photograph by Megan McIsaac
Takashi Murakami Flowers and Skulls at Gagosian Hong Kong
This exhibition, Takashi Murakami’s first in Hong Kong, explores one of the central dichotomies of his art—between joy and terror, his optimistic magnanimity as an artist and his pessimistic perspective on postwar Japan. Here, this dichotomy is symbolized by the stark contrast of bright smiling flowers and disturbing, menacing representations of skulls. Flowers and Skulls will be on view until February 9, 2012, at Gagosian Gallery, 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street Central, Hong Kong
[FIRST LOOK] Music Video for Jessica Holter Goddess Eyes II
Julia Holter and director Yelena Zhelezov have collaborated once again in video form. Having previously worked together on the video for Moni Mon Amie from Holter’s 2012 album Ekstasis
Barbara Nitke Presents American Ecstasy at Photo NOLA
Barbara Nitke will be in New Orleans this weekend as part of Photo NOLA to promote her book American Ecstasy
Portrait of a Defeated Architecture by Hedi Slimane
Hedi Slimane’s newest edition of his Defeated Architecture series appropriately takes advantage of an American landscape not unaffected by an afflicted economy; here Slimane’s location is an abandoned commercial structure in Palm Springs, California. See more photographs after the jump. [CLICK HERE...]
Judy Chicago in London
This November sees the publication of a scholarly survey of artist, writer and feminist activist Judy Chicago’s career, reflecting on and accompanying an exhibition of works on paper at the Ben Uri Museum in London. Her work will be set in the context of prominent women artists Louise Bourgeois, Helen Chadwick and Tracey Emin. This, along with an exhibition of her iconic early works (1963-71) at Riflemaker gallery constitute her first solo shows in the UK. Judy will also stage special events at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and Black-E institute, Liverpool.
Music Video for R.E.M.’s Track Blue Directed by James Franco
Music video for R.E.M.’s track Blue, featuring Patti Smith, from their final studio album Collapse Into Now, directed by James Franco
Bjarne Melgaard at Luxembourg & Dayan
New York-based Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard is a prolific, profane, and much admired polymath. In addition to paintings, drawings, films, furniture, and objects, he has created a thicket of novels. These exploded accretions of words and ideas, with their fevers of graphic violence, explicit sadomasochistic sex and unexpected poignancy, do not adhere to the conventions of dignified narrative. For Melgaard, the novel is a site where ideas both good and bad can proliferate freely, and where attention follows the upended logic of what actually takes place instead of what ideally should happen. Melgaard steadfastly refuses to locate the frontier between reality and fantasy. “I am more interested in telling a good story than a boring truth,” he has said. Luxembourg & Dayan gallery in New York presents A New Novel by Bjarne Melgaard, an exhibition that coincides with publication of the artist’s latest novel, his first ever to be published commercially in English. Working closely with a group of leading designers and craftspeople, Melgaard is transforming the gallery’s Upper East Side townhouse into a completely immersive environment that uses his new novel’s story – its protagonist’s tortured infatuation with a doorman and the willing degradations of a surrounding cast of characters – as a point of departure to plumb further the through-line of his entire practice: an exploration of the ways in which sex and violence dovetail with love and loneliness. A New Novel will be on view until December 22, 2012 at Luxembourg & Dayan, 64 East 77TH Street, New York, NY
