Aesthetica Issue 75

Aesthetica

THE ART & CULTURE MAGAZINE

www.aestheticamagazine.com

Issue 75 February / March 2017

UNIVERSAL REFLECTIONS

CULTURAL ILLUMINATION

DYNAMIC IMAGINATION

Highlighting the shifting relationship between landscape and construction

Design expositions reveal common interests in contemporary practices

Investigating the evolutionary value of art through adaptive installations

Pioneers of Scandinavian fashion consider tradition and innovation

UK £4.95 Europe €9.99 USA $13.49

INTEGRAL TOPOGRAPHIES

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Welcome Editor’s Note

On the Cover Since innovative photographic duo JUCO (comprising Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud) first met at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002, they have rapidly become a powerhouse for creative responses to fashion and advertising. Custom-made sets are alive with intricate patterns and correlating colours. www.jucophoto.com. (p118).

Cover Image: JUCO, Beach Story, 2014.

For Schön Magazine. Model: Victoria Anderson.

Styling: Jimi Urquiaga. Set design: Adi Goodrich.

I recently attended the launch of a new screen school in the UK and the speaker said something fabulous that he picked up from a calligrapher in Baghdad: “Poetry is around us everywhere, it’s just waiting to be written.” That is one of the most profound notions that I’ve come across in a while. It’s simple but true. The world is full of possibility and it’s not so much about looking but more about seeing. Today’s society is complex, and it’s a certainty that each generation has its intricacies, but we are moving at an unprecedented rate into a new type of contemporary existence. On the one hand it’s exciting but on the other it seems to be terrifying. Careful negotiation of the boundaries becomes essential for survival. My advice would be to slow down sometimes, or stop and pay attention to the world around us.

This issue focuses on the beauty of pausing for a while. We take a trip to Scandinavia to uncover why Swedish, Danish and Norwegian design is so appealing, from big exports to new designers; we are looking at what makes Nordic culture so attractive. A new publication from Phaidon, Elemental Living, considers the environment and both its invasive and responsive constructions: the built world can find balance within its natural counterpart. This is so important, not just for the charming gîte in the countryside but how we can transfer this concept into urban planning for life in the 21st century and beyond. Londonbased collective United Visual Artists reveal a commission at MONA, Australia, which looks at the value of art. This is a big theme – one that must be discussed and debated considering the current state of affairs worldwide. This exhibition reminds us that we must be cautious in order to safeguard the future.

In photography, JUCO returns to Aesthetica to bring stylised cool and pop sensationalism whilst Aaron Feaver captures the essence of youth. Anna Di Prospero uses her body to mirror architectural shapes, meanwhile Brooke Didonato, J Bennett Fitts, Reginald Van de Velde and Ricardo Bofill contemplate external and internal spaces. This issue reminds us to find the epic in the everyday.

Cherie Federico

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News 16 Charting Regional Influence Southbank Centre, London, considers the impact of Nordic countries through year-long festivities.

18 Documenting Transformation The wayfaring vision of Zofia Rydet is showcased in a revelatory exhibition at Jeu de Paume, Paris.

20 Examining Built Structures Manipulating the phenomenon of light, Nathaniel Rackowe’s sculpture undermines everyday icons.

17 Redressing Form and Space James Casebere emulates the modernist style of Luis Barragán, creating colourful atmospheres.

19 Liberation from Divisions In a time of widespread displacement, YSP tears down boundaries in order to unite practitioners.

21 Multi-Sensory Playgrounds Japanese collective teamLab invites perceptions to be changed through ethereal environments.

24 Integral Topographies Phaidon’s Elemental Living looks to the future of architecture, encompassing disparate landscapes and incorporating naturally occurring forms.

54 Cultural Illumination Commissioned as part of a unique event at the Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania, United Visual Artists translate movement into language.

76 Gestural Frameworks Anna Di Prospero injects bodily expression into the metropolis, mirroring bold shapes of urban locations with suspended acts of performativity.

30 Visual Sanctuaries Reginald Van de Velde’s serene images provide a two-dimensional oasis, seeking to remedy the ever-accelerating state of modern day societies.

60 Illusory Silhouettes Evoking a constructivist aesthetic, interconnected patios realised by Ricardo Bofill utilise geometric shapes to intersect notions of public and private.

88 Utopian Geographies American photographer J Bennett Fitts analyses industrial surroundings, paying attention to the importance of placement in the dynamic series.

42 Youthful Effervescence South Carolina-born Aaron Feaver represents life as mesmerising and vibrant tableaux filled with boundless amounts of energy and bold styling.

70 Dynamic Imagination Contemporary Scandinavian fashion combines tradition and innovation: minimalist tailoring and clean lines reflect the rising need for practicality.

100 Universal Reflections Stockholm, Shanghai and London all play host to design expositions that emphasise a growing consciousness and desire to be sustainable.

Film

Music

132 Prophetic Screenwriting Curzon Artificial Eye’s fascinating biopic Christine unpicks the story of a newscaster who becomes tormented by a developing exposure to media.

136 Norwegian Wanderlust Electro-pop pioneer Anna of the North reveals the importance of identity, using the landscape as a source of cathartic songwriting material.

137 Conceptual Engagements Rebekka Karijord’s new record Mother Tongue is a view into dramatically changing responsibilities and the undeniable influence of altered contexts.

Performance

Last Words

Regulars

140 Altruistic Collaboration Wayne McGregor’s dance company adapts the 2010 novel Tree of Codes into a multi-textural show, alongside Olafur Eliasson and Jamie xx.

162 Tomás Saraceno The Argentinian artist demonstrates an ongoing interest in astrophysics, engineering and natural sciences in a new series of floating sculptures.

22 10 to See 130 Exhibitions 135 Films 139 Music

Contact Details: Aesthetica Magazine PO Box 371, York, YO23 1WL, UK

The Aesthetica Team: Managing Director/Editor: Cherie Federico Production Director: Dale Donley Advertising Coordinator: Jeremy Appleyard Marketing Coordinator: Alexandra Beresford Designer: Rob Cheung Editorial Assistant: Kate Simpson Administrator: Cassandra Weston Artists’ Directory Coordinator: Katherine Smira Technical Administrator: Alex Tobin Digital Content Officer: Alice Gardiner Staff Writer: David Martin Festival Assistant: Eleanor Turner

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

Art

(0044) (0)844 568 2001 info@aestheticamagazine.com www.aestheticamagazine.com www.facebook.com/aestheticamagazine www.twitter.com/AestheticaMag Newstrade Distribution: Warners Group Publications plc.

Gallery & Specialist Distribution: Central Books.

Printed by Warners Midlands plc.

145 Live on Stage 147 Books 153 Directory 162 Last Words

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

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

ISSN 1743-2715.

Contributors: Ruby Beesley, Kyle Bryony, Bryony Byrne, Grace Caffyn, Polly Checkland Harding, Niamh Coghlan, Kim Connerton, Tony Earnshaw, Anna Feintuck, Colin Herd, Chloe Hodge, Matilda Bathurst, Erik Martiny, Selina Oakes, Regina Papachlimitzou, Sara Sweet, Charlotte R.A., Paul Risker, Matt Swain, Beth Webb.

All work is copyrighted to the author or artist.

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

Published by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley.

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Morten Søndergaard, The Wall of Dreams, 2015.

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Charting Regional Influence NORDIC MATTERS For the first time, the Southbank Centre dedicates a to the WOW-Women of the World festival (7-12 March). The whole year of programming to one region of the world, theme will also encompass this year’s London Literature Fesshowcasing the Nordic culture, and examining in detail a tival, and, as part of this, a major public work of art will be region which, despite geographical isolation and relatively projected onto the Royal Festival Hall. Wall of Dreams by small population sizes, has always had a disproportionately Danish artist Morten Søndergaard mirrors a previous piece powerful cultural impact beyond its borders and been a in which he interviewed the inhabitants of a council estate on source of fascination for its southerly neighbours. From the outskirts of Copenhagen about their dreams and created worldwide children’s favourites such as Lego and the a permanent installation based on their responses. Particular Moomins to the global reputation of Scandinavian and emphasis will be placed on three main topics in which Nordic Icelandic artists and musicians, to the ancient sagas that society leads the way for the future: play as a way of fosterhave provided a limitless resource for being reimagined by ing creativity; sustainability; and gender equality. authors around the world, to the current interior design and Highlights include a celebration of Finnish author Tove lifestyle buzzword “Hygge,” all things Nordic are represented Jansson and her creations the Moomins, whilst fantasy author throughout a year of events and performances. In a time of Neil Gaiman launches his own take on Norse mythology. The disquiet concerning the established political and economic Royal Festival Hall foyers have been transformed by artist​ order, the festival considers what lessons can be learned from Outi Pieski​with her year-long installation ​Falling Shawls. a region often considered to embody egalitarian and social Made using traditional Sami shawl-making techniques, it democratic values. Artists and performers from Denmark, combines hundreds of elements to create a coloured threeFinland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden feature as well as dimensional drawing. Southbank Centre’s artistic offer, representatives of Åland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. throughout 2017, presents musicians including conductor The event brings a Nordic focus to the gallery’s regular Esa-Pekka Salonen​, J​ osé González​, ​Leif Ove Andsnes​,​Pekka programme of festivals – for example Finnish “dinosaur Kuusisto​,​Moddi​, and heavy metal cellists Apocalyptica, as heavy metal band” Hevisaurus make their UK debut as part well as films and video works by​ Jesper Just, Henna-Riikka of the Imagine Children’s Festival (9-19 February), whilst co- Halonen, Ingrid Torvund, live performances by companies median and performer Sandi Toksvig brings a Nordic spin including​N ​ ordic Puppet Ambassadors a​ nd many more.

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“Wall of Dreams by Morten Søndergaard mirrors a previous piece in which he interviewed the inhabitants of a council estate on the outskirts of Copenhagen about their dreams and created a permanent installation based on their responses.”

Southbank Centre, London.

Throughout 2017. www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Redressing Form and Space JAMES CASEBERE

James Casebere, Yellow Corridor, 2016.

Framed archival pigment print mounted to dibond. Paper: 44 3/10 x 66 1/2 inches. © James Casebere. Courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York.

A running theme in Casebere’s work is investigating the “Though this unique Over the last 30 years, James Casebere has developed an evocative and often disquieting style that places him at iconic spaces and mythologies of contemporary America, show shares a sense the forefront of his field. He creates table-sized models of beginning with everyday suburban and urban dwellings, as of serene austerity imaginary spaces and structures, often derived from historical, well as images of the West, which often take on a humorous with Casebere’s earlier architectural and cinematic sources, and photographs them quality. Later, his focus moved towards institutional architec- studies on prison cells, in his studio. The ambiguous and uninhabited scenes he ture and its relationship to the concept of control, notably the atmosphere evoked creates, ranging from landscapes to theatres, are haunting social institutions such as prisons, which developed along- – rather than isolation and suggestive of recent, unseen events. By lacking a side the rise of Enlightenment thought. Casebere’s work has and confinement – is foundation in any external, documentary reality, they evoke taken on increasingly surreal and sophisticated levels of in- one of joy in the a sense of the uncanny, and invite the viewer to imagine and terpretation, exploiting the contradictions that are inherent spirit of Barragán.” to reconstruct their own narrative or symbolic interpretation. when communal spaces are pictured devoid of inhabitants.

Historical events are often obliquely referred to – Flooded For his first solo show since 2010, and his first in the new space at Sean Kelly Gallery, New York, the artist returns to his Hallway is modelled on the bunker beneath the Reichstag exploration of interior spaces, this time in a direct response in Berlin, whilst Flooded Arches. Nevision Underground, to the work of the Mexican architect Luis Barragán. The Monticello references the Atlantic slave trade. Following the exhibition’s title, Emotional Architecture, refers to the name events of 9/11 and the “War on Terror,” Casebere turned that Barragán and artist Mathias Goeritz coined for their his attention to the architecture of Spain and the Eastern latest approach to modernist buildings; they rejected cold Mediterranean and its historic role as a crossroads of culture functionalism to embrace space, colour and light and create and, particularly in the case of 10th century Andalusia, a structures that encouraged meditation and reflection. place where Islamic, Jewish and Christian cultures co-existed.

Born in 1953, Casebere is often associated with “The PicThough this show shares a sense of serene austerity with Sean Kelly Gallery, tures Generation” which came to prominence in the 1980s Casebere’s earlier studies on prison cells, the atmosphere New York. and included figures such as Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, evoked – rather than isolation and confinement – is one of Until 11 March.

Robert Longo, Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince, Matt Mulli- joy in the spirit of Barragán, whose sumptuous colour and can, James Welling, Michael Zwack and Barbara Kruger. dramatic light combine with simple forms and planes. www.skny.com

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Zofia Rydet, from the series Women on Doorsteps. Courtesy of Foundation Zofia Rydet.

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Documenting Transformation ZOFIA RYDET: RECORD, 1978-1990 Zofia Rydet set out on an impossible project at the age of 67 – trying to photograph every home in her native Poland, which, when she conceived the idea in 1978, had a population of some 35 million. However, by her death in 1997, what she had achieved during the course of her epic travels around the country, on buses and by foot, was a monumental record, totalling nearly 20,000 images, of domestic life in villages and towns which were undergoing major social changes.

Originally titled Sociological Record, Jeu de Paume’s presentation of the series at the Château de Tours removes the first word to better reflect the nature of the project as it is now understood, in hindsight, as an intuitive work that was driven by the artist’s personality and particular obsessions rather than by the formal conventions of academic research.

Born in 1911, Rydet did not begin pursuing photography seriously until the 1950s, and became an established figure in Poland, albeit in an artistic scene that was then dominated by men and conceptual tendencies, before taking on the impossible challenge that would dominate the rest of her life. The inspiration first came from an office divided into individual cubicles, where Rydet noticed how each identical workspace had been stamped with its occupant’s personality using objects ranging from holy icons to hunting trophies.

Throughout the years that she continued the project, the collection both expanded its original geographical scope,

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with the artist visiting and photographing Polish emigrants “By her death in 1997, in Lithuania, France, Germany, and the United States, and what she had achieved reduced it, adding a temporal dimension instead by revisiting during the course of homes already documented a decade earlier to reflect on her epic travels around the changes they had undergone, notably in rural areas. the country, on buses Many of the images in the series reflect Rydet’s obsessive and by foot, was a return to particular categories and collections of objects or monumental record of events (for instance, TVs, kitchen tapestries, ceremonies, carts, domestic life in villages traditional wedding portraits and gravestones), or escape and towns which were the supposed logic of the series altogether (various kinds undergoing major of curiosities, sketches for never-accomplished conceptual social changes.” cycles, or visually attractive photographic “mistakes” made through compositions including mirrors, for instance).

Rather than being what the original title suggested, a dispassionate, documentary process of observation, analysis of the many unpublished negatives reveals that the artist in fact staged the vast majority of the works – Rydet re-arranged pictures on the walls and objects on tables into compositions.

Many of the images then are actually best understood as installations or conscious assemblages by the artist.

In the light of these new perspectives, this unprecedented retrospective of nearly 300 prints offers a fresh appraisal of Jeu de Paume, Paris.

Rydet’s body of work, one that has been guided by notes Until 28 May. which were left by the artist, and includes prints made from the many negatives that she never found time to develop. www.jeudepaume.org

Liberation from Divisions BEYOND BOUNDARIES: ART BY EMAIL Kurdish military forces standing in front of images from “To know the meaning popular culture, Osman expresses his belief that “Deciding of freedom is to know to live freely like a westerner needs sacrifices. To know the the limits of it, and meaning of freedom is to know the limits of it, and the the boundaries of it boundaries of it should not be crossed. Life is tied with should not be crossed. freedom; if we don’t have it, we don’t have life either.”

Life is tied with A sense of liberation and its fragility is also apparent in the freedom, if we don’t digital print Isimsiz from Turkish artist Baris Seyitvan, the title have freedom, we of which translates as Anonymous, and shows the practitioner don’t have life either.” suspended in the sky, held up by five helium balloons. A photograph of the artist’s installation Every Stone Wants to be Free, consisting of a balloon tied to a brick, also features. Egyptian-born Mai Al Shazly’s video installation Undercurrents examines the idea of resistance, presenting two films simultaneously: an aggressor is locked in combat with a passive enemy, alongside a calm, blue, fish-filled ocean.

As part of the ongoing project, Azar Othman has been appointed as YSP’s first virtual Visiting Artist and audiences are able to share their thoughts with him via Twitter using #ForAzar. The show also includes an image from his performance piece People’s Questions in a City, in which opinions from members of the public are collected Yorkshire Sculpture Park. on current affairs, their city, environment and culture, all Until 5 March. displayed to the public in the heart of Sulaymaniyah City in Iraqi Kurdistan, furthering the notion of connectivity. www.ysp.co.uk

Younes Mohammad, Yezidi Refugee, 2014. Photograph. Courtesy of the artist.

The barriers to artistic collaboration reflect the wider political situation: a time of unrest, conflict, economic division and fears of immigration, all leading to restrictions on the physical movement of people. However, our age is also one of unprecedented communication and connectivity, leading Yorkshire Sculpture Park to propose an innovative solution to the problem of working with artists from outside the Western world. Beyond Boundaries: Art by Email offers a platform for creators who are prevented by social or economic circumstance from physically visiting the gallery to pursue their art. It is a celebration of the idea that creativity recognises no borders and flows freely between cultures.

In collaboration with ArtRole, YSP made an open call for submissions across the Middle East and North Africa, which led to 16 artists being invited to use digital technology to share the realities of life in regions where current geopolitical struggles are being played out, showing the resilience of the human spirit. As an example, an abstract sculpture by the Iranian artist Sahand Hesamiyan, the instructions for which were sent via email, is being 3D-printed during the exhibition.

From Iraqi Kurdistan, documentary photographer Zardasht Osman captures the sacrifices needed to preserve identity and independence in this autonomous region that borders Iran and Turkey, where the price of continued freedom is always apparent. Through photographs of individuals from

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Nathaniel Rackowe, Black Shed Expanded, 2016. Timber shed, fluorescent lights and fittings, bitumen, paint, steel, 240cm x 220cm x 220cm.

Sculpture by the Sea, Perth, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist.

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Examining Built Structures NATHANIEL RACKOWE The ubiquitous garden shed, that everyday symbol of British suburban life, becomes the basis of an extraordinary light sculpture from Nathaniel Rackowe (b. 1975) in the latest from Parasol Unit’s Winter Light series in which an artist is invited to address the phenomenon of light as the year reaches, and emerges from, its darkest phase. Black Shed Expanded is displayed on the foundation’s terrace throughout the months of winter. The London-based artist, whose practice is concerned with using light and structure to examine the built environment, presents a large-scale urban structure which is caught seemingly mid-explosion, upside-down, with its contours wrenched apart, exposing an illuminated interior.

The wooden construction, which is painted with black bitumen, emanates an eerie acid-yellow glow that is generated by the use of white strip-lighting inside and reflecting off the painted walls of its interior. The sculpture therefore appears to be exploding, frozen in the fleeting moment of wreckage as if being split apart by the sheer amount of energy within it.

The work demonstrates a central part of Rackowe’s approach – deconstructing a tangible form and rebuilding it through the addition of elements of light. He draws inspiration from the urban environment and the way in which the nature of a city is constantly in flux. The minimal forms he employs often evoke shafts of sunbeams falling between the buildings onto wet pavements. The materials are also

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drawn from the industrial landscape and include everyday “The sculpture appears products such as scaffolding poles and breeze blocks, and to be exploding, frozen he is guided by, and then distorts, their intended function. in the moment of Rackowe says: “I thought it would be interesting to take the destruction as if being humble shed and elevate it so it can rise up and challenge split apart by the architecture and also deconstruct it to the point where you energy within it. are forced to re-read it.” Although a specific reference to the The work demonstrates common sight of garden furniture throughout the suburbs a central part of of London, Black Shed Expanded has an equally universal Rackowe’s approach impact in its depiction of such a familiar, domestic structure, – deconstructing a transformed and recreated with light as a structural element. tangible form and Dan Flavin is an obvious source of inspiration, whose neon rebuilding it.” pieces famously make use of mass-produced industrial materials combined with light. Other influencers are Donald Judd and modernist and deductive sculptures such as Vladimir Tatlin, Richard Serra and Gordon Matta-Clark.

Rackowe, who was born in Cambridge, graduated from the Slade with an MFA in Sculpture. He had his first solo show in 2004 at the GardenFresh Gallery, Chicago, and also received the Stanhope Fellowship, which led to an exhibition in the Serpentine Pavilion, London, in 2005. He has participated widely in many group and solo exhibitions around the world, Parasol Unit, London. including in Bangkok, China, Colombia, Europe, Korea, Until 12 March.

Thailand, the USA, and most recently in Dubai, where his piece Radiant Trajectory was shown at Lawrie Shabibi in 2015. www.parasol-unit.org

Multi-Sensory Perceptions TEAMLAB: TRANSCENDING BOUNDARIES

teamLab, Flowers and People, Cannot be Controlled but Live Together – A Whole Year per Hour, 2015.

Interactive digital installation. Endless. Sound by Hideaki Takahashi. © teamLab. Courtesy of Pace Gallery.

The largest room in the gallery includes six works and its “In the last room, Japanese collective teamLab brings together practitioners from across the digital arts, working alongside programmers, striking centrepiece is Universe of Water Particles, Transcending it is the presence mathematicians, CGI animators and web designers, with the Boundaries (2017), a virtual waterfall that extends beyond of the viewer avowed intention being to achieve a new kind of balance the gallery wall onto the floor, flowing through the location which completes a between art, science, technology and creativity. The group and around the feet of the viewer. It engages with the concept transformation. The refer to themselves as “ultra-technologists.” As well as of ultra-subjectivity and situates the viewer directly within the body of the observer dissolving the boundaries between disciplines, the immersive realm of the artwork. An earlier version was projected onto becomes a canvas for the projected images, works collapse the division between each individual piece the façade of the Grand Palais in Paris in 2015.

Filling the second room, Dark Waves (2016) is a simulation showing flowers in and the exhibition space. This is reflected by the title and the content of a new show at Pace London. Transcending of the movement of waves based on the behaviour of a process of change Boundaries presents three rooms of installations, two of which hundreds of thousands of water particles. The lines are – growing, decaying have never been seen before, which break the frame, spilling created in a three-dimensional virtual reality, expressing the and scattering.” element as a living entity that immerses its audiences. over into each other’s settings, whilst enveloping viewers.

In the last room, it is the presence of the viewer which Despite having embraced digital technology, the roots of teamLab’s practice also lie in a rediscovery of a historic completes a transformation, activating Flowers Bloom on and distinctly Japanese understanding of space: the “flat” People (2017). The body of the observer becomes the canvas appearance of pre-modern Japanese art, which differs from for the projected images, showing flowers in a process of the use of perspective seen in Western culture. TeamLab has continuous change – growing, decaying and scattering. developed the concept of “ultra-subjectivity”, creating 3DToshiyuki Inoko, founder of the teamLab collective, said: modelled objects which they then flatten to two-dimensional “We are honoured to share some of our most recently created images using the logical transformations that they have artworks and hope the universality of their themes – creativity, developed, in keeping with these seemingly lost percep- play, exploration, immersion, life and fluidity – will seep into Pace London. tions. The collective say that such a rediscovery raises the the broader conscience.” TeamLab has exhibited worldwide Until 11 March. questions as of whether the world has changed spatially, or and feature in permanent displays at the Living Computer whether people have lost sight of how they once saw things. Museum, Seattle and the National Museum of Singapore. www.pacegallery.com

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1. Do Ho Suh, My Home/s - Hubs, 2016. Courtesy of the artist and Victoria Miro, London. Photo: Jeon, Taegsu. 2. Richard Learoyd, Jasmijn Red, 2016. Courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco.

3. Wolfgang Tillmans, paper drop Prinzessinnenstrasse, 2014. © Wolfgang Tillmans. 4. Pierre Leguillon, The Great Escape, 2012. Installation view. Courtesy of WIELS Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels. © 2016 Pierre Leguillon. Photo: Sven Laurent. 5. Tanja Hollander, Jacob Folsom, Portland, Maine, 2015. Detail. Archival pigment print.

10 to See RECOMMENDED EXHIBITIONS THIS SEASON

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Do Ho Suh

Victoria Miro, London 1 February - 18 March www.victoria-miro.com

South Korea-born Do Ho Suh creates a new series of his trademark translucent fabric sculptures especially for the galleries at Victoria Miro. This is the first presentation of Suh’s work in London since Staircase-III was part of Tate Modern’s Collection Displays in 2011.

The structures give form to ideas about migration, transience and shifting identities, reflecting the artist’s nomadic life and the homes he has lived in around the world.

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Richard Learoyd

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco Until 4 March www.fraenkelgallery.com

British artist Richard Learoyd employs a singular approach, using a camera obscura to create photographic images up to 85 inches wide. The resulting pictures combine a nearhyperreal level of detail with a shallow depth of field; the subject gradually becomes out of focus as it recedes. Making their debut here are recent portraits, still lifes, and black and white landscapes from California and Eastern Europe.

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Wolfgang Tillmans

Tate Modern, London 15 February - 11 June www.tate.org.uk

For his first exhibition at Tate Modern, Tillmans takes the year 2003 as a point of departure for understanding the world of today – the year of the invasion of Iraq and a rise in anti-war movements. Alongside photographic work across the genres of portraiture, landscape, intimate stilllives and the abstract, the artist makes use of video, digital projections, publications and music to explore social and political themes.

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The Artist’s Museum

ICA, Boston Until 26 March www.icaboston.org

The desire to collect and catalogue objects of significance underlies the concept of a museum, is one which many artists share, creating collections as sources of inspiration, from the “cabinet of curiosities” to the modern image library. The Artist’s Museum takes this as a theme, bringing together installations, photography, film and video in a way that reveals new connections between works, objects and histories.

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Tanja Hollander

MASS MoCA, Los Angeles Until 18 February 2018 www.massmoca.org

Are you really my friend? asks Maine-based photographer Tanja Alexia Hollander, who set out to meet and photograph all 626 of her Facebook friends. Since 2011, she has travelled across the globe, setting up in-person meetings to discover the ways in which relationships are defined, and the distinctions between private and online life, using photographs, video, data visualisation, travelogue, and landscape images.

6. Francesco Jodice, What We Want, Hong Kong, T46, 2006. © Francesco Jodice. 7. Ed van der Elsken, Beethovenstraat, Amsterdam, 1967. © Ed van der Elsken / Nederlands Fotomuseum. Courtesy of Annet Gelink Gallery. 8. Hellen van Meene, Untitled (79), 2000. © Hellen van Meene and Yancey Richardson Gallery. Photo: Lee Stalsworth. 9. Daniel Arsham, Amethyst Sports Ball Cavern, 2016. Amethyst crystal, quartz, hydrostone. Courtesy of Galerie Perrotin. Photo: Guillaume Ziccarelli. 10. Amateur Architecture Studio (China), Zhongshan Road renovation project, Hangzhou, 2009. Photo: Iwan Baan.

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Francesco Jodice

Fotomuseum, Winterthur 11 February - 7 May www.fotomuseum.ch

Presenting an eclectic mosaic of a world in flux, Panorama is the first international retrospective to be dedicated to the Italian photographer and filmmaker, Francesco Jodice, spanning 20 years of work.

The show includes, places, times and stories that collide, whilst a wide range of documents including maps, books, newspaper clippings and interviews offer a behind-the-scenes insight into an innovative process.

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Ed van der Elsken

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 4 February - 21 May www.stedelijk.nl

An inspiration to generations, starting out as a street photographer, Ed van der Elsken was drawn to cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and Tokyo from the 1950s onwards in search of self-confident people, beautiful girls and unruly youth. His images are rooted in their time, yet are also timeless. The Stedelijk Museum presents The Amorous Camera, the most comprehensive overview of his work in 25 years.

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Terrains of the Body

Whitechapel, London Until 16 April www.whitechapelgallery.org

Whitechapel Gallery presents a selection of works from the collection of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, dedicated to the exhibition, preservation and acquisition of pieces by women artists. In works by 17 contemporary practitioners from five continents including Marina Abramović, Rineke Dijkstra, and Nan Goldin, the female body becomes a medium for expressing identity.

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Daniel Arsham

High Museum of Art, Atlanta 4 March - 21 May www.high.org

Daniel Arsham’s ongoing project to investigate and challenge the way we interpret history through objects and artefacts underlies his latest collaboration with the High Museum of Art. Daniel Arsham: Hourglass combines audio, sculpture, performance and architectural elements in three interrelated installations that range from everyday objects cast in precious metals to a monochromatic blue Zen garden.

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Wang Shu

Louisiana, Humblebaek 9 February - 30 April www.louisiana.dk

The Louisiana launches a second series of monographic exhibitions under the title The Architect’s Studio, with a focus on the Chinese architect Wang Shu, who with his wife, Lu Wenyu, runs the Amateur Architecture Studio. The name reflects a practice based on local materials and culture, as a direct counterbalance to the monolithic, Western-inspired blocks thrown up by the explosive urbanisation of China.

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Integral Topographies Elemental Living A NEW PUBLICATION FROM PHAIDON HIGHLIGHTS THE SHIFTING RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ARCHITECTURE AND NATURAL FORMS, TAKING THE LAND AS INSPIRATION.

One impact of the ever-increasing body of excellent and diverse ecocritical writings is a sense of heightened awareness, a self-reflection of our interactions with different environments. In the case of architecture, this conscious process is particularly pertinent, since the meeting point of the built landscape and the organic world has historically all too often been ignored or seen as something inherently fraught and mutually antagonistic. Nevertheless, it is possible for manmade and organically occurring locations to integrate in positive and mutually supportive ways.

Elemental Living (Phaidon, 2016) is a publication that focuses on precisely this overlap, highlighting successful projects that demonstrate deep engagement with their surroundings.

The text demands a refreshing and gently radical reorientation of the compass, a look away from cities to the edges of our encounters with nature. As one of the contributing authors James Taylor-Foster remarks: “We all have an inherent yearning to retreat and, as the world continues to rapidly urbanise, our sense of isolation from the world around us appears to be growing. The focus of architectural discourse is heavily biased toward cities – this, of course, is where the majority of innovations are taking place.” In spinning its standpoint to rural projects, the 280-page book makes a case for the relationship between climate and building as a site for significant innovation. One striking quality of the publication is the breadth and diversity, not only of design approaches from the featured architects but also the range of topographies examined. From countries as diverse as Sweden, Japan and India, to conditions as various as deep forests, mountain-

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ous terrain, lakes and deserts, there are few locations on the planet where humans have not made their homes.

In many examples, the relationship between property and landscape is situational, where constructs are realised to offer optimum conditions and vantage points to observe the Earth. Too Tall Tea House (2004), by Terunobu Fujimori, is a one-room tree house perched seemingly impossibly atop two tall trees. The sole purpose of the structure is for the making and consumption of tea, allowing users to appreciate the extraordinary views of the Nagano Prefecture woodland.

Other instances engage with the climate to integrate visitors; there are also cases where houses’ relationships with trees, mountains and lakes is formal: the production of materials and shapes draws connections with the sprawling vegetation and geographies. Of course, these dialogues often coalesce.

Tolo House (2005), by Álvaro Leite Siza, in Portugal, is an example of building both against the odds and with the grain of the land. It unfolds in a step structure on extremely steep terrain, connected through a winding stepped path and necessitated by the unevenness of the ground, and also making the most economical and logical use of the different levels in the plot. As a result of this series of rooms, the inhabitants also have to move outside in order to move between sections of the house, and this, too, makes for added focus and attention to the interactions between the occupants, the indoor spaces and their chosen location.

None of the properties in Elemental Living start from an empty site, and all respond to the existing character of their regions. However, Samyn and Partners’ House in the Outskirts

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Bercy Chen Studio, Edgeland House, 2012. Austin, Texas, USA. Photo: Paul Bardagjy.

“Projects like this are where the publication becomes particularly radical and exciting, where hyperlocal ideas about architecture respond to their surroundings, and where the relationship between a property and its terrain is at its deepest.

Previous Page: Saunders Architecture, Fogo Island Studios, 2011.

Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Photo: Bent René Synnevåg.

Left: Patkau Architects, Hadway House, 2013.

Whistler, British Columbia, Canada.

Photo: James Dow / Patkau Architects.

of Brussels (2007) also creates its own fabricated environment as part of the dwelling, lavishly covered in exotic flora, and making use of a built-in irrigation and fertilisation system to look after the plants. Dragspel House (2004) in Sweden,

by Natrufied Architecture, is one of the few structures that responds to an existing presence. Built as an extension to a 19th century cabin, it makes use of local western red cedar wood to create a striking yet organic and in-keeping façade that seems to emerge and collapse back into the existing structure, using a modular rib cage design. The construction is also a response not only to the local conditions but also to the complex regulations of the region. It is used for only two months of the year and the rest of the time it is closed down into a deep hibernation. In summer, it is opened on to the lake, reflecting the movement of the seasons. Indeed, the house is built in a low-tech and passive way, in order to provide as little disruption as possible to the Earth.

Another approach to sustainability is to use the power of technology for the preservation of ecology; this is one of the key challenges facing contemporary architects in both rural and urban settings. One of the most technologically advanced examples featured is Stamp House (2013) in Queensland, Australia, by Charles Wright Architects. As Taylor-Foster describes, this house “sits astride an artificial wetland that serves as an engineered water-based ecosystem to support it. Even the structure allows it to withstand the intense cyclones that can strike the location, whilst also protecting it from unpredictable and damaging flooding. It is a house of astonishing complexity situated within one of our world’s more extreme climates.” Entirely off-grid and self-sufficient, a series of solar panels on the roof provides

electricity, and a 250,000-litre water system utilises rainwater harvesting and grey-water recycling technologies.

If some buildings offer superlative vantage points on their natural surroundings, or like Stamp House, act as an imposing futuristic presence within them, others are built to be as unobtrusive as possible. Earth House (2003), realised

by Jolson Architecture in Victoria, Australia, is a 465-squaremetre split-level four-bedroom house constructed from rammed earth using local Dromana crushed rock. The project takes a holistic understanding of architecture, softening the distinctions between interior, landscape and furniture design. It was centred on sensitivity to the sightlines from the neighbouring properties and roads, and around its own vantage points, rising up from the sweeping coastline.

Architecture BRIO’s Riparian House (2015) in Maharashtra, India, sits in the heart of the Western Ghats, a UNESCO world heritage area not a long drive from the dense populus of Mumbai. Half submerged and half open to the grassy plains, the spaces are simple and suited to their very particular climate. The site is just below the top of a hillock at the foothills of the Ghats; there is a vegetation roof so that it merges into the hillock and disguise the house from the approach on the east side. Though the buildings seem submerged, from inside the property, there are incredible views to the north of the Irshalgad hill fortress and towards the west to the sunset whilst the river winds its way across the agricultural fields. This is an example of an extremely delicate balance, suggesting that architecture is a mode of doing as little as possible to disturb the existing location.

Another partially sunken and camouflaged structure is Bjellandsbu Hunting Lodge (2013) in Etne, Hordaland,

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Rider Smart Elements and OFIS Arhitekti, Alpine Shelter, 2016. Skuta, Slovenia. Photo: OFIS Architecture.

Norway, by Snøhetta. The property is almost entirely disguised into the sweeping crags of its situation, with only a single chimney emerging from the grass-topped undulation of the roof revealing the presence of the cabin. It is often rented out to holiday guests, and can sleep up to 21, but is only accessible on foot or horseback. It seems not only to be integrated with its landscape but also to demand a form of interaction and adaptation to the setting on the part of its users that draws on the remoteness and drama of the location.

It utilises a single open room, encouraging communality, and, in doing so, referencing the connectedness and shared endeavour of previous generations in the same landscape.

As Taylor-Foster points out, one contribution that takes this approach to its extreme is Swiss artist Not Vital’s Notona (2014), located in Chilean Patagonia, which he calls “the most abstract project featured in Elemental Living.” The house, on the General Carrera Lake, is carved directly from an enormous white marble outcrop. It is one continuous material element. A snaking tunnel leads from the main building at the edge of the shore up through the rock towards a rectangular aperture on the opposite side of the island. Taylor-Foster sees the significance of this not just in its impressive visual qualities but also in the local approach which it manifests and physically embodies: “We have got so used to shipping whatever material we require from one end of the earth to the other – if we can afford it. Although highly aesthetic, Not Vital’s Notona also embodies an increasingly regionalist (and highly sustainable) approach.”

Projects like this are perhaps where the publication becomes particularly radical and exciting, where architecture responds in a material and formal way to its surroundings, and where

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the relationship between a project and its given terrain is at its deepest and most considered. The hyperlocal, which has been extensively written about by Andrew Michler, Wolfgang Feist and others, is the focusing of attention on the vicinity of a building and its community; it considers the importance of smaller locations. Taking into consideration a site and its changeable environmental factors, a central research component is borne out of the sheer mass of the Earth. It also emphasises passivity and low-impact technology in all aspects, from design methodology to use. There are some very forward-looking and innovative contributions in this regard featured in Elemental Living, including MADA s.p.a.m.’s Father’s House in Jade Mountain (2003) in Xi’an, China. Produced for the architect’s father, it uses thousands of small rocks, each carefully arranged by size and colour, collected from surrounding rivers, which are packed into a concrete framework, around an almost classical courtyard.

There is a deeply poetic aspect to this approach, as well as its sustainability, with each rock suggesting an individual story and contributing to a deeply unique lifestyle as a whole.

With increasing population growth and metropolitan sprawl across the globe, the remote and often small-scale residential projects featured in Phaidon’s monumental book might perhaps seem disconnected from what often feel like the most pressing challenges of contemporary architecture.

And yet, in their interrogations and imaginative responses to topography, sustainability, and ecological preservation, and also in the joyful celebration of our interactions and place within it, Elemental Living in fact draws attention to this locus and suggests innovative practices and solutions to precisely those challenges that face large-scale urban building.

Right: Saunders Architecture, Fogo Island Studios, 2011.

Fogo Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

Photo: Bent René Synnevåg.

Words Colin Herd

Elemental Living.

Phaidon. www.phaidon.com

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art

Visual Sanctuaries Reginald Van de Velde

Belgian artist Reginald Van de Velde (b. 1975) searches for perfectly still moments. In a constantly developing world, his photographs provide an oasis for reflection on the passage of time, offering a new perspective on previously abandoned settings. Whilst the search for innovation and renewal is at the forefront of society, with ever more information increasingly recorded, dilapidated buildings become an ironic haven for the contemporary audience – locations and dates are lost to colossal monuments and overgrown nature.

Shafts of light and decaying ceilings indicate untold narratives in the archaic structures whilst history peels away the walls; each composition paves a unique pathway for the imagination. Carefully-considered angles offer symmetry as a hypnotic tool; open doorways, staircases and passages complement their lavish surroundings and architectural details are highlighted through their precise placement. www.suspiciousminds.com.

Reginald Van de Velde, Belgium, 2012.

From the series Memento Mori.

A grand piano is left in dismay in this crumbling but breath-taking 1500s castle.

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Reginald Van de Velde, Italy, 2016. From the series Memento Mori. Many Italian castles and villas have watchtowers as architectural features. This is the view inside the top floor of such a watchtower of a beautiful villa dating back to 1895.

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Reginald Van de Velde, Balkans, 2014. From the series In Absentia. The ornate grand entrance of a former orphanage.

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Reginald Van de Velde, Italy, 2015. From the series Memento Mori. Fading frescoes and reviving vegetation is seen in this collapsing grand villa.

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Reginald Van de Velde, Italy, 2015. From the series Memento Mori. The devastating view inside a former 14 th Century castle that got hit by an earthquake.

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Reginald Van de Velde, Italy, 2015. From the series Place of no Return. A filing cabinet inside a former asylum in Italy. It was common practice to conceal every form of communication between psychiatric patients and their family & relatives.

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art

Youthful Effervescence Aaron Feaver

Born in South Carolina, Aaron Feaver (b. 1978) lived out a nomadic childhood until he eventually settled in Los Angeles. After studying for a degree in English, and briefly pursuing graphic design, Feaver found an old Polaroid camera in a Californian thrift store, which kick-started his career in photography. The result is an infectious oeuvre that snapshots youth with optimism and compositional flair. Colourful styling and exuberant portraits frequent the assorted series, whilst cloudless skylines and natural landscapes provide examples of aesthetic consideration. Bold, indulgent palettes reflect the lifestyles within the frames – sun-drenched models dressed in bright oranges and yellows are cast against verdant greenery – successfully marrying form with content. Notable clients have included Vogue Paris, GQ Style, Time Out New York and Schön! magazine amongst many others. www.aaronfeaver.com.

Photographer: Aaron Feaver.

Stylist: Chloe Chippendale.

Hair & makeup: Jenna Kristina Model: Eddie Mitsou.

Novella Royale campaign, 2015.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Lwany Smith. Hair & makeup: Marygene Rose. Model: Ellie Leith. Self Control  magazine, 2015.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Lwany Smith. Hair & makeup: Marygene Rose. Model: Ellie Leith. Self Control  magazine, 2015.

Left / Right: Photographer: Aaron Feaver.

Stylist: Kelley Ash. Model: Alice Cornish.

Year: 2016.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Krissie Torgerson. Model: Chaun Loose. The Gift  magazine, 2014.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Krissie Torgerson. Model: Chaun Loose. The Gift  magazine, 2014.

Left / Right: Photographer: Aaron Feaver.

Stylist: Chloe Chippendale.

Model: Cora Keegan.

Stoned Immaculate campaign, 2014.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Kelley Ash. Model: Gigi. Year: 2015.

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Photographer: Aaron Feaver. Stylist: Donna Lisa. Model: Emily. Year: 2015.

Cultural Illumination On the Origin of Art IN THE HIDDEN DEPTHS OF AUSTRALIA’S MOST EXTRAORDINARY MUSEUM, LONDONBASED GROUP UNITED VISUAL ARTISTS UNCOVER THE LINEAGE OF CREATIVE EXPRESSION.

Described by its owner, Tasmanian mathematician, collec- attracts us to faces, patterns and habitats – and contempotor and millionaire, David Walsh (b. 1961), as a “subversive rary design plays with this sense for maximum impact.

Similarly, New Zealand-based Literature Professor Boyd (b. adult Disneyland”, The Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) is the continent’s largest private institution, housing one of 1952) argues that expression is inherently “a cognitive play the most controversial compendiums in the world. Designed with pattern” and to uncover its origins, you must first underas a subterranean series of steel and stone rooms, visitors stand the signalling systems that many plants and animals descend 17 metres underground rather than climbing up- use. For example, flowering vegetation – although seemwards to reach works displayed on a conceptual pedestal, ingly unconscious – has evolved to best please creatures immediately highlighting the owner’s pragmatic perspective. whose attention it must attract to reproduce. This recognition Contemporary pieces are interspersed with a personal hoard of cause and effect is mirrored in humans, whose existence, of antiquities (for example, Greg Taylor’s casts of intimate Boyd explains, has been defined by an ability to read patfemale body parts are displayed alongside a 1,500-year- terns in weather and the behaviour of surrounding beings. old Egyptian sarcophagus), and visitors are directed not by These skills are tested and furthered by art, which satisfies signage but by a handheld iPad. They also discover a 63- our inherent desire to intelligently decode what we perceive.

Meanwhile, the third curator, American evolutionary psyseat cinema, eight designer accommodation pavilions, Moo Brewery, and Moorilla winery, which hosts tastings each day. chologist Geoffrey F. Miller (b. 1965), agrees that one might Walsh clearly questions the abstract value that we impart enjoy the exposure to paintings, sculptures or photographs onto artwork, and his newest series furthers this enquiry. as they stimulate our pleasure responses, but asks why we Introducing itself contentiously, with “We Need Art, But For feel the need to make in the first place: “why bother?” Miller What? One Man’s Mission to Piss Off Academics,” this project follows Darwin’s explanation that early human society used sees four exhibitions, curated by bio-cultural scientist- expression as a mechanism for attracting mates, creating philosophers, Steven Pinker, Brian Boyd, Geoffrey Miller and works to indicate good genes – as seen in the symmetrical Acheulean hand axes made half a million years ago.

Mark Changizi, on the reasons behind the need to create.

However, theoretical neurobiologist Mark Changizi (b. 1969) Pinker (b. 1954), a Canadian-born American cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist and author, states: “We make be- has a different view. For the author of the “Perceive the cause we can”; his contribution traces back to early ancestors Present” hypothesis, humans don’t have an instinct for the when ownership of excess goods became rooted in the desire arts, but they have been developed by our civilisation to to obtain an elitist status. For the 62-year-old theorist, art is reflect natural fluctuations and rhythms so that we can use linked to our evolved aesthetic sense – the same sense that “evolutionarily ancient brain mechanisms for a new purpose.”

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United Visual Artists, Message from the Unseen World, 2016. Paddington Central, London. Photo: James Medcraft.

“I personally believe that at a very early age humans developed an innate disposition for creativity and that expression is something that we wanted to do for no reason other than for the sake of doing it.”

Previous Page: United Visual Artists, Fragment, 2013. Dubai.

Left: United Visual Artists, Canopy, 2010.

Toronto.

Music, for example, responds to the sounds of people moving, Changizi selected UVA, who manipulate light, gesture and which triggers an emotional reaction. We then communicate sound to awaken human instinct, often mimicking natural back through movement, or even dancing. In this diametric phenomena in order to question how our senses develop.

This fourth and final curator highlights one particular prorelationship lies Changizi’s conclusion: that the origins of art lie in our need to engage with the most powerful natural ject as the deciding factor for selecting the innovative group: Echo (2006), at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, which Clark desource of human despair and happiness: other people.

In the archetypal style of MONA, the majority of works scribes as: “A performance piece in which the human form included remain hidden to non-visitors – no presence online, was represented through a 3-D data cloud, rendered directly no previews – however, the roster includes eminent names behind the dancers.” Clark comments: “This had a very beausuch as Jeff Koons, Bridget Riley, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Cindy tiful aesthetic but also maintains a scientific nature, as if the Sherman, Yayoi Kusama and even Pierre-Auguste Renoir. dancers were being studied by a technological system.”

One of the key attributes of theoretical neurobiology Joining this illustrious group are London-based United Visual Artists (UVA), founded in 2003 by Matt Clark and live is its need to test hypotheses. Clark asserts: “Changizi was performance practitioner Chris Bird, whose background is interested in working with us to imagine an installation that in biology. Their best known works in London include the illustrated his theories regarding the evolution of music interactive Momentum presented at Barbican’s Curve Gallery from the actions generated by human beings for everyday in 2014 and their intervention in Sou Fujimoto’s 2013 survival.” Engaging with the German Bauhaus choreographer Summer Pavilion at London’s Serpentine Gallery, which Oskar Schlemmer, UVA were inspired by his statement that transformed a cloud of metal frames into an electrical storm. “we are intensely aware of man as a machine and body as UVA’s response to Fujimoto’s work was not an isolated a mechanism.” With this, they developed 440Hz (2016), a case; they regularly collaborate with a diversity of multi- fully immersive structure that transforms human movement disciplinary practitioners – ranging from the oldest national into different notes composed of light and sound. Simplicity, ballet company in the world, the Paris Opera Ballet, to it seems, can only be achieved through highly complex British trip-hop group Massive Attack, and within their own technical processes – and indeed the group’s expertise team including computer scientists, interaction designers enabled Changizi to explore ideas physically, something and architects. However, On The Origin of Art was the first which would not have been possible, as Clark asserts, “without time that the group entered into a project with a theoretical acquiring a huge amount of knowledge and technical skill.”

As a performative work which really only exists once it is neurobiologist. The field, in its most basic terms, combines neuroscience and psychology with electrical engineering activated, the piece includes a tracking system that turns and mathematics to uncover how the nervous system every tiny change – from a finger wagging to large, sweeping processes information. It is no surprise, then, that curator exertions – into a data set. Once these figures of hundreds

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Theo Civitello, Theo-Graphics / United Visual Artists, 440hz, 2016. MONA, Hobart.

(if not thousands) of fluctuations had been acquired, UVA began to design the framework in which to amplify the moments. Clark explains: “We didn’t want to just create a mirror, and so instead we made a cylindrical sculpture that represented a musical stave – the five lines that each indicate a different pitch.” Within this space, physical exertions are translated into a medium that an individual can see, hear and feel: the system not only understands gestures but how fast they occur – interpreting whether the action is aggressive or passive – and composes its piece accordingly. This, says Clark, “enables a physical and emotional response, which is the main reason for the technology we adopt.”

A pitch-black tunnel, brightened by the viewer, 440Hz makes use of UVA’s primary medium: light, an easily programmable, easily manipulated medium. With regard to the show, the material is defined as something we are predisposed to recognise, follow and desire – its intensity affects our feelings of happiness and safety, encouraging the expression of emotion without literalism. An expansive oeuvre, extending past this particular commission, aims to impact the viewer subjectively – but each experience is likely to change, depending not only on altered interactions but states of mind. Past works reflect this notion, such as Fragment (2013), which during the day reflects the heat of the desert sun and after sunset refracts artificial white beams into a Dubai interior, or Canopy (2010), which replicates walking through a forest in a vast geometric installation of mirrored and leaf-like forms. UVA acknowledge that each work is “a prototype” for the next – their knowledge is accumulating.

Of course, when developing the ideas of other specialists, Clark is aware of the danger of behaving illustratively,

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especially when incorporating complicated science – rather than perhaps dance or architecture – into a visual journey.

This is, perhaps, the benefit of the experiential over the static: with works such as 440Hz, UVA are able to use physicality to ask the audience where in their limbs they detect music, and therefore ask how they want to manoeuvre themselves.

Evidently, between Changizi’s assertion that music derives from the percussive shapes of the body and UVA’s intention to “amplify the participants’ awareness of themselves in surrounding environments,” the two sides found an equilibrium. However, as Clark continues to clarify, their opinions on the derivatives of art are not necessarily in complete alignment. Whilst Changizi does not believe that we have an inherent instinct, and that visual forms such as alphabet letters have been developed, unconsciously, to mimic the contour combinations of our natural habitats, Clark disagrees. He notes: “Whilst Mark’s ideas on how our actions for survival may have informed our cultural or creative output are very convincing, I personally believe that at a very early age humans developed an innate disposition for creativity and that expression is something that we wanted to do for no reason other than for the sake of doing it.”

Thus 440Hz challenges both hypotheses: does the visitor enter, see that they have activated the installation and with it begin to move, or do they enter the performative work and instinctively begin to spin, jump and dance? Of course, this will be different for each visitor and even every visit, and this is the crux of why it is near impossible to define “the origin of art”: for some it appears innate, for others it is less so, and rather than accept another’s decided lineage, developing an opinion is a far more valuable and revelatory experience.

Right: United Visual Artists, Serpentine Pavilion Intervention, 2013.

Serpentine Gallery, London.

Courtesy of My Beautiful City / Serpentine Galleries.

Words Chloe Hodge

On the Origin of Art. MONA. Until 17 April. mona.net.au

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Illusory Silhouettes Ricardo Bofill

Spanish architect Ricardo Bofill (b. 1939) launched an international urban design firm in 1963, which to date has completed over 1,000 projects in 40 countries. Given its wealth of activity, from public infrastructure to interior product design, the Barcelonabased practice has credits belonging to Dior, Rochas and Cartier as well as for Parisian social housing and Tokyo skyscrapers. In 1973 Bofill headed the design for La Muralla Roja (The Red Wall) in Calpe, Alicante, which pays homage to the Arab Mediterranean, in particular to the adobe towers of North Africa. Evoking a constructivist aesthetic, interconnected patios pay attention to colour as a misleading element. Intense hues of reds and blues contrast with the interplay of sunlight whilst blocks of labyrinthine staircases create a stimulating experience where space is subjective at each unique viewpoint. The result is an alluring geometric playground. www.ricardobofill.com.

Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Ricardo Bofill, La Muralla Roja, 1973.

Location: Calpe, Alicante, Spain.

Client: Palomar S.A. Courtesy of Ricardo Bofill.

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Dynamic Imagination Scandinavian Style FROM ESTABLISHED TO COUTURE BRANDS, SCANDINAVIAN DESIGNERS ARE GEARING TRADITIONAL IDEAS OF TIMELESSNESS AND PRACTICALITY TOWARDS SUSTAINABILITY.

“Scandinavian design has traditionally been simplistic hipster movement, with its attendant harking back to a less and known for good quality,” award-winning Veronica B complicated time – fewer frills, fewer bells and whistles, more Vallenes observes, adding that now “more and more of the people enjoying authentic lifestyles surrounded by objects practitioners on the frontlines are finding their own personal that respond to the real needs of day-to-day life. The fact expression.” The region’s powerhouse ideals have, for the that lighting, chairs, tables and storage solutions can be last few decades, been dominated in popular imagination by purchased from places as prestigious as London’s antique high street labels such as H&M, and furniture conglomerates fairs or as populist and accessible as eBay is testament to such as IKEA. These companies have replicated a movement the wide appeal of their character: simplicity never gets old.

Alongside the perpetual practicality that Scandi design is that calls for reliable, stripped-back products and which, thanks to quality materials and enduring character, have famous for, a new kind of trend has been emerging, especially evident in fashion: the emergence of a responsibility which become indispensable in many households across Europe.

Undeniably, one of the most lauded Scandinavian cultural reflects concerns with both their own and their consumers’ exports in recent years has been crime dramas, and noir footprints, and planning for the long-term effects that literature. Television series such as Forbrydelsen (The Killing) couture production can have on social consciousness and and Bron (The Bridge) are characterised by muted palettes the environment. Filippa K, a brand which is synonymous and almost austere production values, marking a clear with Northern European style, has brought a pioneering, and conscious turn away from the glamour and opulence industry-defining spirit. It is telling that its founder, Filippa of Hollywood. Sarah Lund, the protagonist of Forbrydelsen, Knutsson, built the company around the principle of has single-handedly given the Faroese jumper a new lease “recognising innovative sustainability” as its guide to growth.

At the same time, the long-cherished values of lasting of life, with sales increasing to an unprecedented level in the months following the initial airing of the series. Whilst functionality are joined by a desire to imbue a tinge of luxury the actual execution of the jumper isn’t traditionally Danish, to garments, a hint of a quirk that, whilst produced within the the minimalist, practical piece of clothing that captivated tenets of the region, will also ensure progression onto the the public imagination can almost be seen as encapsulating world stage. Vallenes weaves together both classic styling consumers’ fascination with an alternative style – one that, and progressive elements: a combination of tradition and through the very fact that it dismisses any attempt to be innovation that defines her work and sets it apart from that of her peers. Whilst the Norwegian pioneer doesn’t make a regarded as “cool”, achieves this kind of status nonetheless.

Mid-century furniture has also been seeing its own conscious effort to challenge definitive elements, she does renaissance, perhaps as a by-product of the rise of the admit that combining recognisable clean lines with more

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Filippa K, A/W 2016 collection. Photographer: Annemarieke van Drimmelen. Styling: Emelie Johansson.

“The region’s vision is geared towards apparel that, thanks to the plainness of line, durability, and comfort, can become and remain indispensable and longstanding items in people’s wardrobes through successive seasons.”

Left / Previous Page: Veronica B Vallenes, SS17 collection.

Photographer: Jacob Buchard Model: Signe Veiteberg / Team Models Makeup: Tatjana Weddegjerde.

exotic features has allowed her to find her own expression that works and one that she can keep on exploring further.

With a background in costume design, her experience and training continues to feed into creative processes, although, as she points out, working with these theatrical elements is something she enjoys “as a contrast to fashion.” When imagining and producing new season collections, the dramatic element is downplayed, retaining “only a hint of the inspiration,” and the flattering and comfortable silhouettes with a laid-back elegance that the region is famous for is focused on instead. Conciliating effortlessness and individual expression is the route through which Vallenes has been able to achieve a balance that allows her to be true to her spirit: “It is important for me to not just jump on a trend but to make timeless contributions that can last season after season.”

When it comes to sustainability, from production, to transport, to waste disposal, Northern European countries are fast becoming a pioneering force to be reckoned with.

In recent years, Sweden has seen less than one per cent of household waste ending up in landfills, and has in fact been importing rubbish to recycle in order to keep plant regeneration operational. In the Danish capital, Copenhagen, almost half the population commutes to work by bicycle, and the city is currently midway through a 14-year strategy, aiming to make this desirable location the most bike-friendly city by 2025. Oslo is redeveloping its harbour, Bjørvika, around a curatorial vision of a “Slow Space” that is “free from commercial activity in which to think, to slow down, to congregate, to self-organise,” which partly hinges on the concept of Slow Food – an encouragement to enjoy regional produce and more traditional, organically grown foods.

Awareness of the state of the planet is also evident in the use of fabric, especially in the way each blend is chosen and sourced. There has been a movement in contemporary culture towards minimising ecological impact and supporting a more aware and adaptive approach to the landscape, with brands from the luxury to the independent championing both innovation and re-use when it comes to fabrics, which are equally chosen for durability as they are for quality. Vallenes is an example of this: “The materials are very important for me; I always find them first. Then I work and drape with them and that always gives me so much inspiration. I find most of the fabrics at Première Vision Paris, one of the biggest fairs.” Of course, the drafting and manufacture comprise only the first few steps in the lifetime of a garment. Making the responsible choice in terms of acquiring these items is always down to the consumer. “I really hope that the clothes we design, create, market and buy are embracing sustainability,” she muses, adding that it is important that “people start making the right choices and thinking about how their wardrobe is being put together, before they buy.”

The region’s vision is geared towards apparel that, thanks to the plainness of line, durability, and comfort, can become and remain indispensable and longstanding items in people’s wardrobes through successive seasons. Nina Bogstedt, Filippa K’s Head of Design, sums it up when describing the process of producing a collection: “Each one has a core of essential pieces that stay the same over the seasons, only small changes are made to make sure they stay up to date.” In addition to the production of a jumper, top or skirt, the consumer’s ability to hold on to said item over many seasons, without fear of having it go out of style

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Rodebjer, Pre Spring 2017 collection. Photographer: Sarah Blais.

or compromising in quality, highlights a spirit of minimising “people feel free to do what they need and want to do.”

There are, of course, obstacles that come with running the kinds of consumption that would lead to an increase in an independent label and carving a niche in the industry, waste and its attendant ramifications for the environment.

Of course, an individual is more likely to decide to retain dominated by big couture brands. Vallenes works with a an item of clothing for a long period of time if it is practical relatively small team, amplifying the inevitable challenges and its design is in tune with the rhythm and demands of that occur as a consequence of competing with larger and everyday life. One of Sweden’s most highly regarded more expansive labels. Whilst her company isn’t able to designers, Carin Rodebjer has made this the cornerstone market its products with the same level of advertising as around which she built her brand – a sense that her work bigger names, they counterbalance this by focusing on is there to “enhance personalities and meet the many the development of a close relationship to the consumers, needs of the modern woman.” Rodebjer’s contributions are with the ultimate aim that “more and more people will intensely responsive to the present-day urban lifestyle: on take an extra look in our direction.” The model of a direct, the one hand, they allow the wearer to move about her daily honest relationship with the public, which is not predicated business comfortably and with aesthetic consideration; on on complex or wide-reaching marketing campaigns, sits the other hand, they are constructed in a way that allows comfortably alongside the more traditional methods of the wearer to express their personality, leaving space for the large-scale advertising favoured by more long-established flourishing of style without sacrificing comfort. An admirer names: different needs filled in different ways within the of counterculture and supporter of feminist movements, the context of many disparate kinds of consumer relationships.

From industry titans, such as Filippa K and Carin Rodebjer, designer understands that femininity does not need to equal to indie mavericks, such as Veronica B Vallenes, these discomfort: the patriarchal model has been eclipsed.

Vallenes’ garments also make use of colour, fabric, design unique and forward-thinking creators infuse their work with and texture in a way that responds to and accommodates a balanced mixture of tradition and a futuristic vision that not the needs of the quotidian. She notes: “It is important for me only puts them at the forefront of culture but also places that my clothes should feel natural and not stop you from them firmly onto the stage of world fashion where they doing your daily errands,” she asserts. She points out that come together to represent the move towards an innovative Northern European populations are known for their practical everyday which holds longevity as purveyors of Scandi cool. spirit; in Copenhagen, in particular, “most of the people are Hopefully, this is something these designers will indeed jumping on a bike to get from one place to another.” She achieve whilst keeping the social and environmental impacts keeps this sense of activity in the forefront of her mind when firmly in their sights. Perhaps Vallenes acts as a representative thinking about how to produce her collections and designs. of her peers when she explains: “Our ambition is big, but we It is important to Vallenes that, when wearing her creations, want our consciences to be clean when we get there.”

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Right: Filippa K, A/W 2016 collection.

Photographer: Annemarieke van Drimmelen. Styling: Emelie Johansson.

Words Regina Papachlimitzou

www.veronicabvallenes.com

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art

Gestural Frameworks Anna Di Prospero

Anna Di Prospero (b. 1987) studied photography at the The Istituto Europeo di Design, Rome, and at the School of Visual Arts, New York, where she became interested in the relationship between humanity and the environment. The Urban self-portrait series combines architecture with performance; expressive poses are injected into charismatic scenes where buildings are a source of invigoration. Bold shapes and primary colours are a consistent feature; angles of contemporary cities reach an intriguing equilibrium with bodily contortions. Di Prospero has exhibited as part of Les Rencontres d’Arles, the Month of Photography, Los Angeles, and La Triennale di Milano, and won several competitions including the Sony World Photography Award in Portraiture. Marseille(s), a new publication available from le bec en l’air, documents 20 images taken from a 2014 artist’s residency which revels in geometric construction. www.annadiprospero.com.

Anna Di Prospero, Latina #1, 2009.

From the series Self-portrait in my hometown.

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Anna Di Prospero, Untitled, 2012. Auditorium Parco della Musica – Roma, Italy. From the series Urban Self-portrait.

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Anna Di Prospero, Untitled, 2010. Vallecas 51, Social Housing – Madrid, Spain. From the series Urban Self-portrait.

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Anna Di Prospero, Untitled, 2010. The Gehry buildings – Dßsseldorf, Germany. From the series Urban Self-portrait.

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Anna Di Prospero, Untitled, 2011. Jewish Museum – Berlin, Germany. From the series Urban Self-portrait.

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Anna Di Prospero, Untitled, 2010. Social Housing in Carabanchel – Madrid, Spain. From the series Urban Selfportrait.

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art

Utopian Geographies J Bennett Fitts

American photographer J Bennett Fitts (b. 1977) analyses the topography of landscape. Throughout his dynamic collections, facets of life are captured with an attention to form and placement. In Industrial Landscap[ing]  all the images display interesting contrasts between urbanity and nature; deeply saturated blues are placed against the muted palettes of utopian structures. Geometric balance is equally of undeniable importance; the straight lines of undefined buildings are juxtaposed with sprawling branches and attentively shaped hedges. Organic matter is in strict conflict with the unpopulated locations: verdant leaves provide colour and tonal relief from concrete backdrops whilst raising questions about their ironic presence.

Accolades for this series include selection for the 25th American Photography Annual and an honourable mention in the NY Photo Awards. www.jbennettfitts.com.

J Bennett Fitts, Pine Trees. Detail.

From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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J Bennett Fitts, Tree with Two Benches. From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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J Bennett Fitts, Two Trees. From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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J Bennett Fitts, Three Red Trees. From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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J Bennett Fitts, One Tree Office. From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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J Bennett Fitts, Topiary Lunch Break. From the series Industrial Landscap[ing].

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art

Universal Reflections International Design Expos THREE MAJOR INTERNATIONAL FAIRS NOT ONLY SHOWCASE NEW INNOVATIONS IN DESIGN BUT DEMONSTRATE THE CHANGING DYNAMIC OF ART AND COMMERCE.

This spring marks the opening of three important interna- tors worldwide in the process. Hayon Studio, which began tional design expositions: the Stockholm Furniture & Light operating in 2000, was chosen by a list of industry profesFair, Design Shanghai and the Surface Design Show, London. sionals, and the organisers say they “look forward to seeing Each holding a specific focus, together they highlight the playful expression, spiced with humour and innovation. We most recent technologies, innovations and designers emerg- are convinced it will inspire, challenge and be appreciated.”

The Swedish fair, which invites 700 representatives from ing internationally. Compared to premier showstoppers such as ICFF New York and IMM Cologne, these three take a novel 32 countries, is first and foremost about trade. Its timing approach, carefully carving out their own niches within the coincides with Stockholm Design Week and ensures that market. The evolving market for art and design, especially visitors from around the world get the full experience – as related to new innovations in technology and construc- the evenings are crammed full with viewings, parties and tion, ensures that these will be closely monitored by press, exhibition openings. This is where the parallel to Shanghai becomes more apparent. As Creative Directors Darrel Best architects, interior designers, and, ultimately, home-owners.

The Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair is one of the oldest and Ross Urwin note: “It’s about the entire city embracing events of its kind: Stockholmsmässan organised the first in creativity for the week, spreading the excitement, being 1951. It is also the most domestic in terms of participants, inclusive and allowing a large number of visitors to interact with 80 per cent coming from Scandinavia; this is in direct with different media. It’s a celebration of the metropolis and contrast to Design Shanghai, which has 30 per cent domestic the growing appeal attached to art and construction.”

Led by Best and Urwin, originally the brainchild of exhibitors. The Swedish event creates a one-stop shop for those interested in Northern European design, whilst also Media 10, China’s leading expo integrates designer brands offering international appeal through their annual “Guest alongside new international labels, ensuring a diverse mix of Honour” programme. This prestigious title is awarded to of organisations all seeking to share their love for creativity. international designers or studios; the winners are invited to The fair has grown at an impressive rate (indicative of the create an installation in the convention centre’s entrance hall. growing Asian market), to the extent that this year they have This year, Spanish artist-designer Jaime Hayon (b. 1974) introduced a new collaboration with Shanghai Xintiandi, has been selected, having previously been showcased offering a pedestrianised entertainment and cultural area. by a long list of institutions including Mak Vienna; Gron- Shuttle buses will stop off at showrooms between the two inger Museum; London’s Design Museum; Gallery Thomas, locales, allowing buyers to come and view all the collections Munich; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Centre Pompi- with considerable ease. Minotti, Hay, Maison Dada, Strong dou, Paris; and Art Basel, attracting the attention of collec- CASA, Domus Aurea, Senab and Social Design Street have

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Peng Zeng, Geometry Pendant Lamp, 2015. Courtesy of MUMOON, www.mu-moon.cn.

“For their clientele, it is a preferred method of “shopping”; offering the convenience of being able to view and sample a wide range of new materials and blueprints, and ultimately meet the creative minds behind their purchases.”

Previous Page: Niklas Ödman, Rib. Light fitting.

Courtesy of Zero Lighting, www.zerolighting.com.

Left: Stefan Borselius, Oppo, 2009.

Swivel easy chair.

Installation at Microsoft Stockholm.

Photo: Jason Strong Photography.

Courtesy of Blå Station, www.blastation.com.

all agreed to participate in this newly recognised model.

For smaller labels, such as Mumoon (which will be offering the Geometry Pendant Lamp by Peng Zeng), the occasion is a unique opportunity to make sales but more importantly is a chance to build their brand and its presence in the marketplace. Having previously attended Furniture China, China Import and Export Fair and Hong Kong Lighting Fair in 2016, Mumoon will make its mark in Shanghai. For Mumoon, like many other independent businesses which have only an online presence to date, participation in such events is integral to building up a market and a following, perhaps more so than the larger more established names.

Design events also represent a movement away from the traditional “bricks and mortar” gallery or shop, with the participating studios acting as travelling merchants, all with the intention of shifting products and increasing exposure.

For their clientele, it is a preferred method of “shopping”; offering the convenience of being able to view and sample a wide range of new materials and blueprints, and ultimately meet the creative minds behind their purchases, and means that the culture of browsing and shopping is moving away from individual studio visits and towards larger, more convenient methods. The additional expense associated with travelling to trade events means that for the companies, as well as the time away from their production, they are financially under more stress. Ideally, their attendance will return sufficient financial benefits to make it worthwhile.

Surface Design Show (SDS), London, has played on this new adaptive model by using the allocated time and space to present two product-specific exhibitions: the Light School and the Stone Gallery. Introduced to fill the void in the UK

for events specialising in these two product types, the former is now in its fourth year and the latter in its second year, demonstrating that these kinds of specialist complementary programmes can be successful and mutually beneficial.

On the one hand, the importance of light to surface was realised early on in terms of highlighting originality, so it seemed an obvious focus to the show’s organisers.

Additionally, the Stone Gallery features not just natural materials but new innovative and sustainable alternative to traditional stone, like the SilicaStone by ALUSID, a new and exciting medium made from recycled elements. Including fused glass and ceramics, it has been manufactured as an adaptable alternative to natural stone products. Attendees are constantly looking for original methods of production and experimenting with materials; for example, Baranska Design, a Polish glass studio, will be presenting decorative glass surfaces, which are made by a process of layering in order to create a 3-D effect resembling frozen water. These kinds of new intricate possibilities represent one of the most significant developing architectural trends, and SDS is capitalising on this through its selection of participants.

Smaller in comparison to Shanghai, which had over 45,000 visitors last year, and Stockholm, with 40,000 visitors, SDS’s niche approach allows it to successfully compete against other worldwide fairs. Director Christopher Newton says that the primary drive is innovation: “We regard it as a key role for Surface – to assist emerging and innovative businesses to reach the community. We have created an Inspiration Centre so that start-ups can contribute on a low cost, no frills basis in order to meet our audience.” Unlike its Asian competitor, which has a more established roster of participants, SDS

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Thomas Pedersen, Deli, 2014. Armchair. Photo: Marcus Lawett. Courtesy of Skandiform, www.skandiform.com.

looks towards a younger generation for inspiration whilst keeping its own list tightly targeted. Newton says: “Our audience of practitioners know that they will be able to see, compare and specify materials used only for surfaces.”

The Stockholm event, like SDS, uses ancillary themes to attract a wider audience and, in doing so, make the entire experience more desirable. Where the focus for SDS is on stone, for Sweden’s capital it is on wood, with Welcome to Woodland presenting short videos on innovative aspects of public and private construction within a setting designed to resemble a “forest clearing”. A collaboration between the Swedish Association of Architects, the Swedish Institute, C&D Joinery, White Arkitekter and the Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair, the occasion highlights ideas around environmentally friendly design. Curved banisters and stair railings demonstrate intriguing shapes and solutions, injecting interest back into the landscape and mirroring the minimalist clean shapes always associated with Scandinavia.

Throughout the event, elements of nature are presented in domestic interiors and curated spaces alike, as a constant reminder of the sheer abundance of beauty and clean lines, which is to be found naturally occurring on our planet.

As Cecilia Nyberg, Project Manager, asserts, adaptive methods “remain an important topic amongst practitioners, producers and consumers. We will raise questions about everything from gender equality in the industry to ecologically friendly materials, sound production methods and sustainable architecture.” Drawing up dialogues between questions of adaptability, responsibility and ecological awareness is something that has come into focus across the board for all three fairs, whatever the material; take, for

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example, Zero Lighting, which uses local subcontractors in order to create an environmentally sound model of manufacturing, and the previously mentioned ALUSID. The evolving contemporary market is competitive, and becoming even more so with new events popping up yearly. In March 2017, the National Gallery of Victoria (in collaboration with the Victorian Government) launches Melbourne Design Week, an extensive programme which includes: curated collections within the Australian gallery and other venues; local and international guests and keynote speakers; business-to-business programmes; product launches; and children’s projects. Similar to the initiatives undertaken by its sister cities in other continents, Melbourne focuses outside a singular vision, looking to the city’s own populations for support this ambitious cultural venture.

This concept of the community in assistance to commercial cultural ventures in itself illustrates a new movement in terms of the value given to creative credibility for cities. More and more corporations are looking towards urban locations that have a strong cultural scene when selecting locations and setting up new headquarters or offices. A strong cultural identity also proves very appealing for courting talented individuals to lead these companies, and this is illustrated in the widespread support of design weeks. The industry of art will be something to watch closely in the immediate future, with the changing models of selling, the ever-growing importance of online presence, contrasting with the face-toface encounters of the new model of expos.

Surface Design Show runs 7-9 February; Stockholm Furniture & Light Fair runs 7-11 February; Stockholm Design Week runs 6-12 February and Design Shanghai runs 8-11 March.

Right: Spectral, Zero Lighting.

Courtesy of Spectral, www.spectral-online.de.

Words Niamh Coghlan

surfacedesignshow.com stockholmfurniturelightfair.se designshanghai.com

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art

Altered Perceptions Brooke DiDonato

Ohio-born photographer Brooke DiDonato (b. 1990) received a BA in photojournalism from Kent State University in 2012. Now based in New York, she illustrates narratives of the psyche. Compositions pair human experiences with uncanny visual elements and ultimately invite the subconscious into a playground of domestic settings. Windows, staircases, garage doors and pavements are the locations for bizarre scenarios that push the boundaries of reality. DiDonato offers up a surreal plane of opportunity where thoughts can materialise as a pile of leaves and gravity can be reversed, all cast within the ordered confines of brick houses and patterned wallpaper. Images from A House is Not a Home and selected personal works depict a distorted suburbia in which characters are so unintelligibly entwined with their surroundings that their dreams come to fruition through the materials of the everyday. www.brookedidonato.com.

Brooke DiDonato, Next-door, 2014.

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Brooke DiDonato, Closure, 2016.

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Brooke DiDonato, Duality, 2014.

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Brooke DiDonato, Long Way Down, 2016.

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Brooke DiDonato, Formations, 2016.

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Brooke DiDonato, The Staircase, 2016.

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art

Prismatic Compositions JUCO

Since innovative photographic duo JUCO (comprising Julia Galdo (b. 1984) and Cody Cloud (b. 1977)) first met at the San Francisco Art Institute in 2002, they rapidly became a powerhouse for creative responses to fashion and advertising. Custom-made sets are alive with intricate patterns and correlating colours, blurring the lines between fine art and commercial assignments. Editorial commissions demonstrate an awareness for brand exposure whilst injecting the spirited imagination that has attracted global companies and magazines such as Foam, The New Yorker, Saatchi and Saatchi, Sony Music, Teen Vogue  and Microsoft. Delving into their archival material provides an explosion of energy: stripes, polka dots and flora dominate style choices, which jar against block backgrounds.

Meanwhile, bowls of jelly and geometric cakes provide textural relief both as stunningly bold props and examples of an unequalled attention to detail. www.jucophoto.com.

JUCO, Beach Story, 2014.

For SchĂśn Magazine.

Model: Victoria Anderson.

Styling: Jimi Urquiaga.

Set design: Adi Goodrich.

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JUCO, Lay Down, 2015. For Book Moda. Model: Elena Sartison. Styling: Jimi Urquiaga. Hair: David Tolls. Makeup: Homa Safar. Set design: JUCO.

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JUCO, Lay Down, 2015. For Book Moda. Model: Elena Sartison. Styling: Jimi Urquiaga. Hair: David Tolls. Makeup: Homa Safar. Set design: JUCO.

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JUCO, Jello, 2015. For Paper Magazine. Model: Chrystal Copland. Styling: Shirley Kurata. Set design: Dane Johnson. Food styling: Jeanne Kelley. Hair: Rob Talty. Make up: Jo Baker. Nails: Kait Mosh.

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JUCO, Jello, 2015. For Paper Magazine. Model: Chrystal Copland. Styling: Shirley Kurata. Set design: Dane Johnson. Food styling: Jeanne Kelley. Hair: Rob Talty. Make up: Jo Baker. Nails: Kait Mosh.

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JUCO, Jello, 2015. For Paper Magazine. Model: Chrystal Copland. Styling: Shirley Kurata. Set design: Dane Johnson. Food styling: Jeanne Kelley. Hair: Rob Talty. Make up: Jo Baker. Nails: Kait Mosh.

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JUCO, Jello, 2015. For Paper Magazine. Model: Chrystal Copland. Styling: Shirley Kurata. Set design: Dane Johnson. Food styling: Jeanne Kelley. Hair: Rob Talty. Make up: Jo Baker. Nails: Kait Mosh.

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JUCO, OP Art, 2015. For Schรถn Magazine. Set design: Adi Goodrich. Model: Aspen Gerasimova / Photogrenics. Styling: JAK. Makeup: Dina Greg. Hair: Michael Kanyon. Nails: Kait Mosh.

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JUCO, OP Art, 2015. For Schรถn Magazine. Set design: Adi Goodrich. Model: Aspen Gerasimova / Photogrenics. Styling: JAK. Makeup: Dina Greg. Hair: Michael Kanyon. Nails: Kait Mosh.

1. Marilyn Minter, Coral Ridge Towers (Mom Making Up), 1969. Collection of Beth Rudin DeWoody.

2. Edward Krasiński, Intervention 15, 1975. Tape and paint on hardboard. 3. M@ STUDIO Architects, Haven’t you always wanted…?, 2016. For the 2016 NGV Architecture Commission. Photo: Peter Bennetts.

exhibition reviews

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty BROOKLYN MUSEUM, NEW YORK 4 NOVEMBER - 2 APRIL

Edward Krasinski ´ Installations and Happenings

2016 Architecture Commission: M@ STUDIO Architects

TATE LIVERPOOL 21 OCTOBER - 5 MARCH

NGV, MELBOURNE 14 OCTOBER - 30 APRIL

Marilyn Minter: Pretty/Dirty is the artist’s first ret- The stage is set in Polish artist Edward Krasiński’s This year’s NGV Architecture Commission sees rospective; it includes paintings, photographs and first UK retrospective: a quintet of constructivist a new transformation of the gallery’s garden. videos from 1968 to 2016. Smash (2014) is a Compositions in Space (1964) query the limitations Designed by M@ STUDIO Architects, the large-scale video projection that draws from and of painting and sculpture through contortions of winning piece, Haven’t you always wanted…? is expands on diverse source material – fashion edi- wood, wire and paint, whilst a neighbouring Dada- on display throughout spring and summer. The torials, beauty adverts and porn – and continues esque assemblage sees a ping-pong ball stride annual competition welcomes both emerging a focus on abstraction, realism, painting and pho- from its wall-mounted structure into the viewer’s and established practitioners to respond to tography. The connecting element is the sexual space (Untitled, 1962). Opposite, a print of the the space and to submit innovative ideas for a representation of water. In this particular work, a artist (Untitled, 1996) hints at the subsequent temporary design. M@ STUDIO Architects explain model wears silver high heels, embellished with integration between photography and blue tape. that their work investigates: “New models for the beads, and kicks through a piece of glass as it Tate curators chronologically ease audiences expression of the civic in Melbourne’s future outer explodes into a spray of water globules. Each into the development of Krasiński’s experimental suburbs and an exploration of what we’ve termed scene is conceptually dripping – in the air, on the and playful practice: from suspended sculptures ‘uncertain conditions’ where multiple layers of ground and across compositional backgrounds. adorned with visual puns and illusions of motion immersive effects allow high levels of engagement Glass is used in various ways. In Torrent (2013), to a reduction of three-dimensionality to a single with a transformed suburban artefact.” the image of full red lips with pearls streaming line. Homage to the 20th century pioneer as both The installation entices visitors to interact out of them is obscured. Similarly to Smash, it artist and curator is made apparent through through five sections. Adhering to the exact symbolises the perceptions that have held women replicas of former displays, such as the labyrinth- measurements of an existing car wash in back, exposing the mental negotiations involved like show at Foksal Gallery (1968). Highlighting a Blackburn, the structure is encased by cricket in expressing and indulging in physical beauty. shift in his 50-year career are Tate’s dedication to netting. Underneath the shiny “car wash” sign and 100 Food Porn (1989-1990) invited feminist the blue-taped telegram at the Japanese Biennale fluorescent lighting, pink astro turf floors with road criticism, which Minter refuted due to the radical (1970) and the drastic display of Krasiński’s markings weave a pathway through each area. The inclusion of images from the pornographic in- largely two-dimensional Interventions (1970s) – effects enable spectators to consider what it may dustry. This particular piece defines the dreamt all connected by a horizontal line of blue scotch be like to walk through the transitioning stages world that is embedded in the glass that is ulti- tape, which is placed at a height of 130cm. of a conventional yet hyperreal car wash. An mately shattered in Smash. While understanding As the presence of these lines increases, so inviting and imaginative atmosphere is infused that images of female beauty are not perfect, she does the viewer’s immersion: their gaze drawn by mist that coalesces and surrounds viewers. recognises that they are what society has become sequentially from piece to piece, to explore the A related project is called If Only…; composed accustomed to. A multidisciplinary oeuvre finds three-dimensional potential within the apparent alongside RMIT Centre for Game Design Research. agency in re-purposing the female body through two-dimensionality. As though to conclude, Seating is available for people to congregate, imperfect lenses. Conceptual deconstruction of the audience is left pondering their role as relax and study this suburban appropriation within mirrors evidences the complexity and messiness participants in the face of 14 suspended mirrors the context of a gallery space. Talks, performances, of the longstanding and taboo issue of women’s (Untitled, 2001) that delight in dispersing the events and live music also takes place, giving a appearances and relationships to sexuality. central hub for entertainment and enjoyment. continuous nature of the taped pathways.

Kim Connerton

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Selina Oakes

Sara Sweet

4. Takahiro Yede, Hibiki (Echoes), 2015. Purchased with assistance from The Art Fund and the Arts Council England / Victoria and Albert Museum Purchase Grant Fund. 5. Charlotte Colbert, Mother and Child, 2017.

6. Chiharu Shiota, Where are we going?, 2017. Installation view. © Gabriel de la Chapelle.

Modern Japanese Design

Toute Seule

Chiharu Shiota: Where are we going?

THE DESIGN GALLERY, MANCHESTER ART GALLERY 4 DECEMBER - 23 APRIL

GAZELLI ART HOUSE, LONDON 13 JANUARY - 26 FEBRUARY

LE BON MARCHÉ RIVE GAUCHE, PARIS 14 JANUARY - 18 FEBRUARY

On a research trip to Japan in 2013 Janet Boston, Featuring five women artists, Toute Seule offers an The latest installation by Berlin-based Japanese co-curator of Modern Japanese Design, noticed eclectic vision of contemporary practice over the artist Chiharu Shiota (b.1972) was commissioned that uncluttered display cases containing well- past 50 years. Although each artist is ostensibly by Le Bon Marché shopping centre, no doubt to spaced objects were a “guiding aesthetic.” The allocated a decade to represent, the works by add an extra touch of chic to rival the art gallery arrangement of the show, and the refurbishment Nancy Spero (1970s), Elizabeth Murray (1980s), in the Galeries Lafayette. The installation begins of the Design Gallery it is housed in, perfectly Rachel Whiteread (1990s), Rebecca Allen (2000s) in the shop windows and spreads through the reflects this approach: more than 100 pieces and Charlotte Colbert (2010s) defy chronological galleria, providing aerial uplift to the centre. by 32 practitioners are elegantly laid out, with categorisation and it is, instead, a very loose One hundred and fifty boats, woven out of crissclothing arranged on open catwalks, furniture on curatorial tool to form links between the artists. crossing white threads, ascend heavenwards low plinths, and ceramics, glass and jewellery in Nevertheless, the feminist preoccupations of the as groups of white-faced musicians spin their glass cases. The beautifully ornate room, a former 1970s can easily be drawn from Spero’s Abuse stringed orchestrations in accompaniment. On the 19th century Athenaeum space and one-time of Women and Children, a harrowing typewriter ground floor, next to fine leatherwear, cosmetics gentlemen’s club, was cleared and re-lit for its collage that mercilessly condemns male- and other women’s articles, a cave-like web opens dominated society as part of a wider structure out onto a filmed interview with the artist. relaunch, with this the first in a series of displays.

This is the first time that Shiota has used white As Boston explains, Japanese craftsmanship of subjugation. The austere minimalist aesthetic is an ideal fit for Manchester’s collecting policy, of the 1990s and contemporary concerns of thread to elaborate her evocative web sculptures. which prioritises quality alongside innovation; economic loss and recession are apparent in Her signature black thread, replaced in her 2015 several of the pieces on show were bought Whiteread’s Monument (Maquette) whilst the Venice Biennale piece The Key in the Hand by red, especially, including Hibiki (2015) by Takahiro materialistic excesses of the 1980s are manifested was discarded. Shiota has said the colour is a new Yede, an astonishing vessel taking inspiration from in Murray’s exuberant Sniff, a wildly colourful beginning, which embraces a certain optimism. traditional bamboo basketry but actually woven lithograph. The most recent work, Colbert’s Mother The feathery lightness of the installation is from long slivers of coloured metal. This search and Child, is a fragmented video celebration perfectly suited to its commercial environment is a legacy of Eastern Exchanges, a showcase of of domesticity and forms a stark contrast with and the spumy texture of the boat hulls evokes 1,500 years of Chinese, Japanese and Korean craft Spero’s Abuse to portray a sense of hopefulness oceanic feelings with captivating economy. These at the gallery in 2015. The objects demonstrate in the present. Meanwhile, Allen’s virtual reality life boats were hewn out of pleasingly immaterial the inventiveness that has sprung from the limited installation INSIDE questions the boundaries of thread foam. And yet it is hard to avoid thinking materials available in the isolated island culture artistic media in an exciting new manner. back to Shiota’s darker, more mysterious and Though each artist fails to fit neatly into their unsettling black and red threaded installations. of Japan; Fumio Enomoto’s Weave Stool (2014), for instance, elevates fast-growing bamboo by allocated decade, Toute Seule enables the viewer Her signature use of old or half-burnt objects interlacing laminated strips of it into a criss-cross to draw prescient parallels, and questions the such as pianos, chairs, tables, beds and salt-eaten pattern somehow reminiscent of plush upholstery. extent to which contextualisation of artworks wooden boats had tremendous power when This design ethos is having increasing affects our reading. It illustrates the problems of enmeshed in scorched, black-spider filaments. influence on artists internationally, something attempting to capture a particular zeitgeist and One is given the impression of entering memory that this unique exhibition recognises early on. that artistic output cannot be so easily categorised. itself, of witnessing a frozen synaptic storm.

Polly Checkland Harding

Ruby Beesley

Erik Martiny

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Film still from Christine. Courtesy of UPHE Content Group.

film

Prophetic Screenwriting CHRISTINE

“The key to our approach was to give a sense of hope. You had to believe that things could turn around, even though we knew how the story ends. Rebecca injected this kinetic energy, hoping that this time things would work.”

Words Beth Webb

Christine.

In cinemas now. www.curzonartificialeye.com

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A true story that haunted audiences and bears a chilling resemblance to the state of the media today, Christine is a tightly wound biopic about an aspiring newscaster who killed herself on live television in 1974. In a career-defining performance, Rebecca Hall plays Christine Chubbuck, a gangly, highly intelligent journalist trying to get ahead but held back by bloodthirsty peers, an industry obsessed with sensationalism and her own ongoing battle with depression.

For Antonio Campos (Simon Killer, Afterschool ), directing a film where the fate of its lead character is already sealed was not easy. “The key to our approach was to give a sense of hope,” he explains. “You had to believe that things could turn around, even though we knew how the story ends. Rebecca injected this kinetic energy, a pinball quality that just moves from one thing to another, hoping that this time things would work.” “We invested in the day-to-day life of this person, without trying to draw grand conclusions about broadcasting, suicide, or feminism,” says screenwriter Craig Shilowich.

“That’s why the title of the movie is simply her name.”

Approaching the mindset of such a complex woman with no immediate point of reference also proved a challenge for the filmmaker. Thankfully, he found a solution in his leading actress. “Rebecca wasn’t just embodying a character, she was listening to the voice of an individual. She understood her,” he says. “So much of that physicality came from Rebecca.

We spent a lot of time talking about Christine, the people we knew she reminded us of, and the parts of her that were in us.”

It’s a welcome lead performance from Hall, one that urges you to stay with Chubbuck as she battles against an industry surviving on the mentality that “If it bleeds it leads.”

Says Campos: “I think a story like Christine still rings particularly true today. The world is on fire, yet broadcasting companies choose to report everything but the things that really matter. It’s turned into such a circus in this country, I have avoided it since the election.” That said, there’s something almost romantic about the portrayal in the film of the technical realities of making the news at the time, with characters running through the studios with reels of footage, seconds before it is due to appear live on the screen.

“This was Antonio’s main passion, nailing the current affairs of the era,” says Shilowich. “His father works in the industry, so it was really important to him that we got it right. We conducted interviews with people who worked at the news station with Christine, and at other companies at the time.”

The combined, tireless efforts from director, screenwriter and star are present in every frame of the film, making the final blow all the more devastating. Though it is a film that might not make the glitzy lists of the awards seasons, Christine is still a fascinating story about a woman battling the odds, with a final act that, for all its inevitability, will still leave you in shock.

Charting Talent Development LONDON FILM SCHOOL

including Chao Liu’s sombre 15 minute drama A Minor “Festivals have been Matter (2016), a bittersweet story about a handmaiden who instrumental in the craves only for inclusion within her family of employers. distribution of artists’ It is a simple premise but expertly executed: Liu captures the work, helping them to lonely life of an outsider with beautiful cinematography and get to the next project, precise pacing, not wasting a second of the short narrative. It but it is organisations also resembles a feature-length work, an important quality like LFS that help in an industry that has developed so drastically in its use to get ideas into the of technology and post-production. A programme of this viewing screen in nature is vital to the future of independent cinema, a sector the first place.” that thrives primarily on the innovative ideas of rising stars.

Many of the scripts in the LFS programme have been written by each film’s director, a particular approach that has not been without its rewards. Tara Tchablakian, whose short drama Wrong Way Forward follows a high functioning alcoholic through her seemingly perfect life, has reached acclaim on the festival circuit, whilst Mark Kuczewski’s comedy horror Happy Anniversary, about a man desperate Words to revive his dead bride a year after their wedding, was Beth Webb selected to play at this year’s London Short Film Festival.

With a year of opportunity lying in wait for exciting, original new ideas in an industry weighed down with sequels, remakes A Minor Matter. and franchises, even the most self-sufficient practitioners London Film School. need a platform from which to launch their career or a mentor to help a concept flourish into a fully-formed feature. www.lfs.org.uk

Film still from A Minor Matter. Writer/Director: Chao Liu. Producer: Lilly Dong. Cinematographer: Simon Shen. Courtesy of The London Film School.

With an industry fast relying on fresh new faces to carry emerging releases and a rapidly expanding independent sector, recognising and nurturing talent in filmmaking is essential. London Film School is an institution dedicated to such a task – with alumni such as Duncan Jones, who impressed critics with his intelligent sci-fis Moon and Source Code, through to established award-winning directors like Michael Mann and the school’s own chairman, Mike Leigh.

Last year, LFS alumnus Benjamin Cleary won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film with Stutterer, the visceral account of a man dealing with a crippling speech impediment. “The short’s success has far exceeded our expectations,” says the filmmaker. “It’s still hard to believe that it won this and something like 25 awards on the festival circuit. Achieving the Oscar has been helpful for getting a great agent in the UK, obtaining fantastic management in the US and has opened lots of doors that in turn have led to lots of exciting opportunities.” Amongst the prestigious accolades was the Best Drama at last year’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival, an annual platform for a diverse showcase.

Festivals have been instrumental in the distribution of artists’ work, helping them get to the next project, but it is organisations like LFS that help to get ideas onto the viewing screen in the first place. Their 2017 programme of shorts is a collection of diverse work spanning genres and continents,

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film reviews Endless Poetry

Gimme Danger

Phantom Boy

Alejandro Jodorowsky Curzon Artificial Eye

Jim Jarmusch Dogwoof

Alain Gagnol & Jean-Loup Felicioli Soda Pictures

Endless Poetry (Poesía sin In his opening pre-amble, as Iggy Pop looks on, writer/ fin ) delves into the youth director Jim Jarmusch of director Alejandro describes the Stooges as Jodorowsky, who, after “the greatest rock ‘n’ roll abandoning his family, became a pioneer of Hispanic literature in band ever.” Thus, this is not an objective portrait of 1940s Chile. Alongside Enrique Lihn, Stella Díaz the proto-punk pioneers. Instead it is a revelatory, Varín and Nicanor Parra, the search for beauty surprisingly lucid musical memento mori.

This is a 50-year journey through the wilderness and artistic awareness took over the life of the and hinterlands of American rock as told by international writer, composer and producer.

Screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section at arguably its most surprising survivor. Iggy and the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, this 128-minute the Stooges were the aggressive antithesis to art house revelation is yet another example of the peaceniks, an antidote to manufactured Jodorowsky’s avant-garde style. Experimental, pop, with a focus on speed and quasi-simian sensual and full of vitality, the feature provides stage pyrotechnics, emerging at a time when a lavish depiction of the now 87-year-old, whose a generation of rock royalty – Hendrix, Joplin, alienated childhood kick-started a lifelong Morrison – was dying en-masse. “Nobody had journey chasing down unadulterated aestheticism. ever seen anything like what we did,” recalls Iggy.

Dangerous, decadent, defiantly different, Iggy Opening with the chaos of moving sets, the ghost of a disapproving father and theatrical and his cohorts in The Stooges embarked on a intermissions, this carnivalesque affair is at once death trip through the 1970s. It was a grungy, compelling and confusing. Each scene continues heroin-fuelled revolution that took in detours to develop a multi-textural retelling of events, in a through rehab and collaborations with David process that brings to life the curious, developing Bowie. Out of it stepped a pure exponent of raw, unfettered, dysfunctional outsider musicality. mind of this highly individual storyteller.

Hospital is not usually a source of fun. But for 11-year-old Leo (Marcus D’Angelo), aka Phantom Boy, it’s different. Since getting sick, Leo has developed an unusual power: he can drift out of his body and whizz around New York as a spirit.

For a wannabe detective, being invisible has its benefits. For a start, Leo can eavesdrop. This comes in useful when cop Alex (Jared Padalecki) joins him on the ward, with a big case he can’t solve, trapped inside the hospital’s walls. What follows is a thriller that mixes the magical realism of Studio Ghibli with a dash of New York attitude.

Though the film is set in the modern day, directors Gagnol and Felicioli add a 1930s sensibility. Even the villain who holds the city at ransom resembles a cubist painting with his multi-coloured features.

But the film doesn’t shy away from reality either.

Through Leo we also glimpse a world uncensored for children. After slipping into his mother’s car in the hospital car park, Leo discovers her crying.

Though in this moment, a world of childlike wonder – and hope – is hovering very close by.

Kate Simpson

Tony Earnshaw

Grace Caffyn

The Unknown Girl

Wiener Dog

Luc & Jean-Pierre Dardenne Curzon Artificial Eye

Todd Solondz Picturehouse

The 9th Life of Louis Drax Alexandre Aja Soda Pictures

Navigating the tricky boundaries between professional concern and personal guilt, The Unknown Girl is a detective story of sorts with a narrow focus and quiet performances. When a young doctor, Jenny, ignores a late-night knock on her surgery door, she subsequently learns that the teenage prostitute who knocked was killed later that night.

Her guilty search for the girl’s identity leads her to tense encounters with patients as she begins to abuse her position to soothe her conscience.

The film’s realism is somewhat undermined by a series of all-too-convenient clues, but actress Adèle Haenel’s subdued performance creates a dramatic comment on the isolation of a doctor’s role and the contradiction inherent in a position of care where emotional involvement is discouraged.

Jenny prides herself on being stoically professional yet repeatedly crosses boundaries.

Whilst the mystery of the girl’s identity presents a fairly prosaic narrative, the quiet control of Jenny, who is present in every scene, transforms the film into a powerfully subtle study of character.

An incongruent quartet of mishap stories are woven together by a single dachshund. Named Wiener-Dog, Doody and even Cancer by its serial owners, this poor pup is passed from odd-ball human to another in various stages of this offbeat comedy. Witty in its melancholic dissection of American society, this curious feature uses an ordinary canine to expose the hopes, beliefs, habits and frustrations of our own species, from early childhood to old age.

Beginning life in a garish green kennel, the dog bonds with a boy whose affluent suburban parents’ (Julie Delpy and Tracy Letts) modernlife analogies conjure up morose ideologies.

Next, Greta Gerwig resurrects Dawn Wiener from Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995) and takes the dachshund on a road-trip ahead of a stark intermission that moves the focus into later life.

Danny DeVito and Ellen Burstyn appear in this section in the roles of a frustrated screenwriting lecturer and a bitter elderly lady. As obedient and unremarkable as Wiener-Dog is, her presence encourages astute examination of our own kind.

The fantastical takes the hand of human emotion in a dance that winds up as an upliftingly sad tale.

Dr Allan Pascal’s (Jamie Dornan) encounter with the comatose Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) draws him into a web that blurs reality and fantasy.

Louis’s opening narration introduces a fantastical and strange story amidst dreamy imagery, which quickly settles into the emotional angst of relationships and parenthood. From here, writer Max Minghella and director Alexandre Aja explore life as an intimate encounter between truth and narrative within the folds of their story.

Classical and pristine, the tale only asks us to ride the wave of the experience. The sharpness of the writing merges with perfectly in-tune performances, whilst the music is its inseparable soul, expressing emotion in true cinematic fashion.

There is one moment about the connection between the mind and the soul that delivers a jolt – revealing the joy of film to open our minds to ideas. Blooming into an effective mystery, it contemplates the intimate human bond to story.

Ruby Beesley

Selina Oakes

Paul Risker

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Photo: Modu Sesay.

music

Norwegian Wanderlust ANNA OF THE NORTH

“It came to a point when Oslo got a bit small for me,” says (in Australia) and writing a lot of music,” explains Lotterud, “I was homesick and Anna Lotterud, the vocal half of electronic duo Anna Of The “so we just sent ideas back and forth to each other. I think I writing a lot of music North. Lotterud grew up in Gjøvik, a small, friendly town only met up with Brady two or three times whilst I lived in so we just sent ideas situated close to Norway’s largest lake, Mjøsa. “I felt very safe. Melbourne. We didn’t really start to work with each other back and forth to But as I grew older, it got a bit boring, and all the cutest boys until I moved home.” Since then, the pair have released a each other. I think were taken, so it was time to leave.” She found her way to the string of dreamy, crystalline dance pop singles, songs that I only met up with capital, a city the pair have penned a paean to, in their airy, have earned them healthy streaming stats and blogosphere Brady two or three pulsing single Oslo. But then wanderlust struck. “I suddenly hype. The duo’s moniker, Daniell-Smith’s initial nickname for times while I lived got this feeling that I needed a change. I talked to my friends the vocalist, could also double-up as a friendly poke at the in Melbourne. We and family about it, but no one believed me when I said I shield maiden archetype sometimes associated with Nordic didn’t really start to wanted to travel. It only made me want to get away even musical exports. Does that mean they’re out to redefine our work with each other more. One month later, I applied for Camberwell University idea of a typical Scandi-pop act? “I don’t think we really until I moved home.” know our style yet,” says Anna. “We’re here to challenge and in Melbourne, Australia, packed my bags and left.”

Once there, a coterie of fellow Nordic expats Anna had explore things ourselves. I guess Scandi-pop is fine for now.”

Work on their debut is progressing well, steered by one befriended took her to a show in Fitzroy, Melbourne’s famed inner-city cultural hub. On the bill? Her future producer, rule: every decision has to be unanimous. “If me and Brady Brady Daniell-Smith. “Three years later, we’re stuck at don’t agree on an idea, we scrap it all. It’s really important Amsterdam Airport together,” she jokes. An overbooked that both of us are happy with what we’re delivering.” What flight following their gig at the Netherlands annual festival/ can fans expect from the pair’s debut? “Personally, I am very conference Eurosonic have left the pair stranded. It’s a minor excited about releasing some more of the slow jams. Don’t Words setback for the duo, who’re fast finding their touring legs with worry though – there’ll be plenty of upbeat stuff too.”

Charlotte R.A. Once the secret’s out, of course, they’ll be back on the road. profile-raising sets at Eurosonic, Pitchfork Music Festival and Ideal future tour mates? “WET? Or maybe Tyler, The Creator. an arena tour supporting Norwegian DJ superstar, Kygo.

Big moves for a pair whose musical partnership started I can’t imagine life being boring on the road with him. Brady www.soundcloud.com/ out as “a kind of weird internet friendship.” “I was homesick says Celine Dion. Anyways, we gotta go – flight to catch.” annaofthenorth

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Conceptual Engagements REBEKKA KARIJORD

Photo: Emilia Bergmark-Jiménez.

Writing in the now, explains Rebekka Karijord, is her default that helped her reconnect with her Norwegian roots. “My “I felt one of the few approach to songwriting; “It’s the only way for me to make American husband’s family lives in Hawaii, so we try to spend concrete things I genuine stuff.” Mother Tongue, the Norwegian’s forthcoming time there every winter. It’s pretty wild – volcanoes, whales, could give her was album, is certainly that: an intense, dramatic and transcendent deep jungles – like a tropical version of northern Norway, the vibrations of my record, rich with synths and hard-won wisdom, rooted in the with its tall mountains, enormous ocean and white beaches. voice through my chest into her body, as recent birth of her first child, Liv. “Ever since I got pregnant, I I get to borrow an old, wooden church with a grand piano.”

The island’s influence can be felt across the album, on if she was still in the realised I wanted to write something about that process. And then of course it became more traumatic than I expected, and Mother Tongue, Waimanalo and Morula – all written in situ belly. I sang and sang the songs changed character along the way. It wasn’t until the – and in I Will Follow You, which features Hawaii’s Kekuhi and sang and sang. record was mixed that I realised I’d made a concept album.” Keali’ikanaka‘oleohaililani, “a very special kind of holy Many of the album’s Liv arrived prematurely by three months. What followed woman.” How did the pair meet? “When I was pregnant melodies came out of was an agonising period camped out over an incubator, with Liv, I was working on a project for which I interviewed those endless hours.” willing her firstborn to survive. “She was so little, and I felt female singers from around the world about their voices. This one of the few concrete things I could give her was the included Kekuhi, who’s a professor in Hawaiian chanting. Her vibrations of my voice through my chest into her body, as if recording really struck a chord. The song is about coming she was still in the belly. I sang and sang and sang and sang. back to a place you love, and feeling that it has changed. It’s Many of the album’s melodies came out of those endless an expression of wonder, grief and acceptance.” The chant, hours. I remember thinking that I needed to transform the says Karijord, became a personal mantra of sorts for her.

There’s an egregious, pervasive narrative in the West trauma into something, a way to process it and survive.”

The journey, says Karijord, has deepened her craft as an that says that motherhood somehow saps female artists artist. “I find I have less patience for bullshit – in my work of their creativity. Is this misconception something Karijord Words and my relationships. I think my daughter and the drama anticipates facing? “I feel like parenthood and pregnancy is a Charlotte R.A. we went through together have made me more bold.” She very ‘unsexy’ topic in popular the arts,” she agrees. “I believe describes Hawaii, where she spent much of the pregnancy that it is rooted in old, patriarchal patterns. Becoming a and currently resides, as a “very spiritual place,” one parent is just as universal a topic as falling in love.” www.rebekkakarijord.com

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music reviews Frontier Ruckus

Clock Opera

Fufanu

Enter the Kingdom Loose Music

Venn K7

Sports One Little Indian

The fifth album from Michigan-based foursome, Frontier Ruckus, is every bit as much a nod to idyllic nostalgia as their other studio works including The Orion Songbook and Sitcom Afterlife. Enter the Kingdom is a swaying invitation into the suburban American household, offering a dreamy glance back into a past forgotten life.

Harrowing and consistently melancholy, Anna Burch’s vocals marry with Matthew Milia’s honest songwriting, to access a past of unemployed fathers, bluish-black skies, poisonous glamour and thunderclouds. Each hazy narrative is executed with poetic and softly-paced verses.

A myriad of instruments come to play, including a 12-string guitar, piano, lowrey organ, banjo, trumpet, musical saw, melodica, alto horn, clarinet, French horn, Optigan and more, each a tool to convey the darkened memories of youth.

Like flicking through Polaroids, the sense of analogue expression is infectious. The self-titled finale, Since Milford and If You Can, are stand-out tracks from this collection fusing 1960s folk rock and 1990s power pop. www.frontierruckus.com.

Nearly five years after their storming debut album Ways To Forget, the London four-piece return in a flurry of oscillating synths and the softest-toned vocals you could possibly imagine.

With a determined and yet tormented undertone to the record, Venn leaves a deep lyrical sigh cemented within the finely-crafted production.

The lethargic Whippoorwill could only have been inspired by an unrelentingly painful loss, whilst the rattling church bells atop flawless drum programming on Changeling give a foreboding energy. Reminiscent of a modern day indie Eurythmics, Clock Opera surf through 10 songs of wavy electronica without quite capturing the heady heights of a pop chorus – and one cannot imagine that being high on their list of intentions.

Tooth & Claw channels Phantogram-esque production and moodiness with front man Guy Connelly’s dulcet tones, whilst the album closer, When We Disappear, paints a dystopian horror over thinly tapping drums and meandering bleeps. Trippy, not over-complicated vocally but still experimental. www.clockopera.com.

Sports is the second album from Iceland’s Fufanu following the critically acclaimed debut Few More Days To Go. Produced by Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, the album develops the electronic post-punk feel of its predecessor with evolving layers of beats, bass and electronica.

The title track opens engagingly with a deep bass throb before warm electronic layers and guitars create a nuanced atmosphere that becomes rich in beats before the vocals arrive.

Throughout, it is suffused with a delightfully raw tension contrasting with gentler moments such as White Pebbles, an altogether more laid back affair, still maintaining Fufanu’s characteristic darkness.

Championed by Damon Albarn, the album is redolent of Blur in places, notably on Tokyo and Bad Rockets, although this does not distract from the individual identity the band has forged here. The sounds are a little less bleak than those heard on its debut and the songs are stronger.

Ultimately, the album takes the listener on an interesting journey – from retro to new – that seems to be entirely effortless. www.fufanu.net.

Kate Simpson

Kyle Bryony

Matt Swain

Hanni El Khatib

Heinali

Vitalic

Savage Times Innovative Leisure

Anthem Injazero Records

Voyager Caroline International

Don’t let the slackerrock image (and abundance of flannel) deceive you; guitarist Hanni El Khatib is one very busy man. He has released an album every other year and Savage Times is his fourth LP since 2011 debut Will the Guns Come Out. It clocks in at 19 tracks in total.

The guitarist – a former advertising executive – is better known for lending various commercials a blues-rock soundtrack. However, Savage Times sees El Khatib set himself a personal challenge: break the mould in as many ways you can.

So whilst some of the San Franciscan’s bluesrock heritage is apparent, so are an overwhelming number of new influences. There’s the squealing swagger of Black Constellation, the slinky funk of Peep Show and the barely-there 1 AM, which would be a folk song if it were not so aggressive.

The album is also a philosophical break from El Khatib’s previous material, with the politically charged Born Brown and Mango + Rice setting America’s anti-immigrant sentiment in their sights.

In throwing away the rulebook, Savage Times hits on a new-found truth. www.hannielkhatib.com.

Oleg Shupdeiko, better known as Heinali, hails from Kiev, Ukraine, where he forged a unique electroacoustic style. Combining throbbing synths with ethereal scores, his records are as much an example of digital storytelling as an experimentation with sounds. Weaving together as a tapestry of harmonies and soaring distortion, the “songs” that create the newest album Anthem are perhaps just this: a collection that evokes catharsis through formal balance.

Anthracite is an effective opener, sombre and celestial, with eight minutes of pulsations and subtle rhythmic variances. Meanwhile, Shuffle and Away are similarly liberating through fluctuating loops. Halfway through the shifts in tone continue: Holding A Cloud’s beautiful suspended piano parts evoke emotion through minimalist phrasing.

As the record crescendos into its final utterances, Hauntology, Embrace Embrace Embrace and finally, Anthem, the influence of greats such as Hans Zimmer are evident. Notes shine through the swells of noise, in an intricate artwork waiting to be discovered. www.injazerorecords.com.

Hailed as a Frenchtechno pioneer and renowned for genrecrossing electro sounds, artist and producer Vitalic (aka Pascal Arbez-Nicolas) returns to the fore following his first emergence on the scene 15 years ago. In this, his fourth studio album, he draws on a wealth of disco heritage and pushes its reverberating synthesisers into a new reinvention of the genre.

The artist continues to challenge the boundaries of “metal disco” or “fuzzy disco”, intertwining catchy melodies and stimulating beats. Opener El Viaje’s analogue synths attune the listener’s sensibilities to the album’s cosmic vigour, as heard in Waiting for the Stars featuring David Shaw, and Levitation, a relentless track that becomes augmented by the audience’s pre-recorded wailing. Eternity invites a synthetic opera to create a pause in the compilation, guiding fans into a melancholic trance amidst the inexorable energy.

Voyager’s disco acoustics, reminiscent of 1980s trailblazers Moroder, Cerrone and Gino Soccio, all contribute to launch the album’s retro-futuristic journey across the dancefloor. www.vitalic.org.

Grace Caffyn

Kate Simpson

Selina Oakes

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performance

Altruistic Collaboration Tree of Codes WAYNE McGREGOR, OLAFUR ELIASSON AND JAMIE XX TRANSFORM JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER’S BOOK INTO AN EVENT THAT TRANSCENDS INDIVIDUAL DISCIPLINES.

It’s not unusual for dance to draw from literature: there are profile pieces, The New York City Waterfalls (2008) and The numerous famous ballets that take their inspiration from folk Weather Project at Tate Modern (2003). Though he is credited tales or stories, including The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Giselle with the visual concept of Tree of Codes, the collaboration and perhaps most recently Matthew Bourne’s retelling of The is conceived by the artists as being a whole: “We started Red Shoes. However, amongst these, Wayne McGregor’s Tree out thinking of this as a pan-disciplinary opportunity and it of Codes, first produced in collaboration with Olafur Eliasson turned out that it only really coheres as a gesamtkunstwerk.”

It’s a fascinating way of creating and the product is and Jamie xx in 2015 for the Manchester International Festival, remains unique. This piece is exceptional because compelling. Figures from the Paris Opera Ballet and of the way that it relates to the novel that acts as its stimulus. Company Wayne McGregor intertwine with a sophisticated This unique event is inspired by Jonathan Safran Foer’s visual design accompanied by the music of xx producer, 2010 artwork and is a compelling exploration of the way James Thomas Smith. Danish-Icelandic artist Eliasson had that form can shape meaning. Unlike most of the ballets met both Safran Foer and McGregor before and was familiar mentioned previously, McGregor’s piece draws less on the with the musical style that was to be adopted. He talks about plot or characters and more on the nature of the remarkable how the author and he “discussed the haptic quality of the publication. To create the story, the author took his favourite book” and how, contrary to what one might think about text, Bruno Schulz’s The Street of Crocodiles, and carefully transforming words into theatre, it was relatively easy to selected which words to keep and which to cut, physically imagine the transition: “When I read the novel for the first carving a new narrative out of the piece by making a die- time it was a physical type of immersion, because I arrived at cut of every page. It is a keen reminder of the physicality of the narrative from the discussion with Jonathan – how does language and of stories, something that is often forgotten or the paper sound? What does it feel like? That meant that it was quite easy for me to translate that into dance.” overlooked, in an age geared to digital forms and screens.

As Safran Foer does with his pages, so Eliasson layers his This then, is what the trio aim to investigate through the performance, which has its London premiere at Sadler’s sets. He also plays with light and mirrors in a way that echoes Wells in spring 2017. Packed with notions of sculpture and the physical imagination of the publication: how things are layering, it seems fitting that Eliasson and Jamie xx are the seen and unseen at the hands of the author. He states: “The practitioners Wayne McGregor chose to partner with for ideas for the on-stage environment were very much born the project: both demonstrate an affinity with these ideas out of the notion of what is physical. When do things have through their previous works. Eliasson has included light and a physical dimension versus a digital or less dimensional other elemental materials before in some of his more high- space?” His use of reflection serves to include the audience,

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Left: Tree of Codes, 2015. Opera House, Manchester, 2015. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes.

Right: Tree of Codes, 2015. Opera House, Manchester, 2015. Photo: Ravi Deepres.

Previous Page: Tree of Codes, 2015. Opera House, Manchester, 2015. Photo: Joel Chester Fildes.

in the same way that the reader has to actively participate in the turning of pages. “You sometimes see yourself as part of the presented movements, reflected in the mirrors. The idea was to blur the boundaries between what’s in the room and what is being presented.” He talks about re-organising traditional hierarchy – “an organisation of who is active and who is passive” – so that where the stage is usually performative, the audience becomes “considered, or at least respected, as a co-producing element” in the piece.

This is echoed in McGregor’s choreography. Eliasson speaks of visiting the rehearsal room and experiencing the dancers as being an inherently physical act. Professor Lawrence M Parsons and his colleagues in the Department of Psychology at the University of Sheffield undertook studies in the early part of this century that suggest watching gestures unfold is very similar to actually moving – the same neural pathways are triggered. With this in mind, viewers are immersed into the gestural arena and take on some of the mental preoccupations with performance, as if they were on stage as well, much the same way that readers of a literal (as opposed to digital) novel have the same connection to that artwork, fully recognised as a necessary contingent.

Whilst the immersive environment creates duplicates of individuals, Jamie xx is “good at reflecting the spirit of a room musically” thanks to the “quality of his live DJing and his ability to listen to the audience in front of him.” The MercuryPrize-winning artist has a history of intertwining the dialogues between practitioners and their voyeurs: shows with his band take on an atmosphere that is as much an installation as a gig, and they have collaborated with Manchester International Festival since 2013. There’s a “club-like” element to their

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sound, and this is something that provided inspiration: “I “In this pioneering was excited about riffing off Jamie’s music: even though it is performance, unlike more experimental than conventional records, it still kind of other ballets that has the context of club music. So some of the layouts, even have taken texts as though they are a lot more minimal and slow, they do lend their inspiration, it’s to the underground feel of light and design.” not simply a case The visions of the three practitioners are so fully integrated of redefining or that it is impossible to fully separate out who influenced reinterpreting a story whom, and who constructed which aspect. Eliasson into a new form, it’s notes: “Maybe it’s more interesting to propose this as anti- a case of actually disciplinary. There are no disciplines, they are co-producing reworking the form.” each other. It’s interesting to see how we can collaborate without being egoistic: what is a true, altruistic collaboration?”

His suggestion is that possibly Tree of Codes is it: literature, dance, music and visual art all combined to create the piece and “disconnected, they would be something completely different.” In the case of Safran Foer, we can see the truth in this – the book exists separately, and the visions of this unique collaborative triplet didn’t try to bring that narrative across or retell the story necessarily because, as the installation artist says: “It was not just about the narrative, but very much about the tangible nature of publications.”

In this pioneering performance, unlike other ballets that have taken texts as their inspiration, it’s not simply a case of Words redefining or reinterpreting a story into a new form, it’s a case Bryony Byrne of actually reworking the form – delving into its counterparts and translating them into a new language. This is a show about how we see narratives and experience art. It’s a piece Tree of Codes. that is “not really about collaboration, but about unification.” Sadler’s Wells, 4-11 March.

It is a glorious celebration of the magic that can happen when we remove boundaries between disciplines. www.sadlerswells.com

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theatre

Live On Stage 5 RECOMMENDED PRODUCTIONS THIS SEASON

1

E15

Hull Truck Theatre, Hull, 8-11 February.

Created by LUNG with the residents of E15.

Facing skyrocketing rents and forced relocation out of London, 29 single mothers united to confront Newham Council’s gentrification of their home town. From the streets of Newham to the Houses of Parliament, this bold and pertinent piece of documentary theatre is adapted from real-life testimonies to provide a truthful retelling of the focus E15 Campaign and Britain’s housing crisis. Commissioned by Battersea Arts Centre and created by LUNG with The Civic in Barnsley, this work of political theatre calls for social housing, not social cleansing. Box Office: +44 (0) 1482 323638. www.hulltruck.co.uk.

2

Glasgow Girls Liverpool Playhouse, Liverpool, 14-18 February.

Book by David Greig. Directed by Cora Bissett.

Cora Bissett and David Greig’s life-affirming, song-filled drama is based on the true story of seven feisty teenagers, whose lives change forever when their school friend and her asylum-seeking family are forcibly taken from their home to be deported. The young women are galvanised to take a stand and fight for their friend. The real Glasgow Girls’ story became one of the most powerful asylum campaigns in recent history – challenging the government, capturing the imagination of the media and inspiring a whole community to unite. Box Office: +44 (0) 151 709 4776. www.everymanplayhouse.com.

3

Wish List Royal Court Theatre, London, until 11 February.

Written by Katherine Soper and directed by Matthew Xia.

Tamsin packs boxes in a warehouse, on the clock, with a zero-hour contract. Her brother Dean is housebound, working to obsessive-compulsive rituals of his own. When Dean is declared fit for work, their benefits are cut. There are appeals and endless forms to fill in. Tamsin must pack faster, work harder, and fight to get the support she and her brother desperately need. Winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Katherine Soper’s powerful play asks what our labour is worth and how life can be lived when the system is stacked against you. Box Office: +44 (0) 20 7565 5000. www.royalcourttheatre.com.

4

Escaped Alone BAM Harvey Theater, New York, USA, 15-26 February.

Written by Caryl Churchill and directed by James Macdonald.

Three old friends and a neighbour. A summer of afternoons in the backyard. Lingering sunshine and inevitable darkness. Caryl Churchill, one of Britain’s greatest living playwrights, returns to BAM for the first time in 15 years with this hilarious and unsettling daydream. Directed by Churchill’s collaborator James Macdonald (Cloud Nine; Love and Information ; John Gabriel Borkman, Spring 2011), with startling performances from Linda Bassett, Deborah Findlay, Kika Markham and June Watson, Escaped Alone is doomsday in a teapot, a vision of looming collapse. Box Office: +1 718 636 4100. www.bam.org.

5

The Political Tinker People’s Theatre, Nørregade, Copenhagen, Denmark, until 11 March.

Written by Ludvig Holberg, adapted by Thorbjørn Krebs and directed by Søren Iversen.

A classic comedy by Ludvig Holberg. The Political Tinker was Holberg’s first comedy; written in 1722, it still remains relevant today. A pewterer neglects his work and family whilst he engages in useless political arguments at the local bar. As a practical joke two members of the city council convince the pewterer he is the new mayor, whereafter he ends up making a fool of himself. The Political Tinker is not only a play about an eccentric but also a discussion of the conflict between appearance and reality and what happens when a person is robbed of his illusions. Box Office: 70 27 22 72. www.folketeatret.dk.

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book reviews The Global Work of Art Caroline A. Jones University of Chicago Press

Russian Art of the Avant-Garde John E. Bowlt Thames & Hudson

Lost Futures Owen Hopkins Royal Academy of Arts

Caroline A. Jones’s impressive new book explores ideas of the international and the global in art and its reception. It is wideranging in its historical and geographical scope: Jones begins with a comprehensive look at the first biennial (Venice, 1895), makes incisive and well-researched comments about 20th century developments, and ends with a comprehensive examination of the contemporary world of art fairs. In the process, she takes the reader on a journey around – to name but a few – landmark events in Paris, Chicago, Dubai and São Paulo.

The book will appeal especially to an academic market, and certainly makes an important contribution to contemporary art history. The first few chapters, especially, are very theoretical, though Jones has a light touch where required and the work remains engaging throughout. Later sections on architecture, experience, and the public are more immediately accessible.

Overall, the publication is an impeccably researched and beautifully written take on a pressing topic: the developing relationship between the field of art and international affairs.

Nearly 30 years after its first publication, a revised edition of Russian Art of the AvantGarde has been created. It coincides nicely with the opening of Revolution: Russian Art at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and remains a significant text that explores the culture that emerged in the Soviet Union from 1890 to 1930.

Bowlt combines clear, detailed essays with translated manifestos, statements and articles from many of the seminal figures of the time including Kandinsky and Malevich, amongst many others. The first third of the 20th century was a time of collective upheaval and change for the Empire and as such, its creative practitioners, both well-known and lesser-known, undeniably reflect and respond to the social and political shifts.

This unique publication collates the different theories and approaches of artists working in the early 1930s as they struggled to develop new styles that would go on to have international influence. It contains over 100 rare photographs and is a vital and compelling text. A cornerstone work for anyone with an interest in Russian art.

Lost Futures combines the vision of the Royal Academy of Art’s previous Architecture Programme Curator, Owen Hopkins, alongside 120 images that depict monumental buildings constructed between 1945 and 1979. Disappearing as souvenirs of post-war Britain, housing estates, nuclear power stations, factories, pavilions, shopping centres and schools are amongst the blocky, mostly concrete structures, all documented with demolition dates and captured, mostly in monochrome, as haunting expressions of a nation in repair.

With intriguing descriptions placed adjacent to the photographs, as well as locations, architects, and photography credits, the book acts as a complete itinerary of brutalist-inspired designs.

For both nostalgia and posterity, the text is informative and, at the same time, emotive.

The austerity of the UK is evoked in this compelling publication, whilst also providing a glance into societies that are fading away in the face of digitalisation and a constant search for innovation.

Notice recent losses such as Birmingham Central Library as a nod to the present-day culture cuts.

Anna Feintuck

Bryony Byrne

Kate Simpson

Who’s Afraid of Contemporary Art?

A Pen of All Work

Georgia O’Keeffe

Kyung An & Jessica Cerasi Thames & Hudson

Massimiliano Gioni & Gary Carrion-Murayari Phaidon

Wanda M. Corn Prestel

Compiled into a single volume by two curators working at the heart of the 21st century art world, Who’s Afraid of Contemporary Art? addresses issues in layman’s terms, without forsaking insider knowledge. An accessible publication playfully laid out into animated A-Z themes, it demystifies familiar questions of “What makes it art?” and “Who decides what matters?”

From galleries, art markets and biennales to internships, money and the notorious “art-speak,” this text is a welcome friend that guides its readers beyond the common barriers that stand between the art world and its own audience. Time is spent on current concerns such as the changing format, presentation and conservation of artwork (from Andy Warhol’s soup cans to Nam June Paik’s use of obsolete television monitors), as well as the responsibilities of the “art team,” from technicians to curators, gallery staff and the audience.

Pitched as an introduction to the industry, this volume is a well-rounded evaluation of an international art world, encouraging us to not be afraid to experience something extraordinary.

Punk artist, cult figure, multiaward winner Raymond Pettibon has had work featured on album covers for bands as influential as Black Flag, Sonic Youth, and the Foo Fighters, and showcased in prestigious venues and festivals, including MoMA, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Biennial, and Liverpool Biennial.

This volume offers a rich yet eclectic archive, starting from childhood drawings and moving forwards, including sketches, canvases and collages. It sheds light on the artist’s process and traces the evolution of his work through detailed interviews, essays, handwritten scripts, and a comprehensive list of this artist’s truly vast output.

At once mysterious and menacing, alluring and prohibitive, the artist exposes the disaffection of youth, mocks the crumbling political landscape and deflates canonical heroes such as Superman, calculatedly tearing holes in the narrative of the American dream. Pettibon is an irreverent satirist and chronicler, who, armed with an observant eye and steady hand, still remains unafraid to lead us into the darkest corners of the soul.

What does it mean to “live modern”? For Wisconsinborn Georgia O’ Keeffe (1887-1986), it meant making one’s life a gesamtkunstwerk possessing an aesthetic unity of its own. Wanda M. Corn’s comprehensive survey of the artist’s style should be read not simply as an art book but as a practical handbook of how to live one’s life well.

We are given a glimpse into the interiors of O’Keeffe’s two houses in New Mexico, allowed to flick through her exquisite wardrobe and to see examples of a life lived in dialogue with painting; as one of her friends stated: “O’Keeffe never allowed life to be one thing and her work another.”

Arguably, what we see is not the woman but the highly-crafted persona she built up during the 20th century which found its highest expression in the portrait photographs which were captured by Alfred Stieglitz, Bruce Weber and others. Perhaps the more intimate insights into the practitioner’s life are to be found in the collections, where her sense of self is present but subsumed into her vision of nature. Includes 217 colour illustrations and 117 black and white illustrations.

Selina Oakes

Regina Papachlimitzou

Matilda Bathurst

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artists’ directory

My Little Pony Twin Towers, 2016. Acrylic on canvas, 120cm x 120cm.

BOBO1325 Laurence Wood

Founded and run by British designer Beth Travers,

BOBO1325 is a boutique design studio specialising

www.laurencewood.co.uk www.translatingnewterritories.com www.laceycontemporarygallery.co.uk

in bespoke wallpaper and surface pattern designs. www.bobo1325.com

meiyi yang Born and raised in Shenzhen, China, and currently based in New York, Meiyi Yang is a Metals and Jewellery Design MFA A lyrical witticism lies at the heart of Cornforth’s paintings; her pieces rely on the gentle rhythm of instinctive colour decisions and an unapologetic attention to the potential of aesthetic form.

student at the Rochester Institute of Technology. With a deep interest in fashion and costume design, she explores the relationship between jewellery and clothing as they relate to the human body as an expression of individuality.

www.lennycornforth.com | cornforthe@gmail.com

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

www.meiyi-yang.com

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Double Blind. Patina and dye on cast bronze, 5cm x 27cm x 18cm.

Meng Zhou

Stephen Daly

www.meng-zhou.com

www.daly-studio.com

GABRIELLA KOSA

Olga lOmaka

Visiting the extremes – the spontaneous and planned, and

Examining the balance between tradition and

the concrete and abstract – using a mixture of random strokes and carefully painted geometric shapes, Londonbased artist Gabriella Kosa aims for balance and harmony.

In her paintings she explores the connection between

new trends, Olga Lomaka’s Artefacts combines

elements of surrealism and pop art. Unexpected

techniques create vibrant and complicated pieces,

civilisation and the symbolic messages of nature.

whether through painting, sculpture or installation.

www.gkosa-art.com

www.olgalomaka.com

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Warm in Winter.

Chijia he www.facebook.com/yegu2016 Screen works, installation, sculpture and projections Chris Meigh-Andrews | www.meigh-andrews.com

Shirley CreSSwell

TATAWA

An award-winning artist based in New Zealand,

Experimental musician turned abstract artist,

evokes photorealism through an attention to light and

through improvisation in fiercely honest and

Shirley Cresswell has developed a technique that

Tatawa explores the idea of self-revelation

three-dimensional composition, in order “to feel like

biographical mixed media paintings. She throws

breeze and see the waves crashing in.” Her works are

stirs them into a soup, until the nature of habit is

www.shirleycresswell.com

www.tatawaart.com

you can walk into a painting, feel the sand, the light featured in private collections around the world.

raw ingredients onto the canvas and brutally

revealed as an accidental source of structure.

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

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Alex Voinea Alex Voinea’s Shock Value captures individual universes through the fluidity of materials.

Fading backgrounds create depth, embracing a “hyperrealist abstraction” where every splash of colour is identified in high definition. He aims to transport viewers through vibrant and imaginative works. www.alexvoinea.com

Alice Cherry London-born artist Alice Cherry resides in Sydney. She is fascinated with the relationship between colour, light, reflection and water, illuminating magical moments and investigating how rain changes our perception of everyday scenes.

Intrigued by distorted images, she draws us into an abstract world.

Amarita Vargas Amarita Vargas harnesses the essence of energy and flow in her works. Strongly influenced by a career as a flamenco dancer, she pares movement down to a minimal statement using a restricted palette. She says: “Honesty means not hiding behind conventional imagery, but rather having the courage to be led into a drawing and allowing oneself to be surprised.’’ www.blackwhiteart.org

www.aliceart.me www.facebook.com/Alice.Cherry.Art

Ana Beatriz Fernandes Ana Beatriz Fernandes is a London-based artist. Her pieces often explore the importance of the other in understanding the self, questioning the way personal identity is built in present society. Ana Beatriz expresses herself through different mediums, such as drawing, photography and installation. www.anabeatrizfernandes.com Instagram: @ana.bea.fernandes

Anastasia Young London-based artist and jeweller Anastasia Young creates fantastical objects and wearable art constructed from precious metals and found materials. Her work is inspired by imagined narratives; recurring themes include bachelor machines, the uncanny and spiders. Selected work is held in the Central Saint Martins Museum. www.anastasiayoungjewellery.co.uk Instagram: @anaesthesija

Annamarie Dzendrowskyj Informed by her career as a PADI Scuba Diving Instructor, the art of Annamarie Dzendrowskyj reflects the experience of underwater vision, presenting the emergence and dissolution of forms. Her work was shown at the Nappe Arsenale, Venice in the finalist exhibition of the 2016 Arte Laguna Prize where she was awarded a residency at the Artistic Serigraphy Fallani in Venice. www.annamariedzendrowskyj.com

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Image: AV_350, 2017.

Acrylic on linen, 60cm x 73cm.

Image: Trophy Wife Trophy (0.67251047e). Mixed media; brooch.

Agatha Whitechapel Internationally published and exhibited photographer and filmmaker Agatha Whitechapel was born in London and is based in Vienna. Her work is composed to be life-sized, using natural light and hundreds of images. She explores alternatives to established concepts in social structures as well as depictions of things to come within a set selection of futures. www.agathawhitechapel.com

Image: Immanence and Pendulum II. Acrylic on canvas, wood pendulum, 64in x 77in.

Annette Turrillo Annette Turrillo’s artwork focuses on introspection and symbolism.

Her paintings create a sensorial experience of space and volume, evoking a sense of serenity and harmony. Turrillo’s installations provoke an atmosphere of mystery that invites the interaction of the viewer. She lives and works in Paris and has taken part in individual and collective exhibitions worldwide. www.annetteturrillo.net

Bia Monteiro Bia Monteiro works primarily with photography, video and installations. She addresses ideas of safety and displacement both within domestic space and national borders, as well as environmental concerns, through the use of architecture, historical references and personal experiences.

Charlotte Bernays The work of Charlotte Bernays is concerned with form in motion and motion within form. She works in an experimental and exploratory manner to find materials and ways of making to express her preoccupation with mass and energy, configuration and reconfiguration, referencing nature’s “dramas” on both the microcosmic and macrocosmic scale. www.charlottebernays.co.uk

www.biamonteiro.com Instagram: @bmonteirop

Image: Wi-Fi Damages DNA & Proteins in the Body.

Chris Holden Chris Holden is an activist artist engaging with current issues of today: the war on terror, and environmental and social issues.

His work is mainly inspired by campaigning organisations, alternative media and investigative journalism, which highlights the censorship and misinformation surrounding these issues. activistartist-chrisholden echolden@hotmail.com

Christopher Stott Canada-based painter Christopher Stott is best known for vivid, straightforward compositions that feature vintage objects, transforming once ordinary and common objects into icons and symbols. His work is approachable on multiple levels and has its finger firmly on the pulse of contemporary representational painting. www.chrisstott.com

Image: Corona, 2017. Oil on canvas, 30in x 30in.

Image: no.479, 2017. Digital montage.

Cynli Sugita Tokyo-based Cynli Sugita is a collage and montage artist who majored in philosophy. Her current Mui Vision series is a 1,000-day project to update and record one image per day and it is published on her Mui Vision blog. This project is presently halfway to completion.

Her most recent show was in Paris in 2016; the next will be in the UK. www.cynlisugita.com cynli.sugita@gmail.com

Christine Fitzgerald Christine Fitzgerald is an awardwinning fine art photographer from Ottawa, Canada. Her still-life, portrait and landscape images are produced intuitively, using large format cameras and vintage lenses, often integrating historical and modern photographic tools and processes. christinefitzgeraldphotography.com

Cristina Ulander UK-based Cristina Ulander takes inspiration from the natural world, seeking ways to express the beauty of nature. Her latest series depicts panoramic, moody skyscapes of atmospheric storms in the distance, menacing and dark, painted on a large scale in oils on aluminium and Perspex. www.cristinaulander.co.uk

Denise McAuliffe Hutchinson Ireland-based Denise McAuliffe Hutchinson has an MFA from NCAD. She practices a lyrical and autonomous style of painting, influenced by the phenomenon of perception. Denise participated in The Nasty Women Exhibition in New York in January and is preparing for shows in Ireland and India.

Image: Untitled, 2016.

Mixed media, 100cm x 120cm.

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

denisehutchinsonblog.wordpress.com

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Eija Hakkola Eija Hakkola creates paintings and larger site-specific projects such as the Seitti (Cobweb) mural in Helsinki. Her pieces are abstract combinations of organic nets, lace, growing plants and creatures. She is particularly interested in cooperating with professionals from different fields such as design and architecture. www.hakkola.net Instagram: @eijahakkola

Elaine Longtemps Working on the outer fringes of fibre art, New York-based Elaine Longtemps pushes boundaries by draping and forcefully twisting hand-painted rope to comment on cultural and political issues. www.elainelongtemps.com

Elizaveta Deviataikina Being a part of the Armenian diaspora has made personal identity and origin a vital part of Elizaveta’s work. She is concerned with the fragments that constantly appear in our lives that we allow to slip away unnoticed. Paintings transcribe and piece together the puzzle of her heritage through the affinity of form, colour and the moment. liza.deviataikina@yandex.ru

Gudrun Kainz Gudrun Kainz’s collection includes small porcelain or ceramic plates woven with copper wire. She opens up the possibilities of translating hardened forms into flexible objects which occasionally peter out. Wire adds a subtle graphic dimension to her three-dimensional work. The porcelain’s texture evokes the suppleness of skin.

Image: Eos, 2016.

Acrylic, ink and epoxy on wood, 110cm x 110cm.

www.gerardescougnou.com Instagram: @gerard_escougnou

Gunvor Larsson Gunvor Larsson is interested in the sculptural expression of glass and the transferring of pictures to glass.

She works as a designer with several Swedish glass companies including commissions for public spaces.

Her work is crossover of genres: glass, painting, photo, poetry, performance and architecture.

Jack Davis “The relentless power of nature creates order out of chaos; my work seeks to channel that energy and evoke a primal sense of experience: dramatic, dynamic and deep.” Recently appointed tutor at the Newlyn School of Art, Jack Davis has exhibited nationally and internationally. www.jdfa.co.uk Instagram: @jackdavis_fineart www.facebook.com/JackDavisFineArt

Image: Love – Red. Fiberglass, signed and numbered 3/5. 46cm x 30cm x 10cm.

www.atelje16.com/wordpress info@atelje16.com

www.gudrunkainz.at

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Gérard Escougnou Gérard Escougnou has been devoted to abstract painting for the last 15 years. A vigorous and instinctive gesture, punctuated by splashes of colour, is nourished by the influence of the New York School. Reflecting ample, spontaneous movements, his works capture vitality and brute force.

Jamal Habroush AL SUWAIDI Although AL SUWAIDI has travelled widely and taken inspiration from many cultures, it is a relationship with his native UAE that informs the sculptural works. Looking to the future and the past, his art acts as a bridge to understanding other cultures.

Instagram: @jamal_ habroosh_alsuwaidi jamal@jamalalsuwaidi.com

Jason Haufe There is a cerebral element of play in the paintings of Australian artist Jason Haufe, who has explored various spatial and pictorial ideas within the limited means of geometric abstraction. More recently, Haufe has exhibited current work in Paris and Berlin that uses photocopies to generate new directions for his collages. www.jasonhaufe.com contact@jasonhaufe.com

Joao Fego Joao Fego is an Oporto-based artist who reflects on facial and bodily expressions as a way of conveying emotion, as well as ephemeral moments. Influenced by a formal education in architecture, Fego makes use of shadows as evidence for the presence of light. His current exhibition at Ap’Arte Gallery in Oporto runs until 4 March. www.joaofego.com Instagram: @joaofego

Kaloust Guedel Kaloust Guedel is a Los Angelesbased artist and is known as the founder of the Excessivism movement. This image is a section of a 47ft x 16ft fresco titled Coronation Of Vagina, part of the Zadikian Project Studio.

Katharina Rauch Katharina Rauch discovered her love for photography during her arts studies and has gained valuable experience from international photography courses and National Geographic workshops. Her aim is to depict an individual view of life and to capture passing moments.

www.zdom.com

www.miriamfumeephotography.com kat@katharinarauch.com

Katherine Marmaras Melbourne-based Katherine Marmaras incorporates printmaking with other mediums to explore the notion that art may be purely decorative. Inspired by found images and photographs, she abstracts colours, patterns and motifs found in nature, architecture and textiles. www.katherinemarmaras.com Instagram: @katherine_ marmaras_artist

Katrina Avotina Katrina Avotina has been painting professionally more than 20 years.

Currently based in Leeds, she works with acrylic colours. She says: “I wish to spread beauty in the world and to bring happiness to people through my paintings. I hope that all those who view my works feel the love I portray.” www.artfinder.com/katrinaavotina Instagram: @katrinaavotina

Liliana Zaharia Liliana Zaharia is a fine art photographer based in London.

Her emphasis is on everyday life and the mundane, discovering her identity through surrounding people and places. Her most recent work documents the Thames Path, capturing vivid tableaux of contemporary life in London.

Mhairi Ballantyne Through painting and sculpture, Mhairi Ballantyne brings together a variety of unusual materials and processes. A poetic narrative runs through the work, yet there is also a resistance and dialogue between the elements which asks questions concerning origins. www.mhairiballantyne.co.uk

www.lilianazaharia.com contact@lilianazaharia.com

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

Image: Lagoon Series I. 1520mm x 1220mm.

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artists’ directory

Nihal Yesil Nihal Yesil was born in 1973 in Sivas, Turkey and lived in Germany from 1975 to 2006. She studied Experimental Sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and Installation Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. Since 2006 she has lived and worked in London. The featured piece is about the representation of fluids in digital images. www.nihalyesilstudio.com

Rhonda Whitehead Rhonda Whitehead’s recent paintings are inspired by the action of nature on the built landscape.

She employs a wide range of colour, texture and geometric forms. As one critic writes: “Whitehead records the surface loss, imperfections and characteristics of erosion and time on manmade surfaces. It is as if the artist were capturing the mind that exists in all matter.” www.rhondawhitehead.com

Image: Venice Detail, 2016.

Oil on sand ground, canvas 152cm x 198cm.

Image: Jacob’s Ladder, 2017.

Lino cut on acid-free paper, 8in x 10in.

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

Sally Annett In her UK-based studio, Sally Annett works across various mediums for both private and public collections that are often site-specific. Current projects include Contemplation Seats (conceptual installations placed near train stations) as well as painting and printmaking.

Annett will open a second print atelier in France this summer. www.contemplationseats.com www.sallyannett.com

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Image: Two Way Eye #1.

Digital photography of oil-based inks on water.

Miss Aniela Mixing art and fashion photography, Miss Aniela creates a fine balance of contemporary creativity. Her work fuses traditional imagery and digitally enhanced motifs, interweaving in a surreal composition inspired by Renaissance and Dutch masters. Her work has been featured worldwide including shows at the Saatchi Gallery and Waldemarsudde Museum, Stockholm. www.missaniela.com

Rachael Kelly Rachael Kelly is an artist currently based in Ireland. Aiming to illustrate the parallels between capitalist production and the materiality of globalisation, she uses a variety of mediums.

The theoretical dimension is contextualised with an examination of the agricultural sector and the global production of soy. www.kellyrachael.com Instagram: @kellyrachaelartist

Roy Goodman Roy Goodman’s landscapes of Cornwall are stylised, with figurative detail replaced by symbols.

Sometimes collage provides texture that might be a stand-in for water or some other substance. Above all, there is a joy in materials and what hands can do with them. www.roygoodman.co.uk www.facebook.com/roygoodmanartist roy_goodman@hotmail.com

Sarah Anne Smith Sarah Anne Smith is based in South Yorkshire, UK. Influenced by the potential and variety found in materials, nature, places and objects – from the historic to the everyday – she forms links into broader ideas based on identity, transformations and human experience for sculptural-based artwork.

Image: From The (Common) Grip series, 2016.

www.sarahannesmith.co.uk

Sheau Ming Song Sheau Ming Song has a PhD from LICA at Lancaster University, UK. His work demonstrates the essential issues of two-dimensional representation and documents the visual possibilities of painting materials. He has shown at Art Taipei 2015, Gwangju Biennale 2015 in South Korea, Art15 London, ART.FAIR Cologne 2014 and the-solo-project 2013 in Basel. www.sms1967.com

Simon Kim Seoul-based Simon Kim majored in Visual Communication Design for a BA degree and Illustration for his masters at Kingston University in London. The piece shown here is part of the series created for Final Page. www.simonz1987.net Instagram: @simonz1987

Sofie Pihl Danish-Italian fine art photographer Sofie Pihl is intrigued by all aspects of the medium; she pushes the boundaries of conventional techniques, experimenting with the camera and digital post-production to free images from the constraints of documenting reality as we usually know it. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. www.sofiep.com Instagram: @sofiepihl

Image: Spring, 2017. Oil on canvas, 16in x 20in.

From the Seasons series.

Thiemo Kloss Inspired by cinematography, paintings and info graphics, Berlinbased photographer Thiemo Kloss focuses on the contrast between evolutionary processes and technological progress. Within this framework he emphasises several recurring topics: manmade environments, overarching systems and digitalisation. www.thiemokloss.com Instagram: @ThiemoKloss

Tamara Van San Tamara Van San is a sculptor based in Belgium. She tries to create sculptures that speak to their audience without being figurative or geometric. Van San believes acting is telling the world who you are, regardless of your fears; sculpting is thinking through action. www.tamaravansan.org

Willow Stacey Willow Stacey explores the ideas of maternal instinct, femininity and sexuality from her own personal relationships. Using the simplicity of a single bodily element, her works evoke ideas about the purification and reduction of forms, questioning the values that are associated: do their identities remain or do they become inanimate objects. www.willowstacey.com Instagram: @willow.stacey

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

The Seasons series was exhibited in New York in January. 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

Image: Some Hills, 2016.

Acrylic on canvas, 86cm x 76cm.

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

Yusuke Sugiyama Yusuke Sugiyama investigates the concept of boundaries, between oneself and others, reality and memory, embodiment and the abstract. Sugiyama sees them as expressing not an opposition but a dynamic interaction. Latest works in oils, acrylic and drawing will be exhibited at the Charlottenborg Spring Exhibition in Copenhagen, 3 February - 11 March. yuuskesugiyam.myportfolio.com

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Tomás Saraceno, Stillness in Motion – Cloud Cities, 2016. Installation view at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, 17 December 2016 – 21 May 2017. Photography © Studio Saraceno.

Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, Andersen’s Contemporary, Copenhagen, Pinksummer Contemporary Art, Genoa and Esther Schipper, Berlin.

last words

Tomás Saraceno Artist

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Cloud Cities represents a new, airborne beginning. After the Anthropocene, a post fossil fuel era, we enter Aerocene, a new epoch that no longer moves with the wind, but becomes it. This installation reflects a more-than-human world where audiences are invited to let their minds float, learning the speed of aerostatics instead of aerodynamics. Stillness in Motion builds upon the idea that transcendence is a concept not felt, like 108,000 km per hour, the speed at which we move around the sun. Together, we become pilots of the planet Earth, cosmic beings with endless amounts of energy, reverberating around the spaces of an interconnected world and co-inhabiting through social and mental ecologies. Stillness in Motion – Cloud Cities runs until 21 May at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. www.sfmoma.org.

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