Posts from the “AnOther” Category

Paolo Roversi: Birds

Posted on January 12, 2021

Rei Kawakubo is the living embodiment of radical fashion, her powers extending far beyond the runway. Known for her reticence to explain her masterful, mindboggling designs to the press, the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market has deftly maintained her enigmatic charms for more than half a century.

A true rara avis, Kawakubo told the Guardian in 2018 that she identifies punk “as a spirit, as a way of living”. Eschewing all that is popular in favour of that which is original, rebellious and authentic, Kawakubo, now 78, is one of the greatest designers working today.

One of Kwakubo’s gifts is her ability to trust that once she has done her part, we will do ours. It is a position she extends to collaborators alike. “Rei doesn’t give any instruction or any rules,” observes Italian photographer Paolo Roversi, who has worked with Kawakubo for four decades. “She lets you do your interpretation of her ideas, and still today it is the same. She did not change.”

Roversi remembers meeting Kawakubo in 1983 when she presented her first collection in a Paris hotel. “I was a little shocked because this moment was the Vogue designers: Claude Montana and Thierry Mugler. Then Rei Kawakubo and Yohji Yamamoto changed a lot of those things. Rei was even more revolutionary – there were sweaters with holes, strange shoes. You felt she was taking a risk. She was going in the direction where no one was going before. Everything was different and new.”

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Categories: 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Fashion, Photography

The Best Photo Stories of 2020: Portrayals of Sex and Identity

Posted on December 23, 2020

*Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Ladies and Gentlemen (Easha McCleary), 1974. Unique polaroid print*

“I am large. I contain multitudes,” American poet Walt Whitman famously wrote in “Song of Myself,” a profound work of humanism written more than a century before the nation would ride up demanding civil rights for all. Identity is not a singular thing but a kaleidoscopic expression of self. Like DNA, identity connects us across time and space to bridge the past, present, and the future of humanity.

Yet in a world where many have been marginalised or erased, we are charged to set the record straight, righting the wrongs of the past by telling stories that honour the legacy of our ancestors. Here, we showcase ten artists who explore ideas of sexuality, race and ethnicity in their work, revealing a shared love for that which unites us across generations.

*Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Sex Parts and Torsos, 1977. Unique polaroid print*

Andy Wathol: Sex Parts and Torsos and Ladies & Gentlemen

As the Gay Liberation Movement took off during the 1970s, Andy Warhol embraced the LGBTQ community, creating two seminal bodies of work, “Sex Parts and Torsos” and “Ladies & Gentlemen.” He began making tightly framed Polaroids of the torsos, buttocks, and penises of men recruited from hay bathhouses, though he largely kept these works hidden for years, describing them as “landscapes” in an effort to distinguish them from the recent influx of pornographic works.

At the same time, Warhol photographed trans icons including Marsha P. Johnson, Vicki Peters and Wilhelmina Ross for a portrait series titled Ladies & Gentlemen. Amanda Hajjar, Director of Exhibitions at Fotografiska New York, observes: “What makes Warhol’s series special is that he captured Black trans women in a way that celebrated their identities and provided them with space to express themselves freely and fully.”

Luke Gilford: National Anthem – America’s Queer Rodeo

American photographer Luke Gilford inherited his love of rodeo from his father, a champion and judge who filled their home with memorabilia of the sport. In 2016, Gilford discovered the International Gay Rodeo Association and began to make portraits of LGBTQ riders collected in the book “National Anthem: America’s Queer Rodeo” (Damiani).

“One of my close friends in the rodeo community is a Black, gender-nonconforming bull rider. They said to me simply, ‘If I show up, I’m a cowboy.’ And they’re accepted as such, with no questions asked,” Gildford says. “This series is my way of holding up each person with dignity and respect, and showing a beauty, strength, glamour, or tenderness that they may not have seen before.”

*Sunil Gupta, Untitled #22, 1976. From the series Christopher Street*

From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta. A Retrospective

With “From Here to Eternity: Sunil Gupta. A Retrospective,” a major solo exhibition currently on view at The Photographers’ Gallery and accompanying book, Sunil Gupta looks back at works from 16 series made over the past 45 years that explore how the Delhi-born, Montreal-raised, London-based artist has used photography as a form of activism to address his experiences as a gay Indian man living with HIV.

“I photograph what’s around me, what’s happening to me, and this central question of, ‘What does it mean to be a gay man of Indian origin?’ That’s what stuck with me most of my life and it’s never really gone away,” Gupta tells Indian-American photographer Nick Sethi in a cross-generational conversation about art.

*Patch, Amsterdam, April 22, 1992 © The Remsen Wolff Collection, Courtesy of Jochem Brouwer 2020*

Remsen Wolff: Amsterdam Girls

In 1990, American photographer Remsen Wolff (1940–1998) embarked on the creation of “Special Girls – A Celebration”, creating more than 100,000 portraits of over 125 trans and genderfluid models from New York and Amsterdam. Wolff, who described himself as a “faux transsexual” made annual month-long pilgrimages to Amsterdam between 1990–1992 to photograph nightlife luminaries as well as anonymous trans women struggling with their gender identity – an issue the artist understood all too well. Like his subjects, Wolff was determined to shine – even if it took him a lifetime of wandering to find his way home.

Paul Smith: The Human Curve

An integral part of the downtown New York art scene in the 1980s, American artist Paul Smith began making using a homemade pinhole camera to create “Bodily Fluids” a series of black and white landscapes and sensuous scenes of sexual self-discovery made during the height of the Aids crisis.

“It wasn’t so common then for people to exhibit sexually intimate and frank work then,” Smith says. “I wanted to depict sex from a participant’s point of view, rather than from a voyeur’s. I would set up a shot but it was pretty improvisatory; I suppose I was just operating out of my libido.”

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*Sunil Gupta, Untitled #9, 2010. From the series Sun City*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Books, Exhibitions

Alex Prager: Farewell, Work Holiday Parties

Posted on December 22, 2020

As 2020 draws to a close, we stand at the precipice of a new world. For Los Angeles-based artist Alex Prager, change is good – and fear is a necessary catalyst, driving her to leap into the unknown rather than risk the stultifying effect of repeating herself.

“I never wanted to get too comfortable. I get bored easily,” Prager tells AnOther. “I know my process and part of it is being terrified. Imagine what it’s like to be in a cave and then suddenly see a lion with you. If I have a little bit of that terror going into a project, I’m on the right path. Being scared when you’re embarking on a new project is one way to keep it fresh.”

Prager likes to set the bar as high as it will go, daring herself to take what is familiar and render it anew, finding fresh ways to explore the liminal space between reality and illusion in her sumptuously surreal works of art. In 2008, Prager reached a plateau in photography and began to investigate film, the cinematic possibilities infusing her work with a delectable tension. Throughout her practice, Prager has always made set pieces when she wasn’t able to secure the real thing, indulging in her love for sculpture along the way.

But it wasn’t until 2020 that the opportunity came for Prager to work on a scale the likes of which she could only dream. Miller Life commissioned the artist to create Farewell, Work Holiday Parties, a holiday advert bidding adieu to the annual office Christmas party. With Covid-19 in the air, the idea of getting drunk with co-workers and dining off a shared charcuterie board is just about the last thing anyone would want to do – making it the perfect milieu for Prager’s playful truths about contemporary American life.

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Categories: AnOther, Art

The Ten Most Visually Arresting Photo Books of 2020

Posted on December 16, 2020

Thrilled my features on Sunil Gupta: Lovers – Ten Years On (Stanley/Barker) and Tyler Mitchell: I Can Make You Feel Good (Prestel) were chosen among the ten best photo books of 2020 by AnOther.

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*Tyler Mitchell. Untitled (Park Frivolity), 2019.*

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Fashion, Photography

The Best Photo Stories of 2020, Documenting Youth Culture

Posted on December 16, 2020

Text: Orla Brennan— The halcyon years of youth have long captivated image- and film-makers. Shaping the cultural landscapes of their respective eras, the euphoric freedoms and inherent pains, counter-cultural ideals and rebellious fashions of communities of young people have continually offered us bold new ways of seeing the world.

During this dystopian year – when we retreated indoors, and nightlife venues, galleries and shops all shuttered – youth culture photography has offered a visual escape from our isolated lives, allowing us to dream of coming together and letting loose once again. Here, our round up of the most inspiring youth-focused photography published on AnOther in 2020 – from the dancefloors of 1980s Ibiza to the secret parties of 1990s rural Lithuania.

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*Tyler Mitchell. Still from Idyllic Space, 2019.*

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Fashion, Photography

The Best Photos of 2020: Portrayals of Womanhood by Female Photographers

Posted on December 13, 2020

*Dry Campos, Cerquilho, São Paulo, 2019 © Luisa Dörr*

Notions of the “female gaze” and the “woman artist” are often in flux, a reflection of ever-shifting cultural mores of the times in which we live. The enduring need to claim and assert one’s identity after it has been marginalised, oppressed, and erased reveals the space where the personal and the political have become one.

In 2020, we find ourselves in highly factionalised times, divisions so deep and tensions so high, a hair trigger could set things off at any time. Into this morass, artists offer a balm, a space for meditation and mediation on transcendental truths about the sanctity of life and the fragility of it all. Their work reveals a profound desire to uplift, protect, and honour womanhood in all its forms. Here we reflect on the work of ten women artists who explore ideas of gender within the complex terrain of the female mind, body, and soul in the infinite splendor of limitless charms.

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*© Yurie Nagashima, Courtesy of Dashwood Books*

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Photography, Women

Dian Hanson: Sexy Books

Posted on November 26, 2020

Art books publishing has long been a rarified field, a niche within a niche with a rich tapestry of extraordinary houses known by a select few. Over the past century, only a few of these houses have succeeded at becoming brands – though one stands out: Taschen, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

Founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen, the company started out as a comic book publisher before expanding into fashion, art, photography, film, design, advertising, architecture and, most famously, erotica. In 1999, Taschen made headlines when it released Helmut Newton’s SUMO, a lavishly oversized volume of the master’s work so vast that it came with its own stand designed by Phillippe Starck. Priced at $1500, the critics gasped – but industry insiders knew Taschen was on the cutting edge when they pre-sold 70 per cent of the 10,000 copy print run.

With its exquisite mix of high production values and clean design, Taschen books are for everyone, with prices starting at £10. But it’s what’s beneath the covers that counts. Sexy Book Editor Dian Hanson, who has been on staff since 2001, quotes Benedikt Taschen’s ethos with pride: “There is no forbidden art. There is good art and bad art and we will not publish bad art no matter what the subject, and we will publish all good art no matter what the subject.”

It’s a sentiment that has guided Hanson beginning with her very first Taschen book, Naked as a Jaybird, a collection of photographs taken from Jaybird, a 1960-70s porn magazine that capitalised the decriminalisation of nudist photography in the United States. The magazine’s timeline mirrors Hanson’s own singular path, one that is worthy of a Hollywood biopic in its own right.

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Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer

Posted on November 26, 2020

*Michael Clark during the opening of Derek Jarman, ICA, London, February 1984 © Steve Pyke*

*Michael Clark & Company with The Fall in I Am Curious, Orange, 1988 Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London © Richard Haughton*

With the conviction that actions speak louder than words, Michael Clark has transformed the face of the contemporary dance world since launching his own company in 1984.

“Rock is my rock. It has been vital to me at a personal level; it has shaped me as an individual as well as an artist,” says Clark. His collaborations with individualistic musicians like Wire, Laibach, The Fall, Jarvis Cocker and Scritti Politti, as well as boundary-breaking fashion designers and visual artists including BodyMap, Leigh Bowery, Trojan, Sarah Lucas, Charles Atlas, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Peter Doig have marked him as “British dance’s true iconoclast”.

“Michael’s choreography was like nothing I had ever seen – the movement and musicality, the props and costumes, it was so edgy, brave, creative, sexy, and fluid – at a time when fluidity wasn’t fluid. It just set you alight,” says musician Brix Smith Start, who fondly recalls the joys of Clark’s friendship and collaboration. “Michael was part of a very fabulous London scene. We hung out, partied hard, and lived the most decadent, debauched, and penniless life. We were all just scraping around but we were rich in everything, it didn’t matter about money. Our friendship shaped me as a person today.”

In conjunction with Michael Clark: Cosmic Dancer, a new Barbican exhibition and Prestel catalogue, we speak with four of Clark’s many collaborators over the years for an insight into the enfant terrible of contemporary dance.

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*Wolfgang Tillmans, man with clouds, 1998 © The artist, Courtesy Galerie Buchholz Berlin / Cologne, Maureen Paley, London / Hove, David Zwirner, New York*

Leigh Bowery and Rachel Auburn in Charles Atlas’s Hail the New Puritan, 1986 Still, 16mm film transferred to video, sound, duration: 84:54 minutes © Charles Atlas, courtesy the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art

Paul Smith: The Human Curve

Posted on November 13, 2020

An integral part of the downtown New York art scene in the 1980s, American artist Paul Smith got involved with the legendary Lower East Side gallery ABC No Rio in 1983 exhibiting work from the civil war in Guatemala. Primarily a painter making panoramic works, Smith began using a homemade pinhole camera to experiment with perspectives, creating a series of black and white landscapes and sensuous scenes of sexual self-discovery made during the height of the AIDS crisis.

In the new exhibition, The Human Curve opening Saturday, November 14 at Daniel Cooney Fine Art in New York, Smith brings together a selection of these works, some of which were first exhibited in Bodily Fluids at Greathouse Gallery in the East Village in the 1980s.

“It was an exciting time for me,” Smith recalls. “Through Tim Greathouse I met David Wojnarowicz, Peter Hujar, Zoe Leonard, and Marcus Leatherdale. I had three solo shows at Greathouse Gallery, but Bodily Fluids was the least commented on show at the time. It wasn’t so common then for people to exhibit sexually intimate and frank work then.”

Here, Smith takes us back to the streets and rooftops of New York for a tender look at beauty, desire, and love.

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Categories: 1980s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Manhattan, Photography

Andy Warhol. Love, Sex, and Desire. Drawings 1950–1962

Posted on October 27, 2020

During the summer of 1952, a rising commercial illustrator named Andy Warhol was preparing to make his debut on the New York art scene. He had been working on a series of elegant line drawings celebrating queer love – a style and subject that couldn’t be less fitting to the American audience. Enthralled by hypermasculine ideals and Abstract Expressionist aesthetics, galleries balked at Warhol’s efforts to show his work but the then 24-year-old artist would not be denied.

“Throughout his life, Warhol refused to be defined by social conventions,” says Michael Dayton Hermann, editor of Andy Warhol. Love, Sex, and Desire. Drawings 1950–1962(Taschen, November 2020). “John Giorno, artist, poet and Warhol’s former lover, explained, ‘Andy was a gay man and worked with the homoerotic. In the homophobic 1950s, this was daring and heroic. A great risk.’”

The book brings together over 300 drawings rendered primarily in ink on paper of men reveling in the pleasure of youth, beauty, and the flesh. Their defining characteristic is a palpable sense of unbridled sexuality, one made all the more alluring by its defiance against societal norms. At a time when homosexuality was illegal and full-frontal male nudity was considered “obscene,” simply looking at the male body was an act of liberation, defiance, and pure delight.

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Categories: AnOther, Art, Books

Sunil Gupta: Lovers – Ten Years On

Posted on September 30, 2020

In summer 1978, New Delhi-born, Montreal-raised photographer Sunil Gupta arrived in London. “I was following a guy,” Gupta tells AnOther from his home in south London. The two had first met in Canada while enrolled in business school. After graduating, Gupta’s boyfriend took a job that required him train in New York City before sending him to London to work.

Just entering his twenties, Gupta went along for the ride, thinking he would get a job when he arrived. Things didn’t quite work out as he had planned. “We started out at a similar footing as students but working at the bank he got settled quickly and became relatively well off,” Gupta says. “I had gone the other way. I made no money at all and had become completely dependent. It didn’t seem to matter. We were together and in the gay world, ten years seemed like a long time especially back then.”

After Gupta received him MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 1983, the Home Office sent him back to Montreal until he as able to get a visa to live and work in the UK. Once things had finally stabilized, the relationship came to an end – much to Gupta’s surprise. “My life changed quite dramatically: not only was I single but I had to fend for myself. I left with a suitcase. I had no rights at all. Although the UK legalized the sex act in the late 60s, they didn’t legalize [gay] marriage until the 2010s. It took them 50 years to get around to that part of things,” he says.

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Categories: 1980s, AnOther, Art, Books, Photography