Posts from the “Art” Category

In the Gallery with Bene Taschen

Posted on July 5, 2021

*Arlene Gottfried. Striped Woman at Studio 54, NY, 1979.*

“Art was always a part of my life,” says gallerist Bene Taschen, the son of world-renowned German book publisher Benedikt Taschen. “Growing up [in Cologne], I was surrounded by photographers and met great artists working with my father, like Helmut Newton. It was a blessing to have this as a part of my daily life. It was inspiring to be surrounded by art in any form.”

In 2011, an unexpected twist of fate provided Taschen with the opportunity to strike out on his own. He learned that a German exhibition planned for his friend, American photographer Gregory Bojorquez, had been cancelled. “That made me frustrated, so I decided to organise the exhibition myself,” says Taschen. “I didn’t have much gallery experience, but I had a passion for photography and a desire to create a good show that would excite and inspire people who saw it.”

Titled Streets of LA, the exhibition, which was first exhibited in Berlin in September 2011, then Cologne in November 2011, celebrated the people of Bojorquez’s hometown through the lens of an insider: a vantage point that Taschen finds profoundly compelling as a gallerist. “Curating is a very personal experience, and I’m always trying to create something that expresses how I feel and makes me happy,” he says. “The selection of images can tell a story of the artist and their work, but it has to look good together on the wall. I may choose works for different reasons but it has to be visually convincing when it is hung. You can’t just throw 35 photographs in the room and call it an exhibition.”

Read the Full Story at British Journal of Photography

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, British Journal of Photography, Exhibitions, Photography

Diana Markosian: Santa Barbara Opens at SFMoMA

Posted on July 2, 2021

*Diana Markosian, First Day at Work, from “Santa Barbara”, 2019*

Seven decades after the October Revolution, the Soviet Union was teetering on the brink of collapse as internal unrest threatened to dissolve the once stalwart nation that had risen to global dominance. With Moscow losing control, the country dissolved as 10 republics seceded during the last quarter of 1991, that Christmas. President Mikhail Gorbachev resigned, no longer having a country to run.

In an instant, Diana Markosian’s world was turned upside down. Born in Moscow in 1989, her parents’ dream for their family was wrested away and their PhDs couldn’t save them in an economy with no jobs. As a child, Markosian and her brother took the streets to pick bottles to make enough money to buy bread. Her father made painted matryoshka dolls to sell to tourists visiting the Red Square, while the stress of destitution eventually broke the marriage apart. “I saw in my mother the sadness of ‘this can’t be my life,’” Markosian recalls.

On January 2, 1993, the radiant light of escapism came from the most unlikely of places. The daytime soap opera, Santa Barbara, was ending its ten-year run that month, and would become the very first American television show broadcast in Russia. As a young girl, Markosian idolized the show, which chronicled the dramatic intrigues of the Capwell clan, who embodied the glitz and glamour of 1980s Southern California.

But these images of wealth and prestige led Markosian to believe that America wasn’t a place she and her family belonged — which made her move to the actual Santa Barbara all the more a shock to the system after her mother decided to marry an American man and immigrate to the United States in 1996 in order to provide the best possible life for her children.

Read the Full Story at Blind

*Diana Markosian, Eli’s House, from “Santa Barbara”, 2019*

*Diana Markosian, Mom by the Pool, from “Santa Barbara”, 2019*

Categories: 1990s, Art, Blind, Books, Exhibitions, Photography

Barty Heynen : Dads

Posted on June 30, 2021

*Bart Heynen, Dennis combing Élan’s hair. Brooklyn, New York*

It wasn’t until 2017 that the United States Supreme Court ruled both same sex spouses to be listed on birth certificates, a decision that has since legalized same-sex adoption in every state — a decision that came just two years after Obergefell v. Hodgeslegalized same-sex marriage. In the intervening years, new families have emerged, blossomed, and grown, expanding the restrictive structures foisted upon us by a repressive cisheteronormative system of power.

In the new book, Dads (powerHouse Books), Belgian photographer Bart Heynen offers an intimate, tender look at nearly 50 families headed by two men, which gently yet substantially subverts prevailing archetypes of fatherhood. Often depicted as domineering, emotionally unavailable, or all together absent, American fatherhood has suffered under the weight of the patriarchy, which stymies men’s abilities to express vulnerability and unconditional love.

Heynen’s journey to create these portraits began in 2016 while watching Hillary Clinton’s concession speech. Determined to be the change he wanted to see in the world, he began reaching out to gay parents to explore a new model of fatherhood now being introduced to the world. Seeking understanding for those who shared his path, Heynen recognized he was part of a new generation who could reimagine the ways in which fatherhood is experienced by children and parents alike.

Read the Full Story at Blind

*Bart Heynen, Me and Rob with Ethan and Noah at 630 AM. Antwerp, Belgium*

Categories: Art, Blind, Books, Photography

The 2021 Dazed100

Posted on June 28, 2021

2021’s Dazed 100 is a global celebration of next-gen names leading change in their communities and across their fields, curated with a little help from Dazed 100-ers of years gone by. And this year, it runs as part of Open To Change, a far-reaching partnership between Dazed and Converse to increase opportunities, education and representation in the creative industries.

This is about the future; every name on 2021’s line up has been instrumental in enacting change in their field and looks at what’s next for the creative industry. Each entrant was asked, “How will you shape the future?” with Converse funding the winning project with a $30,000 fund and mentoring to bring their idea to life. The public vote will deliver 10 finalists from which Dazed and Converse will select the winner, announced in early July.

Read the Full List Here

Categories: Art, Dazed, Painting, Photography

Janette Beckman: New York, New Music 1980-1986

Posted on June 24, 2021

By 1980, New York City was a shell of its former self, reduced to miles of rubble in Black and Latino communities across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Landlords laid their properties to waste, sometimes hiring arsonists to torch their buildings to collect insurance payouts. With the government support systemically denied under the Nixon White House policy of “benign neglect“, infrastructure crumbled, and crime rose. Yet within this bleak and barren landscape, a new generation came of age embodying the dictum, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

While white flight drove a mass exodus of the middle class to the hermetic safety of suburbia, rents plummeted, making it possible for anyone to afford to work, live and play in New York. Without the threat of over-policing or the stultification of gentrification, kids ran the streets, the clubs and the bars, creating their own styles of art and music — hip-hop, punk, disco, salsa, jazz, and No Wave — that would set the blueprint for decades to come. It was a golden era, the likes of which are being celebrated in the new exhibition New York, New Music: 1980-1986 at the Museum of the City of New York, which brings together art, fashion, music videos, vinyl records and photography for a kaleidoscopic look at the city’s highly innovative music scene.

“Everything was authentic — it came from the streets and people’s hearts,” says British photographer Janette Beckman, who came to visit New York during Christmas 1982 and never left. “Hip-hop was the boiling point. The economy was bad, and people just decided they were going to do things their way. Kids would steal out of their parents’ house at midnight, go to a train yard to paint, then come home again before going to school. Other kids wrote poetry in their bedrooms, practiced on the streets, and got tapped to rap on stage, getting props from their community. The creativity was coming from the artists, rather than someone telling them what to do.”

Read the Full Story at i-D

*CHARLIE AHEARN, DEBBIE HARRY, FAB 5 FREDDY, GRANDMASTER FLASH, TRACY WORMWORTH, AND CHRIS STEIN, 1981*

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, i-D, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Anh Duong: La Tentation d’Exister. There is always Champagne in the Fridge

Posted on June 23, 2021

*Anh Duong, “Don’t Come too Close, Don’t Go too Far”, 2012*

“I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better,” Frida Kahlo said, her words revealing a profound truth about the creation of art. In the hands of a painter, the canvas is transformed into a page in the book of life, delving into the intricate facets of existence that lay both within and beneath the shimmering surfaces of the visible world. The painting is an exploration of the artist’s inner and outer worlds, creating a space where the two might meet and in that encounter proffer something we have never before seen.

“As an artist, you always have to challenge yourself. It’s about growth, engaging with the unknown, and recognising something new, like, ‘Yes, that’s what I was searching for’,” says French-American artist, actor, and model Anh Duong, who is currently exhibiting a selection of her works in La Tentation d’Exister. There is always Champagne in the Fridge at Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich. Bringing together a selection of still lifes, self-portraits, and portraits of Vincent Gallo, Susan Sarandon, and Anjelica Huston, the exhibition offers an intimate look at Duong’s practice over the past 30 years.

Duong first made her name as a model when noted photographer David Seidner launched her career in March 1986 with an Yves Saint Laurent campaign for Vogue Paris. Trained as a ballerina, Duong was a natural in front of the camera, effortlessly holding difficult poses for extended periods of time, and quickly went on work with luminaries including Herb Ritts, Steven Meisel, Patrick Demarchelier, and Peter Lindbergh. Muse to Christian Lacroix, Duong has walked the runway for John Galliano, Yohji Yamamoto, and Karl Lagerfeld, becoming a singular beauty during the era of the supermodel.

Read the Full Story at Dazed

Categories: Art, Dazed, Painting

Ruber Osoria: A Migrant’s Journey from Cuba to Chile

Posted on June 23, 2021

Photographer Ruber Osoria hails from Contramaestre in Santiago de Cuba on the east end of the fabled island, a town that gets its name from the river whose waters nourished three of the most influential men in Cuban history: Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, known as “Father of the Fatherland” for his actions during the Cuban War of Independence; revolutionary philosopher and political theorist José Martí; and Fidel Castro.

Born in 1992, Osoria is the only child of a single mother and farmer. “I spend my entire childhood at my mother’s farm where she grew corn, potatoes, bins, cassava and pumpkin, and also raised chickens, ducks and one or two pigs occasionally,” he recalls. “My first toys were plants and animals. I had a happy childhood until one day a hurricane devastated our home.”

Growing up, Osoria surrounding himself with poets, musicians, rockers, rappers, and muralists. He explains, “I’ve always been immersed in the constant search for an element that would allow me to express the feelings burning inside me: the fact that my father abandoned me when I was a baby, my grandpa and other family members emigrating to the United States, and the loss of my home.”

Read the Full Story at Blind

Categories: Art, Blind, Latin America, Photography

Sandra S. Phillips: American Geography – Photographs of Land Use from 1840 to the Present

Posted on June 23, 2021

*George Chasing Wildfires, Eureka, Nevada, 2012 by Lucas Foglia*

Though the phrase “Manifest Destiny” smacks of influencer-speak, it’s more accurately a warning of what will befall opportunists whose ambitions and entitlement are grounded in delusion rather than reality. In Biblical terms, we reap what we sow – a principle all too clear when examining the destruction of the American landscape, the nation’s unchecked greed, and the worsening climate crisis.

For the new book, American Geography: Photographs of Land Use from 1840 to the Present (Radius Books), Sandra S. Phillips, Curator Emerita at the San Francisco Museum of Art, embarked on a 10-year journey to examine the history of land use in the United States. Featuring the work of Dawoud Bey,William Eggleston, Mitch Epstein, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Dorothea Lange, and Stephen Shore, among others, the book explores the role photography has played in shaping our ideas about conservation, expansion, and exploitation of the environment.

Read the Full Story at Huck

*Indian Summer, from the series Four Seasons, 2006 by Wendy Red Star*

*“Hiding Place,” Cambridge, MA, from the series The Underground Railroad, 2010 by Amani Willet*

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Nicola Vassell: WNBA Family Shot

Posted on June 21, 2021

*Jordan Family © Jordan Brand. Photographed by Ming Smith, styled by Carlos Nazario.*

Gallerist, curator, and art dealer Nicola Vassell understands the revolutionary power of photography and the ways in which building strong communities can transform cultural paradigms. With the Family Shot, which introduces the Jordan Brand’s largest-ever female roster, Vassell teamed up with photographer Ming Smith and stylist Carlos Nazario to create a series of luminous black and white photographs of emerging WNBA superstars changing the global game.

Rolling out digitally on 21 June before opening as a pop-up exhibition at Vassell’s New York gallery on 29 June, then continuing through July with new images appearing in various publications and on the Nike site, Family Shot illustrates the Jordan Brand’s dedication to woman athletes and Black creatives alike.

“Having the opportunity to collaborate with Michael Jordan, the women of the WNBA, and Ming Smith is an affirmation of this moment,” says Vassell. “There was a mindful congregation of Black creative excellence, leadership, and ideas at the inception of this project. Here you have these women who in their grace, strength, power, and elegance have reached the top of a male-dominated field and have not gotten their due. Then, you have arguably the greatest athlete of all time saying they are more than worthy of attention and support. These are statements that need to be made, giving an example to the world of how things can be.”

Read the Full Story at British journal of Photography

*Behind the scenes on Jordan Brand’s Family Shot shoot. © Jordan Brand. Photographed by Ming Smith, styled by Carlos Nazario.*

Categories: Art, British Journal of Photography, Photography

Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg

Posted on June 21, 2021

*French actress Brigitte Bardot and actor, singer, songwriter and author Serge Gainsbourg on the set of “Speciale Bardot”. (Photo by Henri Bureau/Sygma/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)*

As the Summer of Love came to a close, Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg embarked on a brief but passionate affair that would transform their lives. In one brief shining moment they became a modern day incarnation of Bonnie and Clyde— devoted wholly to one another, throwing caution to the wind.

Bardot was so famous she was known by her initials alone, and over the course of the late ‘50s and ‘60s, had become the reigning sex kitten of the silver screen. No less than celebrated feminist Simone de Beauvoir was infatuated with B.B.’s smoldering presence, inspiring her to pen the 1959 essay The Lolita Syndrome, declaring this “locomotive of women’s history” the first and most-liberated woman in post-war France.

After a series of marriages to film director Roger Vadim, who turned her into a star with the 1956 films Naughty Girl, Plucking the Daisy, and And God Created Woman, Bardot married actor Jacques Charrier, father of her only child, and then married Gunter Sachs in 1966 — but soon grew weary of the German millionaire playboy. At 33, B.B. was in her prime and hardly one to deny herself the pleasures of an affair.

Read the Full Story at Jacques Marie Mage

*Photo: Patrice Habans. Credit: Paris Match via Getty Images*

Categories: 1960s, Art, Jacques Marie Mage, Music

Ann Ray: Lee Alexander McQueen

Posted on June 18, 2021

Pablo Picasso sagely advised, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist” – a sensibility that applies to Lee Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) and his longtime collaborator, French photographer Ann Ray, otherwise known as Anne Deniau. Between 1997 and 2010, Ray collaborated with the iconoclastic British designer who turned the world of fashion upside down, creating some 32,000 prints, contact sheets, and vintage works, most of which have never been seen by the public before.

“For 13 years, I never gave one photograph to anyone. After Lee left, I would talk to him, saying, ‘Okay this is my job. You knew what you were doing. I’m in charge now,’” says Ray, who has come to understand the purpose of this singular collaboration. “My archive is both tangible, prints and negatives, and also non-tangible: it’s my experience and memories. I have to be very careful and make sure his legacy is transmitted with dignity. These photographs belong to history.”

Now, more than a decade after the designer’s tragic death, Barrett Barrera Projects, one of the world’s largest private collections of garments and ephemera created by Lee Alexander McQueen, has acquired Ray’s photographic archive of the most revolutionary atelier of our time. The acquisition of Ray’s archive allows Barrett Barrera Projects to tell a richer story about McQueen, celebrating the complex artistry that lies at the heart of his work.

Read the Full Story at Blind

*Ann Ray, Savage, Givenchy Couture, 1997.*

Categories: 1990s, Art, Blind, Fashion, Photography