Envoy Enterprises presents Ecstatic Skin, Winston Chmielinski’s first solo exhibition in New York. Chmielinski’s paintings indiscriminately engage figuration and abstraction by using color and form to create emotionally-charged re-imaginings of the familiar. This exhibition presents the artist’s continued investigations of the body as well as its surrogate forms in nature, with a focus on plants and lighted expanses. Ecstatic Skin will be on view until December 31, 2012 at Envoy Enterprises, 87 Rivington Street, New York, NY. Photographs by Annabel Graham. See more photos after the jump.[CLICK HERE...]
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
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, the two Los Angeles-based artists (and friends) constructed a landscape over which Holter’s all-seeing eye purveys the predictable events turned inexplicably preposterous. “The video for Julia’s ‘Goddess Eyes II’ is inspired by the Latin phrase ‘deus ex machine,’” says Zhelezov. “In theater, deus ex machina is plot device for seemingly unresolvable dramaturgical situations. The video is in tribute to Euripides and the literary spirit of the song that the video was conceived and directed.The video is Holter’s sixth and final video from Ekstasis. See music video after the jump.[CLICK HERE....]
Barbara Nitke will be in New Orleans this weekend as part of Photo NOLA to promote her book American Ecstasy, a memoir in pictures and words of the twelve years Nitke spent working as a still photographer on porn movie sets in New York in the 1980′s at the end of the Golden Age of Porn. On Friday Nitke will be presenting a slide show presentation and book signing at Happy Hour Salon at Press Street HQ and Sunday, December 2 there will be a pop-up opening at Barrister’s Gallery.
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...]
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.
, the two Los Angeles-based artists (and friends) constructed a landscape over which Holter’s all-seeing eye purveys the predictable events turned inexplicably preposterous. “The video for Julia’s ‘Goddess Eyes II’ is inspired by the Latin phrase ‘deus ex machine,’” says Zhelezov. “In theater, deus ex machina is plot device for seemingly unresolvable dramaturgical situations. The video is in tribute to Euripides and the literary spirit of the song that the video was conceived and directed.The video is Holter’s sixth and final video from Ekstasis. 
