01/03/2012

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Sometimes She Disappears: Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman has played many parts over the years, Hitchcock lady, horror victim, Madonna, Monroe, low-brow actress, ageing socialite, and sun-burnt Beverly Hills do-nothings among them. A lot of what she deals with identity and gender, but a lot of it is also deliberately abstract and multi-faceted, which is why it’s always been somewhat difficult to keep Sherman pigeonholed in one camp or another for too long. She simply refuses to be pinned to one thing or another. It’s also why she’s so popular.

What has never been revealed is the real Cindy Sherman, and you’re certainly not going to find her here. Her expansive, brilliant retrospective at MoMA should instead be viewed in part as an exercise in mass identity contortion. Though you can see that iconic face in nearly every shot, at 58 she remains an elusive figure as ever.


Sherman has long been in the business of deception and illusion, ever since she blew up with her Untitled Film Still, a brilliant 69-picture series from the late 70s that showcased many of the themes she would spend the next four decades exploring: gender roles, identity, voyeurism, exploitation, and consumerism. She executes in one frame what most filmmakers couldn’t dream up with three hours worth of tape. It’s impossible to tell exactly what you’re looking at. If born 100 years ago she probably would’ve been a rabbit-wielding magician in competition with Houdini, but in an era where media images are cropped and manipulated beyond recognition she is instead a modern trickster who utilizes photography as a way to showcase the unreliability of identity. Contrary to popular belief, the camera does lie―hers does, anyway―and often does so with an eye winking in the audience’s direction. The first thing you see off the escalator at MoMA are four 18 foot pictures of women dressed in what look like homemade Viking costumes, their facial features photoshopped just enough to make you cock your head. It’s funny, but not in a laugh-out-loud kind of way.

Artifice and irony have always bled through even her most serious portraits, though a large chunk of the opening afternoon crowd seemed to miss the inherent humor in her work. “That is disgusting!” remarked one young woman, notebook in hand, when she saw one of Sherman’s “LA women” staring at her, her tanned and sagging breasts all but dripping out onto the floor. Others could hardly stomach her late 80s work, one of the rare times Sherman stepped out of the frame and instead filled it with raw meat, cookies, vomit, and sunglasses to make some sort of comment on the AIDS epidemic (Untitled #175). A few people laughed when they saw Sherman playing Caravaggio playing Bacchus, wryly eyeing the camera with fresh grapes between her fingers.

How could you not?

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of MoMA 

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27/02/2012

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Deconstructing The Thing

The Thing Quarterly is, in the words of the founders, a periodical in the form of an object. The object is typically functional and designed by celebrities and people otherwise notable in their line of work. Contributors in the past have included writer Jonathan Lethem, media artist Anne Walsh, and experimental geographer Trevor Paglen. They make things like military mugs, blank books with shoelaces sewn into them, and flags embedded with instructions on how to fold a flag.

It’s called art, and it’s brilliant.

It works like this: You pay them money ($65 an issue, or $200 a year), and at the dawn of each season you’ll receive a Dominos-shaped cardboard box with the contributors name stamped boldly in Helvetica. It’s clean and would look nice on top of a coffee table. It’s also minimal, as much as an offshoot of the absurd humor of Marcel Duchamp as it is with the craft aesthetic of something like Ready-Made, a crafty monthly rag that tells its readers how to build their own living spaces without having to go to Ikea. But where Ready-Made tells you how to build things, The Thing has celebrities build things, and you pay money to have their objects sent to you. The thing is, you don’t know what they’re going to put in the box until it arrives. One publication described what they do as part MacGuffin, and part… something else. The MacGuffin is the only part I can remember now that I’m thinking it over.

But it’s what’s inside that counts, right?


It depends on who’s putting what inside, and why. The most recent issue is an original Dave Eggers short story printed on a shower curtain. From the perspective of a shower curtain, too. If you’re a die-hard shower curtain fan, you can’t live without it. But James Franco’s tribute to Brad Renfro is downright ridiculous, arriving complete with lipstick, mirror, and a photo book of Franco getting “Brad” carved into his shoulder. If you want a piece of glass that has the words (written by Franco himself) “Brad Forever” smeared on glass in front of a neatly-tucked pocket photo of Renfro, Issue 14 is for you. It’s tacky, vain, and wildly pretentious even for a project where pretentious and indulgence are entry requirements.

But The Thing is heady like that. The people who produce it, visual artists Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan, promote the project as a surprise of sorts, something fun, like finding an object you weren’t looking for in the leftover bin at the local thrift store. Maybe a wolf t-shirt, maybe a set of hand-made wine glasses with a message inscribed on the bottom, maybe a Brad Renfro knife or something. Brad forever.

Wait, that knife exists and costs $650? These guys are full of surprises!

At least it seems like the contributors are having quite the time. Who wouldn’t want to, like Starlee Kine did in Issue 10 (sold out), write a short story about an onion on a cutting board designed for cutting onions? Or silk-screen a post-it-note on a functional shade says, “If this shade is down I’m begging your forgiveness on bended knee with tears streaming down my face,” like Miranda July did in the inaugural issue? This, too, is sold out, though I can’t imagine those words having the same kick the second time the shade is drawn.

But like Duchamp’s urinals, it’s the idea of The Thing is more important than what’s inside the box. And the objects sometimes are surprising, at least in the degree of incompetence they assume of their subscribers. But hey, it’s not like you’re forced to buy into this thing. I mean, if you’re the type of person who thinks it’s cool to spend $65 on a Dave Eggers shower curtain, I’m certainly not going to stop you.

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of The Thing & Lenny Gonzalez

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16/02/2012

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A Silent Choir

Everybody knows that matter is made of particles and these particles can be split in many other micro-particles going to smaller and smaller. But what people very often omit to consider is the importance of lack, the emptiness, which is among all the molecules and is a part of every inanimate object or a living being. Emptiness is not only a formal concept, but also a generating element that creates balance. “There is no sound without silence, there is no silence without sound”, says Jacopo Mazzonelli (b. 1983, Trento), who recently opened his solo show entitled Coro (Choir), curated by Marco Tagliafierro.

The young Italian artist -with a musical education and a keen interest in alchemy- plays with full and empty spaces, pause and action, sound and silence.

In Petit (2011) Mazzonelli, using two plumb lines hanging from the ceiling and the pedals of an old tricycle running on a neon tube, recreates the suggestion and tension of the morning of the 7th of August 1974, the day in which Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the Twin Towers.

No sounds can be heard from the mouths trapped in geometrical shapes cut on the covers of the five volumes of Coro (2011). Each shape and each mouth – which cry, laugh, scream or declare – belong to a character: circle/crying baby, cross/Martin Luther King, triangle/Marilyn Monroe, square/Adolf Hitler, pentagon/John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The tomes, resting on five iron lecterns, are carved from inside and they treasure small screens that project video fragments of the characters.

In Limbo (2011), in which an hourglass seems to be resting, hanging horizontally on the remains of a broken light bulb, the artist suspended a stream of time, creating a feeling of calmness accompanied by a latent and unexplainable tension. Just before closing, the exhibition path Inner (2011) catches my attention. By putting funnels on large candles (bought from an old rectory) Mazzonelli turns them into the pipes of an organ, which seems to be about to let the sound out.

Minimalism permeates all the exhibited works, but the minimalism of this young artist is not just a matter of aesthetics. All the installations are not only well defined works arranged in a clear (and sometimes ‘cold’) manner. They are the results of pondered thoughts along with a solid knowledge… not so common in the young – and even in the ‘not so young’ – artists.

The exhibition will run until March 16 at Federico Bianchi Contemporary Art in Milan.

Monica Lombardi – Images courtesy of Jacopo Mazzonelli & Federico Bianchi Contemporary Art

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15/02/2012

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Ward Shelley: Unreliable Narrator

Ward Shelley likes to make maps. Not of cities, countries or continents, but of cultural trends, literary genres, and social movements. And he likes to fasten his topographical expeditions underneath the skin, within the realm of the body, exploring and tracing his curiosity through the highly intricate human network of arteries, veins, and internal organs. His fascination lies in exploring the existential question posed by David Byrne over thirty years ago, and with the same shrug-of-the-shoulder immediacy: “Well, how did I get here?”

The only difference is that Shelley takes the question a bit more literally, preferring to explore every detail to the most minute edge of his conscious mind. All of which leads us to his current exhibit, Unreliable Narrator, which will be on display from February 17th to March 18th at Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn—the same gallery that first showcased his live-in installation We Have Mice (where Shelley spent a month living between the walls) and has represented Ward for years. Pierogi first opened its doors in 1994 to painters, sculptors, film and multi-media artists, and has spent much of its time and effort showcasing New York-based underground notables whose work you’ve seen but probably never heard about.


Shelley is equally allusive—he started his life as an artist around the same time period, having his first show in 1990—although no less notable. There’s no reason for him to be “underground”, nor is he “difficult” or hard to get in any sense of the terms. Shelley is, in a nutshell, of the now. He’s quite straightforward, at least as far as history and pop culture are concerned, preferring to obsess over, cut up and document the history of downtown New York, science fiction, and Williamsburg—101 topics for anyone with a fascination with Gotham City.

He is the first to admit his role as an unreliable narrator, having done so nearly a year ago in an interview with Slate, saying “It would be easier to do [my paintings] on a computer than by hand. But the reason I do it by hand is that one of the important ethical points to make here is that, in the end, this is one person’s point of view. It has no real authority.” In that quote he was ramping against (and in support of) the level of criticism he received for his piece The History of Science Fiction that left many ardent followers of the genre—enthusiasts, forum geeks, under-performing fathers—with a lot to say of their own personal taste. To Shelley, that’s the point: We all have opinions; no history or taste can ever be absolute. If his goal was to spark controversy and conversation in regard to the subject in question (in this case, science fiction), then he certainly succeeded.

Unreliable Narrator will provoke similar emotions. As the title suggest, these familiar infographic formations—intestinal charts, diagrams, intricate histories—lay bare Shelley’s acute attention to detail, putting his observations and private fascinations on full public display, for all to scrutinize and obsess over.

Ward Shelley’s Unreliable Narrator at Pierogi Gallery, 177 N. 9th Street, Brooklyn, NY, from February 17 to March 18, 2012 .

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of Pierogi Gallery & Ward Shelley

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09/02/2012

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Guest Interview n° 35: Zefrey Throwell

Last week we introduced you to the brilliant and controversial Zefrey Throwell and his Ocularpation: Wall Street. Today we present Lane Koivu’s interview of the provocative artist and master of this “Freudian nightmare.”

When did you start pursuing art as a way of life?

I was 19. I was mostly into punk rock—loud noisy music. I was in a couple of bands. We weren’t very good. We were very loud though. [Laughs] I had a girlfriend at the time who was a painter. And I remember going over to her garage and she was painting, and I was drunk. And I was giving her shit about what she was painting. I was like, “I could do better than that!” And I remember I picked up an old toilet seat cover that was laying around in her garage, grabbed some of her paint brushes, and started messing around on it. And it was amazing. I totally loved it.

How’d the idea of Ocularpation: Wall Street get cooked up, and why did it happen when it did? I’m interested in why all of these factors came together down on Wall Street, three years after the crash.
The idea came up because my mother was a high school counselor for thirty years—a public servant. She was working hard, putting her money away. She really saved a lot, and then retired. It’s the classic American ideal: work hard, put the money away because nobody is going to take care of you, you take care of yourself, and you’ll be able to enjoy your golden years in Florida, or wherever the hell you want.

So she does this, she follows the law, and was retired for three days when the market crashes and she loses the majority of her life savings. Within a day and a half. It was a massive bleeding. She was stunned at first, then depressed, then really depressed and sad. Not only did she lose all of this money, but she was going to have to come out of retirement. And by this time the place she’d left didn’t want to hire her back, because she’s old, already in her 60s. And other places aren’t looking to hire public counselors in their 60s—they’re looking to hire young people that get paid half as much. So she had a hell of a time getting a job for years. Nobody wanted to hire her, she’d get more and more depressed and would cry over the phone. Which you know, if you’ve ever heard your mother crying over the phone, it’s fucking horrible. Especially when there’s nothing you can do.

So I came up with this project as a way to really re-focus media attention on Wall Street and what was happening down there. It’s hard to imagine now, but before Occupy moved in, and before my performance, no one was talking about Wall Street, right?

Right.
Right. And in fact the week before I did this performance, the NY Times wrote an article called “Wall Street’s Got it’s Swagger Back.” It was all about how bonuses were bigger than ever down on Wall Street—bigger than before the crash—and my mother would see things like this and it would driver her insane, because all of her money was gone. It’d been siphoned into this giant money machine. So it was in the context of this massive inequality that was happening that I came up with the project. I wanted to refocus a lot of attention on Wall Street. And it worked like crazy.

It was the most successful piece you’ve ever done?
As far as media attention, absolutely. I mean, six months later NY1 is interviewing me, you know? It’s going to be on the news in a couple of days. Still! And it happened back in August.

Do you think the Occupy movement would have happened without Ocularpation?
I really can’t say. The interactions I’ve had with people down at Occupy are normal people like you and me. For a large group of strangers in New York—where we tend to talk more about rampant consumerism in our day-to-day lives—to be talking about how they can reshape the government, it’s fucking great.

Tell me about “I’ll Raise You One…” that you did last November at 79 Walker Street.
That was a seven day performance. By contrast, Ocularpation was five minutes. This was seven days and we were in there nine hours a day. We were trying to explore different economic models, but to do it in a way that wasn’t stale and boring. Because when we talk about economics, especially in the US, it’s with techniques that have been used since the 60s or before: sit-ins, massive protests, stuff like that. The formats tend to lose their edge because they’re old. And I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in catching people’s attention in a fresh way. So in that brief window when you actually get someone’s attention you can bring your point home, let it germinate, and then it can take on a life of its own.

Through the shock value of nudity?
Nudity, or through games like strip poker, where people might think, “Oh, I remember playing that as a teenager.” So we set up a table and had different participants rotating each day. We tried out five different economic models. The first one was capitalism—unregulated wealth, free market. People showed up with however many layers they wanted to bring, which is kind of how life is. People have different amounts of money but have to play by the same rules.

Except people don’t get to choose how much money they start out with in real life.
Right, but here people were given simple instructions: Just wear clothes. One guy showed up with like 100 layers on. He had trouble breathing. We had to take some clothes off for him. There was like six inches worth of teachers. And then other people showed up in only a sweater.

You talked about the shock value of using nudity as a means to get people’s attention. Now that you’ve garnered so much publicity for doing these flash projects, are you weary or afraid of being pegged as “the nude artist”?
Yes. It already is very much that people have pigeonholed me. You do something a couple of times—not to mention the fact that I’ve done many, many other projects in the meantime. I’ve made a feature-length movie, I’ve done the Midtown games where we had 100 people running a 250-meter relay race in Times Square, everybody with their clothes on. Because people have already associated me with nudity, they try to peg me as a “naked artist”.

How do you feel about that?
[Laughs] Well I’m definitely not doing any nudity for a while.

What about your new project? Can you talk about that a bit?
It’s called “Entropy Symphony Movement III Los Angeles”. It’s the third part of a continuing symphony I’ve done. And it’s going to be 1,000 car horn symphony in LA played all across the city. Not all bunched together. Some in the south, some in Venice, some in Silver Lake—they’re all over the place. Beeping out a five part symphony. I have big list of all the different horn sounds, and if you have a certain car model you’ll get a certain sound. And from 6pm to 6:05 they’ll get an MP3 with their part on it, and then play along with their horns. Ba bap bap baaa! Unlike most projects, no one can experience this at all until afterwards. It’s what I call “a Fireside Method”, where everyone comes around the campfire and tells the story. And that way it creates the whole.

“The Fireside Method” was also used for Ocuparlation. Everyone had a different take—especially the three people who got arrested.
Sure, those guys in particular. Because inside there are some of the largest criminals that have ever walked the earth. Economic thievery of the kind that we have never seen before. The kind that has crushed worlds. Entire nations have been destroyed by what happens in that building. And then three kids take their clothes off in front of it and get arrested while everyone inside gets off scot-free…

There’s the obvious irony, but you seem to look at it with this hilarious, absurd perspective. Not cheeky, but most of your projects take on heavy subjects with a sense of playfulness, almost an innocent rebelliousness to them. And they walk a find line between authority and rebellion.
Thank you. My favorite artist is Andy Kaufman. That’s who I try to emulate. His most famous thing was probably…wrestling with women, maybe? Maybe lip-syncing Mighty Mouse? [Laughter]

How important is a sense of humor for you?
I try it with everything. If you think of any arty events—museums, galleries, what have you—they’re almost always devoid of humor. And if there’s humor, it’s insular academic humor that’s just so nauseating.

That reminds me of another project of yours, “New York Paints Better Than Me,” which I thought was hilarious. Was that your aim?
[Laughs] I got to this point where I was having a real problem painting. I’d painted for years, and it just really seemed to bottom out on me. It just seemed that the things I was making weren’t very good. And then I was walking around one day and I realized that New York is the most diverse city in the world, filled with enclaves of culture, also must have the most diverse trash in the world. So this trash lying everywhere, that’s the most diverse palette in the world. I couldn’t mix those colors up, you know—these colors don’t run! [Laughs]

But if you look out there it’s all piss, it’s all shit, cigarette ash, slurpee, chicken bones. All over. Human skin dust. Everywhere. So this idea of dragging myself as a way to take a swab sample of the free public parks. I’ve only done two so far, and then I kind of hurt my shoulder, which is slowing me down. It’s a continuing project.

I saw a video of you crawling through Washington Square Park and couldn’t help but imagine what these poor pedestrians were thinking!
Well the public is very savvy. It’s something I forget, something I think people often discount. The public really knows what the fuck is going on. At first a few people will be like, “Hey buddy, get up! What the fuck are you doing!” And then after a second, “Oh, uh oh, this is some kind of art thing! We’re probably on YouTube right now.” But overall it’s pretty hilarious. I had this one guy who had his dog run on me. That was funny. It’s not ok if I’m standing up, but if I’m laying down the dog can run on me.

What’s the suit look like afterwards?
After Union Square it was almost black. Times Square is next, and I think that might be a little dirtier.

How important is that unfiltered public reaction to your work? 

Well I appreciate the idea that art can be more engaging than what museums and galleries have right now. We’re in a gallery in Chelsea—we’re in the heart of the art world; people from all over the world come to see contemporary art right here. Granted, we’re in a smaller gallery now, but across the street is the second largest gallery in the world. They’ve seen maybe 100 people in the last couple of hours. If you do a project in Union Square there’s thousands of people within minutes.

And they’re not part of that world, either.
Right. They’re participating in something. It feels alive to them.

You referenced a John Cage quote that seems to run a fine thread through all of your work: “Comfort is not your friend.” And one of your more recent projects, “Take All of Me, New York,” embodies that completely. Tell me about it.
Yeah, I moved every month for a year. To a different neighborhood in a different borough each month.

What were some of the more interesting places you’ve lived in?
I lived with a prostitute in Hunt’s Point. I lived on a boat in Sheepshead Bay. I lived with an old, old man in deep Queens who was a total shut-in. He goes to Dunkin’ Donuts once a day. I lived with a Chinese family in Chinatown. They barely spoke any English and certainly didn’t give a flying fuck what kind of project I was doing. They just wanted a check.

Have you ever found yourself in danger?
Other than in jail?

It seems like going to jail would be considered a success!
Well, if I’m on point then I’m probably running into the law.

You’re very good at getting people to pay attention. But do you ever worry that these tactics get in the way of whatever it is you’re trying to convey?
I don’t know. As I said before, I think people are very intuitive and really do know what the deal is. Sure, there are some creeps, [especially with the “I’ll Raise You One…” nude poker piece.] But most people are very excited, stop to take pictures, ask what the deal is.

The craziest part was this man named Corey who would hang out everyday. And at first he was kind of a lurker. But a couple days into it he really took ownership in the project and would explain to people who were seeing the show for the first time. If somebody would start tapping on the window he’d step in and say, “None of that, it’s an art project!” Random man on the street claiming ownership. It was great.

Lane Koivu – Image courtesy of Zefrey Throwell

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02/02/2012

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Ocularpation: Wall Street

Inspired as much by the comic genius Andy Kaufman as he is with the philosophies of John Cage, Zefrey Throwell is no stranger to controversy, and has become an expert at getting people to pay attention. Whether through paint, film, or performance pieces, the New York-based artist has spent his career drumming up wildly ambitious projects that deliberately try to turn heads as a means of sparking up conversation. His work has been displayed at MoMA, the Whitney, and Lincoln Center, but he prefers the street to the confines of the gallery.

In the past year he’s “painted” with the garbage-riddled pavement of New York by dressing up in a white jumpsuit and dragging his belly across Union Square; in November he organized and participated in a seven day strip poker game as a means of exploring contrasting economic models, and, in an adventurous project titled “Midtown Games,” had 100 people take part in a 250 meter run through Times Square at morning rush hour. In another, titled “Why Not Take All Of Me New York?”, Throwell lived with complete strangers in a different borough of New Year each month for an entire year. The idea was conceived as an attempt to break his commuting habits—to break free from the constraints of routine—and it worked well. For him, there is nothing more uncomfortable than contentment.

But these days he’s best known for his work in the financial sector. This August, he and 50 volunteers acted out what he calls “a Freudian nightmare” and marched down to Wall Street dressed as businessmen, vendors, street sweepers, and prostitutes, took off their clothes, and proceeded to do their “jobs” for five minutes completely naked. Three people were arrested. Onlookers, many themselves on their way to work, were both amused and baffled. The press, meanwhile, went wild, and the event was covered by major media outlets around the world. The aim of Ocularpation: Wall Street was, in his words, to “bring a sense of transparency to one of the most mysterious streets in the world…and draw attention to the absurdity of the modern economic model.” The performance brought a much-needed media focus back to the financial district, two months before the Occupy movement took over Zuccotti Park and captured the world’s attention.

I spoke with Zefrey at his Ocularpation: Wall Street exhibit, which runs through February 11th at Gasser and Grunert on 19th Street. In addition to video footage from the performance, the exhibition features paintings and generic mass-market objects (phones, coffee cups and Yankee hats, to name a few) uniformly coated in artificial gold spray paint. After Ocularpation, Zefrey will head to California for his next project, Entropy Symphony: Movement III, a 1000 car horn performance that will take place on highways throughout the Los Angeles area during rush hour on February 15th.

Make sure you won’t miss Lane Koivu’s interview of Zefrey Throwell next week.

Lane Koivu – Images courtesy of Zefrey Throwell 

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16/12/2011

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Sette Giorni by Manuel Agnelli & Marco Klefisch

Manuel Agnelli (leader of Afterhours) and the illustrator Marco Klefisch are the protagonists of the first book of the series called Caratteri, published by the editorial studio Ready-Made, which will be presented this evening at the Triennale in Milan. The project thought as way to create dialogue among creative people with different backgrounds – Music and visual Arts – starts with a volume came out from two years of informal meetings among the two contemporary artists. Entitled Sette Giorni (Seven days), as the days of the week, it refers to the main time unit of measurement of the human beings’ lives.

This series of books is based on the ambitious idea of combining modern and more traditional printing methods – texts are laid out and printed using digital technology, while the illustrations are produced following to traditional techniques (press, etching, silkscreen, woodcut). Sette Giorni (Seven days) is a unique issue, which creates a connection between the run off Manuel Agnelli’s texts and the more rational and raisonne 7 etchings by Marco Klefisch (one per day). Marco’s work reflects his point of view and interprets Manuel’s thoughts in a non-literal way in a sort of brainstorming, which conveys in a prestigious and totally innovative way of perceiving artist books.

The presentation at the Triennale in Milan (December 16, 8pm) will be accompanied by an installation by Marco Klefisch that recalls the illustration made for the book and a performance by Manuel Agnelli and Xabier Iriondo (vocals and guitar of Afterhours).

Monica Lombardi

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14/12/2011

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Direktorenhaus / Alpenglühen und Edelweiss

Direktorenhaus, the space for contemporary applied arts and experimental design (best known on these pages as the host of Illustrative), is hosting Alpenglühen und Edelweiss, starting tomorrow. The event will feature two exhibitions, Down By The River, showcasing the hypercolor and fantastical imagery of Erik Mark Sandberg, which show “quite plainly the topics beauty craze and consumer culture,” and a second exhibition, Graphic Tour, which takes a look at the vanguard of graphic design with artists such as Erik Mark Sandberg and Damien Poulain and others. Meanwhile Sean McGinness is finishing up his sprawling, work-in-progress exhibition Somewhere Over The Rainbow elsewhere in the space.

So if you happen to find yourself in Berlin this week, stop in for a look see. In addition to the talent on display and the prime space, they’re serving hot honey wine and tangy Berlin Mules.

Tag Christof

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09/12/2011

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Signs (Metamorphosis) / Bouke de Vries

Bouke de Vries had an extended stay in Milan recently while he exhibited in a solo show, Signs (Metamorphsis) at the always on the vanguard Maria Gloria Gallery. De Vries is an artist polymath, his career shifting across mediums and his work always remaining devoid of compromise. His trajectory has taken him from restoration of art to the spotlight of the pop culture art scene, commercial art, jewelry (he released a line in collaboration with Anoushka earlier this year) and on to political activism. His most memorable works are perhaps those which openly criticize chairman Mao Zedong, and . His pieces look like otherworldly pastiches of a hedonistic, ethereal dreamscape, and they showcase flaw to great effect.

“In this flawed world, perfection seems to be an attainable goal… But not-quite-perfection is often easily dismissed and discarded…”

Bouke De Vires Filmed by Matteo Cherubino

For the occasion of his stay, 2DM’s Matteo Cherubino filmed and interviewed the artist among the eerie, surreal backdrop of his recent sculptural work: surreal cross sections and self-contained worlds of a parallel universe. Or a Cherubs. Butteflies. Cigarettes. Dramatically combined with porcelain. In conversation, the artist reveals inner working of the artist’s mind, his depth of perception, and his extraordinary and unbound working process.

De Vries also presented together with Gloria Maria Gallery at this year’s MiArt, showed at Artissima this year, and often exhibits at his home gallery, London’s Vegas Gallery.

Tag Christof – special thanks to Bouke de Vires & Gloria Maria Gallery

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02/12/2011

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O Come All Ye Hackers!

Over Red Stripe tall cans in KK Outlet’s cozy Shoreditch space last night, we swooned over some seriously cool sweaters. But these were no run-of-the-mill charity shop finds: they’re handmade hacks with tons of personality. Artist Andrew Salomone has hacked a portable knitting machine from 1980 so that it can be used just like a desktop printer. Input a nifty design, and presto! Nan’s knitting needles are done for.

The show’s centerpiece is something of a shocker, and takes the level of awesome heretofore thought possible in a festive jumper to brave new heights: behind a handily knitted, snow-covered house is an entire light show replica of the legendary Slayer Christmas Lightorama. The ultimate holiday house on the ultimate holiday jumper, and a pleasantly over-the-top slice of American suburbia to rock around the city this holiday season.

The California native, Brooklyn-based artist knows how to make waves with his work: his Cosby inside a Cosby inside a Cosby sweater (which unfortunately didn’t make an appearance) was featured on Good Morning America, and he’s more recently aligned himself with the #occupy movement (and has helped keep some happy activists toasty warm). For O Come All Ye Hackers, the artist together with KK Outlet will also be making a few new pieces based on user-submitted artwork (visit their website for specs).

Catch some sweater action (and maybe even the artist) or pick up one of Salomone’s bespoke sweaters until December 22 at KK Outlet in Hoxton Square.

Tag Christof – Special thanks to Danielle Pender at KK Outlet

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