The Margaret Dunning Road Show made a pit stop at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Élégance last weekend, where the 102-year-old showed her cherished 1930 Packard. Having relished four days of activity at the 62nd annual concours, held at the Lodge at...
Margaret Dunning, Queen for a Weekend at Pebble Beach
Lana Del Rey Sizzles in Poolside Shoot as She's Named the Face of Jaguar's New Sports Car
She's starred in her fair share of sexy photoshoots since hitting the bigtime with her debut single Video Games. And now Lana Del Rey has posed for another smouldering set of pictures, after being announced as the face of Jaguar's new F-Type sports car...
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Sexy Stems: Leg-Shaping Craze
“On the one hand I want to go off and live in the desert with my dog and sculpt things out of adobe, but then on the other I'm part of this industry that creates insecurity and focuses on materialism and things that aren't actually, for me, the most...
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Move Over, BB Creams. CC Creams Are Coming!
Still trying to wrap your head around BB creams? (Pssst, we'll help you out. They're souped-up moisturizers that cover like a sheer foundation and treat various skin care concerns such as acne or wrinkles.) Well now, there's a whole new category of...
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10 Entertaining Secrets From America's Greatest Chefs
Here's everything you need to set your table in style, as selected by 10 of the country's most celebrated chefs—Thomas Keller, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, and Daniel Boulud included...
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Spain’s Power Paprika
Paprika could be the most useless colorful spice in the pantry – that is, the traditional flavorless product we know of as the dried red-pepper powder grandma used on her bland, if ruddy, chicken. But...
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Slideshow: 10 Labor-Themed Artworks for Labor Day
Mexican Designer Ariel Rojo's Dish Rack Doubles as Political Satire on Illegal Immigration
Deceptively whimsical objects serve as excellent vessels for more substantial messages, as is the case with Ariel Rojo’s artwork. The Mexico City-based artist has a practice of infusing quotidian housewares with politically-charged subtext, as we discovered at the México booth earlier this month at the New York International Gift Fair. A ceramic pig with the curly-cue tail of a fluorescent lightbulb saves energy rather than pocket change, to promote ecological sustainability; plastic figures of melting ice cubes not only lift your laptop off the table to prevent overheating, they also condemn global warming.
And what appears to be a playful desert scene of cowboys and cacti carved into panels of stainless steel is something more sinister: looking more closely, there are coyotes, skeletons, and gun-toting outlaws dotting an inhospitable landscape between Mexico and the United States. It’s an art object weighed down with layers and layers of symbolic meaning, a nod to the 7,178,000 detentions registered at the Mexican border between 2000-2005, the so-called mojados, or wet-backs, in search of a better life.
“I think the design is a tool, not a goal,” Rojo told ARTINO via email. “For this reason my design aims to create a moment of reflection on everyday objects.” This one, if you couldn’t tell, is a dishrack.
To see more works by Ariel Rojo, click the slide show.
Moscow City Guide
Top picks and insider tips from ARTINFO Russia editor, Anastasia Barysheva
Envoy Enterprises Doubles Down on the Lower East Side, Adding Expansive Rivington Street Space
The Lower East Side mainstay envoy enterprises is expanding. On September 13, the funky, fun-loving gallery will debut its second space, located at 87 Rivington Street, only a few minutes’ walk from its current location at 131 Chrystie Street. The owner, Jimi Dams, purchased the 3,000-square-foot gallery last week, and now has three weeks to move in and install his debut exhibition of new work by artist, fashion designer, set designer, and former club kid Desi Santiago.
“We had been looking for a new space since May,” Dams told ARTINFO in an interview. Since adding additional staff and six new artists in as many months, “There was no room to sit anymore.” Moving forward, he will use the two-floor Rivington Street gallery as envoy enterprises’s main headquarters, where he will show exhibitions by artists represented by the gallery. The old space at 131 Chrystie will become a “creative think tank,” Dams said, where visitors can see shorter and more experimental exhibitions featuring artists not on the gallery’s roster.
“Right now, if I see something really exciting that I want to show, I have to wait two years,” Dams explained. “The whole purpose is to free us up. There is pressure, but this is our relief. We can give people chances they wouldn’t normally get to show, and have fun ourselves.” He hopes the plan will restore the energy that the space had in 2008, when it hosted a long series of 24-hour exhibitions by lesser-known artists as a response to what Dams saw as conservative, market-oriented displays by other galleries.
Santiago, a cult figure in the art and fashion worlds who created the S&M-inflected masks for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” exhibition, will christen the new space. Before Dams has installed walls — or, in fact, done much of anything to make the space less raw — Santiago will take over, installing sequined boxes along the walls that visitors can peek through (they hold futuristic robots). A massive bomb sculpture will screen videos in the basement, while an illuminated upside-down pentagram — shown earlier this summer at the Watermill Center’s annual benefit — will light up the upstairs space.
After Santiago’s exhibition closes in October, Polish performance artist Martynka Wawrzyniak will construct a chamber in the raw space, inside of which she will release a cocktail of aromas that resemble her own biological scent.
Envoy enterprises has maintained two spaces before: In 2006, Dams ran both a Chelsea space and the Lower East Side location. It didn’t take long for him to realize it wasn’t sustainable. “We closed Chelsea in 2007 because the amount of visitors we were getting on the Lower East Side was so much higher,” he said. “When people go to Chelsea, you go to Matthew Marks, Gagosian, Paula Cooper. When you’re done with all of that, you go home, because you’re tired. Everything else is left out.”
With the profusion of galleries on the Lower East Side, is he nervous the same fate might become of smaller spaces there? “It will never be like Chelsea because this is a neighborhood,” he said. “Even if you put one gallery next to another, you won’t get that art fair feeling. That makes all the difference.”
Desi Santiago's “This Pop Is Perfection” runs September 13-October 14 at envoy enterprises.
New York Fashion Week Preview: Wes Gordon on His Tarot-Inspired Collection
Wes Gordon is having quite the year. After scooping up Fashion Group International’s prestigious Rising Star Award in January (in a tie with Misha Nonoo), the 25-year-old Central Saint Martins alum’s glamorously undone creations (think shredded cashmere coats and metal-embroidered pants) have been spotted on everyone from January Jones and Lena Dunham to Michelle Obama. Now the fashion darling is taking his ladylike wares in a darker direction for his spring 2013 collection, which he’ll show in New York on September 10. “The woman is a bit more sinister than before,” Gordon told us. “But still feminine and beautiful.” ARTINFO caught up with the designer via email to chat about his tarot-inspired creations, “Real Housewives” addiction, and dressing the FLOTUS.
What are the inspirations behind your spring 2013 collection? What’s on your mood board?
There was a mystical vision for spring inspired by the traditional tarot. A beautiful hand-drawn swan print, delicate knits, and embroideries embellished with Swarovski Elements underscore the collection’s darkly ethereal tone.
What can people expect to see in this collection? How is it different from your last collection?
This season was an evolution of my fall collection. The woman is a bit more sinister than before, but still feminine and beautiful.
What are your fashion week vices?
Mindless television – currently “Real Housewives of New York.”
What is your first fashion week memory?
Working backstage dressing models when I interned for Oscar de la Renta. I was completely star-struck the entire time.
Who are you designing for?
To be honest, I think I’m designing for my friends — the amazing women I’ve had the opportunity to know and meet. My client isn’t an abstract idea but a real person, and I try to make pieces that she can integrate into her life.
If you weren’t a fashion designer, what profession would you choose?
Architect.
Is there any specific music that you’ve been listening to while working on this collection?
Best Coast, Grimes, Fleetwood Mac
What, in your mind, is the purpose of fashion?
To make our lives and the world a more interesting and beautiful place.
Describe your wardrobe when you’re prepping for fashion week. How do you decide what to wear the day of the show?
A charcoal suit with a button-down shirt, no tie.
We’ve seen your dresses on a lot of red carpets lately – who was the last celebrity who really wowed you in one of your designs?
It’s always exciting to see anyone in my designs, but I have to say I can’t really top Mrs. Obama. That was an exciting moment.
Visit Artinfo.com/fashion for more fashion and style news.
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Week in Review: Van Gogh's Vision Questioned, Fashion Week Previewed, "Top Gun 2" Grounded, And More
Our most-talked-about stories in Art, Design & Architecture, Fashion & Style, and Performing Arts, August 27-31, 2012:
ART
— A Japanese scientist argued that van Gogh was colorblind, and his paintings look better through that lens. Kyle Chayka asked: Does biology really impact aesthetics?
— Chloe Wyma digested the highlights of this week’s Gallery Girls episode, from the girls’ burgeoning dreams of art stardom to bathroom catfights, strange sexual politics, and unsubtle racism.
— Peter Blum and Waterhouse & Dodd exited Soho, leading the rush of galleries out of the aging art neighborhood, which is quickly losing ground to the Upper and the Lower East Sides.
— Modern Painters magazine previewed the 100 best shows to see around the world this fall, from Darren Bader in London to Mickalene Thomas in New York.
— NYU grads launched a massive art incubator for young artists and curators in Tribeca, hoping to work like a “tech start-up” for the art world.
ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN
— Sculptor and designer Wendell Castle spoke to Janelle Zara about breaking down the boundary between furniture and art in his new exhibition at the Aldrich Museum.
— SANAA’s Kazuyo Sejima, part of the team that designed the New Museum, became the Rolex Protégé Program’s first architectural mentor.
— French fashion designer Pierre Cardin designed an 800-foot-tall luxury skyscraper for Venice, but the city’s locals aren’t too happy with it.
— The Venice Architecture Biennale kicked off with a slew of awards, with Alvaro Siza taking home a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and Toyo Ito for Best National Participation.
— Mexican designer Ariel Rojos created a dish rack that comes complete with political commentary on illegal immigration, among other satirical household goods.
FASHION & STYLE
— Reality TV star and designer Kara Laricks spoke to Ann Binlot about her first collection following her win on “Fashion Star.”
— Designers Carly Cushnie and Michelle Ochs described their “softer and lighter” new collection for Spring 2013.
— Hip menswear label N.Hoolywood designer Daisuke Obana linked his latest collection to street art inspirations.
— We collected the 15 best fashion pinners to follow on Pinboard.
— Veteran artists Ed Ruscha and Nick Cave contributed to Harper’s Bazaar’s September issue.
PERFORMING ARTS
— J. Hoberman asked if director Tony Scott’s death might mean the grounding of "Top Gun 2."
— “The Best Man” actress Elizabeth Ashley spoke to Patrick Pacheco about sex, politics, and the tragedy of Sarah Palin.
— American jazz pianist Henry Butler remembered the golden era of blues revival in the 1990s.
— The good-looking gorefest gangster movie “Lawless,” which pits roughnecks against city slickers, aimed high but fell flat.
— Larry Blumenfeld told the story of Von Freeman, a Chicago tenor sax master who died on August 11.
Were Francis Bacon's Torturous Portraits Influenced by Nazi Photography?
Francis Bacon's tortured figures might allude to more than his own conflicted psyche. In a book that will be published by Tate later this month, Martin Hammer suggests that the British painter also drew heavily on Nazi photographs found in books and magazines after the war.
It's a radical new reading of Bacon's oeuvre. Hammer, a professor of history and philosophy of art at the University of Kent, told The Independent: “The use of Nazi imagery in Bacon's work was an important aspect of his creativity; it is present in many works. It was something that hadn't been addressed.”
The professor is also quick to acknowledge that his findings might not be unanimously well received by Bacon scholars: “The visual evidence is compelling, but it's hard to know what to make of it,” he said. “It's open to interpretation.”
Hammer first noticed the visual affinities between some of Bacon's paintings and Nazi photographs at Tate's 2008 retrospective of the artist's works. His subsequent research led him to the conclusion that it was “a consistent feature of Bacon's work from the 50s and 60s.”
Several of Bacon's “source” photographs were shot by Heinrich Hoffmann, a photographer belonging to Hitler's entourage. According to the art historian, the artist worked on these images for more than two decades, increasingly submerging the Nazi references.
“Bacon started working with this imagery, looking at the true nature of the regime that had emerged,” said Hammer. “He used it to explore the instinctive, savage, bestial nature that was dominating everyone's lives.”
This article also appears on ARTINFO UK.
Yudi Noor Blends Mysticism and Material, Creating Playful Abstract Sculptures in Berlin
Yudi Noor’s works are something of a mystery — and indeed, to a great extent, you’re simply not meant to comprehend them. For the artist himself, it’s a quasi-spiritual and mystical impulse that leads him to build sculptures and installations from objects he’s collected over the years. “I like putting things together without reason,” he says of this process in which tangible items combine to form an abstraction. “I will have to ask the ghosts in order to make sure that the sculpture is strong in the end,” he continues, in total sincerity. Noor’s sculptures are multifarious: Coral, earthenware, plastic, thread, steel, and titanium come together in “Dynamism,” 2012, a precarious-looking assemblage; “Opium,” 2011, uses metals, wood, pink spray paint, and rubber to create what looks like a record player straight out of a Dr. Seuss book.
Much of this practice stems from Noor’s childhood in Indonesia (he has lived in Berlin on and off for 10 years, beginning just after the wall came down, in 1990), with some elements of the work offering direct interrogation of his upbringing. Of the neon pigments — pink, yellow, green, and orange — that add flash to such pieces as “Privatisarong,” 2011, or “Enter Commune,” 2010, he tells a most peculiar story: “When I was growing up in West Java, we used to swim in the river and fish. But the river was colored green and orange. Around our area was the second-biggest textile company in Indonesia. I didn’t realize until I came to Europe that it was dangerous. The pink color is the color I remember the most, but they were all just a form of happiness to me at the time.”
Admitting that these colors now are somewhat political in his application, he cautions against a prescriptive reading: “I do not point a finger or try to be pedagogic, but I try to remind myself that there is a big responsibility.” According to Noor, to be explicitly political as an artist from Indonesia opens one’s work up far too easily for propagandistic co-optation. “The corrupt people use the artists to wash their hands. It’s very scary,” he says. “I’ve tried to engineer my practice such that there has been a sufficient introduction to stop those uses. Now I try to have a conversation; much later there might be a statement.”
For example, he sometimes combines mystical text with found objects, such as in “The Ritual of Kalijaga,” 2009, where the eight-part Hasta Brata, an ancient Indonesian ritual of self-control, provides textual context to a wooden canoe that is filled with white neon tubes and painted bright pink along the rim, while its mooring chain is piled on the floor. The canoe was an allegory for his then recently deceased spiritual teacher, while the Hasta Brata text alludes to doctrines governed by eight local nature gods. By combining religious elements both sculptural and textual, he disarms those who might otherwise twist it to signify something more sinister. Noor himself, though a practicing Muslim, acknowledges an influence from the fluidity of Indonesian religious practice, which involves elements of Buddhism and Hinduism as well as animistic religious traditions.
Noor’s works continually question this flux of spiritual and existential understanding, or what he calls “quantum change.” Most recently — with “Mixed Opera” at Berlin’s now defunct Birgit Ostermeier, “Between the Bars” at London’s Nettie Horn, and “Clear Mountain” at his new Berlin gallery, Christian Ehrentraut, where he will open his second solo show this month — Noor has worked through major figures in the world’s religious history, from Moses to Jesus to Abraham. With Jesus, his interest is in the ascetic, showing up in more minimal works such as Breaking the water picture, 2010, an earthen jug on a teak pedestal. With Abraham, the focus shifts to the idolatry of sculpture. “What was it promising at that time to humans?” Noor asks, referring to previous animisms. “Abraham believed that the sun and stars would guide them; now we believe in plugs, in electricity.” One resulting piece — a woven tapestry — is inscribed with passages referring to natural phenomena from the Koran, the New Testament, and the Torah.
And while spirituality and religion play an important role for him both personally and in his work, again the relationship is more abstract. “It’s about questioning where I’m coming from,” he says, referring to the complex religious makeup of Java. “All the various religions in my work are to remind me that the secret to existence is always changing. But it’s a collective memory.”
When looking at a sculpture like “Listening Post,” 2011 — a table on which a piece of plywood, its surface painted pale blue, is topped with a cake dish holding a pink-rimmed mirror and is pierced by a metal pole—the hefty conceptual background may be lost. His works hold out the possibility of clear meaning, just out of reach. “It’s like a black ant walking in the night on a black wall. You don’t see it, but you might know it’s there,” he explains. “I realized: I have no control, not even of myself. All of life is so abstract, so I put that into my works as well.” In a way, the pieces — both in the process of their creation and in viewing them — are like mental exercises to get one step closer to a universal understanding. Noor wants to create a microcosm in which an ideal, godly existence can be accessed. But this, too, the artist concedes, must be broken down at times. “I’m mixing things less in my work now,” he says, “focusing more on minimal forms because they represent simple truths.” For example, a rattan mat on which he slept as a child is now a ready-made for his aptly titled show at Christian Ehrentraut, “Accumulation and the Hereafter Perception,” a follow-up to “Clear Mountain.” It’s the discipline of practice — of faith, and of dreaming realistic dreams and acting in such a way that they become reality — that extends far beyond Noor’s Kreuzberg studio.
To see works by Yudi Noor, click the slide show.
This article appears in the September issue of Modern Painters magazine.
of bodies, armour and cages, Photo Performances by Shakuntala Kulkarni
10 Provocative Artworks for Labor Day, From a Bronze Union Rat to a Human Capitalist Pyramid
This Labor Day, issues of class identity and workers' rights are more prevalent in American cultural discourse than they've been for decades. Between a presidential contest dominated by promises of economic recovery, the fast-approaching first anniversary of the biggest swell of class discontent the country has seen in decades, and a recession that continues to earn comparisons to the Great Depression, this year's holiday comes at an exceptionally poignant moment.
It should come as no surprise then — indeed, it was completely unintentional — that most of the artworks we've selected for this Labor Day slide show fall under one of the three aforementioned rubrics: class-coded electoral politics, the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Depression. Indeed, the art world's affiliation with the past year's protests, internal labor disputes like the Sotheby's art handlers' lockout, and its stake in the sinking economy and upcoming election (recall Mitt Romney's promise to end the NEA), make it an especially fitting venue in which these issues can be played out, investigated, and maybe even resolved. Here, then, are ten of ARTINFO's favorite artworks that engage labor issues.
To see our top 10 works of labor-themed art, click the slide show.
Slideshow: London in 10 Iconic Pictures
Shapely Pillars of Ancient Architecture Inspire Designer Nigel Coates’s Voluptuous New Housewares
Given London-based designer Nigel Coates’s preoccupation with sinuous forms (see the body-hugging scans that comprise his Bodypark tiles, or the cushy bustle of his ballgown-like Pompadour Chair), it’s no surprise he would look to the Caryatids, a favorite muse of the ancient world, to inspire a new line of housewares. These sculpted maidens stand as pillars at the entrance of various Greek and Roman landmarks, holding the classical architectural world on their heads.
This year at Maison & Objet, France’s international home design trade show that runs as a precursor to Paris Design Week, Roman blue-chip design gallery Secondome will debut the Carry Artids, a Coates-designed collection playing on these paradoxically curvaceous columns. Typically lifeless objects — a vase, a bottle, a goldfish bowl, a bucket, and a fruit bowl, all in glass — are infused with a very human appeal, equipped with outstretched arms carrying a glass disc above their heads, and very lady-like undulations along the length of their bases.
Maison & Objet runs from September 7 through 11.
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Shop 'Til You Drop: ARTINFO's Top 10 Fashion's Night Out Picks
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the vast amount of Fashion’s Night Out festivities that are set to happen on September 6? We sure are, so we sorted through the seemingly endless list of events and picked out some of the evening’s highlights. All you have to do now is put on your most stylish outfit and have a good time.
Click on the slide show to see ARTINFO’s Fashion’s Night Out picks.
Visit Artinfo.com/fashion for more fashion and style news.
ARTINFO Fashion is now on Twitter. Follow us @ARTINFOFashion.
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Resurgent American Folk Art Museum Names Anne-Imelda Radice as New Director
“I think the sky’s the limit,” the American Folk Art Museum’s newly appointed director Anne-Imelda Radice told ARTINFO over the phone today. “I’m honored that I’ll have this opportunity to work with people that are the highest level and amazingly dedicated to the success of this institution.”
The announcement of Radice’s appointment today comes after a tumultuous year for the institution, whose previous executive director Maria Ann Conelli stepped down in May of 2011 after selling the AFAM’s 10-year-old building on 53rd Street to neighboring MoMA and consolidating the museum’s activities at its much smaller but virtually rent-free space near Lincoln Center. For Radice, though, this slimmed and nimble new AFAM — which recently teamed with the South Street Seaport for the first of what will be many major off-site exhibitions — has distinct advantages.
“I think that one of the reasons that the American Folk Art Museum is in such good condition now with this consolidation was because people worked as a team,” she said.
That team will nevertheless have to be exceptionally careful in its spending after defaulting on its whopping $31.9-million loan last year, a fact of which Radice is well aware. “I watched as the board took on a very difficult situation with total transparency,” she said. “Because we have the expertise, which is the most difficult thing to get, we have to be prudent in the way we develop budgets for projects.” She continued, “I just met the staff for the first time. There is no shortage of ideas — and of course I have a few — but I want to give them a little time to percolate.”
Prior to her appointment Radice served as the director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services under both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and held a variety of positions in educational and cultural government agencies, including the Humanities Endowment and the United States Information Agency. She was also the curator of the U.S. Capitol, an assistant curator at the National Gallery of Art, and the first director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
Moving from those major national organizations to the comparatively small AFAM might seem an odd career choice, but Radice sees her new job as an opportunity to extend the museum’s reach. “This is an institution that is a local treasure, a national treasure, and an international treasure,” she said. “And I think it should present itself in that way and be respected in that way.”