Spanish designer María Escoté presents her Winter 2012/2013 collection, entitled Shock, with a wonderfully strange fashion film directed by Nacho Naya and by starring actress Miriam Giovanelli, and Sugar Shack by Children of Darkness. See film after the jump. [SEE MORE....]
Pictured above, Abbey Meaker photographs a piece by Mike Kelley at Art Basel Miami last December. Mike Kelley, who has reportedly ended his own life at 57 years old, was an artist with an outsider spirit who found himself not only on the inside of the art world, but on the top, and found it too hard a cross to bear. Kelley’s work involved found objects, textile banners, drawings, assemblage, collage, performance and video. He often worked collaboratively and had done projects with artists Paul McCarthy, Tony Oursler and John Miller. Kelley was often associated with the concept of abjection, “the state of being cast off.” Photograph by Natalia Vuley.
Maybe its her haunting refrains – no death can tear us apart – or maybe its her spiritually profound lyrics, but I’m almost certain her music can only come from a soul that has traveled a myriad universes, and loved and lost a myriad times, only to resurface, like a wave from an opposite and infinite shore, through the voice of Mirel Wagner. Wagner, who was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Espoo, Finland, has certainly been to the crossroads. At 7, Wagner, who’s record label biography alludes to the fact that her family name goes back the famous composer, was given violin lessons, and at 16 she was already writing songs and shyly performing them at open mics nights in Helsinki. She was subsequently discovered by Jean Ramsay, an American music journalist living in Finland who was impressed by her talent, and the next thing she knew she was recording an album. The recordings, financed by photographer and friend of Ramsay, Aki Roukala, were completed over two days, 12 songs straight – 9 of which can be found on her upcoming debut album which was recently released in Europe on Bone Voyage Recordings, and will see its American release this March 27 on Friendly Fire Records. One of those tracks, No Death, is a tragic murder ballad in the same vein as Leadbelly’s In The Pines or Townes Van Zandt’s Waitin’ Around to Die. It is a song about love and tragedy, but tragedy with a brilliant and dark solution. Only when you listen closer do you realize that it is a song about necromancy and never has fucking the dead seemed so romantic: well its gonna get colder/ but my love will ignite/ what was left to smoulder/ I move my hips/ in her I am home/ I’ll keep on loving/ till the marrow dries from her bones. But maybe its the dead that will love us the most – without controversy and without conditions – no death can tear us apart. See Mirel Wagner’s music video for No Death after the jump. [SEE MORE....]
Pioneering photographer, Eve Arnold, who died last month, age 99, is the subject of a memorial exhibition of her work, mounted in London, her adoptive home. Art Sensus will present over 100 unique photographs and a new book of the work of American photographer Eve Arnold (1912-2012). Curated by Brigitte Lardinois, All About Eve will offer a spectrum of incredible works, both vintage and modern, all drawn from Arnold’s personal archive. The only solo exhibition to feature Arnold’s work in the UK this year thus far All About Eve has been selected from a private collection, which also loaned some of the prints for the book. Of the works in the book, almost half have been little exhibited and rarely published, if at all. The book, published by Thames & Hudson, entitled Eve Arnold’s People, includes texts by Angelica Huston and Isabella Rossellini, but is currently completely sold out and not available for purchase. All About Eve will be on view at Art Sensus March 2 through April 27, 2012, 7 Howick Place, London.
A new book, entitled Francesca Woodman: The Roman Years Between Skin and Film
American composer, music theorist, writer, philosopher and artist John Cage, who died in 1992, would have been 100 this year and there are a slew of events to celebrate the centenary – including EVERYDAYJOHNCAGE in the city of Rimini, Italy where every single day of 2012 from January 1st to December 31st a viral system distributes publicly and privately, fragments and materials related to John Cage, and an exhibition entitled Things Not Seen Before: A Tribute to John Cage, a visual art exhibition at Tempus Projects, organized by Independent Curator Jade Dellinger. Inspired by a line from a letter the curator (as a student – in the late 1980’s) received from the late, great composer concerning the work of Marcel Duchamp, Cage noted: “I am not interested in the names of movements but rather in seeing and making things not seen before.” Visit www.johncage.org to see all events.
Julian Gilbert’s photographs of random couples kissing, in a series entitled PDA, are voyeuristic, but could also be images taken by some kind of secret-agent alien to prove to a distant planet how strange the human species and mankind truly is. In fact almost all his photographs have that feeling – like you’ve unlocked some kind of private file. Julian Gilbert, a 24 year old New York native, photographs other aliens too – artists, musicians, actors – and they look more at home on camera and less like some kind of endangered species caught in the cross hairs of Gilbert’s viewfinder. All and all, his photographs are undeniably full of fervent and vibrant life. Gilbert is now offering his photography outside the gallery: just send him a self addressed stamped envelope and five bucks and you get one random, unique 4X6 or 4X5 print. A pretty sweet deal.
