

Each image provides a complex, unnerving and, at times, intimate relationship between subject and photographer. They seek to be both personal and universal – close and far away. UK-based Andrei notes: "I'm drawn to engage in personal projects that I can relate to." www.andreeaandrei.com IG: @andreeaandreiphotography

Blake O’Donnell

cemre sifa koccat

Dublin-born Blake O'Donnell identifies as a painter, sculptor and installation artist, drawing from a range of interests and experiences with multiple media. The featured painting evokes movement in its lines and overlapping colours, revelling in spontaneity. O'Donnell has exhibited widely, including at the Royal Academy of Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy.

He lives and works in London.

Instagram: @blake_odonnell_

Cemre Sifa Koccat is a prop maker, designer and artist based in the UK, where she has worked at Pinewood Studios. In her painting, she creates from the subconscious. Allowing creativity to flow, a sense of spontaneity comes alive through colourful, organic forms. The piece shown here was created for Katie Melua after Koccat worked with the singer on the production of a music video. cemrearts@gmail.com

chris koster FRSA

damien jeon

"The experience of these works of art is literally like no other.

Unique is an overused word – but in the case of these baffling but beautiful pieces, apt. The art and its concepts are awesome."

- Anne Garvey, The Cambridge Critique

Damien Jeon is a New York-based illustrator, blending fantasy and reality, evoking dreamlike scenes. Her colourful and detailed compositions take place in diners and bathrooms – ordinary locations with extraordinary circumstances.

The works are sensual and conceptual, inspired by glam rock nostalgia. Jeon graduated from the School of Visual Arts. www.damienjeon.com Instagram: @damienjeonart

www.ckosterart.com Twitter: @KosterArt

fiorella pattoni

greta rybus

Fiorella Pattoni is an architect, designer and jewellery artist.

Each handmade piece is inspired by the sophistication of nature, as perceived by Pattoni in her Costa Rican environment. The wearable art is showcased in exhibitions, galleries, boutiques and museum shops in a number of countries. The artist also accepts commissions for bespoke work. www.fiorellapattoni.com

Greta Rybus is a full-time freelance photojournalist specialising in editorial portraiture and travel. Of primary interest is her subjects' everyday relationships with their natural environs. She has worked on various projects in Senegal, Panama, Norway and the USA. Rybus holds a degree in Photojournalism and Cultural Anthropology and is currently based in Portland, Maine. www.gretarybus.com Instagram: @gretarybus

Image: Mario Acosta and Gregory James.

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

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Ioustini Drakoulakou

Isis Ascobereta

Ioustini Drakoulakou studied photography at Stereosis School of Photography and completed an MA in Photography: The Image and Electronic Arts at Goldsmiths. Her practice focuses on the visual interpretation of the different life and emotional states; the result is the product of experimentation with various mediums and techniques. www.ioustinidrakoulakou.wixsite.com/ photography Instagram: @iou_d

Mexican-Spanish photographer Isis Ascobereta examines the customs and atmosphere of everyday life; she then provides a graphic syntax with which to explore underlying meaning. In Beyond Illusions, she explores the ephemeral and fragile nature of hanami in Tokyo. The images are evocative of our world – in a constant state of flux and chance. Ascobereta is based in Paris. www.isisascobereta.com Instagram: @ascobereta

jan sarapata

john hollington design

Warsaw-based Jan Sarapata's gestures of large brushstrokes evoke memories of a happy childhood and Zen paintings. He uses forms and colours as an artistic event – an emanation of human existence. For the work shown here, entitled I Am, the artist painted "I" as a simplified sketch of the human figure – a pictorial response to being an artist in the digital era. www.jansarapata.com

John Hollington Design is an award-winning studio in York. The designs are inspired by the clean lines and geometrical forms of modernist art and architecture.

The pieces themselves are created with a "cradle to cradle" philosophy – recycled materials are used, which in turn are 100% recyclable.

The studio collaborates with retailers, interior designers and architects. www.johnhollingtondesign.com Instagram: @johnhollington_design

kit brown

lenworth johnson

Kit Brown is a London-based artist whose works attempt to constitute an experimental practice of ontological investigation. The output is multidisciplinary, incorporating various visual, sonic, spatial, kinetic and conceptual components; individual works are frequently concerned with the construction and composition of experience. The object shown here is entitled Point. www.kitbrown.co.uk

Lenworth Johnson is a beauty and fashion photographer based in Houston. A dramatic style boasts an interplay of colour, light, shadow and concept, expressing an appreciation and understanding of emotion and presence. Johnson notes: "My clients trust me to use my passion for the things I see that capture a single moment in time." lenworthjohnsonphotography.com Instagram: @Lenworth.Johnson

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Maritina Keleri

matthew staff

Maritina Keleri is a London-based artist-researcher focusing on spatial cognition, visual perception and the sense of self. Keleri works at the intersection of neuroscience and three-dimensional craftsmanship, experimenting with interactive installation, technology and silkscreen printing; she also works on the design of devices that affect visual perception. Recent works have been presented in London and New York.

Instagram: @maritina.keleri

Matthew Staff works primarily with oil, conveying stark and vividly contrasting everyday moments.

He notes: "Underpinning my work is the experience nature can bring every time we do something." By presenting simplistic colours and contrasts, Staff offers time for reflection on the innate beauty of mark making – inviting the viewer to be absorbed by the minimalist shapes.

Instagram: @matthew.staff matthewstaff@outlook.com

Olivia Turner

Özge Topçu

Olivia Turner is concerned with spatial awareness. Continually playing with the idea of conventional spaces, perspectives and structure, she redefines the hidden beauty of buildings and draws the viewer's attention to the influence of brutalism and beyond.

Turner lives and works in Edinburgh, where she gained a BA in Painting at The University of Edinburgh. www.olivia-turner.com Instagram: @livvyturner_

Lisbon-based Turkish installation artist Özge Topçu creates spatial structures. Using found objects and geometric designs, spaces are filled with an interplay of light, shadow, line and form. An award-winning artist, Topçu is a Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation grant recipient and has participated in exhibitions in Istanbul, Berlin, London and Amsterdam. www.ozgetopcu.com Instagram: @ozgetopcuart

PANG Ka Wai

paris tremayne

PANG Ka Wai explores cyanotype as an expressive and progressive art form. The Blue Border series examines the differences between transparent and non-transparent objects. He notes: "Utopia hides in the realistic aspect of the worldly order, which conceals an unrealistic dystopia." A graduate of The Education University of Hong Kong, he has exhibited work at the Affordable Art Fair Hong Kong.

Instagram: @Pang.k.w

Melbourne-based Paris Tremayne offers a hybrid practice, utilising acrylic paint and new digital print work. Through this he explores the experiences of love, joy and ecstasy, facilitating an avenue to investigate a fascination for organic shapes and patterns. The resulting pieces are abstract, almost hallucinogenic in form. Shapes and patterns blend as if by meditation. www.paristremayne.com Instagram: @paristremayne

Patricia Edith Mary Thompson

paul meyler London-based advertising photographer Paul Meyler produces colourful and engaging images for numerous clients. In his personal practice, Meyler is working on two projects: portraits of people living with Young Onset Parkinson's disease (YOPD), as well as portraits of cold-water swimmers – one of which was a British Journal of Photography Portrait of Britain finalist. www.paulmeyler.co.uk info@paulmeyler.co.uk

The UK-based artist is known for paintings which exhibit spontaneity and ambiance. With a command of line and colour, she navigates various subject matters with a strong understanding of perspective. Being part of the London art scene of the 1960s and extensive travels have greatly contributed to her oeuvre.

Facebook: Patriciafineart7 www.artgallery.co.uk/artist/ patricia_thompson

raquel bessudo

raÚl rebolledo

Mexico City-based Raquel Bessudo is a jewellery artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide.

She addresses the complex subject of memory – the acts of remembering and keeping track of time through different recording methods represent a fundamental part of her research.

Each piece is one-of-a-kind, using fabric, embroidery, paint and metal. www.raquelbessudo.com Instagram: @raquelbessudojoyeria

Raúl Rebolledo lives and works in Guadalajara. He began his career as a plastic artist in 2007 whilst training as an architect.

With the installation Acta est fabula, the multidisciplinary artist ruminates on the subjectivity of the idea of progress. Rebolledo has participated in exhibitions and art fairs in Mexico, Italy, Switzerland and the USA. www.raulrebolledo.com Instagram: @escombrosucio

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

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sakinno wu

stephanie cheng

Sakinno Wu was born and raised in China and is currently based in San Francisco. Having studied abroad and moved across continents, she notes that her pieces communicate with a number of cultures whilst staying true to her native Chinese sensibilities. Wu's female portrait paintings depict a passage through time – a recognition of identity. The piece shown here is Lotus in Hand. www.sakinno.com Instagram: @sakinnoart

France-based Canadian artist Stephanie Cheng is inspired by the relationship between colour and temporality. Geometric forms float across block-colour canvasses with little restriction, confirming an interest in "radical openness." The usage of shapes and multiple contrasting lines are both playful and energetic. Cheng has exhibited work in New York and Montréal. www.stephaniechengart.com Instagram: @stephaniechengart

Autumn Night, 2019. Oil on linen, 51cm x 67cm.

Thomas Lamb

thomas lust

British artist Thomas Lamb explores the boundaries between perception, imagination and what we remember of a place. He is a recipient of the Sainsbury Scholarship in Painting and Sculpture from the British School at Rome. Lamb’s work has been displayed at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art; he has also had four solo exhibitions at Browse & Darby, London. www.thomaslamb.com Instagram: @thomaslamb

Germany-based artist Thomas Lust works primarily with oil-oncanvas painting, graphic arts and photography. The focus is on capturing memorable street scenes and portraits within the modern urban landscape. His works have been exhibited in Paris, Berlin and Shanghai; they can also be viewed in the artist's Galerie Art of Lust, which is located in Schwerin. www.artoflust.de www.artoflust.de/galerie

Nocturnes, 2017. Oil on canvas, 65cm x 65cm.

vin warrican

Werner Roelandt

Vin Warrican is a UK-based visual artist utilising new photographic techniques. By embracing a painterly aesthetic, Warrican investigates how colour and composition create cohesion.

The works are deconstructive and manipulated, inviting a myriad of interpretations upon viewing. The piece shown here is entitled Menagerie.

Instagram: @v1ncent1zer0

Werner Roelandt is a Belgian fine art photographer. In The World from Above, he documents various locations from new angles, brought together by combining multiple images. For each work, photographs were taken from a same spot without the use of drone technology.

Though realistic, the results appear as surreal compositions – both alien and familiar. www.theworldfromabove.be Instagram: @wernerroelandt

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wesley dombrecht

Yaroslava Liseeva

Wesley Dombrecht is a multiaward-winning commercial and artistic food photographer.

Through a graphic approach and elaborately staged compositions, his personal work offers the viewer a different perspective on what we eat – utilising dramatic lighting, minimal sets and an unsaturated colour palette.

Dombrecht is based in Belgium. www.foodshot.be IG: @foodshot_ wesley_dombrecht

Moscow-based Yaroslava Liseeva looks for interconnections between the forces and energy of nature.

Her paintings depict a sense of flow, expressing the notion that nature is constantly moving and changing.

The works are sensory, liberating and almost otherworldly. Liseeva notes: "It's important to stop and open our senses to the flow and discover the true meaning of reality." www.yarlis.org Instagram: @yaroslavaliseeva2019

Art. Architecture. Design.

Fashion. Photography.

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THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

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Issue 92 December / January 2019

POWERFUL STORYTELLING

SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

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Pierre Huyghe, installation view of Les Grands ensembles, 2001. From 24/7 at Somerset House. Image: © Tim Bowditch.

last words

Sarah Cook Curator, Writer and Researcher

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24/7 is concerned with a non-stop world. It presents a picture of our state of sleeplessness, constant work and endless distractions. It asks us to collectively rethink the way we live, work and rest. We’ve brought together an amazing collection of artworks – from Wright of Derby’s 18th century painting of a factory night shift, to Susan Hiller’s dream-mapping drawings. Artists can help us better understand our relationship to time through reflections on the disruptive technologies currently ruling our world – whether that’s social media or AI. The exhibition has an immersive feel, incorporating sound as well as lighting from Lucy Carter – transitioning from dawn to sunset. This is a show about how we share space and time; it’s about us, now. 24/7, Somerset House, London, until 23 February. somersethouse.org.uk | #247exhibition.

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