What now? Photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Architecture and art have played a particular part for Walter Benjamin, because the relation of the past to the present was not of a temporal but of a figurative nature for him. Thus, according to his conception, the past could converge with the present via a flashlike image to form a ‘constellation’ and produce a ‘profane enlightenment’. Just like a configuration can be seen in the bright spots of a starry sky, interpreted as an astronomical constellation, the past is captured in a ‘dialectical picture in a standstill’. The conceptual arguments are only the ‘reverberating thunder’. Not only works of the visual arts, like Paul Klee’s water colour ‘Angelus Novus’, but in particular buildings and cities provided such dialectical images for him, as a ‘past become space’, for instance with arcades, panoramas or interiors, which made him see through the dreams, ideals and phantasms of a collective. An exhibition at the Architekturmuseum in Munich, entitled Walter Benjamin: A Reflection in Pictures, explores Benjamin’s complex relationship with architecture. On view until June 19. www.architekturmuseum.de

Amanda Assad Mounser is a New York-based jewelry designer with a penchant for the prickly and ecclesiastical.  Her label Assad Mounser makes a bold statement. Assad Mounser’s inspiration is “predominantly influenced by the gods of the Glam Rock Movement.”  Aptly so.  Her Spring Summer 2011 collection “…focuses on a futuristic journey, one that many a rock star drenched in glitter might sing about. The collection, coined Neo Conquistador, follows a phoenix rising from the ashes of a catastrophic wave of destruction to a path of redemption and rebirth, creating a new world from the rubble. Groups within the collection follow these themes quite literally. Many pieces take on an appearance of an explosion, with shooting rods of metal juxtaposed against cracked rocks and glittering gems, meant to represent glass fragments. www.assadmounser.com

In a buy me, sell me, fuck me world Lena Vazhenina’s photography is an atonement for all our collective mediocrity.  Vazhenina thinks sex is cool, but don’t be fooled – her photo project is named Sex:female just to grab your attention.  With its weirdly placed colon and poor English, the title is also confusing.  However, Lena Vazhenina just might be on to something, because this Moscow based photographer is on the rise. Vazhenina’s intriguing images look like whimsical gender bending rape scenarios crossed with what the world would look like if you had a magic pair of glasses that made everything look like an MDMA trip.   (SEE MORE IMAGES….)

Preview: a test polaroid from an editorial shot by Adarsha Benjamin for the first print issue of Pas Un Autre – Autre Quarterly. Shot on location in Los Angeles a house designed by the famed architect John Lautner.  Sign up for our newsletter to find out where and when you can pick up the first issue – its free!

James Georgopolous’ photographs of guns are so in demand he even has Iranian princesses knocking on his door.  Los Angeles based artist James Georgopolous communicates with his guns an aura of latent violence, whilst offering visceral elucidation into the pathos behind how culture invents its iconography.  In a world culture of war and destruction, Georgopolous’ guns are stark reminders of the power of modern weapons.  Its also the notion that to stare down the barrel of a gun and imagine what could return back is not the same simple, curious gaze, but a permanent solution to our mortality. Its heavy stuff – best suited to those who take their coffee black or can read Foucault whilst watching Pulp Fiction. (READ MORE…)

Black and white photographs by Richard Avedon will be on display starting May 21 at te Nassau County Museum of Art. Richard Avedon: Photographer of Influence will be on view May 21 to September 4. www.nassaumuseum.org

Adarsha Benjamin shoots an editorial for the first issue of Pas Un Autre Quarterly at a John Lautner house in Los Angeles.  Stay tuned for more…first issue of Autre Quarterly will be out this summer. (Click on thumnails for larger photos)

Official uncensored version of Skinny directed music video for Adanowsky’s Me Siento Solo

photography by Oliver Maxwell Kupper