Aesthetica Issue 77

Aesthetica

The Art & Culture Magazine

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 77 June / July 2017

emotive architecture

adapting conventions

socialIsed languages

Rencontres d’Arles closes borders between geography and memory

Urban developments renew a sense of purpose for traditional materials

Considering the future of tailoring through androgynous minimalism

Jenny Holzer’s literary projections reflect upon the zeitgeist of today

UK £4.95 Europe €9.99 USA $13.49

spatial introspection

Aesthetica 1

2 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 3

4 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 5

6 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 7

8 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 9

10 Aesthetica

Welcome Editor’s Note

On the Cover Filled with abandoned roads and brilliant blue skylines, Western Cape and WHiT NY are amongst the newest photographic series by visual sensation Jimmy Marble.

He returns to Aesthetica for the second time, providing each page with a sense of playfulness and energetic charisma (p.116). www.jimmymarble.com.

Cover Image: Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

Now is the moment to stop and think, pause and pay attention. The dynamics of the world, as we know them, are shifting and this state of flux has created an unprecedented feeling of unease and mistrust, emanating from the news and media to politicians and world leaders. The more you read about bots and manipulation of mass opinion the more it’s as if we’ve stepped out of 1984. But we haven’t. This is our reality and, in this age of digital alienation, it’s so important to make time for reflection.

Inside this issue, we chat with veteran artist Jenny Holzer about her forthcoming exhibitions at MASS MoCA in the USA and Blenheim Palace in the UK. The beauty of her work is in its simplicity – both visually and textually – which makes the biggest impact to international audiences. We also look at how Scandinavian architecture and design are influencing buildings across the world. Sustainable is the new normal, and about that, I am relieved. J. JS LEE Studio is one of London Fashion Week’s designers to watch. The cool, urban sophisticated designs consider masculinity, femininity and identity, unpicking the notion of genderless fashion. Europe’s premier photography festival, Les Rencontres d’ Arles, opens this July and we survey one of the shows which asks questions about how history is represented in the present and what this means for the future.

In photography Steve Bainbridge explores line, space and form through a series that depicts the beauty of manmade materials. Giovanni Gastel’s images tell a story, each one depicting a character that has more than meets the eye. Reine Paradis’s series Jungle picks up on the urban theme in a surreal and playful manner. Nikola Olic queries what structures might represent and what cities mean to us, whilst Romain Thiery depicts the sublime nature of decay and Andreas Gefeller examines time and place continuing with the theme of the built environment. Finally, last words goes to Valentina Stellino, who comments on the physical and emotional effects of migration on today’s landscape.

Cherie Federico

Aesthetica 11

22

104

28

40

52

92

58

74

12 Aesthetica

68

86

contents

Art 22 Spatial Introspection The Experience of Territory exhibition at Rencontres d’Arles focuses on places and borders, merging contemporary experience with historic viewpoints.

28 Modern Expansion Steve Bainbridge uses primary colours and block shadows, showcasing the unprecedented ways in which digital art has developed as a new medium.

40 Idealistic Surroundings Questioning both perception and truth, Andreas Gefeller exploits the possibilities of photography to bring into focus that which is often overlooked.

52 Emotive Architecture White Arkitekter has been commissioned to build the tallest timber building in the Nordic countries, a milestone in sustainable urban developments.

58 Interior Perspective Milan-based Giovanni Gastel creates static scenes that provide an alluring glimpse into domesticity, marrying minimalist design with unsettled figures.

68 Adapting Conventions One of London Fashion Week’s 2017 designers looks to the future of expression, which is filled with clean lines, simple tailoring and androgyny.

74 Digital Phenomena French photographer Reine Paradis examines the psychological and emotional response that occurs with a movement in geographic location.

86 Socialised Languages Bringing critical topics into debate as text-based projections, Jenny Holzer’s acclaimed literature features in MASS MoCA’s new space – Building 6.

92 Absent Formations Emptiness, a negative concept, is the main focus of Romain Thiery’s photography; it documents the aestheticised and critical notion of absence.

104 Angular Distortion Nikola Olic imagines environments without their dimensions, inviting the viewer to think about the relevance of structures as geometric playgrounds.

116 Vivid Exposition Effervescent visionary Jimmy Marble introduces playful patterns to whimsical scenarios, creating bold, energetic landscapes filled with optimism.

128 Exhibition Reviews The National Galleries of Scotland, Whitworth Art Gallery, V&A, MoMA PS1, Centre Pompidou and Zabludowicz Collection are featured in this issue.

Film

Music 133 An Intimate Disposition David Lynch: The Art Life is steeped in anecdotes, from everyday encounters to deeper interactions with family, looking more closely at the pioneer.

136 Influential Archetypes Anneka’s newest EP, released via left-field label Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records, has a panoramic quality achieved through silvery electronica.

Performance

Last Words

137 Digitalised Synthesis Nature, both human and the wild pastoral sort, is a central theme on Eivør’s Slør, described in siren vocals and stormy, salt-lashed metaphors.

140 Radical Expression The Alexander Whitley Dance Company marries dance and science with the new piece 8 Minutes, showcased this summer at Sadler’s Wells, London.

162 Valentina Stellino Shown at Betwixt and Between at FOMU, Antwerp, Camping in Spain stands as an example of staged moments, scenarios that embody a surreal place.

Aesthetica Magazine is trade marked worldwide. © Aesthetica Magazine Ltd 2017.

The Aesthetica Team: Editor: Cherie Federico Editorial Assistant: Kate Simpson Digital Content Writer: Selina Oakes Staff Writer: David Martin

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

132 The Metropolitan Presence Stockholm, My Love, the first fully fictional feature from Mark Cousins, is a reflection on the sense of belonging found through the urban condition.

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: Alexandra Beresford 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.

Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

Production Director: Dale Donley Designer: Laura Tordoff Administrator: Cassandra Weston Administrative Assistant: Patrick Webster Festival Assistant: Eleanor Turner Project Worker: Sophie Lake Interns: Amy Bradley, Elizabeth Lindley Contributors: Bryony Byrne, Niamh Coghlan, Colin Herd, Anna Feintuck, Annabel Herrick, Charlotte R.A., Beth Webb.

Reviewers: Ruby Beesley, Kyle Bryony, Grace Caffyn, Kim Connerton, Tony Earnshaw, Ned Carter Miles, Erik Martiny, Regina Papachlimitzou, Paul Risker, Matt Swain.

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

Aesthetica 13

Roxy Paine, experiment, 2015. Courtesy of Paul Kasmin Gallery. © Roxy Paine.

news

Defining Social Arena Roxy Paine: Farewell Transmission The distorted forms created by sculptor Roxy Paine (b. 1966) embody the clash between human and natural worlds. The recurring motif of an industrialised tree, for example, fuses manmade materials such as epoxy, steel and polymer, which reveal and examine the complex and unresolved interplay between the forces of chaos and attempts at control, as well as the intersection between organic life and fabricated interpretation.

Paul Kasmin Gallery’s, New York, Farewell Transmission is a two-venue showcase of recent sculptures by Paine, spanning the spaces at 293 and 297 Tenth Avenue. Two distinct series are on show – Dioramas and Dendroids – each of which expresses anxieties about the human impact on our habitat and the mechanised tools we employ to impose order and control, often resulting in disordered and unpredictable outcomes. They continue the artist’s mode of confounding perceptions of boundaries between the real and artificial.

In the former, for example, Paine adopts and adapts a format familiar from natural history museums, where the organic world is represented through human artistry. In contrast, Dioramas uses biological materials to represent everyday scenes and human behaviour, turning them into mechanisms for examining our own habitat and social interactions. Each scenario offers a room without figures; these seemingly nondescript settings are charged with psychological significance – for example, Meeting

14 Aesthetica

(2016) depicts a ring of chairs, implying the meeting of a “Two distinct series are substance abuse recovery programme, whilst experiment on show – Dioramas (2015), is a reconstruction of a CIA surveillance and Dendroids – each programme that examined the effects of taking LSD. of which expresses Another signature series, the Dendroids, includes anxieties about the variations on the tree form made from stainless steel, human impact on which intertwine the recognisable wildlife with mechanical our habitat and the elements in order to create hybrid entities. The engineered mechanised tools we tree trunks, branches and roots mingle with lungs and employ to impose hearts, or with electricity poles and debris and detritus order and control.” in this latest iteration. Ground Fault (2016), for example, melds a tree’s roots and trunk with two energy transformers.

A previously unseen work, Desolation Row (2017), combines the tree silhouettes of the Dendroids, the simulation of the Dioramas and the expansiveness of the earlier series, Fields.

Flora is used again here, but is charred, barren and destroyed, representing the conflict between control and chaos that was captured in a static moment in the previous works reaching a devastating conclusion, whilst Paine leaves the question of ultimate renewal as something which is yet to be resolved.

Having been shown across the world, including prominent Paul Kasmin Gallery, public installations in Madison Square Park and Central Park in New York. his native New York, as well as Maelstrom (2009) in the rooftop Until 1 July. garden of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Paine will be the inaugural artist for the Central Subway Project in San Francisco. www.paulkasmingallery.com

Emotion and Transcendence Revival

Anna Gaskell, untitled #27 (override), 1997. Chromogenic print mounted on Plexiglas, 50 x 60 in.

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection; © Anna Gaskell

Surveying three areas of influential subject matter, the first “From feelings of love NMWA, Washington DC, considers the concepts of spectacle and transcendence in its latest exhibition. Revival looks at section addresses the female body, often distorted or inverted. and tenderness to the ways in which a diverse selection of female artists have Photographs by Lalla Essaydi and sculptures by Sonia Gomes, dread and anxiety, achieved a moment of deep-rooted emotional connection that for example, accentuate the ability to convey the power and the works collected goes beyond simple visual appeal, whether through arresting vulnerabilities surrounding ethnic and gender identity. Sonya in the show reveal Clark’s sculptures – which are made from single strands of hair the emotional power aesthetics, intense subject matter or a dramatic use of scale. of new forms of From feelings of love and tenderness to dread and anxiety, – speak to the impact of history on the perception of race.

The second section surveys animals and other creatures, in- expression pioneered the works collected in the show reveal the emotional power of new forms of expression pioneered by women artists in the cluding Spider by Louise Bourgeois. Patricia Piccinini’s surreal by women artists in post-war years, ranging from Louise Bourgeois’ bronze spider hybrid animal that nurses her offspring addresses the issue the post-war years.” to Alison Saar’s suspended female forms. The event also pro- of genetic engineering, whilst Joana Vasconcelos’s crochetvides a keynote introduction to the programme of exhibitions encased animal statuettes evoke the concentration required to create them. Her work also confronts feminist concerns which has been planned for NMWA’s 30th anniversary year.

“Revival is a demonstration of creativity as the museum and societal conventions, making use of techniques typicelebrates its first 30 years, and plans for its next 30,” says cally categorised as craft rather than art, and associated with NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “Inspired by the domesticity, such as crochet and sewing. The third section museum’s institution-wide focus on contemporary women explores images of children. Unnervingly large photographs artists as catalysts for change, this exhibition illuminates of toddlers by Bettina von Zwehl and mysterious images of how women working in sculpture, photography and video scuffling pre-adolescents by Anna Gaskell draw attention to regenerate their mediums to profound expressive effect.” A how the individual self is formed, and its tenuous nature.

National Museum of The show’s title carries a range of meanings. It acknowledges Women in the Arts, total of 16 artists participate, including Sonya Clark, Petah Coyne, Lalla Essaydi, Maria Marshall, Beverly Semmes, the pioneering role of women artists, whilst referring to the Washington DC. Joana Vasconcelos and Bettina von Zwehl, all of whom favour power of art in provoking emotions, as well as recognising the 23 June -10 September. figurative imagery yet make use of a profound connection to spiritual and religious connotations of the word through the employment of imagery surrounding life and death. the unconscious – to all that is unspoken and unseen. www.nmwa.org

Aesthetica 15

Marina Abramović, Rhythm 5, Performance, 90 Minutes, Student Cultural Center, Belgrade, 1974. © Marina Abramović.

Photo: Nebojsa Cankovic. Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives.

news

Conceptualised Movements ´ The Cleaner Marina Abramovic: As one of the central figures in performance art, using her Artist is Present at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in “Although her body is own body as a primary material for more than 50 years, 2010, which saw her sit in silence for more than 700 hours. the subject, the object Although her body is the subject, the object and the and the medium, she Marina Abramović needs little introduction. For the latest retrospective of a pioneering career, and its contribution to medium, she does not consider any particular piece to be does not consider any raising the status of performance art to having parity with about her as an individual, and nor is the action at the heart particular piece to other art forms, the Louisiana takes up the challenge of of each piece tied to a particular interpretation, leaving them be about her as an approaching this major figure by considering the theme of open for reconsideration by new spectators. The exchange individual, nor is cleansing – the acts of catharsis, purging and transformation of energy and the act of transformation is a thread running the featured action which are realised in Abramović’s works through using tools through the entire oeuvre which is, in effect, a lifelong explo- tied to a particular ration of the physical and mental limits of the artist’s being. interpretation.” as diverse as fire, soapy water, screaming, time and silence.

Born in Belgrade in 1946, Abramović graduated from the This presentation has been developed with the artist and in collaboration with Moderna Museet, Stockholm, featuring Academy of Fine Arts in 1970 as a painter, but soon estabmore than 120 works from five decades including several of lished a practice based upon direct encounters between artist her most famous works as films, video, live performances, and audience. She was a formative part of Belgrade’s experiscenographies and photographs from the 1970s onwards. mental avant-garde scene until 1976, when she moved to Several early pieces – paintings, photos, sound composi- Amsterdam and embarked on a close partnership and collaboration for the next 12 years with the German artist Ulay tions and works on paper – are shown for the first time.

Abramović’s earlier works dealt with confrontation, pain, (Frank Uwe Laysiepen, b. 1943). As a solo artist, in 1997 she violence and danger, such as 1974’s Rhythm 0 in which she won the Main Prize, the Golden Lion, at the Venice Biennale placed 72 objects on a table including a knife, a whip, a gun for the work Balkan Baroque (1997), a direct response to the and a bullet, and allowed spectators to use them in any way bloody dissolution of her native Yugoslavia, and a picture of Louisiana Museum of they chose whilst she remained passive. In more recent years the horror and madness of war in general. Washing a carcass Modern Art, Humlebæk. the artist has worked on long durational performance pro- in front of passing audiences, she created a conceptually rich 17 June - 22 October. jects in which the audience has increasingly become the true and emotionally shocking demonstration, which still stands principal figure – such as the three-month performance The as an undeniably vital piece of 20th century expression. www.louisiana.dk

16 Aesthetica

Revealing Common Humanity Homelands and Histories: fazal sheikh traces on the landscape and in the way they are revealed in “Demonstrating a moments of transition – dawn and dusk, dreams and death. shared humanity is He shifts location and theme in Moksha (2003-2005), an at the heart of his investigation into the sisterhood of widows who live in the practice, as he explores holy Indian city of Vrindavan, where many women in later the complex ties of life go to find community and solace, whilst by contrast Ladli memories, people (2005-2007) reveals the work of young women in India in and places that bind orphanages, hospitals, schools and charity shelters. Sheikh histories, communities makes the leap from monochrome to colour in Ether (2008- and even the individual 2012) set in Benares, India, a meditation on the transitional self, sorely tested in the states of sleep, dream and death. Finally, Erasure (2011- face of displacement 2013) depicts a trilogy of approaches to the Israel–Palestine and exile.” conflict, considering the ruins of the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, the landscape of the Negev Desert where recent interventions in the form of military and mining activity have displaced Bedouin communities, and a series of double portraits of Israelis and Palestinians born every year since 1948. A number of Sheikh’s portraits are accompanied by first-person texts as well as clips of the artist reading out his subjects’ personal testimonies.

As Malcolm Daniel, curator of photography, who organised the exhibition, says: “Sheikh’s deep sense of humanity Museum of Fine and clear respect for his subjects are beautifully conveyed Arts, Houston. through his photographs. His is a welcome voice at a time Until 1 October. that is marked by so much fear and distrust of people from the very places that he has chosen to explore with his camera.” www.mfah.org

Fazal Sheikh, Dawn along the Yamuna, Vrindavan, India, from the series Moksha, 2005.

Inkjet print, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum purchase funded by Jane P. Watkins. © Fazal Sheikh

With strident voices of protectionism, nationalism and a general retreat from globalisation threatening to dominate current political discourse, the images of Fazal Sheikh (b. 1965) offer a corrective to a climate of fear and distrust of the other. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has recently acquired a collection of 75 images spanning the artist’s career, almost all of which will feature in their exhibition Homelands and Histories.

Earlier works focus on Africa, revealing the human faces of refugee camps where people have fled conflict in Somalia and Sudan. The theme continues in The Victor Weeps (1996-1998), which visits communities of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Throughout a 25-year career, the photographer, born in New York, has concentrated on marginalised communities, refugees and displaced populations from around the world, notably in Africa, South Asia and the Middle East. His method involves spending long periods of time, sometimes years, working with the communities that he seeks to portray, immersing himself in their history and culture in order to approach each individual subject from a viewpoint of respect and compassion.

Demonstrating a shared humanity is at the heart of his practice, as he explores the complex ties of memories, people and places that bind together histories, communities and even the individual self, sorely tested in the face of displacement and exile. Sheikh explores those threads not only in the faces of individuals, but also in their visible

Aesthetica 17

Oscar Lhermitte, Urban Stargazing, 2011-2017, Installation. Courtesy of the artist.

news

Landscapes of Shifting Perceptions ARoS Triennial: The Garden One of the highlights of Aarhus’s year as European Capital of Culture, the ARoS Triennial considers the relationship of art and nature throughout history. It features an array of internationally recognised visual artists and emerging talents, with more than 15 major installations, including new commissions from the likes of Fujiko Nakaya, Simon Starling, Cyprien Gaillard, Doug Aitken, Alicja Kwade and Superflex.

The Triennial offers a narrative that spans 400 years and is split into three sections: The Past examines the idea of landscape and man’s relation to the organic climate through the history of ideas; The Present looks at nature in the context of the modern city; and The Future highlights responses to ecological changes and the age of the Anthropocene.

“Our culture sees the garden as a meeting place of civilisation and nature, a meditative space between two worlds,” says Erlend G. Høyersten, director. “The Triennial occurs at a time when we need culture to remind us where we come from, where we are today and where we are heading. We want to leave a footprint in a Europe that is going down the wrong path.”

Highlights include a new site-specific work by Katarina Grosse and Concave Room for Bees, by Meg Webster, constructed from fertile soil, grass, flowers and herbs, to highlight the mutually dependent nature of ecosystems, and the crisis of pollinator decline. Meanwhile, Rune Bosse’s Tempus circularis Fagus sylvatica documents the different

18 Aesthetica

stages of a tree’s life, in a single image of cyclical time.

“The Triennial occurs A central theme is how diverse world views – religious, at a time when we, political, ideological, cultural or scientific – have manifested need culture to remind themselves in manmade topographies for centuries. In The us where we come Past, the idea of “landscape” as distinct from “nature” is from, where we considered, as an artefact of human activity. Landscapes are today and where emerge when man tries to “frame” wildlife. The theme of we are heading. paradise and the influence of the Garden of Eden is examined, We want to leave a from Gauguin to the Surrealists. Land art and recent works footprint in a Europe addressing a world shaped primarily by human activity that is going down feature, including Diana Thater’s video Chernobyl (2010). the wrong path.”

For The Present and The Future, practitioners have been invited to explore the garden as a space. Through installations, video, sound, painting and sculpture, they consider it as a site of contradiction and cultural differences, expanding the event beyond the museum walls to take in venues around the city and beyond including a park, a nightclub and the harbour district. The contrast of order and wilderness is at the heart of Doug Aitken’s impressive work The Garden. The outer ring contains a lush green forest whilst the inside reveals a transparent room containing generic furniture and other elements of modern life. Again, the traditional oppositions ARoS Aarhus Art Museum. are challenged, as in Aitken’s piece the forest remains a place Until 10 September. of tranquility and order, whereas the seemingly cultured space offers an invitation to viewers to destroy its content. www.aros.dk

Narratives of Displacement Sergey Ponomarev: A Lens on Syria

Homs, Syria, 15 June 2014, Assad’s Syria (2013-2014). © Sergey Ponomarev for the New York Times

The ongoing crisis in Syria has developed into the defining con- tions between propaganda and fact, and raises awareness of the “His work draws flict of our current political climate – a humanitarian disaster for official restrictions upon journalistic access, which shape percep- attention to the those who are displaced or living there, an arena for a proxy trial tions of the conflict in the wider world. Using minimal equipment, distinctions between of strength between various geopolitical forces and alliances, his main concern is making visible the consequences of conflict propaganda and and the driver behind the refugee exodus that has promoted a on a human scale, employing an aesthetic use of colour and fact, and raises nationalistic backlash in Europe. The conflict has already lasted composition. Originally drawn to journalism, the artist found awareness of the longer than WWII. As a result, nearly half a million people have that the language of photography seemed to him a more pow- official restrictions upon journalistic been killed. Almost 11 million – half the pre-war population – erful medium for storytelling than the written word.

Displayed across four rooms, the exhibition is in two sections: access which shape have been forced from their homes and much of the country lies in ruins. It is also a “war of narratives”, with all sides competing Assad’s Syria and The Exodus. The former features 24 colour perceptions of the to tell their version of what is happening, and where accurate photographs displayed in three rooms as large digital prints conflict in the from Ponomarev’s photo-essay of the same title (2013-2014). wider world.” information is hard to come by and verify.

As part of the Imperial War Museum’s, London, wider season He was one of very few photographers allowed access to the Syria: A Conflict Explored, the gallery offers A Lens on Syria, the Government-controlled areas of Syria during that period. The first UK exhibition by Russian documentary photographer, Sergey Exodus is a digital installation of more than 40 images taken at Ponomarev (b. 1980), comprising colour prints and digital media. the height of the European refugee crisis between 2015 and After working in Russia for Associated Press, Ponomarev em- 2016, which he covered as part of a New York Times reporting barked on a freelance international career in 2012. He has since team. It is a portrait of human resilience, determination and won the Pulitzer Prize (2016), the World Press Photo Award (2017), suffering. As the artist notes: “There were many hard moments: and the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award (2017) for his work on children crying, wanting to eat or sleep or go to the toilet; the European refugee crisis. It was his first visit to Syria as a tourist women carrying heavy things and understanding nothing; Until 3 September. in 2009 that inspired a lasting fascination with the country and a men exhausted because of the travel and pressure and uncer- Imperial War tainty.” The display is a searing vision of the globalised condi- Museum, London. commitment to document the realities of life for its people.

Ponomarev has covered Syria both under the Assad regime tion, a documentation of displacement as being an unwanted and in the ensuing crisis. His work draws attention to the distinc- and unnecessary new form of identity. www.iwm.org.uk

Aesthetica 19

art 1. Massimo Vitali, Carcavelos Pier, Portugal (D0017), 2016. Courtesy of Benrubi Gallery, NYC. 2. August Sander, Secretary at West German Radio in Cologne ,1931. Printed 1992. © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Cologne; DACS, London, 2017. 3. Marisa Merz, Living Sculpture, 1966. Aluminum. Dimensions variable, Tate, London. Purchased with funds provided by an anonymous donor 2009.

Image © Tate London, 2015. 4. Snap Spectacles, Steve Horowitz, 2016, Snap Inc, Los Angeles. 5. Damien Cadio, Chewing Gum à l’aluminium, 2012. Oil on canvas. 24 x 30 cm. Courtesy Galerie Eva Hober, Paris.

10 to See Recommended Exhibitions this Season

1

2

3

4

5

1

Massimo Vitali

Benrubi Gallery, New York Until 17 June www.benrubigallery.com

Massimo Vitali’s (b. 1944) Disturbed Coastal Systems takes as its subject the intersection of land and sea, the marginal space of the terrestrial human habitat.

As is usual for the Italian photographer, the pictures are heavily populated and feature an elevated, distant perspective that captures thousands of square metres in the frame, simultaneously magnifying the landscape and multiplying the human presence within it.

20 Aesthetica

2

3

4

Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919-1933 brings together two artists who documented the radical extremes of the inter-war years. Tate Liverpool highlights this ultimately catastrophic period through the eyes of painter Otto Dix (1891-1969) and photographer August Sander (1876-1964). More than 300 works offer a harshly realistic depiction of the glamour and the misery of Wiemar society.

The Hammer Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art join forces for the first retrospective of Italian artist Marisa Merz (b. 1926) in the USA, The Sky Is A Great Space. Showcasing five decades – from early experiments as part of the Arte Povera movement; to the enigmatic heads and faces she created in the 1980s and 1990s; to latecareer installations – the show highlights Merz’s prodigious depth and influence.

Whilst California’s midcentury modernism is well documented, this is the first show to examine the state’s current global significance as the home of the world’s technology giants. Charting the journey from counterculture to Silicon Valley’s tech culture, Designing Freedom builds on the idea that California has always pioneered tools of personal liberation, from LSD to surfboards, iPhones and user-interface design.

Portraying a Nation

Tate Liverpool Until 15 October www.tate.org.uk

Marisa Merz

Hammer Museum, Los Angeles 4 June - 20 August www.hammer.ucla.edu

California

Design Museum, London Until 15 October www.designmuseum.org

5

Le Rêve des forms

Palais De Tokyo, Paris 14 June - 10 September www.palaisdetokyo.com

Le Rêve des formes explores the interface of art and science. It has been conceived as an imaginary landscape, a monstrous garden where perishable structures and germinating surfaces grow.

Artists and researchers explore new possibilities of representation, based upon recent advances which upset conventions of seeing and showing, such as nanotechnology, synthetic imagery, 3D scanning and stereolithography.

6. Ismaïl Bahri, Source, 2016. Video, 8 min. Centre national des arts plastiques. Produced by the G.R.E.C with the support of CNC. Collection La Première Image. 7. Roni Horn, Water Double, v. 1, 2013-2015. Solid cast glass with as-cast surfaces with oculus. Height: 132.1 cm, diameter: 134-142 cm. Photo: Ron Amstutz. 8. Sheela Gowda, Behold, 2009. Installation view at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, 2013. Hair, Steel. Dimensions variable. Photo: Peter Cox. 9. Jose Davila, Untitled, 2015. Intervened shipping container and epoxy paint, 285 x 245 x 2360. Photo: Agustín Arce, Courtesy of the artist and Travesía Cuatro. 10. Isaac Julien, Pas de Deux No. 2 (Looking for Langston Vintage Series), 1989/2016, Kodak Premier print, Diasec mounted on aluminum 180 x 260 cm Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London.

6

7

8

9

10

6

7

Born in Tunis in 1978, Ismaïl Bahri divides his time and practice between his home city and Paris, working in video, drawing, photography and installation. Tools is a set of eight video works that reflect the major themes of his art such as duration, scale, transformation, and also visibility and invisibility. Jeu de Paume has arranged the pieces around a sense of progressive enlargement, from the intimate sphere to landscape and light.

The centrepiece of this latest exhibition by the American artist Roni Horn (b. 1955) is the photographic opus The Selected Gifts, (19742015), a collection of 67 photographs documenting gifts the artist received over 41 years. Also presented are two new bodies of works on paper, The Dog’s Chorus (2016) and Th Rose Prblm (2015), as well as the new glass sculptures Water Double, v. 1 and Water Double, v. 3 (2013-2015).

Ismaïl Bahri

Jeu de Paume, Paris 13 June - 24 September www.jeudepaume.org

Roni Horn

Hauser & Wirth, New York Until 29 July www.hauserwirth.com

8

Sheela Gowda

Ikon, Birmingham 16 June - 3 September www.ikon-gallery.org

In a considered response to Ikon’s architecture, Indian artist Sheela Gowda (b. 1957) transforms the high-ceilinged second-floor galleries with a trademark combination of powerful visual impact and sociopolitical concerns. Through subtle symbolism and poetic treatment of everyday materials, Gowda makes strong statements that convey her uneasiness with the status quo, especially with respect to women and others marginalised by injustice.

9

Baltic Artists’ Award

Baltic, Gateshead 30 June - 22 September www.balticmill.com

The Baltic Artists’ Award is the first worldwide biennial award to be judged solely by artists. It has been established to recognise four practitioners deserving of an international platform. The 2017 judges are Monica Bonvicini, Mike Nelson, Pedro Cabrita Reis and Lorna Simpson, and the winners will each be awarded a 13-week exhibition, £25,000 for the creation of new work, and mentorship and support.

10

Isaac Julien

Victoria Miro, London Until 29 July www.victoria-miro.com

Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989 / 2017) is a landmark film that explores the private world of poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist Langston Hughes (19021967) and his fellow black artists and writers who made up the Harlem Renaissance during the 1920s. It is presented in context at Victoria Miro in “I dream a world” Looking for Langston, with photographic works and archival material.

Aesthetica 21

art

Spatial Introspection Les Rencontres d’Arles A strand of the renowned photography festival documents experiences of places, marrying the contemporary with the historic.

Since its invention, the documentary impulse has been one of the key modes of photography; the desire to record an experience of the places we live and the people we live amongst. The photograph, as a manifestation of the meeting point between internalised experience and external world, has been a locus for some of the most interesting work produced in this terrain. The Experience of Territory strand at this year’s Rencontres d’Arles festival looks at the impulse across a wide range of French and international photographers, posing questions about how our experiences of place, landscape and territory intersect with geopolitical and cultural concerns of borders, displacement and the environmental crisis.

In 1983 Bernard Latarjet and François Hers announced a new photographic “mission”, to “record France’s 1980s landscape”, under the guise of the Land Development and Regional Action Delegation, better known by its French acronym, DATAR. Initially projected to last just a year, the project swelled into one of the most significant undertakings in modern photography, involving 29 practitioners in different styles, some already recognised and others still emergent at the time. The list of participants is impressive, and DATAR gave them great artistic and creative freedom in their personal interpretation of the brief. Artists included Dominique Auerbacher (b. 1955), Gabriele Basilico (19442013), Alain Ceccaroli (b. 1945), Despatin (b. 1949) & Gobeli (b. 1949), Robert Doisneau (1912-1994), Tom Drahos (b.

1947), Pierre de Fenoÿl (1945-1987), Jean-Louis Garnell (b. 1954), Albert Giordan (b. 1943), François Hers (b. 1943), Josef Koudelka (b. 1938), Christian Milovanoff (b. 1948),

22 Aesthetica

Sophie Ristelhueber (b. 1949) and Holger Trülzsch (b. 1939).

In the Studio of DATAR’S Photography Mission, which is coproduced by the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Les Rencontres d’Arles, retraces this ambitious project, and surveys its impact on the careers of both individual artists and the broader framework of photography in France. The exhibition is curated by Raphaële Bertho, and Héloïse Conésa, who comments: “It is an exhibition of discovery and reflection. It explores how the project changed the path of photography in France in general.” Conceptually this retrospective surveys the central notions of time, place, history and memory.

The mission drew inspiration from the major 19th century Missions Héliographiques, which documented monuments and structures around France in order to repair and restore them, and this sense of renewal, of taking stock at a moment of rapid change, adds contemporary and historic resonance to the works. Many of them seem to ask as many questions as they do to solidify a sense of an external reality. The images engage with a sense of tradition, inheritance and the past, whilst also exploring industrialisation, globalisation, the legacy of colonialism and conflict, and emerging environmental consciousness. An experience of the landscape is a prism in which these factors converge. For Conésa, the DATAR mission offers a vantage point through which to think about contemporary geopolitical concerns, and, as she puts it, “a particular way of being in the territory.”

An example of this oblique, questioning aesthetic is Alain Ceccaroli’s Paysages de la route des Alpes aux Pyrénées (1985), a mysterious composition, which is like it’s a still

Aesthetica 23

24 Aesthetica

© Gabriele Basilico/Archivio Gabriele Basilico, Milano.

“The Experience of Territory asks: ‘Have we entered into the age of the war of images, in which each person chooses to make themselves the one who disseminates or the one who collects truth or fallacy?’.”

Previous Page: © Gabriele Basilico/Archivio Gabriele Basilico, Milano.

Left: Dominique Auerbacher, Lieux communs - l’espace d’un instant,1986. © ADAGP, 2017.

plucked from a horror film. The skeletal forms of trees are starkly illuminated by car headlights, approaching a bend, on a hillside road, with the view ahead pitch black. Similarly, a work by Pierre de Fenoÿl, from Dans la campagne du SudOuest (1984), seems as if a set of different framing devices has been laid onto a country church, a geometric play of shadows, light and architecture. In the foreground, there’s the profile of iron window bars, suggesting a prison.

Gabriele Basilico’s Le Tréport, from the Bord de Mer (1985), takes a wide-scale approach, showing a port from a hilltop, and yet the clay-like rolling water, the fence, sign and benches have a flattening effect, making the landscape look artificial. Another artist whose work makes use of panorama is Josef Koudelka, whose Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Nord. Dunkerque (1987) shows half gloomy wasteland, half industry in action, a jagged pile of discarded sheet iron in front of an operational industrial plant, with steam rising from its chimneys.

Rencontres D’Arles director Sam Stourdzé notes: “The more we think a country closed, stuck in political and economic crises, the more we find photographers there. They reveal, describe, demonstrate, invent, repair, build, in their own language, the image. They decipher the preliminary signs of societies in upheaval.” If the artists who documented France as part of the DATAR project felt a moment of profound change taking place, the same could be said of the presentday work of Michael Wolf, whose weighted depictions of globalisation and growth come into question in Life in Cities, another exhibition that makes up The Experience of Territory strand, curated by Wim van Sinderen.

Just as France emerged as a topography for movement, renaissance and rejuvenation, Wolf’s work is preoccupied

with modern metropolises like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Chicago. In the same way, his photographs pulse with the intensity and multiplicity of life in contemporary urban environments but investigate how these landscapes now, in turn, shape the ways we form communities. His explorations of perspective, from the claustrophobia of the tokyo compression series featuring bodies squeezed onto public transport, looking as if they are physically being moulded, to The Real Toy Story (2004), an installation featuring over 20,000 plastic “Made in China” toys found by the artist in junk markets and second-hand shops in the United States.

Situated between the packed walls of plastic are portraits of the factory workers who manufacture these products for the global market. Something that distinguishes Wolf’s practice is its ability to highlight both global and local points of view.

Chicago: A Transparent City (2005-2008) is a series of works by Wolf that also explore the way contemporary city living impacts on an experience of borders, but this time on a personal level. These photographs explore the skyscraper, using the perspective one tall building has on another. One piece in the series gives a clear view of office workers on multiple levels of a high-rise, going about their work, and seeming to alternately reflect each other’s poses; another shows a figure in a candid moment eating. The compositions have an illicit voyeuristic thrill but they speak most fundamentally to ideas of privacy and personal autonomy.

Like Michael Wolf, the work of the renowned American colour photographer Joel Meyerowitz is also characterised by its employment of surprising, unexpected and penetrating perspectives. Meyerowitz is a giant in photography, whose work has seen him awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and

Aesthetica 25

© Gabriele Basilico/Archivio Gabriele Basilico, Milano.

a National Endowment for the Arts Award. This exhibition, Early Works, also in the Experience of Territory strand features 40 original prints by Meyerowitz, and focuses on his practice as a street photographer from the 1960s in New York. There is great wit and sparkle in many of his compositions, such as Guichet de salle de cinéma, Times Square, New York (1963), where a ticket sales person has their face completely obliterated by the window mouthpiece. In Broadway and 46th Street New York City (1976), a group of people are depicted at a cross-roads amidst a collage of signs for cigarettes, books, phoneboxes; the word “Embassy”; the “NY” of ‘SONY’; and Hot Dogs. It’s a lively, energetic throng, but at its heart there is some kind of transaction, a figure passing a roll of papers.

Meyerowitz takes delight in the vibrant community that 1970s New York represents, but there is also a wry distance too, since a number of the figures seem to stare-down the camera, a gloved hand is just visible at the edge of the phonebox frame. This is a recurring device in his aesthetic, the partial obfuscation of his subjects in the architecture of the urban environment. In Camel Coat Couple in Street Steam (1975), an elegantly dressed couple seem to be dissolved in the rising moisture, their individuality coming unstuck.

If Meyerowitz’s works are a necessary reminder of socially progressive, experimental, playful values, other exhibitions in the strand seem to speak more directly of contemporary concerns. For the photo series Cтансы (Stances), contemporary photographer Marie Bovo looks at the journey across vast distances in Europe, with movement, transition and expedition characterising her photographs.

She documents long-distance train journeys across Eastern Europe and Russia, which sometimes last several days. The

26 Aesthetica

artist describes her process in the following terms: “At each stop, before seeing the landscape, the architecture, or the light that the doors will open upon, I set up the camera in the narrow entryway of the car. Before the doors can close again, like a camera shutter, the silver film has made an imprint of the place. The image is the junction between the train and what’s beyond its doors in a stationary cut of several seconds that sketches another Europe.” The landscape that emerges is a Europe marked by the pre- and post-communist era, and in which this transitional phase is very much still present.

Territory, in the sense of autonomy, democracy, global conflict and debates around border control and migration, is one of the most contested and live political issues and challenges today. However, by shedding light on the local experience of territory through the lenses of individual artists, the show locates these concerns in the human and local. As Stourdzé comments: “The world is moving. Nothing new in this, but it’s moving ever faster. Nowadays, images circulate at the speed of light.” By projecting back and forth between the past and the present, and taking documentary and reportage as its focus, The Experience of Territory gives a sense of this shifting terrain, and asks: “Have we entered into the age of the war of images, in which each person chooses to make themselves, alternately, the one who disseminates or the one who collects truth or fallacy?” Ultimately, Wolf’s sprawling, unprecedented and globalised metropolis, Meyerowitz’s street journalism, and indeed all other series within this exhibition reflect DATAR’s motives to encourage reform and reflection, with photography enduring as a map of the contemporary condition – a circuit of dialogues, emotions and lifestyles sewn into a larger tapestry.

Right: Dominique Auerbacher, Lieux communs - l’espace d’un instant,1986. © ADAGP, 2017.

Words Colin Herd

The Experience of Territory.

3 July - 24 September www.rencontres-arles.com

Aesthetica 27

art

Modern Expansion Steve Bainbridge

Primary colours, block shadows and gradient skies highlight dynamic outlines of corrugated iron and brick chimneys, whilst showcasing developments in minimalist postproduction and digital art. Steve Bainbridge (b. 1974) expresses a vision for disassociated topographies, where geography is a fluid concept which alludes to a multitude of identities.

The series looks at the future of an industrialised and technological planet, where buildings become replicated beyond control and are no longer separated by distinguishable features or indicatory details. Bainbridge’s desire to formally train as a photographer was inspired by the candid documentary works of Tim Page, Don McCullin, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt. Recording daily life has since become an enduring personal project for the London-based artist, capturing both interior and exterior spaces with a keen vision for contemporary iconography and defined environments. www.stevebainbridge.com.

Steve Bainbridge, Warehouse #2, 2015.

From the series Abstract Architecture.

28 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 29

30 Aesthetica

Steve Bainbridge, Warehouse #1, 2015. From the series Abstract Architecture.

Aesthetica 31

32 Aesthetica

Steve Bainbridge, Warehouse #3, 2015. From the series Abstract Architecture.

Aesthetica 33

34 Aesthetica

Steve Bainbridge, Walton Pier #1, 2014. From the series Abstract Architecture.

Aesthetica 35

36 Aesthetica

Steve Bainbridge, The Shed #1, 2014. From the series Abstract Architecture.

Aesthetica 37

38 Aesthetica

Steve Bainbridge, Greenwich #2, 2015. From the series Abstract Architecture.

Aesthetica 39

art

Idealistic Surroundings Andreas Gefeller

German photographer Andreas Gefeller (b. 1970) questions perception and truth, exploiting the possibilities of photography to bring into focus that which is overlooked. The featured series Soma, for example, is a direct reference to a hallucinogenic drug from Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932). Now published as book by Hatje Cantz – teamed with quotes from Fernando Pessoa, Ray Bradbury and Elias Canetti – the series encompasses artificial landscapes and an imagined future. Incorporating a sense of idealism through opiate colour schemes, the images are shot in Gran Canaria, revealing brightly lit beaches and bleach white structures contrasted by encroaching black shadows. Standardisation is the central theme, reflecting upon the impending age of digitalisation and syntheticism.

Gefeller’s work is in the permanent collections of the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Saatchi Gallery, London, and the National Gallery of Canada, Toronto. www.andreasgefeller.com.

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 007. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London.

40 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 41

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 005. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


42 Aesthetica

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 004. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


Aesthetica 43

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 006. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


44 Aesthetica

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 002. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


Aesthetica 45

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 021. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


46 Aesthetica

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 014. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


Aesthetica 47

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 034. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


48 Aesthetica

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 015. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


Aesthetica 49

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 001. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


50 Aesthetica

Andreas Gefeller, Soma 033. All works from Soma, 2000. Courtesy Thomas Rehbein Gallery Cologne and Atlas Gallery London. 


Aesthetica 51

art

Emotive Architecture White Arkitekter The acclaimed Swedish firm has won a commission to build the tallest timber building in the Nordic countries, a milestone in urban development.

For nearly two decades, White Arkitekter has invested in establishing a unique research-based organisation of highly qualified experts in the field of sustainable design. The winning Skellefteå Cultural Centre proposal was chosen from 55 entries in 10 countries. Set for completion in 2019, the wood-framed 10-storey high-rise will contain a theatre, museum, art gallery, library and a new hotel, all situated in the heart of the city of Skellefteå, Sweden. Architect Oskar Norelius states that this project demonstrates how “sustainability is more than just the environment, it also encompasses the social, economic and cultural aspects.”

Architecture firms have had to adapt their approach to urban design due to the changing nature of busy city landscapes and the fickle needs of their dwellers. The growing popularity of temporary architecture, such as pop-up pavilions, represents a demand for agile buildings to suit a variety of functions. Norelius states: “The belief that we can create a masterplan that will last for generations is an outdated way of seeing things.” The Skellefteå centre has design elements that follow this theme of flexibility of use, such as retractable walls for rooms to be expanded or divided so as to better serve the function at hand – from an exhibition to a large congress. By bringing wood back into the core of the city, this will result in a more liveable, malleable space.

Norelius expresses a belief that “the structure in Skellefteå is rational and robust, but being in wood it has an inherent warmth and human scale. By leaving the design apparent throughout the building, the spaces get the character of a culture factory, but where you can still feel at home.”

52 Aesthetica

For this project, one of the challenges for White Arkitekter is to present a building that offers both robust functionality and appealing aesthetics. A key goal is to improve the appearance of Skellefteå’s city centre and hence concrete, despite its benefits, is not as appealing as the earthy appearance of timber panels. Furthermore, by using only local wood of the highest quality, the centre stands as a proud symbol of the region’s industry whilst generating an economic boost for the local suppliers. The skeleton will be left exposed throughout the building as a reminder of its origin and Swedish tradition: a foundation built from local natural resource and dedicated labour. Architect Robert Schmitz says: “In a way, I would say that we never design an individual place. We always reflect on the impact of the context, and what possibilities the building can unlock in its surroundings.” Therefore, showcasing the structure creates a candid sphere in which the public can understand the dynamics of the edifice and see the mechanics behind its thoughtful construction. The centre is designed to endure Sweden’s harsh weather with an efficient energy consumption record and a green roof that contributes to thermal insulation, noise blocking, biodiversity and rain water absorption.

The city of Skellefteå is surrounded by dense forests or thus.

The region is renowned for its wooden buildings and excels in sustainable forest management – a vital component for reducing the risk of fires. The region’s timber industry creates jobs for the local community and these fine-tuned construction techniques range from traditional methods to modern technology. The choice of this particular material

Aesthetica 53

54 Aesthetica

Photo: Åke E:son Lindman, Naturum Vattenriket, 2010

“Firms across the world are now factoring timber into their visions of the future. Priorities have transformed from grand, artistic statements to an emphasis on practicality.”

Previous Page: Photo: Mikael Rutberg, Umeå School of Architecture at Umeå University, 2011.

Left: Photo: Mikael Rutberg, Umeå School of Architecture at Umeå University, 2011.

in this new building reflects and celebrates Skellefteå’s local commerce; every piece of wood here has been locally sourced and selected with the surrounding populations in mind. As Norelius explains: “We need to bring people closer to the urban project, and involve them in the process.”

The success of this sizeable construction demonstrates that a complex wooden multi-purpose building does not imply a compromise on spatial qualities. New types of engineered timber that are considerably stronger and more stable than regular wood are now an option in a much wider range of projects across the world, making timber skyscrapers – or “plyscrapers” – a real prospect. Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) is produced by layering glued timber sections at right angles and this can be prefabricated in a factory to any shape or dimension. CLT is also much lighter than both steel and concrete and takes half the time to construct.

With climate change now the main consideration of any new architectural endeavour, hybrids are quickly becoming materials of choice. Despite their reliability and durability, the production of steel and concrete is hugely energydemanding and they each have significant carbon footprints.

The ever-growing populations in swollen cities mean there’s now more demand than ever for housing in dense urban areas and a safe yet environmentally friendly alternative is needed. Of course, these raw materials are entirely natural but architects have had to invent ways to manipulate the organic form to ensure a stronger, more durable and fire-resistant variant. Most successful buildings so far have involved steel enhancement, which has eased worries over fire hazards and therefore excessive insurance costs. As Norelius confirms: “The introduction of wood on a larger-scale allows us to shape a

construction industry to complement the heavier materials, suited not only to efficient and low-cost construction, but also buildings and spaces for people.”

Our archaic loyalty to concrete is being challenged by such contemporary alternatives due to the wasteful and inefficient nature of the mixing process. From the very beginning, creating concrete entails excessive water waste and, once the material has served its function, the used product is very difficult to dispose of. In contrast, when wooden materials need to be deconstructed they are often repurposed or recycled into new products. Compared to concrete, timber has not previously been considered suitable for creating general spaces for flexible use, but it now opens up the possibility of changing and developing buildings in the future. Robert Schmitz, another of White Arkitekter’s luminaries, explains: “The life-span of a domestic or urban space is no longer defined by the durability of the structure, but by its ability to adapt to changing needs.”

It has been suggested that the age-old flair for wooden construction methods is largely due to Sweden’s essential pragmatism during the country’s notorious freezing winters. Historically, the ready availability of quality trees in Sweden meant it was the low-cost material of choice for housing, which might explain this long tradition in Sweden’s construction sector. More recently, the favouring of wood by architectural practices has also been linked to Sweden’s tradition of dedicated, fervent environmental activism.

Sweden was the first of the Scandinavian countries to change building regulations to favour wood in 1994, which previously prohibited the construction of these types of houses with more than two floors. In 2010 Finland also

Aesthetica 55

Photo: Åke E:son Lindman, Naturum Vattenriket, 2010.

changed its building code, meaning that structures could Cities in the Vertical Challenge category, 2016. This threereach up to eight storeys for the first time. The 2015 Finlan- storey vision will be created using timber construction and dia Prize-winning Puukuokka apartment block is the tallest of even local sheep wool so that residents can keep emissions its kind in the country; an all-CLT structure covered in a fire- to a bare minimum over a long period. In 2015 London resistant coating. Similarly, fire regulations have previously firm Hawkins Brown completed a 33-metre-high apartment limited the use of wood as a material in large-scale construc- block in Shoreditch named The Cube. The 10-storey tions but now these rules have eased and we are seeing a residential block was constructed using a hybrid structure booming new construction sector. In 2004 a national strate- that is primarily CLT but also integrates steel elements and a gy was implemented, which strives to support innovation and reinforced-concrete core. East London architect firm Waugh experimentation within the field. This manifesto stipulates Thistleton’s new Dalston Lane project uses timber in highthat wood should be a self-evident material alternative in all density urban housing and is putting East London firmly on buildings in Sweden within 10 to 15 years. Objectives of this the map as a world leader in timber construction. The 121new strategy include the creation of different types of wood unit residential development (currently under construction) (therefore increasing competition in the market); developing is made entirely of CLT and weighs a fifth of a concrete more jobs in the timber industry; keeping carbon dioxide building of the same size, reducing the number of deliveries emissions to a minimum by avoiding the use of concrete and during its erection by 80 percent. Such groundbreaking use steel; and encouraging unique types of treated materials to of technology and innovation has significantly reduced be brought to the market. Unlike other countries in Europe, the carbon footprint of the building in terms of material this demonstrates Sweden’s unique form of cooperation be- production, on-site time and energy consumption.

Thanks to Sweden’s steadfast dedication to low-emission tween the public sector, industry and academics, all of whom are striving for the same goal in architectural innovation. architectural innovation and courageous experimentation, Norelius states: “Building in timber generates new questions firms across the world are now factoring timber into their that have to be resolved, but it also brings inherent answers visions of the future. Priorities have changed from grand, to questions that we have been confronted with when work- artistic statements to an emphasis on practicality, ultimately to increase longevity: through agility as well as strength. ing with other types of materials in the past.”

Architectural practices in Sweden have sparked what has Schmitz concludes: “Apart from the impact that construction been called “the timber age”, which is now revolutionising has on the climate, it affects how we live. Our vision is to have methods across the globe. Similar projects in innovative people as the focus, inspiring a sustainable way of life. We at urban development are taking place in the UK and beyond. White Arkitekter measure our success by the quality of our White Arkitekter have undertaken a project in the Faroe projects and ultimately through the difference we make for Islands called The Eyes of Runavik, the winner of Nordic Built people by creating emotive architecture.”

56 Aesthetica

Right: Photo: Åke E:son Lindman, Naturum Vattenriket, 2010

Words Annabel Herrick

White Arkitekter www.en.white.se

Aesthetica 57

art

Interior Perspective Giovanni Gastel

Milan-born Giovanni Gastel (b. 1955) first had contact with photography in the 1970s, which truly began to take shape in 1981 when he was introduced into the world of fashion, collaborating with the likes of Vogue Italia, Mondo Uomo and Donna. Ritratti di living plays upon flattened shadows and deep colours, providing an emotional backdrop for the lifestyles advertised, a practice combining minimalist design with voyeuristic angles.

Audiences are invited to measure and compare different modes of domesticity; each living room is a hive of conceptualised activity. The static scenes provide an alluring and unsettling glimpse into private spaces characterised by poetic irony and balance. Gastel’s recent exhibition credits include Canons of Beauty at The Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, Moscow, 40 Years of Gastel at Palazzo della Ragione, Milan, and Donna at Galerie Photo 12. He is represented by TransAtlantic Art. www.transatlanticartinc.com.

Giovanni Gastel, Ritratti di living, Elle Decor April 2013. Courtesy of TransAtlantic Art.


58 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 59

60 Aesthetica

Giovanni Gastel, Ritratti di living, Elle Decor April 2013. Courtesy of TransAtlantic Art.


Aesthetica 61

62 Aesthetica

Giovanni Gastel, Ritratti di living, Elle Decor April 2013. Courtesy of TransAtlantic Art.


Aesthetica 63

64 Aesthetica

Giovanni Gastel, Ritratti di living, Elle Decor April 2013. Courtesy of TransAtlantic Art.


Aesthetica 65

66 Aesthetica

Giovanni Gastel, Ritratti di living, Elle Decor April 2013. Courtesy of TransAtlantic Art.


Aesthetica 67

art

Adapting Conventions J. JS Lee One of London Fashion Week’s 2017 LAUDED Designers looks to the future of expression, which is influenced by neutrality, functionality and longevity.

Minimalism is hard to escape right now. Whether it’s books imploring us to throw away half our wardrobe, or Instagram accounts advocating a simple life through the accompanying hashtag, less really does appear to be more. In fashion, however, simplistic tailoring and clean lines have a heritage that runs far deeper than any social media trend. Emerging South Korean designer Jackie Lee takes inspiration from the long tradition of bespoke menswear in order to create sophisticated, flowing pieces for her own brand, J. JS Lee. Lee is originally from Seoul, where she spent five years as a senior pattern cutter. After moving to the United Kingdom in 2007, Lee studied at Central Saint Martins in London.

Here, she completed a postgraduate course in innovative pattern cutting and followed this with an MA in womenswear.

Alongside this, she continued to hone her skills working as a master pattern cutter for KISA London. This experience, she explains, “hugely helped me to understand structure.”

With her technical skills firmly in place already, her experience at Central Saint Martins was largely about finding herself as a designer. She describes “struggling” to work out her identity, and credits her studies in aiding this sense of development. She decided that she would design “exactly what I liked, and focus on what I was good at.” This ethic, essentially one of focused simplicity, is reflected in the aesthetics of the resulting clothes. Lee dubs the style “cleanism” rather than minimalism, but many of the original concept’s key tenets are in place: the label is “not focused on seasonal trends or fast fashion,” but instead places an emphasis on quality, structure and unique detailing.

68 Aesthetica

Despite her uncertainties about whether or not she had managed to find a “distinguished style” when she graduated, Lee quickly found success, with positive industry feedback coming straightaway, and – although she had not initially expected to launch it immediately – the beginning of her own label in 2010. Doing what she felt comfortable with has, she believes, fostered a deep sense of connection with her own identity and design ethos that is key to her continuing growth. Her clothes appear to be imbued with this selfcontained assurance: they are simplistic but no less exciting for it, with their clean tailoring allowing the interesting lines, clever use of colour and the intricate detailing to sing.

To date, London has played a major role in Lee’s career.

The city, where she sees a “co-existence of elements ... old and new, historical and contemporary art, classic and new technology” – seems to serve as a constant inspiration. She says emphatically: “London is one of the most influential cities in the world.” In 2011, she received sponsorship from the British Fashion Council’s NEWGEN scheme, which is driven by a commitment to “nurturing emerging talent” in the capital. This experience was a formative one for Lee: NEWGEN’s mentoring scheme, specifically, and the exposure that it offered, more generally, gave her the support mechanisms that are lacking to so many emerging designers.

The city also, of course, hosts the eponymous Fashion Week, which is a vital means of showcasing the work of both new and established designers. For Lee, London Fashion Week’s (LFW) influence is important in both practical and aesthetic terms. It is, she recognises, “one of the major activities” in the industry,

Aesthetica 69

70 Aesthetica

Jackie JS. Lee, Spring / Summer.

“Androgynous fashion has a long and radical pedigree. Whether for practical reasons or to make a stylish political point, the simple act of donning a pair of trousers – or any clothing atypical for one’s gender – has been a subversive statement.

Previous Page: Jackie JS. Lee, Spring / Summer.

Left: Jackie JS. Lee, Spring / Summer.

and a major leader of trends. However, it also encourages her with designing for LFW: finding a balance between “show to be ambitious – as she says, “to create new designs without styles” and “commercial styles.” The instant availability of any limits.” It is hard to underestimate the importance of LFW pieces will, in all likelihood, begin to reduce the importance and the wider contribution of fashion weeks in general when it previously attached to this difference.

As seasonal distinctions are beginning to fade, so too, comes to emerging designers. Evidently, the inspiration these events provide, as well as the exposure for those practitioners perhaps, are conventional notions of male and female featured, is crucial to the industry’s ongoing development. fashion. Lee’s sophisticated shapes and lines quite explicitly The shows seem to be changing, though – modernising, draw their inspiration from menswear, and indeed she perhaps – with an increasing investigation into pieces that deliberately chooses to present “a masculine aesthetic in a can be purchased straight from the show. Burberry were first feminine way, or the other way around. I use men’s suiting to offer this innovation, announcing in early 2016 that from fabrics with feminine details, such as laces or prints, or very September onwards, customers would be able to access all flowing fabrics in bespoke tailoring.” Her clothes clearly the brand’s garments immediately. In some ways, this reflects appeal to all genders: she describes how her male clients the impatience of the culture surrounding contemporary “love to try on my coats, shirts and jackets and I do sell to fashion. Waiting months for pieces to become available does them. It is fun to see male customers buying my collection.”

Androgynous fashion has a long and radical pedigree. not necessarily appeal to a generation of consumers more Whether for practical reasons (women working in munitions accustomed to instant gratification.

This shift, which has the potential to create profound factories during WWI needed clothes that would be easy to changes, may seem like “fast fashion” in action, but in move in, work in, and concurrently safe around dangerous many ways is actually its antithesis. The schedule of shows machinery) or to make a stylish political point, the simple means that clothes were, previously, showcased well before act of donning a pair of trousers – or any clothing atypical the season for which they were designed. Making clothes for one’s gender – has been a subversive statement. Think immediately available represents a move away from this of David Bowie performing Starman on Top of the Pops in rigidly structured seasonal approach, which actually reflects 1972. Wearing a catsuit, with big hair, make-up, and an arm a philosophy taken by many younger brands. Lee is far draped around his guitarist’s shoulder, he instantly became from the only designer to reject seasonal trends. A growing a controversial figure. This performance was all the more awareness surrounding ethical manufacture is encouraging significant when we remember it came only five years after buyers to consume – in a phrase that resounds quite the decriminalisation of homosexuality in England.

Now, deliberately unisex pieces are a selling point. In 2015 clearly with minimalism – “less, but better.” Fast fashion is increasingly portrayed as wasteful. This provides a solution Acne Studios’ Jonny Johansson cast his 12-year-old son to one of the difficulties Lee has previously encountered to model the brand’s latest offerings: a long, mauve wool

Aesthetica 71

Jackie JS. Lee, Spring / Summer 2012.

coat and heeled boots. Designers such as Vetements and Alessandro Michele at Gucci have also recently presented non-gendered items in their collections. The trend is also apparent in American brands Allie Teilz, Everybody, Stampd and Garmentory which resist classifying their clothes by gender on their websites. In a more accessible price bracket, You Must Create (YMC), another London-based designer, began life as a unisex label, and a sense of androgyny is still prevalent throughout their collections, where the same fabrics and patterns are used in men’s and women’s lines.

When designing, however, it is women that Lee has in mind (albeit not necessarily those who embody a straightforward kind of femininity – she cites Tilda Swinton, a veritable icon of androgyny, as her biggest inspiration). “The J. JS LEE woman is pure and serious but not sombre,” she says, “quiet but strong and self-confident.” These words could just as easily be understood as describing her designs themselves.

The fluidity in Lee’s clothes, then, stems from her sense of aesthetics rather than overtly political principles. Indeed, she rejects the idea that her designs might deliberately reflect the increasing politicisation of gender. However, in a world where the LGBTQ community continually battles against discriminatory legislation (the North Carolina Bathroom Bill being just one recent example), and transgender models such as Rain Dove have chosen to boycott New York Fashion Week, stating: “runways and billboards should not dictate the way we see what is ‘acceptable’,” the act of producing clothes that do not consciously delineate between notions of male and female certainly feels a politically contingent one.

Lee, on the other hand, believes that fashion should not be obliged to make a wider social statement. She argues

72 Aesthetica

that purely androgynous fashion, whilst undoubtedly encouraging an open-minded approach in some cases, could also “limit freedom of expression.” Minimalist design, however, removes many of the details that typically distinguish female from male clothing and, regardless of politics, the sense of liberation – from seasonal distinctions to differences of gender and age – that imbues Lee’s work is emphatic. The simple lines provide space to move; the shaping is expressive, never restrictive. In this respect, the visual flow of her work resembles that of Hussein Chalayan’s recent minimal but sculptural designs for his diffusion line, although Chalayan personally certainly does not shy away from the politicisation of fashion. It would also be possible to draw a clear line of influence from this aesthetic through to that seen in high street retailers such as COS, whose structured pieces find favour with men and women alike.

Evidently, whether consciously or not, Lee’s work has the potential to tap into some of fashion’s most potent current debates and likely points of change. Her influence seems set to grow: this year, she was appointed Chief Designer for the womenswear label Nehera, who showcase their work at Paris Fashion Week. Nehera’s visual philosophy, which “combines unique shapes with timeless craftsmanship,” seems a natural fit for Lee. Meanwhile, her own label will be shown at London Fashion Week in September. Lee’s growing success is, in part, a clear testimony to the infrastructures that are now in place in the industry to identify and develop new talent, whether through British Fashion Council funding schemes or the exposure that is offered by fashion weeks and similar showcases. Their role in supporting and nurturing emerging practitioners in the industry cannot be understated.

Right: Jackie JS. Lee, Spring / Summer 2012.

Words Anna Feintuck

Jackie JS Lee. www.jsleelondon.com

Aesthetica 73

art

Digital Phenomena Reine Paradis

Reine Paradis (b. 1989) grew up in rural southern France, where the beauty of nature inspired a vibrant imagination. After moving to Los Angeles in 2012, the photographer was struck by the change of landscape – her sudden integration into a sprawling metropolis rich with futuristic ideals, movement and possibility. This shift became an influence for the artist’s first series, Jungle. Designed to reflect the notion of discovery, each vignette provides a bright, digitalised arena for uncanny figures, each of them is an active participant in a number of settings: mountain glaciers, abandoned swimming pools and tennis courts.

A stunning example of auto-portraiture and vivid post-production, the compositions are filled with sensory stimulation – calling upon stark whites and primary blues to emulate the over-compression of information circulated within the 21st century Anthropocene.

Jungle is on display at Catherine et André Hug, Paris, 8 June - 15 July. www.reineparadis.com.

Reine Paradis, Twins.

(Shot in Los Angeles, California, 2015).

74 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 75

Reine Paradis, Empty Pool.

(Shot in Los Angeles, California, 2015).

76 Aesthetica

Reine Paradis, Skypool.

(Shot in Los Angeles, California, 2015).

Aesthetica 77

Reine Paradis, Flamengus.

(Shot in Los Angeles, California, 2015).

78 Aesthetica

Reine Paradis, Lions Gate.

(Shot in Venice Beach, California, 2015).

Aesthetica 79

art

Reine Paradis, Christmas.

(Shot at Mt Hood, Oregon, 2015).

80 Aesthetica

Reine Paradis, Tennis.

(Shot in Palm Springs, California, 2015).

Aesthetica 81

Reine Paradis, Mars.

(Shot in Palm Springs, California, 2015).

82 Aesthetica

Reine Paradis, Moongolf.

(Shot in Palm Springs, California, 2015).

Aesthetica 83

Reine Paradis, Crocodyle.

(Shot in NYC, NYC, 2015).

84 Aesthetica

Reine Paradis, 7/11.

(Shot on the roof of a 7-Eleven store in Los Angeles, California, 2015).

Aesthetica 85

art

Socialised Languages Jenny Holzer The American artist brings contemporary political AND SOCIAL topics into question, highlighting a globalised, fractured and turbulent landscape.

American artist Jenny Holzer’s (b. 1950) red LED installations are instantly recognisable; socially and politically critical, the projected script runs across walls or electronic light boards. “The light is an invitation for people to gather, to think, and to stay in a group whilst thinking. I am enough of a leftover street artist to want things such as blinking lights to draw people – LEDs”, says Holzer. Her work is more prescient than ever. Using text by established poets, such as Anna Świr (Świrszczyńska), Samuel Beckett, and Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska; pronouncements and texts written by her own hand; and declassified US government documents; Holzer focuses on the clash between intention and reality.

Informed by a multitude of literary and political figures, it is her Truisms that really brought her work to the fore.

Started in 1977, the Truisms have been displayed in a multitude of places: storefronts, museums, galleries, ancient walls, t-shirts, and the façades of historic buildings. They were the kinds of questions and provocative statements which many people were contemplating but few were brave enough to voice: “An elite is inevitable”; “Class structure is as artificial as plastic”; “Grass roots agitation is the only hope”; and “A lot of professionals are crackpots.” The Truisms were typeset in alphabetical order, inexpensively printed as photolithographs, and distributed and posted anonymously throughout the city. Evocative of British photo-conceptual artist Victor Burgin’s iconic work Possession (1975), a poster which he fly-posted 500 copies of around Newcastle-uponTyne, Holzer uses guerilla placement and text as part of her artistic medium. Both Burgin and Holzer draw attention

86 Aesthetica

to inequality of class through these works. Burgin’s poster boldly asks: “What does possession mean to you?” and then succinctly stating in reply, “7% of our population own 84% of the wealth.” Moving the political into the street, away from the walls of the conventional gallery, Holzer and Burgin demand public participation through the work’s location.

Originally trained as a painter, Holzer graduated from Ohio University in 1972 and then moved to the Rhode Island School of Design for her Masters and eventually NYC to participate in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. Completing her MFA in 1977, her practice has been dominated by the use of text, manipulated using various media. She cites Bruce Nauman as an influence for an equally experimental use of media: “He makes whatever he thinks appropriate, I have always wanted to grow up as such.”

Nauman, like Holzer, is recognised for his innovative and provocative artworks but pushes the boundary for audiences through the physical and the psychological rather than the literary and intellectual. Nauman’s infamous work Green Light Corridor (1970) includes a green light that emanates from two towering claustrophobic walls through which the viewer is encouraged to manoeuvre space and light, in much the same way that Holzer subtly uses provocative text.

Nauman’s early work was much more like Holzer, having adopted neon signage in the 1960s to illustrate his texts, for example None Sing Neon Sign (1970) and Raw War (1970), but he moved away from these works to explore private architectural space in a way that Holzer never has. Her exploration of light and space would perhaps be more like

Credit.

Aesthetica 87

88 Aesthetica

Jenny Holzer Xenon for Paris, 2009. Light projection. Louvre Pyramid, Napoleon Courtyard, Paris. Text: Lustmord, 1993–95; Truisms, 1977–79; Laments, 1989. Collection, National Contemporary Art Fund, Paris. © 2009 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Lili Holzer-Glier.

“We suffer from a constant onslaught of images and texts, and are inundated by advertising, news and media, which we must sift through to find meaning. Holzer offers us unique ways of doing so; giving us an easy way to understand.”

Previous Page: Xenon for Berlin, 2001. © 2001 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

Left: Xenon for Berlin, 2001. © 2001 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

that of Dan Flavin in this regard, but the use of text is more by architectural firm Bruner / Cott), the texts are projected familiar to that of American contemporary Barbara Kruger. outside MASS MoCA, along the back of the river-frontage, Kruger is often referred to as an “extract expressionist” artist, as well as in LED installations within the building. Text-based literally extracting images from widespread news and mass light installations have been central to Holzer’s practice media and overlaying them with text from advertising since 1996. Concurrent with a movement away from LEDs, campaigns, slogans, imperatives and questions, awarding her works took on a more sculptural element, moulding to architectural sites rather than dominating them. Holzer’s new meaning through bold statements.

We suffer from a constant onslaught of images and texts, stone benches, everyday functional objects made of granite, and are inundated by advertising, news and media, which we are also inscribed with texts – like the LED, the text merges must sift through to find meaning. Kruger, Burgin and Holzer with the object. Holzer says that she makes benches when she offer us unique ways of doing so; they give us an easy way wants to find a certain way to bring text and people together.

MASS MoCA’s buildings provide an extraordinarily to understand, but more importantly, analyse. Their work encourages us to find a new way of looking at mass media. hospitable space. A former textile factory in the industrial Pop art icon Richard Hamilton argued in 1960: “What is town of North Adams, Massachusetts, Holzer says that they needed for the youth of today is that they should be educated “are a supportive and anything but distractive home for this in a positive sense towards a complete understanding of the activity and content providing a space, shelter, resonance techniques of the mass media, whose products they already and relevance.” Comparable to what DIA did in New York know and appreciate.” Not only must we question what during the 1970s and 1980s, taking on pre-existing media is available but what is not. “Censorship is always a structures and allowing them to stand as shells and sites for threat”, Holzer qualifies, “I think it’s harder now with social the art, rather than building afresh, MASS MoCA is uniquely media and various other forms of communication for positioned for site-specific works. Alongside Holzer’s censorship to be as effective as it once was.” This idea will be commission will be works by Laurie Anderson, James Turrell, one of the key issues raised in the upcoming commission at Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Bourgeois. Director Joseph the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The works C. Thompson says that the buildings are “big, brawny, use the texts of Anna Świr, alongside declassified documents. American vernacular buildings; they need a certain kind of Świr’s prose, sourced from the newly translated 1974 art that can stand up to the toughness of the space.” Holzer’s publication Building the Barricade, describes the suffering work undoubtedly does this, the powerful content which she that is a consequence of war. The words unfortunately reveal describes as “attend[ing] to war; wars past and present sadly”, a reality not dissimilar to that of those involved in current is explored here through the projections and illuminated war and conflict, specifically for Holzer, Syria. Prepared in sculptural forms as well as through the silkscreen paintings.

Moving away from the Redaction Painting series (begun in time for Building 6’s opening (the newly-designed addition

Aesthetica 89

Jenny Holzer Xenon for Berlin, 2001. Light projection Museumshöfe, Berlin. Text: Mother and Child, 1990 © 2001 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

2005), Holzer uses declassified US government documents as the source of material, the blacked-out lines of the censored words creating a form of visual poetry. Enlarged and fixed to a canvas, the abstracted results are more reminiscent of Kazimir Malevich: the few scattered words rendered almost meaningless when taken out of their original context. Almost. These haunting paintings include a testimony from the investigation into the death of Afghan prisoner Jamal Naseer as well as US papers focused on the Middle East. Trawling the websites of the National Security Archive, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the FBI, she highlights issues of transparency and privacy through this more conventional medium. Holzer argues that her use of silkscreen on canvas is borne of necessity; “people study and preserve paintings and take them seriously, whereas the information wasn’t always noticed or taken seriously.”

Holzer’s paintings are not for the Sunday crowd; they are ambiguously provocative, presenting ideas and facts in a new light, with new connotations, or indeed, for the first time.

This return to traditional media is rooted in Holzer’s fine art training, but it is her childhood which has directly influenced the pioneering vision as we know it today. She explains: “My coming of age in the 1960s and being around during the protests of the Vietnam War has something to do with my practice now. As well as being a child of the 1950s: newsreel after newsreel from the 1940s informed me; as well as war movies where the most awful things were evident to the viewer. I thought, when I was a little kid, ‘How could this happen? Why didn’t people stop it.’ I’m not alone in asking this now.” These questions permeate the commissions on view at MASS MoCA and Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire.

90 Aesthetica

Working with veterans of more recent conflicts, the commission at Blenheim Palace includes utterances and statements “filling” the interiors. Projected onto medieval tapestries, many of which depict past wars, and audible through the spoken word emitted by speakers, the building takes on an augmented reality. The first woman, and the fourth contemporary artist to be selected for the commission, Holzer transforms this historic baroque edifice into a site of reflection around memory and conflict. With its own complex history built on war and wealth, as a gift from the nation to the Duke of Marlborough for victory in battle during the War of the Spanish Succession, and the birthplace of Winston Churchill, the palace offers a unique site for a public art commission. Joining work from a prestigious line of artists (Ai Weiwei, Lawrence Weiner and Michelangelo Pistoletto), this commission is ultimately distinctive. Weiner, for example, used text to form a commentary on the past of the building, whereas Holzer unites its history to the current political climate. The location, as a tourist attraction, has a broad audience, and, as such, the artist hopes that viewers “attach the appropriate feelings to the knowledge of these conflicts.

Having the appropriate emotional response is constructive. I think that language can be that vehicle.”

Andres Serrano wrote, in his infamous letter to the National Endowment for the Arts (1989) after they censored his work Piss Christ: “Debate and dissention are at the heart of our democracy. The only danger lies in repressing them.”

Without question, Jenny Holzer’s newest commissions, both at Blenheim Palace and MASS MoCA, reveal rather than repress, and hopefully will fufil their ambition of inciting an emotional and intellectual response. The work demands it.

Right: Xenon for Berlin, 2001. © 2001 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: Attilio Maranzano.

Words Niamh Coghlan

MASS MoCA Until 1 May 2025 Blenheim Palace 28 September 31 December www.massmoca.org blenheimartfoundation.org.uk

Aesthetica 91

art

Absent Formations Romain Thiery

Romain Thiery (b. 1988) started out by documenting the forgotten patrimony of southwest France, the region in which he was born. Building on the desire to capture places that people no longer inhabit, the photographer has since moved into offering a visual sense of renewal to universal structures through an attention to texture, light and the notion of absence. Dusty windows and ivy-laden pillars are dappled with the warmth of yellows and greens – signs of life despite the overriding sense of silence that fills the spaces. Meanwhile, concrete rubble, marble ceilings and strewn branches provide spontaneous textural contrasts amongst the manmade structures.

Emptiness, whilst inherently a negative concept, provides the entire basis for the images – cracked floors, overgrown pathways and iconic staircases are left without an audience, to become evidence of the passage of time. www.romainthiery.fr.

Romain Thiery, Photographe Urbex Green Marble.

92 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 93

94 Aesthetica

Romain Thiery, Serie NATURE TAKES OVER, Villa Moglia, Italy, 2017.

Aesthetica 95

96 Aesthetica

Romain Thiery, Serie NATURE TAKES OVER, L’orangerie, Italy, 2016.

Aesthetica 97

98 Aesthetica

Romain Thiery, Serie YOU ARE STILL HUNTING ME, Occulus Tower, Italy, 2017.

Aesthetica 99

100 Aesthetica

Romain Thiery, Serie NATURE TAKES OVER, Villa Moglia 2, Italy, 2017.

Aesthetica 101

102 Aesthetica

Romain Thiery, Serie NATURE TAKES OVER, Oriental Gem, Italy, 2016.

Aesthetica 103

art

Angular Distortion Nikola Olic

Serbian artist Nikola Olic (b. 1974) reimagines environments as disorientating and dimensionless. Inviting the viewer to examine these decontextualised structures, the images reflect upon the enduring relevance of architecture in terms of personal and collective histories. Each composition is both an abstraction of urbanity and a reinterpretation of the spaces which play host to contemporary lifestyles. Olic mystifies recognisable surroundings, translating them into playgrounds that seem at once geometric yet also organic through the repetitive motion of shapes and colours. The featured photographs present a diversity of locations from Texas to Japan, and include portions of buildings – alienated details from a range of design eras. Brutalist concrete flows concurrently with glass from corporate office blocks, acting as an argument for both anonymity and a synergy between past and present. www.structurephotography.org.

Nikola Olic, building with steps. 


104 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 105

106 Aesthetica

Nikola Olic, lasagna building. 


Aesthetica 107

108 Aesthetica

Nikola Olic, shredder building.

Aesthetica 109

110 Aesthetica

Nikola Olic, rectangle triangle. 


Aesthetica 111

112 Aesthetica

Nikola Olic, hypnotic building.

Aesthetica 113

114 Aesthetica

Nikola Olic, trying triangles. 


Aesthetica 115

art

Vivid Exposition Jimmy Marble

Filled with abandoned roads, scattered flowers and brilliant blue skylines – Western Cape and WHiT NY are amongst the latest series by visual sensation Jimmy Marble (b.

1985). With a keen eye for set design – an attribute that has granted him numerous advertising assignments with TK Maxx and Spotify – and an unmistakably colourful repertoire, the director, photographer, designer and muralist is an effervescent pioneer.

Each composition finds whimsical borders within the natural landscape – sand dunes and hillsides being two examples – whilst each figure brings a sense of vitality. Whether running, sunbathing or standing on a ladder, each model asserts a sense of character, captured effortlessly through the frame alongside contemporary styling and bright pastel hues. Marble returns to Aesthetica for the second time, providing each page with a sense of playfulness and injecting each image with creativity. www.jimmymarble.com.

Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

116 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 117

118 Aesthetica

Jimmy Marble, WHiT NY, Shot for WHiT NY.

Aesthetica 119

Jimmy Marble, WHiT NY, Shot for WHiT NY.

120 Aesthetica

Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

Aesthetica 121

Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

122 Aesthetica

Jimmy Marble, WHiT NY, Shot for WHiT NY.

Aesthetica 123

124 Aesthetica

Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

Aesthetica 125

Jimmy Marble, Western Cape, TK Maxx Spring/Summer 2017 campaign, commissioned by TJX Europe.

126 Aesthetica

Jimmy Marble, WHiT NY, Shot for WHiT NY.

Aesthetica 127

Jimmy Marble, WHiT NY, Shot for WHiT NY.

exhibition reviews

1 Mutations / Créations Imprimer Le Monde

This eye-opening exhibition traces the origins of today’s new both intriguing and disquieting as examples of what police creative frontier of 3D printing to photosculpture and high- identification sketches could develop into in the future. The relief topographical maps in the 19th century which were viewer is reminded here of the fact that the digital formula also realised layer by layer. It might surprise some viewers for printing out a working handgun was downloaded over to learn that the first 3D printed object was produced by a 100,000 times before being banned.

A significant number of objects on display are bio-mimetic, French research team as early as 1984.

The last 15 years have seen a surge in this revolutionary as if this sudden technological leap forward has left some printing technique: the first printed bridge is to be installed tech-hungry artists hankering for the now seemingly in Amsterdam this year, and its industrial use is set to grow archaic structures of the organic physical body. It took three exponentially, leading to a depletion of manual labour. months to print out Mathias Bengtsson’s Growth Titanium The show begins by foregrounding the link between 3D Table, which imitates the structure of bone tissue, but the printing and criminality. Jesse Howard collected digital data speed printing of such human-derived structures and anatomical forms is just around the corner. on eBay and printed out these randomly hacked objects.

Bio-printing, the realisation of real human tissue, might A series of masks created by Heather Dewey-Hagborg were produced after the artist collected DNA samples take a little longer. But the diversity, scale and inventiveness found in the street. She had them analysed in a laboratory of the objects on show here leave you in no doubt that a and then fed the data into her 3D printer. The masks are “brand-new art form” has already come to maturity.

Words Erik Martiny

Centre Pompidou, Paris 15 March - 19 June www.centrepompidou.fr/en

2 You Are Looking at Something That Never Occurred a photography retrospective

Bringing together works of 14 artists over a 40-year period, You Are Looking at Something That Never Occurred was inspired by a discussion between Jeff Wall and Lucas Blalock (who both feature in the exhibition) about the place of experimental art. However, it also illustrates the identity crisis that photography is suffering in an age where over-sharing and over-documentation clash with digital manipulation and its elderly cohorts: the questions surrounding re-appropriation and artistic role-play.

Exhibitions focusing on the flexibility that photography offers are increasingly common, and works by Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman and Andreas Gursky are both familiar and predictable on the issues of authority, authenticity and disorientation that they raise. Video pieces by Sara Cwynar and Erin Shirreff extend these debates by appropriating both found objects (in Cwynar’s Soft Film) and other artists’

works (in Shirreff’s Roden Crater) creating new narratives around visual representations, and artistic intervention.

Some of the most refreshing works, however, engage with the familiar aesthetics of high modernism. Sara VanDerBeek’s photographs of light and graphic abstractions are austere and beautiful, and her approach is echoed by Shirreff’s Signatures photographs. Both practitioners engage with the issues inherent in depicting sculptural forms on a flat surface; however, Shirreff extends the concept by folding her prints so that they gently protrude in a manner that tricks the eye and plays with three-dimensions in an understated way. These tensions have been a challenge to photography since its invention but, with the overwhelming plethora of debates over the honesty of the image and the challenge of its ubiquity, they somehow provide a welcome relief and beauty.

Words Ruby Beesley

Zabludowicz Collection, London 30 March - 9 July www.zabludowicz collection.com

3 Graham McIndoe Coming Clean

Coming Clean is a searingly honest series of 25 selfportraits taken by the renowned Scottish photographer Graham McIndoe. The works, which focus on a period in the artist’s life when he suffered from an addiction to heroin and crack cocaine, are brutally frank and confrontational.

These pieces never gloss or glamourise the realities of the addict’s life. In one image, the artist-subject is depicted as staring numbly into the monotonous white light of a TV screen, and in another he is seen standing in front of a window next to a pock-marked ironing board, with the light from outside partially obscuring, and even overwhelming, his profile. Light and atmosphere contribute some of the most striking aspects of many of these compositions, lending an ethereal rose glow and haunting use of shadow.

In one of the most harrowing images, McIndoe is seen passed out on a bed, with a punctured arm prostrated ahead of him. In another, his head rests expressionless, seemingly

128 Aesthetica

unconscious, on a chair arm and blood can be seen trickling from his arm, whilst the other hand is still adjusting the camera. As this image suggests, McIndoe’s instincts as a photographer never wavered in this period, and the desire to document, to compose and to construct pictures, spins out through the restricted palette of a confined flat in Brooklyn and the throes of serious drug addiction.

The artist’s self-ownership of his narrative is a crucial part of the images’ success, and the journey the exhibition tells is one of decline into substance abuse, but one set against the context of the artist’s subsequent recovery – he now teaches at Parsons The New School in New York City. He was the recipient of a 2014 Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship with Susan Stellin for their project American Exile.

In their honesty, integrity and intimacy, the images that make up the series Coming Clean present a stark exploration of addiction as something that is both human and real.

Words Colin Herd

National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 8 April - 5 November www.nationalgalleries.org

1a. Printing the World, Nendo Oki Sato, Diamond Chair, 2008. Centre Pompidou Collection. Photo, Masayuki Hayashi. 1b. Joris Laarman, Adaptation chair, Gradient Copper Chair Edition #5/12, 2015. Copper, 3D printing (SLS ® - Selective Laser Sintering), polyamide 63cm x 60cm x 70cm. Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne / Centre de création industrielle, Paris. Recent acquisition © Centre Pompidou / Dist. RMN-GP. 2. Lucas Blalock, Tree on Keystone, 2011, Chromogenic print. 113 x 90 cm Frame size.

Edition ? of 3 + 2 AP. 3. Graham MACINDOE (b. 1963), Untitled from the series Coming Clean, negative:2004-2010; printed 2015. Photograph, inkjet prints, 9 x 12 in, Collection: Scottish National Portrait Gallery, purchased 2015, © Graham MacIndoe.

1

1 2

3

Aesthetica 129

4

5

130 Aesthetica

6

4. Rachel Kneebone, 399 Days, 2012-2013. Porcelain and mild steel, 212 5/8 x 113 x 111 7/16 in. (540 x 287 x 283 cm). © Rachel Kneebone. Photo © White Cube (Jack Hems). 5a. Sooni Taraporevala, The Gateway of India from the Taj Mahal Hotel, Bombay, 1976. Courtesy of the artist and Sunaparanta. © Sooni Taraporevala. 5b. Sooni Taraporevala, The Boy and the Bay, Mumbai, 2015. Courtesy of the artist and Sunaparanta. © Sooni Taraporevala. 6. Tomáš Rafa. New Nationalism in the Heart of Europe (still). 2009–presentt.

5

4 Rachel Kneebone

Rachel Kneebone at the V&A

This spring sees the arrival of four porcelain sculptures by contemporary British artist Rachel Kneebone at the V&A, London, three of which share the museum’s Hintze gallery with works by Rodin. The sloping form of The Consciousness of an Unbearable Tragedy At Once Dreaded and Desired (2013) recalls the French sculptor’s Metamorphosis of Ovid (1886) displayed nearby, but with a more abstracted corporeality composed of limbs and placental cords in which suggestively clitoral, pearl-like orbs nestle.

The Solitude in the Depth of Her Being Begins the World Again But Only Begins it For Herself (2014) and The Search for a New Myth (2015) each consist of similar forms, but with their central spheres acting as nexuses for a kind of generative and organised chaos where the porcelain is either allowed or made to crack. In the latter piece especially, Kneebone creates complete pandemonium from total stillness, and through this she proposes a complex

eroticism in her treatment of imagery, materiality and form.

Elsewhere, in the museum’s Medieval and Renaissance galleries, the intertwining accretions and erotic imagery multiply in 399 Days (2012-2013), which at five metres tall is the artist’s largest sculpture to date. Constructed from a series of connected tiles, the edifice at once resembles Trajan’s Column and a diagram of Dante’s Inferno. Each tile is a surreal scene in an unintelligible but visceral narrative. One recalls Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man (c.1490) with a subject comprising only legs, whilst above it one of Kneebone’s familiar spheres appears half-concealed between two veils. Stepping back, the meticulously crafted limbs and garlands collect into swirling compositions recalling one of Nicolas Poussin’s Baroque battle scenes: an example of many references – artistic, literary and erotic – that make this such a rich and rewarding work to see.

Words Ned Carter Miles

V&A, London 1 April - 14 January www.vam.ac.uk

5 Sooni Taraporevala

Home in the City, Bombay 1976-Mumbai 2016

Mumbai is a metropolis that has experienced significant change over the past 40 years, becoming one of the largest cities in India, as well as financial epicentre and home to an expansive film industry. It is an environment that engulfs passers-by with its raw energy and intoxicating flurry of people all meandering through decades of culture, religion and colonial history.

Filmmaker, screenwriter and photographer Sooni Taraporevala invites viewers into an intimate conversation about this vivid urban landscape, the place in which she grew up.

Through a celebratory series of black and white images, and with the aid of guest curator Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, the artist charts a route for the viewer’s eye to travel from 1976 to the present-day. Within this journey, we observe a poised sari-draped young woman carrying a heavy load through a dusty walkway in 1970s Bombay (Koli Grace) and later, in 1987, we come across Salim and Tukloo, two

adolescent boys smoking outside one of Bombay’s many slums. Elsewhere, Boy and the Bay (2015) is a snapshot moment of a carefree figure silhouetted at the water’s shore, whilst Waiter at the Royal Opera House Mumbai (2016) sheds light on the class disparities: as an employee stands apart from the clientele. Likewise, The Gateway of India from the Taj Mahal Hotel Bombay (1976) literally provides a window into the riches of high-class living.

The show seamlessly unites the diversity of Bombay / Mumbai across various socio-economic groups, communities and generations. Each picture’s high-contrast and balanced composition – usually framed by an element of the surrounding landscape or architecture – offers an affectionate perspective on the city and its diverse inhabitants. Taraporevala is an urban voyeur who has captured the everyday glances and the spirit of the city of her childhood.

Words Selina Oakes

The Whitworth, Manchester 4 March - 1 January www.whitworth. manchester.ac.uk

6 Tomáš Rafa

New Nationalisms

In the still that promotes Slovakian artist Tomáš Rafa’s exhibition, New Nationalisms at MOMA PS1 a refugee sits on the floor surrounded by dishevelled bedding. This image reveals an all-too-pervasive scene and begs the question: “When will governments worldwide resolve the refugee crisis in a collaborative and meaningful way?” It’s an emergency that collectively we must rectify. Rafa’s work reveals both this sense of urgency and a blind spot that debunks the notion that the refugee crisis is only a local concern.

Upon entering the two-room exhibition, violent chants greet audiences. Rafa filmed political demonstrations, blockades and protests in Central Europe. Theatre-style seating is provided so that audiences can stay for extended periods to watch the oversized screen on the wall. The second room consists of several flat-screen monitors.

The films highlight the intensity of the neo-fascist and racist movements in Central Europe. Viewing Rafa’s films at PS1 in an

American context and experiencing the widespread force of the right’s extreme violence and hatred is shocking. Yet, President Donald Trump’s resolve to construct a wall between the USA and Mexico, which has gained some support in the USA whilst being condemned elsewhere, indicates a deficient approach to government and geopolitics, echoing the right-wing extremism growing across Europe. However, the recent victory of Emanuel Macron over Marine Le Pen in France does offer some hope.

Rafa’s The Wall of Sports painting workshops for Romani kids (2010-2016) is an artistic / political intervention. The film shows how walls are repurposed by the local majority to separate them from the Romani people, an ethnic minority in Slovakia. Instead, the artist portrays Romani children playing sport with brightly coloured rainbows in the background, which injects a certain humanity to the situation and brings to light the treatment of the Romani. Overall, Rafa’s work provides a moment of well-needed respite in today’s turbulent times.

Words Kim Connerton

MoMA PS1, New York 9 April -10 September www.momaps1.org

Aesthetica 131

Film still from Stockholm, My Love. Courtesy of BFI. In cinemas from 16 June and released on BFI DVD/Blu-ray on 26 June. www.bfi.org.uk/releases

film

The Metropolitan Presence Stockholm, My Love

“The locations came from reading and walking. I read books about the city, its buildings and urbanism, and chose sites that caught my imagination. Then I walked between them, for days and days.”

Words Beth Webb

Stockholm, My Love For screening details see: www.stockholmmylove.com

132 Aesthetica

Stockholm, My Love, the first piece of fully fictional filmmaking from Mark Cousins, sees the acclaimed writer and director venture into new realms without losing his signature taste for the unexplored. In his documentaries, Cousins experiments with realities and mediums, even methods of release (at the International Rotterdam Film Festival this year he took an axe to the DCP of his comparative film essay Bigger Than The Shining). In fiction, he holds on to curiosity, casting Swedish-born musician Neneh Cherry in her first feature role and sending her through the streets of Stockholm as the character Alva Achebe, who, during her wanderings, speaks to her absent father about identity, loss and men, amongst many other musings. In equal parts, this is a woman’s story of recovery and a shining homage to the Swedish capital city.

Cousins spent time walking the streets to find the sources for his script. “There are lots of little street dramas and visual haikus in cities, I think, and I like capturing them,” he explains.

“It’s exhilarating, shooting this way. During the shot, your mind is buzzing as you try to work out how to insert the scene into the film. A year later, the production returned to where I had originally filmed the street scenes, this time with Neneh.

She looks where I looked and, through the power of editing, her character sees what I saw. The visual therefore inspires the script. Image and word as call and response.”

Another notable trait of Cousins that makes the leap

from essay to fiction is an almost romantic take on his subject matter. The intricate approach that he takes when documenting narratives can only be driven by his love for it, and the same is clear of Stockholm. In the film’s 90-minute lifespan a multitude of settings are explored or glanced upon, each a product of Cousins’ own extensive wandering.

“The locations came from reading and walking. I read books about the city, its buildings and urbanism, and chose sites that caught my imagination. Then I walked between them, for days and days. They were my Hansel and Gretel crumbs.”

These experiences are translated into the feature directly; at times the built landscape becomes part of the dialogue as a silent yet imperative character. As such, the filmmaking approach included narrowing down the range of locations by focusing on places that Cousins found moving and visually exciting, responding to the city as an emotive being. “I also ruled out more photographed, touristy places,” he notes.

“The idea was to film in some places that even many Stockholm residents might not have visited. It had to feel that Alva (Cherry) was straying off the beaten track.” It’s this decision that sets the tone of the film in its entirety – intimate and secretive, the equivalent of leaning in to catch a quiet conversation. Reaching the end of Alva’s journey isn’t nearly as important as the experience of accompanying her along the way, a credit to both Cousins and Stockholm alike.

An Intimate Disposition David Lynch: The Art Life

ture’s cinematographer and interviewer, who over the past 15 “In The Art Life, we years has built a steadfast relationship with his subject. “It see Lynch apply was more of a conversation between friends, rather than your the same stories to typical journalistic approach,” says Nguyen. Most of the in- his more physical terviews were conducted off camera, with the focus entirely creations, pushing on Lynch. “I could go on for hours and hours and hours paint around with his about material that didn’t make it into the film – material that bare hands, kneading helped shine a light on different aspects of Lynch’s personal- doughy substances ity and experiences, as well as anecdotes and characters that into bubbling masses we believe influenced Lynch, but for the sake of brevity we and spending quiet had to leave some things on the cutting room floor.” moments with Listening to Lynch describe an old neighbour behaving his daughter.” like a dog, the small town of his childhood and a series of decomposing experiments that he couldn’t wait to show his father, it is impossible not to see the faces of his many movie creations. There’s a near sense of intrusion in observing him so closely, not just as he paints and sculpts but as he rests, drinking coke, making notes in pencil whilst he smokes.

Words “We’ve learned to take the filmmaking process seriously,” Beth Webb says Nguyen of the inevitable influence that Lynch’s presence had on the making of the documentary. “Every sound, every scene, every detail adds up to a whole that influences the David Lynch: The Art Life audience’s perception and affects the mood that’s being On limited release. transferred. Although Lynch talks about enjoying the happy www.facebook.com/ creative accidents, he pays attention to detail.” davidlynchtheartlife/

Still from David Lynch: The Art Life. Courtesy of Thunderbird Releasing.

“I think every time you do something, like a painting or whatever, you go with ideas, and sometimes the past can conjure those ideas and colour them. Even if they’re new ideas, the past colours them.” It was this line, delivered by David Lynch at the beginning of Jon Nguyen’s compelling documentary, that not only opened up the colourful backstory to one of Hollywood’s most intriguing and fetishised filmmakers but also helped Nguyen and his colleagues when pasting together three years of footage.

Every frame and line of David Lynch: The Art Life is steeped in anecdotes from everyday encounters to deeper interactions with the artist’s father and peers. It’s a personal piece of work about a man who normally lets his work do the talking – something that will be happening a lot when his hugely anticipated Twin Peaks revival hits screens this spring.

In Nguyen’s documentary, however, Lynch cautiously divulges the details of his life right up until he began filming his debut feature Eraserhead. It’s a rich backstory that can instantly be applied to the characters, narratives and overall aesthetic that he so carefully creates for the screen. In The Art Life, we see Lynch apply the same stories to his more physical creations, pushing paint around with his bare hands, kneading doughy substances into bubbling masses and spending quiet moments with his daughter in his workshop.

This prized intimacy is thanks largely to Jason S., the fea-

Aesthetica 133

134 Aesthetica

film reviews Neruda

Sweet Dreams

Pablo Larraín Network Releasing

Marco Bellocchio Soda Pictures

The latest in a string of portraits of post-war Chile, Neruda charts the odyssey of the communist politician and poet-agitator Pablo Neruda as he attempts to stay one step ahead of government hunters. For Neruda, it’s a game. He wanders the streets in a careless disguise, embraces the poor, visits brothels and sees this latest chapter in his life as prime fodder for verse and memoir. He emerges as a selfobsessed figure wrapped up in his own legend.

It’s a fiction that mystifies even the taciturn cop (Gael García Bernal) on his trail. This is 1940s Chile as it staggers inexorably towards dictatorship. All the indicators are there. Blasé Neruda (Luis Gnecco) glides through his banishment with a sense that he is beyond being caught; Bernal as Pelucchoneau is a cypher – an instrument of the state always struggling to understand his mocking adversary.

Heavily reliant on Neruda’s poetry, this slowmoving drama is most redolent of Joseph Losey’s turgid The Assassination of Trotsky from 1972: its undoing, however, is an over-reliance on talk rather than action. Epicness evades it.

Based on Massimo Gramellini’s novel, Sweet Dreams, Little One (2015), Italian director, Marco Bellocchio’s film explores the lasting damage inflicted on its lead character, Massimo, when he loses his mother at the age of nine and it questions the validity of denying children the truth in order to protect them.

Childhood flashbacks of the happy times that Massimo shared with his youthful mother are interspersed with her death and its aftermath, as well as his adolescence and career as a journalist, and there are fleeting insights into his difficult personal relationships. Empathy for the young protagonist comes easily and there are insightful scenes. However, his adult relationships are underexplored and the jumbling of the narrative is disruptive.

When Massimo writes of the event many years later, the scene showing dozens of people reading his column is uncomfortable because it highlights how quickly something that is genuinely cathartic and heartfelt in private becomes trite on publication.

This is something which the film itself occasionally suffers from in its more sentimental moments.

A master of deadpan comedy and melancholic drama, Aki Kaurismäki offers moral support for the down-and-out in The Other Side of Hope – a candid portrayal of the tropes of modern living and immigration in today’s fragmented society.

Existing in different districts within Helsinki, protagonists Khaled, a Syrian refugee in search of his sister, and Wikström, a shirt-seller turned restauranteur, cross paths in the latter part of the film following the denial of Khaled’s request for asylum – a process that sees the court bluntly conclude that Aleppo, despite the bombing, is not dangerous.

The film juxtaposes Wikström’s support for Khaled with the abuse from xenophobic locals. Harsh reality balanced here with subtle humour explores the possibility of belonging in a foreign place.

Audiences will delight in the visual mishmash of eras – from the 1950s to the present day – as well as the film’s sparse dialogue and soundtrack (present only when a busker or jukebox plays on screen), which are matched by the expansive sets that mimic the aesthetics of a Hopper painting.

Tony Earnshaw

Ruby Beesley

Selina Oakes

Minute Bodies

Heal The Living

Prevenge

Stuart A Staples BFI Distribution

Katell Quillévéré Curzon Artificial Eye

Alice Lowe Kaleidoscope

The Other Side of Hope Aki Kaurismäki Curzon Artificial Eye

Stuart A Staples interpretaWhen teenage surfer tive documentary presents Simon (Gabin Verdet) is the seductive and hypnotic mixed up in a car crash, world of micro-cinema his parents are hit with a pioneer F. Percy Smith, who double blow: though kept between 1922 and 1933 developed his own cin- breathing by hospital machinery, their son is no ematographic and micro-photographic equipment longer alive. Not only this, but they must now to uncover the secrets of nature in action. decide what to do with his organs, and quickly.

Set to a score performed by Staples band TinWhat follows is a heart-wrenching narrative dersticks, and accompanied by musicians Thomas involving the myriad people – mainly strangers Belhom, Christine Ott, David Coulter and Julian – who feel the ripples of this traumatic event. In Siegel, Minute Bodies draws out the poetic aspect real life, organ donor pairs are anonymous, but of Smith’s imagery. A difficult documentary to director Katell Quillévéré’s ensemble cast reveals categorise, the feature demands a deeper level of all sides of this story with raw, unedited emotion. appreciation. Radiating outward from the monoMixing dark romance with a documentarychrome images is the indelible impression of the style intimacy, Heal The Living captures the strange yet beautiful essence of nature in action, bittersweet brevity of our time on earth. Fate, as whilst the score nurtures a spiritual sense of feeling, Quillévéré shows, can take life and give hope characterised by a mysterious curiosity. in one single swoop. Besides Simon’s parents Staples has crafted a celebration of the filmic Marianne (Emmanuelle Seigner) and Vincent medium by unifying the disparate periods (Kool Shen) and two teams of doctors, we also of time through images and music. This Dual meet Claire (Anne Dorval), a mother with a Format release also features eight short films weak heart who is wrestling with her “goodbyes.” from the Secrets of Nature series, which were Simon, we discover, might be a second chance made by Smith and fellow filmmaker Mary Field. for Claire and her two young sons.

Filled with innuendo and an impending sense of threat from the get-go, Alice Lowe’s directorial debut Prevenge fulfils its promises within the first five minutes. Main character Ruth, heavily pregnant (which was the case in real life for the English actor and writer), enters a pet shop, surrounded by poisonous insects and reptiles, proceeds to murder the owner, in scenes which create an intimate sense of stasis.

This sets the tone for the whole of the feature, which is drenched with weighted comedy akin to Lowe’s previous work in Sightseers, and to some extent some of the comedy productions she’s appeared in such as The Mighty Boosh and Hot Fuzz.

Each murder comes with a fairly predictable lead-up, but just as the protagonist tests her subjects, the film becomes not about asking why, but a larger investigation into a sense of blackened pre-natal mania. With intermittent synths, dialogue from a high-pitched baby and dry remarks from the protagonist to her prey, catharsis is found tenuously in a last hurrah – she experiences childbirth dressed as a revenge-filled monster.

Paul Risker

Kate Simpson

Grace Caffyn

Aesthetica 135

Photo: Will Hartley and Anneka.

music

Influential Archetypes Anneka

“I’m interested in creating a friction between darkness and Will Hartley, based on the concept behind the EP’s title track. “The idea of an dissonance, beauty and harmony; hopefully that energy “It’s the idea of an android, looking out at life from behind a android character comes across on the EP,” says Anneka, the Brighton / barrier. I like how the image is doll-like, yet strong and dark.” observing humans The android, of course, is an established muse, an archetype is something I find London-based artist behind Life Force, a four-song EP of eerie, elegant electronica. The EP, released via left-field with deep feminist and liberationist connotations, from fascinating. Would Brighton label Anti-Ghost Moon Ray Records, has a choral, Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto to Afro-futurist artists this ‘other’ see us for panoramic quality. This isn’t beat or bass-led electronica, such as Janelle Monáe. “The idea of an android character what we really are pulsing and womping EDM-style, but rather songs that seem observing humans is something I find fascinating. Would in a way that we to form mid-air: silvery, free-form things that feel sensual, this ‘other’ see us for what we really are in a way that we can’t, because we’re fluid and eldritch. “The tracks consist of raw, improvised first- can’t, because we’re too close to ourselves to be objective? too close to ourselves takes as well as digitally manipulated vocals,” Anneka says. Are we forgetting our own humanity behind the screen of to be objective?”

“I wanted to develop a sound that was true to me. I find my technology? There are all sorts of ways you can draw on that archetype.” Life Force was written during a sci-fi cinema binge voice the most natural tool, so it became the focal point.”

Anneka – full name Anneka Warburton – grew up in Watford, that included the likes of Under the Skin and Ex-Machina, A Strange and Distant Town, the EP’s haunting Haruki just outside London. “I sang in musicals when I was really young, before I fell in love with writing guitar music. I played Murakami-inspired standout, includes field recordings in a grunge band throughout my teens. After that, I studied made during a visit to Japan. “It was written at a low point; it a BA in Music and Visual Arts at the University of Brighton.” describes a cut-off feeling I had towards someone who was That eye for visuals is conspicuous on the EP’s cover: witness being destructive. The lyrics reference the same apocalyptic the artist’s profile against a cadmium yellow landscape, half imagery that inspired End of It, the EP’s improvised, a in-shadow and gazing somewhere off to the left, her head cappella closer. “I recorded that whilst re-imagining scenes Words wrapped in a pearlescent cellophane shroud that looks from frequent dreams I have of an apocalypse. It’s made up Charlotte R.A. like a lo-fi version of the anti-surveillance ScatterViz visor of mostly improvised first-takes.” A follow-up EP is already premiered by Hyphen-Labs at SXSW this year. The image, in the making, she says – that’ll cleave to a closer, more she explains, was a collaboration with photographer friend intimate energy after Life Force’s outside-looking-in vibe. www.annekamusic.co.uk

136 Aesthetica

Digitalised Synthesis Eivør

Photo: Sigga Ella.

Eivør was born and raised in Eysturoy, the second largest about revealing yourself and the sacrifices that come with “I kept thinking about of the remote Faroe Islands. A total of 16 albums on from showing who you truly are.” It’s also an album centred on the how the fog can hang her fresh-faced teenage debut, she’s a big fish in her native balance of home sickness and wanderlust, she explains. “It´s like a veil over the Scandinavia, with a boast-worthy list of syncs (Game of about how the place you’re from, the places you go and the islands when I wrote this album. It’s very Thrones; The Last Kingdom; Homeland), a bank of trophies people you meet become part of who you are.”

She’s based in Copenhagen now, but Eivør returned home much about revealing and her first UK release, Slør, on the cusp of release. She says: “I wanted to combine the ancient with the modern on to press this record, wanting to be “physically [present] in the yourself and the this album, the organic with the synthetic – my roots, the environment where the album was mentally conceived. I also sacrifices that come music of my ancestors, in an electronic, robotic setting.” The like to go home to record because many of my collaborators with showing who result is striking: a swirling, Nordic tapestry merging keening and band members still live there.” The Faroes may be you truly are.” geographically remote, but the islanders have a hearty emotion with a nuanced approach to gothic electronica.

Nature – both the human kind and the wild pastoral sort approach to the arts, using their beaches and sea caves to – is a central theme on Slør, with its siren vocals and stormy, host daylight festivals and nocturnal concerts.

Listen closely to Slør and you’ll hear percussion ranging salt-lashed metaphors. “It’s kind of a Faroese thing to see nature as an ingrown part of our makeup, to give personali- from beat-box rhythms to Eivør’s shamanic frame drum. ties to landscapes. Some of the songs on Slør go back to my You’ll also hear obscure samples (Salt contains an a capella childhood, to teenage memories of getting lost in the fog or recording from the 1920s of old men singing a Faroese being an outsider in a small society.” The lyrics were con- hymn) and a striking, tribal-esque vocal technique on ceived in her mother tongue, and it took Eivør and collabo- Trøllabundin, which was inspired by a past collaboration with rator Randi Ward eight months to translate the songs into celebrated Canadian-Inuit throat singer, Tanya Tagaq.

Whilst European fans count down to Slør’s summer tour Words English, an endeavour that initially started out as “a playful dates, British fans can jump the queue with a UK tour this Charlotte R.A. thing, just one or two songs for the English-speaking fans.”

Slør, which translates roughly as “veil”, is awash with Faroese summer. Says Eivør: “The most important part is the magic, influence. “I kept thinking about how the fog can hang like a that special experience of connecting and sharing with an veil over the islands when I wrote this album. It’s very much audience, of being present.” www.eivor.com

Aesthetica 137

138 Aesthetica

music reviews All We Are

Sleep Party People

Umfang

Sunny Hills Double Six

Lingering Joyful Noise

Symbolic Use Of Light Technicolour

The Liverpool-based Copenhagen-based trio invite listeners to musician Brian Batz, aka dip their toes into an irSleep Party People, is resistible pool of lightknown for performing ness and shadow with their new release Sunny on stage wearing a white rabbit mask. So it’s apt Hills. Much like its title suggests, the album flows that Lingering, his fourth album, feels like a trip between uplifting beats and spiralling sequences down a rabbit hole, Lewis Carroll-style. which invite a deeper kind of contemplation.

These 12 tracks present a rich dream-pop Burn It All Out sets the scene with a dystopian voyage that takes us anywhere from introverted synth sequence, whilst Human exudes a visceral Mogwai-like gloom (Vivid Dream) to riotous energy. Dance, with its psychedelic guitars and soundscapes of colour in the vein of The Flaming high-pitched vocals, recalls the band’s descrip- Lips (Limitations). What ties this all together is a tion of its music as “the Bee Gees on diazepam,” weightless sensibility and Batz’s fragile, often and the addictive Down sees fast-paced rhythms distant vocals, which are slathered with reverb. collide with each other in what develops into a Whilst the album was written, recorded and rumination on the chaos of modern living. produced by Batz himself, he has company here Dreamer takes a step back to match drawn-out too. Vocalist Beth Hirsch joins for track We Are There Karen O-esque vocals with reverberating drums Together and Luster also provide a dollop of grungey and wailing guitars, alongside elements of post- horsepower on Dissensions. These collaborations punk artists such as Joy Division, whilst a tinge of help Batz to build up this trippy wall of sound, but psychedelia emerges in later tracks. Lead singer it’s a credit to him alone that Lingering achieves Guro Gikling’s vocal prowess brings the album to such scope and scale. Brimming with fleeting synths, an ethereal, dream-pop close in Punch. Through- surreal lyrics and pounding drums, this is an intricate out, Sunny Hills is a celebration of togetherness in and cohesive album that is fun, danceable and, an era which is often rife with fragmentation. ultimately, memorable – even after waking.

Born in the Bronx, raised in Kansas, the current New York dweller Umfang creates absorbing, madly fluid polyrhythmic techno that could immediately induce a catatonic trance on first listen. Running the successful label and overall fantastic and empowering movement, Discwoman, as well as touring around the world, her impressive résumé shows a fierce dedication to the world of minimal and abrasive dance music.

This, her debut solo longplayer released on Technicolour, is an apt testament of the determination that Umfang embodies. In places, such as on the title track, the album feels more like a rousing work of sound design than music, with long drawn-out repetitions of synth arpeggios and songs that take what feels like an eternity to develop any further than an additional snare drum sound being introduced.

Undoubtedly, the songs are hypnotic. The swirling Where Is She gives the listener either the inspiration or sheer torment that they are inside a forever inescapable computer game. This album is not for those with short attention spans.

Selina Oakes

Grace Caffyn

Kyle Bryony

MT. Wolf

The Gift

Shitkid

Aetherlight CRC Music

Altar La Folie Records

Fish PNKSLM Recordings

London-based MT. Wolf return in 2017 with their debut album, Aetherlight, produced

by Ken Thomas (who worked with Sigur Ros and Daughter). The 12 tracks act as polished stars amongst the darker, emotional undertones here.

Sebastian “Bassi” Fox’s vocals are hypnotising, something proven on second song Heavenbound, a dreamy, epic affair, full to the brim with layered orchestra parts, glittery chimes, sweeping backing vocals and the encroaching promise of the backup synths – a digital algorithm underneath a sleepy score. Meanwhile, Hex reverberates with a saddened sense of beauty, and Tucana is a shimmering anthem with a sense of acceptance.

These themes are further developed throughout, with Stevie McMinn’s delicate guitar arpeggios and Al Mitchell’s resonant drums beating along to the intimate heartbeat of this album. After a hiatus in 2014, the now three-piece band has a lot to prove, and through their 2017 offering, has done just that with an album set to appeal to fans of Sleeping at Last, City and Colour, The Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson and Bon Iver.

Having pioneered the DIY movement in Portugal for 20 years, indie art pop quartet The Gift releases highly anticipated sixth album Altar, the culmination of the last few years of musical development. Produced and co-written by Brian Eno, who worked with the band on music and lyrics for over two years, and mixed by Flood, the album represents the exact mid-point of beautifully crafted electronica and ambitious alt-pop.

The richly cinematic I Loved It All immediately intrigues and beguiles with a sense of intimacy driven by an intense and mesmeric vocal. Similarly, Vitral possesses a plaintive, reflective quality with a laid-back melody and echoes of desolation. This contrasts with tracks such as Big Fish, which has a Hot Chip style buoyancy, defined by potent popflavoured keyboard patterns and You Will Be Queen, with its interconnecting rhythms and textures.

Brian Eno’s interpolation into Altar, meanwhile, is further evidenced in Love Without Violins, which sees him step forward to share vocals with singer Sónia Tavares. All in all, a dizzying collaboration that displays ambition, invention and fortitude.

Shitkid opens her second EP with chorusechoed vocals, unapologetic lyrics and simple, repetitive cadences that provide the basis for an anti-popstar. Hailing from Sweden, the lo-fi pioneer began to develop a unique, liberated style even in the origins of her first musical project – a post-punk feminist band formed in Gothenburg.

Grungy, spontaneous and at times taunting, the nine-track record provides a sense of relief: alternative listening for the contemporary, digitalised audience. With a smudgy sentiment, the songs are filled with post-productive drum beats and fuzzy riffs. On A Saturday Night At Home, Tropics and Sugar Town are the best examples of this – essential listening from Scandi warrior Åsa Söderqvist.

Dominating public speakers or private headphones, the clashing resonance of Fish is readily apparent. Having gleaned a wealth of acclaim (Söderqvist has seen sold-out shows in both Stockholm and London and has just performed at The Great Escape, Brighton), this dizzyingly fresh performer promises to fill the boots of any crowd with controversy and addictive nonchalance.

Kate Simpson

Matt Swain

Kate Simpson

Aesthetica 139

performance

Radical Expression Alexander Whitley Dance The London-based company explores how dance can bring emotion to science with ITS new piece 8 Minutes, showcased at Sadler’s Wells.

If a concise explanation of the similarities between dance and science is required, then choreographer Alexander Whitley offers a brilliantly simple one: “Essentially physics is the study of movement; of atoms on an incredibly small scale, or planets, on an enormous scale. Choreography also does this.” In Whitley’s new dance work, 8 Minutes, he ambitiously combines the two perspectives to explore the vast scale of planetary movement in an immersive performance.

Created in partnership with STFC RAL Space, an organisation that forms part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, the show takes inspiration from the project the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The mission has been collecting visual data on the sun since 2010 and was created to help us understand its influence on our planet.

Whitley explains further: “They have a satellite orbiting the sun which is capturing high definition images of it every few minutes. We are now able to see in incredible detail, and continuous observation helps us understand a lot about the cycles of activity on it, which obviously, in turn, have an impact on our atmosphere and environment.” The Solar Dynamics Observatory is able to identify patterns that only became visible through the accumulation of data.

However, data as a static entity, as numbers, is very difficult to analyse, so the visualisation of it is an incredibly important step in its analysis. Increasingly this representation involves movement. A great example of this comes from Tekja, commissioned by the Science Museum to create a datadriven animation, Our Lives in Data, which gave meaning to

140 Aesthetica

the data contained within Oyster cards: their animation shows the patterns in the journeys that Londoners make across the city, which in turn offers important insight to programmers as to how people use the transport system.

Taking this concept even further, the development of virtual reality technology offers the opportunity for three dimensional visualisation. Viewing data in three dimensions physically can reveal even more previously unseen patterns.

This makes scientific investigation much like dance, of course.

Whitley says: “One piece of data on its own is useless. It has to be compared and contrasted with other measurements so there’s something inherently dynamic in that. There are obvious parallels with dance and choreography. It’s really about the patterning and the sequencing of movement and the meaning that emerges through those patterns and those cycles of activity. I guess dance can help to interpret or give another reading of what that data might be.”

Whitley explains: “Both disciplines tend to suffer a bit from being inward-looking” and that “we can learn more about the world by seeing them [art and science] as one process of investigation, rather than drawing boundaries between them.” Art is great at elucidating some of the more complex ideas. Dr Hugh Mortimer, the lead scientist on the project agrees with this approach: “The processes that we use to look at the world are almost identical; however, the real difference comes in how we present our findings. The artist can bring that science to life, show meaning to people that are untrained and provide insight into the way that humans understand and interact with their surroundings.”

Aesthetica 141

Left: Photo: Simon Annand, The Measures Taken. Courtesy of the Alexander Whitley Dance Company.

Right: Photo: Stephen Wright, Frames. Courtesy of the Alexander Whitley Dance Company.

Previous Page: Photo: Tristram Kenton, Pattern Recognition. Courtesy of the Alexander Whitley Dance Company.

Although, as Whitley explains: “In dance and choreography the kind of rhythms we live by, the day / night cycle, and “As you start to there are a lot of rational, methodical processes that you also the kind of deeper historical connection that we have grapple with some of go through to make the piece which are comparable to a to it through the way that the sun has been revered and the really big ideas lot of empirical practices.” It is really in the articulation of worshipped and that kind of strong symbolical relationship of the universe it blows your mind. It the emotional side of the science that dance, or art, excels. we have to it as life-giver but also threat to our existence.”

The title of the piece, 8 Minutes, is a reference to the amount challenges your ability For Whitley, emotion is “one of the primary means of communication in dance.” This applies to the movement of time it takes for the sun’s light to reach the Earth. “The to imagine. And I inherent in science too: anyone who has observed the Aurora understanding of how ideas unfold over time is something I think when your Borealis or been awestruck by the night sky understands the think about a lot. So it seemed appropriate to take a reference imagination reaches to time in order to tie the science and the dance together.” those limits it personal and introspective impact that science can wield.

Whitley collaborated with electroacoustic music innovator becomes a really The difference is, as Dr Hugh Mortimer points out, simply how that emotion is explored. Whitley suggests that whereas Daniel Wohl on the score and with BAFTA winning artist Tal moving thing.” in dance, feelings are one of the final products, in science Rosner on the visuals. “There was something in [Wohl’s] music they exist at the unobserved nascent beginnings of study: that seemed to lend itself very well to this subject matter. It “There has to be inspiration in the first place to kickstart is kind of patient and ethereal at times. It seems almost to investigation.” Space is one of those areas of science that be existing on those kind of higher planes.” With Rosner it is is particularly emotive. It’s an aspect of scientific study that “probably where the most literal representation of the subject seems to ignite the human imagination: 600 million people matter will take place – a lot of the popular understanding of space is through the imagery.” watched the first Moon landing on television in 1969.

Whitley suggests that it’s inevitable that we will start to see Whitley has a theory about why space has such impact for a lot of people: “As you start to grapple with some of the really art and science blend further: “Artists are increasingly turning big ideas of the universe, it blows your mind. It challenges to technology, not just as a means of being creative but as a Words your ability to imagine. And I think when your imagination means of engaging with the contemporary condition, which Bryony Byrne reaches those limits, it becomes a really moving thing.” It’s is so mediated. It’s important that practitioners grapple with an area of science that is of personal interest to Whitley and and understand that as a way of attempting to reflect the he states: “I hope the piece encapsulates the many different modern world in the work they make.” It’s something that the Alexander Whitley Dance Company is already pioneering 8 Minutes ways in which we relate to and understand the sun.”

He talks about some of the more abstract theoretical through their creative learning programme. Using kinaes- Sadler’s Wells, London understandings, drawing on the idea of electromagnetism thetic methods, they are developing another way of using 27 - 28 June for aspects of his choreography, and also speaks about the movement to understand data – translating the patterns notion of human relationships to the star: “It determines found in dance to explore the patterns found in science. www.sadlerswells.com

142 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 143

Aesthetica Art Prize Exhibition A presentation of selected works from contemporary artists

26 May - 10 September 2017

York Art Gallery, Exhibition Square, York, YO1 7EW (Daily 10am – 5pm) www.aestheticamagazine.com/artprize | www.yorkartgallery.org.uk Image: Judith Jones, Rendezvous.

144 Aesthetica

book reviews Ornament is Crime: Modernist Architecture

Modern Scandinavian Design

Kerry James Marshall

Charlotte Fiell, Peter Fiell, Magnus Englund Lawrence King Publishing

Gaines, Greg Tate and Laurence Rassel Phaidon

From IKEA to Arne Jacobsen, Scandinavian design has consistently been high profile and has become increasingly desirable in recent decades. This book provides a valuable insight into the history and philosophy behind both its most iconic and lesser-known ideas. This new book is divided into 11 sections, each of which focuses on different object types – innovations in ceramics, plastics and textiles all feature, for example, as do larger-scale works such as architectural structures.

Each sub-division begins with an informative, accessible and thoroughly researched introduction, and is then partitioned into detailed sections on specific works. Plenty of examples come directly from Scandinavia, but others show the global influence of these designers: a section on Arne Jacobsen’s work at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, is especially illuminating.

The book is beautifully illustrated, and is exemplary in its content and scope. It will be fascinating for existing enthusiasts and newcomers to Scandinavian design alike.

Kerry James Marshall, iconic African-American artist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, has, since the very inception of his career, been preoccupied with giving voice to the African-American experience. Heavily influenced by the ramifications of the Civil Rights Movement in America, Marshall devotes his work to both drawing attention to and remedying the absence of minority subjects from art.

This volume offers a comprehensive and detailed look into the roots of Marshall’s practice, including influences from growing up in South Central Los Angeles. This also encompasses the ways in which he realises a groundbreaking vision of communicating the true experience of African Americans throughout history to the present day.

Bringing together a compelling collection of writings, including a lengthy interview, critical essays, and a “Letter to a Young Artist”, a rallying cry-cum-chronicle penned by Marshall in 2006, and featuring an eclectic selection of his works, the book affords unparalleled insight into one of the most important living American artists.

Founding directors of The Modern House Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill shine a new light on Modernist architecture from the 1920s to the present day. Ornament is Crime journeys between the decades to liberate Modernism from its traditional definitions and proposes its continuing presence in the work of 21st century architects as well as in the designs of van der Rohe and Gropius.

Through elegant spreads and striking examples – all in black and white – Ornament is Crime provides an intriguing manifesto. Buildings are grouped into aesthetically comparable collections, enabling common lineages to become visible. In one instance, Takeshi Hosaka’s Architects’ House in Yokohama (2012) is placed next to Le Corbusier’s Maison Guiette (1926) in Belgium, their forms unified by Louis Sullivan’s words urging us to “abandon ornament and concentrate on buildings that were charming in their sobriety.”

The use of quotes from cultural figures as diverse as Leonard Cohen and Kazimir Malevich here reframes Modernism as a timeless dialogue.

Anna Feintuck

Regina Papachlimitzou

Selina Oakes

Incoming

Entryways of Milan

Richard Mosse MACK Books

Karl Kolbitz Taschen

LWL: Making Your Own Movie

Earlier this year documentary photographer and conceptual artist Richard Mosse created an immersive multi-channel video installation in the Curve of the Barbican, London, showcasing the colossal work he had been doing with advanced new thermographic weapons-grade and border imaging technology that can see beyond 30 km, registering a heat signature of relative temperature difference.

Now MACK are publishing stills from this very film in an extensive and beautifully designed publication, reflective of the emotionally captivating and politically weighted content.

The book does justice to a stunning piece of cinematography, highlighting universal narratives as the refugee crisis unfolds in the Aegean Sea. Helping the Irish artist to win the 2017 Prix Pictet, the images captured by these techniques are haunting, and, through being cast in monochrome, depict populations as simultaneously universal, alienated and anonymous, melding into one another as a softly outlined mass. This is an extraordinary piece of work bound within 576 pages, all with metallic tritone printing.

Karl Kobitz’s collection of some of Milan’s most architecturally intriguing entryways, or ingressi, is a visually impressive work. According to Kobitz, the ingressi stand as a microcosm of Milan’s design splendour and represent an insight into the lives lived amongst such architectural exuberance.

It’s a compelling approach and one that is accompanied by an array of stunning photographs detailing the grand nature of these designs. Kobitz’s angle on Milanese architecture explores the place of the entryway in Italian society and looks at the way in which the architecture that we live with can affect our lives.

In addition to the beautiful photographs, the publication includes a number of dual-language essays that investigate the different aspects of the doorways as architectural features and conceptual pathways for universal populations.

Further to this, these intermittent pieces of text provide context and understanding to both the images and structural ideas present in this work. A unique and thoughtful read for anyone interested in Milan’s urban architecture.

Separated into four distinct sections: Prep, Shoot, Post and Resources, Little White Lies’ Making Your Own Movie in 39 Steps looks at everything from storyboarding, shapes and composition to selecting material, music and equipment checklists. The introductory quotation sets the tone for the whole volume, listing autobiography from Steven Spielberg in an informal manner: ‘“So you wanna be a picture maker,’ said the man with the eyepatch to the scrawny teenager sitting across his desk. ‘What do you know about?’’

With cinematic references throughout and a list of recommended viewing for each element of production, LWL contributor Matt Thrift asserts an approachable voice that speaks to the masses no matter what the ability or intention.

The text champions the emerging filmmaker without being prescriptively independent: “It doesn’t matter if you’re Martin Scorsese or if you got a GoPro for Christmas – the essential language of cinema remains constant.” This is light, informative reading according to the brand’s style.

Expect quirky illustration throughout.

Kate Simpson

Bryony Byrne

Kate Simpson

Matt Gibberd & Albert Hill Phaidon

Matt Thrift Laurence King

Aesthetica 145

146 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 147

148 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 149

150 Aesthetica

Aesthetica 151

Subscribe & Save 30% Digital £16.99 UK £26.95 Europe £33.50 Rest of World £35.50

www.aestheticamagazine.com/subscribe (0044) (0)844 568 2001

iPad

152 Aesthetica

9:45 AM

OLGA LOMAKA | www.olgalomaka.com Olga Lomaka is a promising emerging artist working in the pop art style.

www.robiwalters.com

Image: The Wall. Acrylic on canvas, 101.5cm x 76cm x 1.5cm.

Image: Olga Lomaka Love You to the Moon and Back, 2017.

Acrylic on canvas, Xirallic® colour and fiberglass, 120cm x 190cm x 10cm.

artists’ directory

Nina Baxter | www.ninabaxterart.com A graduate of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London-based Nina Baxter produces geometric, abstract paintings that focus on the interaction of colour.

ZORAN POPOSKI | www.zoranpoposki.com Zoran Poposki (PhD, MFA) is an award-winning artist based in Hong Kong.

To be included in the Artists’ Directory contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or katherine@aestheticamagazine.com.

Aesthetica 153

artists’ directory

André Lichtenberg creates large-scale studies of the environment inspired by childhood memories

André Lichtenberg | www.photoandre.com

LENNETTE NEWELL | www.lennettenewell.com In Lennette Newell’s Ani-human series, the gap between humans and wild animals is diminished, along with any hierarchy that has been imposed by the technology of man. The series portrays the certainty that a tranquil coinhabitance can exist, and therefore the possibility that it could propagate.

The award-winning image shown here is one capture, not a composite, which is important to Newell as it relays a true moment in time.

Image: Housing Complex, 2017. Acrylic on canvas, 76cm x 76cm.

Yusuke Sugiyama Rather than as divisions or oppositions, Yusuke Sugiyama uses the concept of boundaries to explore the spaces in-between; somewhere between abstraction and embodiment, reality and memory, the self and the other and multi-layered consciousness.

https://yuuskesugiyam.myportfolio.com

154 Aesthetica

DAVID CASS (ARWS) | www.davidcass.work New artworks online

meiyi yang Designer Meiyi Yang explores the relationship between

jewellery and clothing as they relate to the human body as

John Duval Jersey City-born watercolourist John DuVal captures the light and colour of urban landscapes.

an expression of individuality. Her latest work represents

“a woman of mellowness and strength. She jumps between the various roles society assigns her. When necessary, she puts on her armour and becomes a gladiator.”

www.meiyi-yang.com

www.duvalfineart.com

Image: Leina a Ka’uhane, 2017. Acrylic ink on linen, 170cm x 254cm.

Michael Brewington

Nu’a Bön

Atlanta-based Michael Brewington uses photography to deal with what he feels is the increasing depersonalisation of the world around him due to the internet. His work explores themes of youth and consumption in today’s society. Through his work, he hopes viewers will find moments of respite, slow down, relax and appreciate life.

Nu’a Bön is a Hawai’i-born artist and shaman trained in the USA, South America and China. The generosity of patrons allows him to explore sacred places and sites of human conflict to create and offer Ìcaros (prayer/paintings) in the sumi-e style. The piece shown depicts souls leaping into the afterlife, leaving only the echo of their voices in Ka’ena, Hawai’i.

www.senterfolds.com

Instagram: @nua.bon

To be included in the Artists’ Directory contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com.

Aesthetica 155

artists’ directory

Albert Janzen Albert Janzen won the Luxembourg Art Prize 2015. In his works he examines lines as a basic means to perceive our environment. Every recognition of visual structures depends upon a recognition of lines; this ultimate simplicity provides its independent aesthetics. In Janzen’s drawings lines do not represent an idea, rather just themselves: the line is an independent entity. www.albertjanzen.com

Alejandra Gómez Sarmiento A visual artist based in Barcelona, Gómez Sarmiento’s practice is focused on photographic composition, video installation and art film. She explores the human condition and how it is affected from a social point of view whilst using a combination of abstraction, surrealism and pop art. www.alejandragomezsarmiento.com

Andrew James Robinson Andrew James Robinson manipulates paint media in a process that is somewhere between representation and abstraction. The synthetic world that is depicted takes reference from science fiction, combining literary and artistic influence – the viewer is placed into an ambiguous narrative. www.horatiorobinson.wix.com/bottom Instagram: @bad_spaces

Anna Matykiewicz Anna Matykiewicz is a painter of emotional portraits using vibrant colours. Although compositions begin with photographs, her intuition via a free-flowing process and memory are also used. Inspiration comes from human features as well as her personal life experiences. The resulting aim is to stir the emotions, ideas and opinions of the viewer. www.annamatart.com Image: Bright. Mixed media on paper, 51cm x 76cm.

Anne Gibson Anne Gibson’s multidisciplinary work investigates constrained imagery of the human form and environment. Using different methods of layering, she explores moments of serendipity, whilst enjoying the spontaneity and physicality of painting with oil. She is currently working on the structure and complexities of membranes. www.annegibsonfineart.com

156 Aesthetica

Anna Cortada The artwork of Anna Cortada is filled with elements of nature, and images that suggest flowers, vegetables, monsters and masks. In 2013, she started the Social Fashion Monster project at Felicidad Duce, the Fashion School of LCI Barcelona, and she has also participated in numerous exhibitions in London and Catalonia. facebook.com/SocialFashionMonster

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj Annamarie Dzendrowskyj seeks to examine and paint the indeterminate nature of ‘ways of seeing’. Employing a process of creation and erasure, concealing and revealing, her images evoke the sense of a netherworld that conflates time, place, vision and memory.

She will be exhibiting with White Noise_Projects at the Crypt Gallery in St. Pancras, London in October. www.annamariedzendrowskyj.com

Anthony Huber Utilising painting, drawing and sculptural processes, Anthony Huber’s work examines the tension between erosion and reconstruction.

Of particular interest is the strain in visceral conflicts between utilitarian materials such as construction detritus and art materials. www.huberstudio.com

Assiya Amini Artist and filmmaker Assiya Amini grew up in Afghanistan, Germany and the UK. She is interested in the impact that the people and places around us have on our lives. Still directly involved in the Afghan diaspora, she sees her art practice as representing the voice of Afghan women, intertwining drawings, moving images, sound and installation. afgartfilmmedia@gmail.com

Anthony White Anthony White is a contemporary visual artist based in Paris. His practice is concerned with the phenomenology of empires. His recent work investigates collision points, shifts and raptures at the site of geopolitical and cultural boundaries, particularly in relation to global issues of displacement.

Image: Sanguine (After Manus), 2016.

Oil on linen, 150cm x 120cm.

Billie Bond British multidisciplinary artist Billie Bond uses the traditional skills of realistic portrait sculpture as a point of departure. She explores processes of making, destroying and repairing as a metaphorical journey of trauma and healing – the scars of life, translating the inner being through a disrupted surface, creating new visual conversations. www.billiebondart.com Instagram: @billiebondsculptor

Barry Masteller Los Angeles-born Barry Masteller is a painter. His works are not of real places but rather imagined and dream-like spaces deep from within the subconscious. www.barrymasteller.com

Brett Dyer Texas, USA-born Brett Dyer is an art professor and artist. His recent work combines abstract figures with evocative colours and patterns revealing the complexity of the human spirit. Dyer’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking and mixed media. His work is exhibited in galleries, private collections and museums throughout the USA. www.brettleedyer.wixsite.com/artist Instagram: @brettleedyer

Brandon Le Currently embracing his passion for oil painting, Brandon Le aims to bring a sense of peace to the viewer through minimalistic backdrops and a limited colour palette. He believes that both struggle and freedom are essential to deepen one’s understanding of life.

Image: Infinity Pier. © Carol Ginandes.

Instagram: @brandonleart ble73@midwestern.edu

Carol Ginandes Carol Ginandes is an American artist who creates richly coloursaturated landscapes depicting transcendent experiences of nature. Shown in galleries and museums, her work has also been collected by corporate and private collections. The limited-edition images, printed on archival photo paper or canvas, can be viewed and ordered through her website. www.carolginandes.com

To be included in the Artists’ Directory contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com.

Image: Little Miss Sunshine, 2017. Acrylic and latex on canvas, 24in x 18in.

www.anthonyjwhite.net Instagram: @anthony_white_paris

Christos Tsimaris Like many contemporary figurative painters, it’s impossible for Christos Tsimaris to avoid the extensive influence of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon. However, Tsimaris is finding his own practice, seeking to go beyond representational art and gestural expressionism, creating new paths for traditional media. www.saatchiart.com/ account/profile/94767

Aesthetica 157

artists’ directory

Cynli Sugita Cynli Sugita is a digital artist who creates collages and montages in her native Japan.

The Mui Vision series is a 1,000piece project to seek “Mui”. It is published on her Mui Vision blog and is presently halfway to completion. Her most recent exhibition was in the UK in 2017.

Image: Cirrus. Lenticular 3D Print.

www.cynlisugita.com cynli.sugita@gmail.com

Diane MacLean Diane Maclean is a sculptor working mainly in stainless steel and light, in pieces that are placed in the landscape and open spaces in towns and cities. Light, reflection, colour and, on occasion, sound, are present in geometrically constructed works that both counter and reflect the complications of nature and architectural lines. www.dianemaclean.co.uk

Cynthia J Duncan Born in East Africa, Cynthia J Duncan is currently based in the UK, working in oils and watercolours.

She says: “My paintings are a reflection of life’s emotions. Whether it be a moment of profound importance or a chuckle borne from an instance of amusement and everything in between.” www.cynthiaduncan.com art@cynthiaduncan.com Image: no.498, 2017. Digital montage.

Cyrille Charro Born to a French mother and a Lebanese father, photographer Cyrille Charro grew up between two countries. Alternating cultures, he feels disconnected from both of them, which leads him to question the concept of identity.

Currently based in London, he is exploring the dualities of attraction and repulsion, using a variety of photographic media. www.cyrillecharro.com

Image: Nomads, 2017. Coloured stainless steel and stainless steel structure. There is lighting in the base of the sculptures during hours of darkness.

Ekaterina Popova Ekaterina Popova is a Russianborn visual artist. Her paintings fuse memories with scenes from the current environment. The domestic spaces and still lifes are at once strange and familiar. Most recently her work was on view at Art Miami and she will exhibit at The Other Art Fair New York.

Diana Whiley Diana Whiley is an Australian digital artist. A lover of myth and ritual, she is currently exploring narratives that resonate with all forms of art, like the muses of Greek mythology.

Her art places the subjects within today’s urban landscape, framed by nature’s hand. The organic world is a constant inspiration to her, forging links between the old and new. www.dianakwhiley.weebly.com

Dorothy Ramsay Experimentation is key for Dorothy Ramsay. She uses a variety of subject matter and materials, from oils and pastels to printmaking.

Presently, her focus is on painting.

With an interest in abstraction, she translates the landscapes of Cumbria, Cornwall and France into block colour compositions. www.facebook.com/ dorothyramsayartist www.dorothyramsayfineart.co.uk

Emel Karakozak Award-winning photographer Emel Karakozak is the first woman in Turkey to hold a EFIAP/g title and has also participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. She works as a federation delegate in TFSF (Turkish Federation of Photographic Art). www.emelkarakozak.com

www.katerinapopova.com

158 Aesthetica

Fedya Ili Born in the former USSR and having lived in Europe, Asia and South America, Fedya Ili is currently based in Berlin. After two decades as an art director, he now devotes his time to photography. Ili concentrates on the male body and sexuality, whilst exploring themes of social freedom and equality by portraying men from around the world. www.ifedya.com

Georg Óskar Georg Óskar delves in the subconscious in order to expose hidden emotions and introspective sentiments. The present climate dictates that we pay attention to the larger media and advertised landscape. Óskar’s practice seeks to reinstate the poetic simplicity of the everyday. www.georgoskar.com

Grace Price Grace Price has always pushed the boundaries of painting; stretching the possibilities of the traditional medium in order to create pluralities. Focusing on collage, photography and canvas manipulation, she plays with different composite parts to form a constellation of singular yet related forms as a multidiscliplinary form of expression. www.gracespractice.com

Jason Clarke Jason Clarke uses art therapy to manage his bipolar disorder. It helps to release the pressure in his head from disturbing voices and visions. Exhibiting his work brings mental health issues to a wider audience; conversations begin and people can open up about their experiences. Better understanding and education can reduce stigma. www.jasonclarke-bipolarart.com bipolar.art@gmail.com

Hanna ten Doornkaat Hanna ten Doornkaat explores the process and meaning of ‘nonobjective’ drawing. Marks, lines and grids employed as a compositional format are often recurring elements.

Her drawings capture an essence of approximation of something half-remembered, a moment in a world where instant visual gratification is available online. www.tendoornkaat.co.uk Instagram: @hannatendoornkaat

Jennifer Gunlock Based in Long Beach, California, Jennifer Gunlock applies collage and drawing to construct tree figures whose bodies are awkwardly fused with architectural motifs.

The imagery’s fusion of the two contemplates the relationship between civilisation and nature, and it points to the likely decline of civilisation as a result of its age-old domination strategy. www.jennifergunlock.com

Julian Mullineux Born in South Africa, raised in the UK and currently based in Oman, Julian Mullineux’s artistic process begins with the development of a relationship with a space, usually one the artist perceives to be beautiful, whether in atmosphere, architecture or experience. Painstaking photography of the space becomes the building blocks for digital manipulation. www.julianmullineux.com

To be included in the Artists’ Directory contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com.

Liam Dobson Scottish artist Liam Dobson depicts natural and urban surroundings using a variety of materials and formats. Combining impressionism and illustration, his dramatic use of colour brings to life concepts and emotions such as the weathered sky and stormy seas that for many symbolise Scottish landscapes. www.LiamDobsonArt.wordpress.com

Aesthetica 159

artists’ directory

Marja de Sanctis Marja de Sanctis is an artist and illustrator based in London. She uses mixed media, rendered in a painterly style and an eye-catching colour palette. Her work is informed by a curiosity for human stories, songs and podcasts, which she seeks to represent through use of metaphor and symbolism. www.marja.co Instagram: @marjadesanctis

Lucy Carty Lucy Carty’s background in environmental science and biology influences her use of nature as a metaphor for the creative process.

Her work as Artist in Residence for The Scott Polar Research Institute is being shown at Touching Ice (135 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 7DG) from 29 June until 5 July. www.lucycarty.com

Mary Lonergan Mary Lonergan is an Oakland, California artist who uses vibrant colour and movement to design an essential exchange between the art and the viewer. She has participated in international exhibitions in Florence, London and Paris. She also shows locally in the San Francisco Bay Area. www.marylonerganart.com mary@marylonerganart.com

Michael Shaw US-based illustrator Michael Shaw explores the concept of art as a form of meditation and therapy. Using colourful inks, he investigates the mysteries of the subconscious, always striving to be better and create unique art.

Nouha Homad Nouha Homad captures the essence of nameless sensations evoked by sounds, smells, sight and touch. The work communicates the intensity of her emotional response to present and past experiences, lived and imagined. Her international upbringing influences and enriches the cosmopolitan vision and cultural variety she brings to her art. www.nouhahomad.com

Instagram @michaelshawart82

Olivia Strange Olivia Strange makes multimedia, immersive installations using objects from work/domestic environments, poetry, found materials, sound and video projection. Her work explores the meaning of objects through notions of the self, fantasy and reality, whilst often examining mundane and repetitive cycles of everyday life. www.oliviastrange.com

160 Aesthetica

Megan Carty Megan Carty lives and works in a historic town outside Boston.

Growing up in the US state of Maine afforded her a rich and inspirational environment of mountains, fields, lakes and the ocean. Her vibrant abstract work translates the essence of those places through their colours and moods. www.megancartyart.com Instagram: @megan_carty_art

Phil Hughes Selected by art critic Ian Mayes for the 2016 Discerning Eye exhibition in London, Phil Hughes is an English painter working in oils and acrylics. Fascinated by faces, colour and tone, he explores the drama and endless variations of mood, expression and personality in all of our faces – alongside a simple joy in vibrant colours. www.clikpic.com/philhughes hughes642@yahoo.co.uk

Rob Elford Rob Elford is a London-based artist who works with 3D printed materials and natural handcrafted finishes. His innovative approach to digitally printed wearable art has led to exhibitions in the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, features in Love and Vogue magazines and also to winning the Preziosa Young Contemporaries prize. www.robelford.co.uk rob@robelford.co.uk

www.rachelpeddersmith.com rachel@rachelpeddersmith.com

Rosie Burns Rosie Burns seeks new ways to create. A UK-based artist working in oil, watercolour and print, Burns is interested in forging new visual landscapes to generate a sense of escapism.

She collects multiple images as inspiration, including landscapes, portraits and reflective scenery. www.rosieburnsartist.com

www.sannahaimila.com Instagram: @haimilasanna

Wayne Sleeth Wayne Sleeth is a visual artist active on both sides of the English Channel. Regularly contributing to group shows in the UK, he works and exhibits permanently in France, reappraising traditional genres of landscape, seascape and cityscape through high and low-art techniques. He is currently showing in Metz as well as Basel. www.waynesleeth.com Instagram : @waynesleeth

Tiffany Scull Ceramics Combining elegant forms, rich colours and intricate Sgraffito drawings, each one of Tiffany Scull’s unique ceramic pieces has been created by hand. Inspired by the natural world, with Art Nouveau influences, she produces her own distinctive style of work. She will be exhibiting at Art In Clay in August and Handmade at Kew in October. www.tiffanyscullceramics.com tiffany.scull@btinternet.com

Image: Summer.

Image: Untitled, 2017. Charcoal, 100cm x 70cm.

Sanna Haimila Sanna Haimila is Finland-based painter and illustrator. The basis of her art is found in intuition and expressionism. Her current work explores the themes of motherhood, mortality and grief.

Image: a ring from the Snowy collection.

To be included in the Artists’ Directory contact Katherine Smira on (0044) (0)844 568 2001 or directory@aestheticamagazine.com.

Sabine Müller Sabine Müller is a fine art jewellery designer. She has a vast distribution network in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, the UK, Ireland and the USA. Her pieces are vibrant and alive with detail; the Snowy collection captures beauty through shape, form and structure. The Snowy ring is nominated for a German design award 2018, Luxury Category. www.sabine-mueller.com

Image: Cattleya Orchid sgraffito ceramic vessel. Photographed by Mark Clayton.

Rachel Pedder-Smith Rachel Pedder-Smith records nature in minute detail. She is well-known for illustrating dried specimens at The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She has had solo shows in London and one of her pieces was selected to represent contemporary botanical illustration in the Watercolour exhibition (2011) at Tate Britain.

Ylenia Mino Award-winning Italian-born fine artist Ylenia Mino is based in the USA, where she exhibits internationally.

The Seasons series was on display in New York in January and will also be shown on Martha’s Vineyard in August. She says: “My desire as an artist is to provide pieces of sky that people can take home and enjoy the peace coming out of them.” www.yleniamino.com Instagram: @theartofyleniamino

Aesthetica 161

Valentina Stellino, Camping in Spain, 2016.

last words

Valentina Stellino Artist

162 Aesthetica

My earlier works focused mainly on my everyday environment – the lifestyle, behaviour and gestures of my family, who are of Italian descent. Although I rarely alter the circumstances, the staging of each composition is vital as it creates a moment in-between fiction and reality. This specific image, Camping in Spain, is part of my latest series, Cut. For this, I included different locations throughout the world, and portraits not only of people close to me but also of others who crossed my path. Indeed, in other countries, I discovered comparable traits and similar habits. The featured image is, however, from a series that does not show people. Rather, it is an encountered yet constructed setting, provided by contemporary life. It is currently displayed in Betwixt and Between at Fotomuseum, Antwerp. www.braakland-fomu.be.

Aesthetica 163

164 Aesthetica