Puccio Fine Art has developed a reputation for the presentation of fine artworks with impeccable history and condition at below-auction prices. Specializing in unique works and rare prints by a range of contemporary and modern masters, Puccio Fine Art has quickly become a valuable and reliable resource among investors, private collectors and designers for museum quality artworks.
Name: Shannon Finley
Age: 39
Occupation: Artist
City/Neighborhood: Berlin
Your first New York exhibition just opened at Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld’s space. Did you find that the reception of your work was different in New York compared to San Francisco or Berlin?
Every city has a different climate, with varied histories and sensibilities. I’ve absorbed the computer into the composition of my works in a way that feels so natural that I hardly think of it. New York seems more acutely tuned in to technology and the way it rejuvenates archaic mediums like painting. In San Francisco, they seem to look at my paintings from the perspective of 1960s counter culture and psychedelia. In Germany, maybe they think I’m the son of Gerhard Richter.
How did your relationship with Roitfeld come about?
I believe Vladimir found my work on Jessica Silverman’s website last fall and flew to Chicago to see her solo presentation of my work at Expo Chicago. Soon after, he visited me in Berlin and we planned the New York show. His unique Upper East Side space highlights the timeless aspects of the work.
In the new paintings, you use digital imaging software before you apply paint to the canvas. Does it create a template that you paint over?
The software doesn’t create the template; I do! The paintings develop out of both digital drawings and hands-on improvising. When planning a show, I often begin by working out the scale of the works with digital mock-ups, overlaying previous paintings onto installation shots of the gallery space.
What project are you working on now?
I’m sending some works to Jessica Silverman for the Dallas Art Fair and am starting to work on a solo show with Susanne Vielmetter, which takes place in L.A. this summer.
What’s the last show that you saw?
David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen. Loved it!
What’s the last show that surprised you? Why?
Rudolf Stingel at Gagosian. It’s a hypnotic reflection via an epic landscape.
Do you make a living off your art?
Yes.
What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?
The stereo system.
Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?
Everywhere, real science, and science fiction. Many artists inspire me too.
Do you collect anything?
Music, Japanese video games, books, plants.
What is your karaoke song?
I don’t have one.
What’s the last artwork you purchased?
A Jonathan Lasker drawing.
What’s the first artwork you ever sold?
A painting of a lens flare on a monochrome field.
What’s your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?
Wherever my friends are, in X-berg or Neuköln.
What’s the last great book you read?
The collected short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
What work of art do you wish you owned?
One of the 10 x 10 foot square paintings from Peter Schuyff’s 1987 show at Leo Castelli or a Tauba Auerbach fold piece.
What international art destination do you most want to visit?
The Caves of El Castillo in Spain or Lascaux in France.
What are your hobbies?
Snowboarding, making music, cooking.
What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?
Female artists.
Name: Shannon Finley
Age: 39
Occupation: Artist
City/Neighborhood: Berlin
Your first New York exhibition just opened at Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld’s space. Did you find that the reception of your work was different in New York compared to San Francisco or Berlin?
Every city has a different climate, with varied histories and sensibilities. I’ve absorbed the computer into the composition of my works in a way that feels so natural that I hardly think of it. New York seems more acutely tuned in to technology and the way it rejuvenates archaic mediums like painting. In San Francisco, they seem to look at my paintings from the perspective of 1960s counter culture and psychedelia. In Germany, maybe they think I’m the son of Gerhard Richter.
How did your relationship with Roitfeld come about?
I believe Vladimir found my work on Jessica Silverman’s website last fall and flew to Chicago to see her solo presentation of my work at Expo Chicago. Soon after, he visited me in Berlin and we planned the New York show. His unique Upper East Side space highlights the timeless aspects of the work.
In the new paintings, you use digital imaging software before you apply paint to the canvas. Does it create a template that you paint over?
The software doesn’t create the template; I do! The paintings develop out of both digital drawings and hands-on improvising. When planning a show, I often begin by working out the scale of the works with digital mock-ups, overlaying previous paintings onto installation shots of the gallery space.
What project are you working on now?
I’m sending some works to Jessica Silverman for the Dallas Art Fair and am starting to work on a solo show with Susanne Vielmetter, which takes place in L.A. this summer.
What’s the last show that you saw?
David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen. Loved it!
What’s the last show that surprised you? Why?
Rudolf Stingel at Gagosian. It’s a hypnotic reflection via an epic landscape.
Do you make a living off your art?
Yes.
What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?
The stereo system.
Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?
Everywhere, real science, and science fiction. Many artists inspire me too.
Do you collect anything?
Music, Japanese video games, books, plants.
What is your karaoke song?
I don’t have one.
What’s the last artwork you purchased?
A Jonathan Lasker drawing.
What’s the first artwork you ever sold?
A painting of a lens flare on a monochrome field.
What’s your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?
Wherever my friends are, in X-berg or Neuköln.
What’s the last great book you read?
The collected short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
What work of art do you wish you owned?
One of the 10 x 10 foot square paintings from Peter Schuyff’s 1987 show at Leo Castelli or a Tauba Auerbach fold piece.
What international art destination do you most want to visit?
The Caves of El Castillo in Spain or Lascaux in France.
What are your hobbies?
Snowboarding, making music, cooking.
What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?
Female artists.
Name: Shannon Finley
Age: 39
Occupation: Artist
City/Neighborhood: Berlin
Your first New York exhibition just opened at Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld’s space. Did you find that the reception of your work was different in New York compared to San Francisco or Berlin?
Every city has a different climate, with varied histories and sensibilities. I’ve absorbed the computer into the composition of my works in a way that feels so natural that I hardly think of it. New York seems more acutely tuned in to technology and the way it rejuvenates archaic mediums like painting. In San Francisco, they seem to look at my paintings from the perspective of 1960s counter culture and psychedelia. In Germany, maybe they think I’m the son of Gerhard Richter.
How did your relationship with Roitfeld come about?
I believe Vladimir found my work on Jessica Silverman’s website last fall and flew to Chicago to see her solo presentation of my work at Expo Chicago. Soon after, he visited me in Berlin and we planned the New York show. His unique Upper East Side space highlights the timeless aspects of the work.
In the new paintings, you use digital imaging software before you apply paint to the canvas. Does it create a template that you paint over?
The software doesn’t create the template; I do! The paintings develop out of both digital drawings and hands-on improvising. When planning a show, I often begin by working out the scale of the works with digital mock-ups, overlaying previous paintings onto installation shots of the gallery space.
What project are you working on now?
I’m sending some works to Jessica Silverman for the Dallas Art Fair and am starting to work on a solo show with Susanne Vielmetter, which takes place in L.A. this summer.
What’s the last show that you saw?
David Altmejd at Andrea Rosen. Loved it!
What’s the last show that surprised you? Why?
Rudolf Stingel at Gagosian. It’s a hypnotic reflection via an epic landscape.
Do you make a living off your art?
Yes.
What’s the most indispensable item in your studio?
The stereo system.
Where are you finding ideas for your work these days?
Everywhere, real science, and science fiction. Many artists inspire me too.
Do you collect anything?
Music, Japanese video games, books, plants.
What is your karaoke song?
I don’t have one.
What’s the last artwork you purchased?
A Jonathan Lasker drawing.
What’s the first artwork you ever sold?
A painting of a lens flare on a monochrome field.
What’s your favorite post-gallery watering hole or restaurant?
Wherever my friends are, in X-berg or Neuköln.
What’s the last great book you read?
The collected short stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
What work of art do you wish you owned?
One of the 10 x 10 foot square paintings from Peter Schuyff’s 1987 show at Leo Castelli or a Tauba Auerbach fold piece.
What international art destination do you most want to visit?
The Caves of El Castillo in Spain or Lascaux in France.
What are your hobbies?
Snowboarding, making music, cooking.
What under-appreciated artist, gallery, or work do you think people should know about?
Female artists.
TOKYO — Japanese shoe designer Masaya Kushino has a penchant for elaborate, baroquely ornamental designs and luxurious materials that make up a distinct haute couture sensibility.
Hailing from Hiroshima, Masaya first studied fashion design at the Kyoto Institute of Design, before graduating from the Istituto Marangoni in Milan in 2004. He set up his eponymous label in 2007 and has since also also collaborated with numerous runway brands such as Somarta and Christian Dada, producing kinetic art-inspired planting machine shoes with Boston-based Japanese artist Sputniko!, and skull-shaped leather bags that were a joint effort with Japanese jewelry brand AMBUSH® (made up of Verbal from m-flo and Yoon).
Kushino, who is currently showcasing his latest “Bird-Witched” collection at the “Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion” exhibition hosted by the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, spoke with BLOUIN ARTINFO about his latest collection and plans.
Why did you choose to depict a bird’s life in your latest collection?
The Bird-Witched collection was inspired by Jakuchu Ito, a legendary painter who flourished during the Edo period in the 18th century. He depicted real life animals such as birds, tigers, and elephants in a really ingenious way, tinged with a bit of insanity. His realist aesthetic encouraged me to put emphasis on the details of the shoes, which resulted in unique collaborations that used historical Nishijin-ori textiles by Hosoo in Kyoto, or exquisite statuesque heels by Japanese sculptor Takashi Nakamura. Three pairs of shoes are covered with feathers, giving them a mysterious, iridescent texture.
You've previously designed shoes with buffalo horn-shaped heels and used peacock feathers. What is your attraction to animal motifs?
I've always been inspired by the natural form of animals. These forms change from time to time according to the environment and other factors, but on the other hand they are also final forms in a way. Only the forces of the universe can determine what they look like. These factors, which transcend the realm of human civilization, have always influenced my previous works, and will continue to do so in the future.
Do you ever draw from nature, or consider the concept of sustainable fashion?
Some of my previous works, including my collaboration with the Japanese artist Sputniko! that featured a mechanical system for planting seeds, and the Reborn collection, a series of shoes with botanical motifs that evoke the transitions between seasons, were clearly inspired by natural philosophy. In my opinion, human beings have always cultivated their civilizations while being affected by nature. At the moment, the fashion world seems to place an emphasis on ethical or natural products, but for me this doesn't sound new at all. I would say that the fashion industry even devises marketing buzzwords and strategies based on this idea. On the other hand, some of my previous collections were clearly aimed at exploring the relationships between human purpose and the natural environment that surrounds them, while some of the other works just emerged out of a certain personal impulse.
You also like experimenting with the idea of superficial complexity using rare materials, or pushing cultural expectations and definitions of beauty. Why?
During my early career, I made these pairs of Pokkuri platform shoes that were originally worn by Oiran prostitutes in the Edo era. These platform shoes also featured glowing sculptures in their heels — as you might imagine, this idea comes from Japanese lanterns. The Queen collection from 2012, on the contrary, uses extravagant, lavish embellishments to conjure a rather Victorian, or Gothic atmosphere. I have a penchant for the beauty of art from the medieval era. The golden ages of lost cultures or civilizations have always enchanted me and given me a sense of nostalgia. They were produced with the cutting-edge techniques of the age, and cost an incredibly big sum of money to create, not to mention time and the labor of many people — all in an effort to show off one’s prosperity.
Compared to other forms of visual art such as sculpture or mixed media, what is special about making shoes?
As a lot of designers have stated elsewhere that shoes are attractive not only for putting legs in, but also as standalone art objects. In other words, shoes are just as visually stimulating as sculpture or any other three-dimensional art piece, but they also fundamentally have to be wearable. Artworks are basically made just for display or to be appreciated visually. When it comes to artistic pairs of shoes, however, they are more instinctive and more interactive, which I think is their most attractive trait.
Aside from the ongoing fashion exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, do you have any projects coming up?
My archival pieces will be displayed in a group exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in August. I'm also working on my next collection, which I hope to be able to show in New York. I'm based in Kyoto at the moment, but in the future, I hope to be somewhere else where I can work more internationally. I love shoe making, and hope to continue pushing boundaries when it comes to the art of shoes. I dream of beautiful high heels made out of fine jewelry, or platform shoes designed for astronauts living in zero gravity conditions. More realistically, I hope to work on some projects for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
“Future Beauty: 30 Years of Japanese Fashion” runs through May 11, 2014 at the National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto.
Click through to see a slideshow of some of Masaya Kushino's shoes.
The Biennale des Antiquaires this September promises its visitors the best of everything: Versailles-themed scenography by famed French interior designer Jacques Grange; dinner parties by not one, but 10 Michelin-star chefs, and of course, the most expensive selection of antiques and haute joaillerie in the world, courtesy of power dealers and jewelers like Alexandre Reza, David Morris, and Cartier (Harry Winston, unfortunately, will not be returning), who will create collections especially for the occasion.
The grand Paris event is not, however, all that it used to be. “You have to be very well educated to go to the Biennale,” Christian Deydier,president of Syndicat National des Antiquaires, recently told ARTINFO over breakfast. “Fewer and fewer people are educated now. It’s a problem, especially in France. Slowly the level is coming down.”
In the absence of the trustee culture that’s so prevalent in the United States, where privately funded museums send their members on educational trips and conferences, Deydier and the SNA have taken it upon themselves to cultivate the next crop of French power collectors. In April 2015, they plan to launch a new fair in Paris at the Carousel de Louvre, simply called Salon — a mix of antique, modern, and contemporary pieces priced from $3,000 to $50,000. Salon provides an entrance point for emerging dealers who currently fall below the exacting standards of the Biennale; they’ll pay €14,000 for their booths rather than €50,000, for instance. “The small dealers don’t have much money, but they can show what they do,” said Deydier. “He looks good, so we need to push him into the Biennale. A lot of dealers are starting to be old. A lot of artists are starting to be old. Pierre Soulages — he’s not contemporary anymore. We need to find the new young ones.”
More importantly for Deydier is the task of identifying and educating rising collectors. To accommodate the less initiated, he’ll have dealers of different genres in the same booth to “show that these periods can work together,” assuring buyers that Spanish paintings and African art would go perfectly well with the pieces they may already own. These pieces will also be much smaller in scale. “This fair is for everybody. The guy who starts to buy $7,000 pieces, we don’t know if maybe in five years he’ll spend $100,000, $1,000,000,” said Deydier. “You have to push. You have to teach, you have to explain, why this glass is 10 and this glass is 100 — this one is glass and this one is crystal. It’s very important. If we don’t have the collector, we are dead.” At the moment, the only confirmed exhibitor for Salon is Deydier himself, who specializes in Chinese antiquity.
As the SNA expands its outreach at home and abroad — where satellite fairs such as New York’s annual Salon: Art + Design, which debuted in 2012, and the Miami Art+Design Fair, which debuted in February 2014, have found success (similar events in Moscow and China are to follow) — the opulent integrity of the Biennale will remain intact. In fact, it will become even more concentrated.
“When you look at Maastricht, it’s 300 exhibitors. You don’t have time to see everything, and you have the very high level alongside the very low level,” said Deydier. “Next year, we’ll cut the number of exhibitors, and at the next fair, we’ll cut more — we’ll keep it to 40 to 50 dealers. We just want the best in the world.”
The Biennale des Antiquaires at the Grand Palais in Paris is open to the public September 11-21.
Previously unseen photographs of how British society partied in the 1920s, snapped by acclaimed Vogue and Vanity Fair photographer Cecil Beaton, are going on show two hours outside of London.
Held by Sotheby’s and Wilton House, and designed and curated by Jasper Conran, “Bright Young Things, Costume Balls and Country House Parties: From the Roaring 20s to the Swinging 60s” will contain black-and-white prints from Sotheby’s Cecil Beaton Studio Archive, providing a fascinating glimpse into a charmed age where Beaton and his posh friends frequently let the good times roll, capturing the spirit of country house parties and costume balls in Britain.
Running from April 18-21 and May 3 to September 13, the exhibition pays tribute to Beaton, who was best known for his iconic fashion portraits of celebrities like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, but also renowned for his flair for fancy dress and costumery, his Academy and Tony awards for his designs, as well as the lavish, fantastical parties he threw at Ashcombe, his Wiltshire home.
As fancy dress became the de rigeur dress code of country house parties, Beaton was able to integrate his high-society personal life with his professional one, persuading his aristocratic friends to pose for him in their exotic costumes, often designed by him, for photographs set against Britain’s grandest country houses, such as the one of Edith Olivier, then Mayor of Wilton, as Queen Elizabeth I for a pageant in 1932 (pictured below).
Wilton House, in particular, was the perfect setting for many of these pictures, being the host of the first ball Beaton attended in 1927. He has described the surroundings of the house, situated just a few miles from his own, as “perhaps the most wonderful piece in all Wiltshire’s heritage of domestic architecture… at every time of year, in all weathers, unfailing in its beauty,” and illustrated the thought well with images like the 15th Earl and Countess of Pembroke at the coronation of George VI in 1937 (pictured below).
“Lady Pembroke, the Trustees [of the House] and I are delighted that we are able to hold this exhibition. There is a strong family connection with Cecil Beaton and although I was too young to remember him, my mother and older sisters certainly have very fond memories of him here at Wilton,” said William Pembroke, the 18th Earl of Pembroke, in a statement.
“The images that have been chosen are fascinating both as social history and also for their technical brilliance. Beaton was a genius when it came to studio photography, but he also excelled at capturing spontaneous shots of pure joy,” he added.
