Presented in three parts, an upcoming exhibition at Lehman Maupin Gallery in New York, highlights three recent series, demonstrating Teller’s dynamic and diverse oeuvre. Featuring the controversial photographs of Kristen McMenamy and seductive portraits of Vivienne Westwood, juxtaposed with intimate portraits of his family and close friends, this exhibition displays an amalgam of subjects and personalities. The exhibition starts with Teller’s controversial series of photographs featuring Kristen McMenamy, shot in the home of Carlos Mollino. Drawing inspiration from the eccentric architect, Teller recalls Mollino’s fascination with the erotic, capturing McMenamy in provocative poses. Although the series garnered controversy for its alleged “pornographic” nature, it demonstrates Teller’s skilled storytelling and fearless approach to his medium. On view from February 10 to March 17, 2012 at the Lehman Maupin Gallery, 201 Chrystie Street, New York.

Photography by The Death of Youth Project

Self portrait by Megan McIsaac, San Francisco, California, January 2012.

Beligum based photographer Frieka Janssens’ series of children smoking is a stark reminder of the perverted glamour of something that once deemed a symbol of cultural cool, but what is now as good as poison. Janssens says, “A YouTube video of a chainsmoking Indonesian toddler inspired me to create this series, “Smoking Kids”. The video highlighted the cultural differences between the east and west, and questioned notions of smoking being a mainly adult activity. Adult smokers are the societal norm, so I wanted to isolate the viewer’s focus upon the issue of smoking itself. I felt that children smoking would have a surreal impact upon the viewer and compel them to truly see the acts of smoking rather than making assumptions about the person doing the act…..The aesthetics of smoke and the particular way smokers gesticulate with their hands and posture cannot be denied, but among the different tribes of “Smoking Kids,” – Glamour, Jazz, and The Marginal – there is a nod to less attractive aspects, on the line between the beauty and ugliness of smoking.” But not to worry, these kids weren’t actually smoking.  Much more after the jump.  [Continue...]

In the Steppes of her native Kazakhstan, Almagul Menlibayeva stages complex mythological narratives, rooted in the Zoroastrian ideology of former Persia, an ideology that is to this today spreading widely across Eurasia and influencing Western politicians and philosophers and the Tengriism (sky religion) of the Turkic tribes, and with reference to her own nomadic heritage and the Shamanistic traditions of the cultures of Central Asia. “I use specific ways of expression in modern and contemporary art as a vehicle to investigate my personal archaic atavism as a certain mystical anthropomorphism. In other words, I explore the nature of a specific Egregore, a shared cultural psychic experience, which manifests itself as a specific thought-form among the people(s) of the ancient, arid and dusty Steppes between the Caspian Sea, Baikonur and Altai in today’s Kazakhstan,” says Menlibayeva. Menlibayeva will be exhibiting in a number of group shows during 2012, from The Mediterranean Biennale of Contemporary Art in Israel this Fall to the 18th Biennale of Sydney.  Her works are currently on view until February at the  LASALLE College of Arts in Singapore for a show entitled East is West: Three Women Artists.

The world was intolerable and mean to Ian Curtis, lead singer of Joy Division, and he spit back with cruel, introspectively haunting lyrics in the hopes to close and heal the wounds that he so desperately tried and failed to lick clean.   In the end, love indeed tore him apart. On view now at the Manchester Photographic Gallery are 45 iconic images of life behind the legendary band Joy Division by photographer Kevin Cummings from their first gig in 1977 to Ian Curtis’ suicide in 1980. Exemplar: Joy Division by Kevin Cummins, Manchester Photographic  6 January – 26 February, Manchester Photographic Gallery is at Tariff Street, Northern Quarter, City, 0161 236 2446.

Photographer, Motoyuki Daifu, has established himself as one of Japan’s brightest young talents. His chaotic diaristic style continues to evolve in his first monograph Lovesody a short print run of only 300 copies from new publisher Little Big Man. We see him in his twenties now having left home and seemingly over-his-head in a relationship with a young single mother of two.  To mark the release of the book, today Dashwood Books (33 Bond St  New York, NY) will be hosting a book signing and tomorrow will  be the opening of Motoyuki Daifu’s solo show of the same series at Lombard Freid Projects (518 West 19th Street, New York, NY) on view until March 3, 2012.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles presents The Total Look: The Creative Collaboration Between Rudi Gernreich, Peggy Moffitt, and William Claxton, on view from February 26 through May 20, 2012, at MOCA Pacific Design Center. The exhibition will celebrate the remarkable collaboration between the great fashion designer Rudi Gernreich, his model and muse Peggy Moffitt, and Moffitt’s late husband, the photographer William Claxton, who created the distinctive images of Moffitt activating Gernreich’s designs. The exhibition will feature selected looks from Moffitt’s definitive collection, with films and photographs by Claxton of Moffitt modeling the clothes.