Mirror

Holding a mirror up to inspiring, innovative artists and reflecting it back for your visual pleasure

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Kara Walker Camden Arts Centre 11 October 2013 - 5 January 2014 Kara Walker is known for her powerful visual narratives that explore the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality. Her thought-provoking and raw approach to these issues has garnered much acclaim, especially for the manner by which she examines the psychology of slavery through fictional narratives. Walker radically reinvented the traditional 19th-century silhouette portrait, elevating the practice of tracing onto and cutting out black paper figures into a formidable, grand format for her "nightmarish fictions." The exhibition explores many aspects of Walker’s art, especially her transformation of the cut-paper silhouette into lyrical and argumentative expression. The graphic nature of the artist's work, both in content and format, moves from the wall to moving picture in this presentation of silhouettes, drawings, prints, and video. As race remains one of the most difficult conversations to have in America, this exhibition is especially timely amid the discourse on race today, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Camden Arts Centre Arkwright Road London NW3 6DG http://www.camdenartscentre.org

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ALISON GOLDFRAPP: PERFORMER AS CURATOR

19 October - 2 March 2014

The Lowry

The Lowry arts venue in Salford has begun a new programme of art exhibitions examining the relationship between the performing and visual arts. First up as guest curator is Alison Goldfrapp, one half of internationally acclaimed group Goldfrapp.

A graduate in performance art herself, Goldfrapp has chosen art that resonates with her own distinctive aesthetic as a musician. She has chosen themes of metamorphosis, transformation and identity through the medium of fairy tales and magic. Among the artists featured in the exhibition are children’s book illustrator Jan Pienowski, the German early animator Lotte Reinigen, naive American folk artist Henry Darger, and the Surrealist painter Leonora Carrington.

The Lowry Pier 8 Salford Quays M50 3AZ

http://www.thelowry.com

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The British Museum Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art 3 October - 4 January 2014 Shunga is the term given to a very specific form of erotic art from 17th century Japan. So titillating and erotic these were these images, that they remained high taboo in Japan during the 19th and early 20th century. The exhibition at the British Museum is the first of its kind and lifts a veil on this little known form of erotic art. As Neil MacGregor, director of The British Museum, says, “The Japanese paint the pleasures of sex like nobody else.” Shunga is the solution to the “lack of archaeological material” and the “little material traces” that tell us how different cultures performed sex, and whether they enjoyed it. And, somehow, Shunga is surprisingly discreet. Hardcore pornography it most certainly is not. Although these images showcase overt sexual encounters, their participants cling onto their clothes. In fact, clothing cleverly emphasises the sexiness of the act. For example, Kitagawa Utamaro conveys the intimacy of a couple’s lovemaking in a scene from Poem of the Pillow (1788) by giving us a little glimpse of their entwined legs through the man’s silk jacket. And in Needlework (1794-5), he inserts a subtle sense of eroticism into an otherwise everyday scene by dressing his models in loosely worn clothes and offsetting the flash of a white leg against a bright red undergarment. Artists skilfully modulate the patterns on their models’s robes to suggest the beautiful curving bodies beneath; they use fabrics to adorn and frame the body, like Russian icons... although the sentiment could not be more different. A combination of art and sex is at the heart of Shunga, and any exhibition that seeks to explore the relationship between the two is bound to cause a stir... British Museum Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DG www.britishmuseum.org

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LEO RUBINFIEN

Beyond the War: Seven Photographs from Southeast Asia, 1984-1987

Oct 24 - Nov 30, 2013

In Leo Rubenfien’s images taken in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines not long after the Americans departed from Saigon, there is no more violence, but the lush and gorgeous landscape of Southeast Asia seems to brood with the silence that remained where the war had been. Beyond the War is presented in conjunction with another exhibition; Vietnam: The Real War: A Photographic History from the Associated Press.

A Map of the East, from which some of these photographs are taken, is one of the most highly esteemed photography books of the 1990s. It appeared in 1992 together with one-man exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Seibu Art Forum, Tokyo. Rubinfien spent much of the 1980s exploring the lesser known streets and back roads of Japan, his childhood home- as well as China and Southeast Asia, producing a body of work admired for its intimacy, humanity and vivid detail.

Steven Kasher Gallery 521 West 23rd Street New York NY 10011

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JACQUES HENRI LARTIGUE Bibi 11 Oct 2013 - 5 Jan 2014 Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986) thought of himself primarily as a painter and was only 'discovered' as a photographer in 1963, at the age of 69, when an exhibition of his work opened at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Throughout the course of his life Lartigue created an amazing body of photographs, filling scores of albums with his prints and written diaries. The exhibition at focuses on photographs from the 1920s that depict Lartigue’s marriage to Madeleine Messager, known as Bibi, his first wife and the mother of his only child. This is the first international showcase of the exhibition following its unveiling earlier this year in Les Rencontres d’Arles. Bibi features dozens of black and white photographs including images from the couple’s visit to London. The photographs trace Lartigue and Bibi’s relationship from their early days as a loving couple and glamorous socialites - to subsequent upheavals and calamities which eventually led to their separation. The Photographers' Gallery 16 - 18 Ramillies St London W1F 7LW http://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/home

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A New Sculpturalism- CONTEMPORARY ARCHITECTURE FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 16 June - 16 September 2013 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California A New Sculpturalism examines the work of thirty-eight major and emerging practices in contemporary Los Angeles architecture of the past twenty-five years. What unites this group of architects is not a drive towards a singular aesthetic, style or form but rather a relentless commitment to asking essential questions and challenging the very notion of what architecture is and can be. Their work is distinguished by innovative design, inventive use of materials, and a bold visual vocabulary. Many have deep roots in Southern California, while others have been drawn here from around the world by the magnetic lure of an un-constrained creative environment. Most have strong affiliations with the Southern California Institute for Architecture (SCI-Arc), the Department of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Southern California Department of Architecture. Among the earlier generation of represented architects are Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and Eric Owen Moss, from whose practices have emerged younger generations of architects, a number of whom are included in the exhibition. Celebrating the ideas, projects, and processes that continually seizes the opportunity to redefine architecture, both locally and globally, the exhibition demonstrates how Los Angeles is one of the world's vibrant centres for architectural thinking and creation. www.moca.org

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Kudzania Chiurai Mallorca Landings Gallery 24 May - 28 July 2013 'On a continent that has experienced more violent conflict than any other, this exhibition follows an individual’s narration of events that lead up to the inaugural speech by the first supposedly democratically elected prime minister. This leader styled along many of our existing African leaders, retells the history of a people from another time, but still Africa’s time…” says the artist. Chiurai references child soldiers, African liberation movements, and civil wars. He tracks the similarities in the societal, political and ideological fabric of states in tumultuous times of transition. Notions of public and private are raised in performances taking place in the streets of Newtown and in basements with limited access. A sound installation scores the gallery experience. Representations of spectacle perpetuated by the media are brought to question. Scenes captured in photographs, drawings and paintings play into popular hip-hop imagery. In a similar style to previous bodies of work (such as his Dying to be Men series of 2009), Chiurai’s environments are enticing and seductive, but explore very real casualties of African independence and democracy and the effects of globalisation on war. Caputxines 11, 07003 Palma de Mallorca, Spain www.mallorcalandings.com

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Abelardo Morell 1June - 3 August 2013 Stephen Daiter Gallery Hallucinatory in their beauty, these elegant images- the solid and perceived – of the concrete and the conceptual – of the sky and the earth, form this exhibition. You haven't seen pictures quite like this before. Something strange and wonderful happens when light enters a dark space through a tiny opening. Aristotle described the phenomenon back in the o century B.C. Leonardo in Renaissance Italy sketched the process. In Coney Island and other 19th-century seaside resorts, tourists lined up to see the magical results. Shift to a Boston classroom, the year 1988. Cuban-born Abelardo Morell, teaching an introductory photography course at an art college, was curious to step back in time. On a sunny day, he covered the classroom windows with black plastic, making the space as dark as a cave, cut a dime-size hole in the material, and told his students to watch. Almost instantly the back wall came alive like a movie screen, its surface covered with a fuzzy image of people and cars moving along Huntington Avenue outside. Then the double take: The image was upside down, sky on floor, ground on ceiling, the laws of gravity seemingly gone haywire. This inspires Morell's work to this day. Mundane backdrops become magical vistas- catch it while you can. 230 W. Superior, Fourth FLoor Fourth Floor Chicago, IL 60654 http://www.stephendaitergallery.com/dynamic/exhibit_display.asp?Exhibit=Current&EventID=2

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WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath 29 June - 29 September 2013 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Houston This landmark exhibition revolutionizes our understanding of this momentous subject, immersing viewers in the experience of soldiers and civilians during wartime. WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY brings together images by more than 200 photographers from 28 nations and covers conflicts from the past 165 years—from the Mexican-American War through present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Organized not chronologically but around themes such as “The Fight,” “Refugees,” and “Remembrance,” it shows how photography has informed our understanding of conflict over time, and around the world. Epic in scope and ambition, and featuring many of the most indelible photographs ever made, 'WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY' takes us from the home front to the battlefield and back again. 500 Seventeenth Street NW Washington, DC 20006 http://www.corcoran.org/warphoto#sthash.UiF8lvQT.dpuf

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Visions of the Universe National Maritime Museum 7 June - 15 September 2013 More than 100 images documenting the development of telescopy, photography and our understanding of our place in the universe make up this exhibition at the National Maritime The Hubble Space Telescope was sent into space in 1990. Orbiting outside the distorting effects of the Earth’s atmosphere, it has taken awesome images of our universe. This photograph shows Endeavour space shuttle astronauts F Story Musgrave (on the robotic arm) and Jeffrey Hoffman (inside the shuttle) during the first servicing mission, in 1993, which repaired a flaw in the telescope’s primary mirror. National Maritime Museum Romney Rd Greenwich London SE10 9NF http://www1.rmg.co.uk/

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Alham Shibli

Jeu de Paume

28 May - 1 September 2013 

The photographic exhibition ‘PHANTOM HOME’ by Ahlam Shibli addresses the contradictory implications of the notion of home. The work deals with the loss of home and the fight against that loss, but also with restrictions and limitations that the idea of home imposes on the individuals. Examples of places where the problematic is encountered include the occupied Palestinian areas; monuments that commemorate members of the French Resistance against the Nazis together with French fighters in the colonial wars against peoples who demanded their own independence; the bodies of lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders from Eastern societies; and the communities of children in Polish orphanages.

Death, Ahlam Shibli’s latest photographic series especially conceived for this retrospective, shows how Palestinian society preserves the presence of the “martyrs”—in the artist’s own words. Death contains a broad representation of the absent ones through photographs, posters, graves and graffiti displayed as a form of resistance.

http://m.jeudepaume.org/

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Club to Catwalk

V & A

10 July 2013 - 16 February 2014

Discover the creative explosion of London fashion in the 1980s in a major exhibition at the V&A. Through more than 85 outfits, Club to Catwalk: London Fashion in the 1980s showcases the bold and exciting new looks by the most experimental young designers of the decade, including Betty Jackson, Katharine Hamnett, Wendy Dagworthy and John Galliano.

The exhibition traces the emerging theatricality in British fashion as the capital’s vibrant and eclectic club scene influenced a new generation of designers. Also celebrating iconic styles such as New Romantic and High Camp, and featuring outfits worn by Adam Ant and Leigh Bowery, the exhibition explores how the creative relationship between catwalk and club wear helped reinvent fashion, as reflected in magazines such as i-D and Blitz and venues including Heaven and Taboo.

V & A Cromwell Road London SW7 2RL www.vam.ac.uk

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Miles Aldridge

Brancolini Grimaldi Gallery

12th July - 28th September 2013 ‘Beauty is always bizarre. I don’t mean to say that it is deliberately, coldly bizarre, for in that case it would be a monster that has gone off the rails of life. I say that it always contains a hint of the bizarre, which makes it Beauty in particular.’

(Charles Baudelaire)

Presented as large scale prints, ‘Short Breaths’ brings together a body of work which explores sensuality and malaise in modern life through a language of vivid colour and unexplained narratives. Miles Aldridge’s images of beautiful women placed in a hermetically sealed parallel universe of luxury are both thrilling and unsettling. Executed with the precision of a Hollywood movie, their power derives from the tension created between exterior perfection and internal turmoil, bringing to mind the cinematography of David Lynch.

Aldridge has said about his work, “A slightly uncomfortable quality is what I’m after. I don’t feel like making happy pictures about beautiful models being content… these pictures… they’re pictures of humans not mannequins. They’re troubled, wounded and confused, questioning who they are now that they have everything they want."

Brancolini Grimaldi 43 - 44 Albemarle Street First floor London W1S 4JJ

http://www.brancolinigrimaldi.com/

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Enoc Perez

‘Paris mon amour’

Galerie de Nathalie Obadia

17 May - 27 July 2013

New York based artist Enoc Perez is known for paintings of hotels from his native Puerto Rico’s colonial past. Whilst his previous work celebrated the bright kitsch and glitz of hotels in their mid century heyday; his style has taken a marked departure in this exhibition at Galerie Nathalie Obadia.

Perez is back with an eagerly awaited exhibition; this will be the first time his sculptures are shown in Paris. With these sculptural works, Enoc Perez continues to explore the themes of modernist architecture, nostalgia and the culture of his native Puerto Rico, which has always been a source of inspiration in his pictorial work. The sculptures revisit the atmosphere of hotels in the Caribbean, a topic which is also present in the paintings from the years 2000.

There are paintings still of Parisienne and American hotels, albeit in a pastel, subdued palette, their architecture rising out of mists to look like relics from some otherworldly, ghostly landscape. These are constructions which are still modern, but are already shaping up to become the relics of a vanished America and its history.

Galerie de Nathalie Obadia 18 rue du Bourg-Tibourg 75004 - Paris

http://www.galerie-obadia.com/show.php?show_id=2514&showpress=1&language=1&p=1&g=3

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Pieter Hugo

Group Exhibition, Les Recontres d’Arles 2013

1 July - 22 September 2013

‘THERE’S A PLACE IN HELL FOR ME AND MY FRIENDS.’

Pieter Hugo’s There’s a Place in Hell for Me and My Friends is a series of close-up portraits of the artist and his friends, all of whom call South Africa home. Through a digital process of converting colour images to black and white while manipulating the colour channels, Hugo emphasizes the pigment (melanin) in his sitters’ skins so they appear heavily marked by blemishes and sun damage. The resulting portraits are the antithesis of the airbrushed images that determine the canons of beauty in popular culture, and expose the contradictions of racial distinctions based on skin colour.

As the critic Aaron Schuman writes, ‘although at first glance we may look ‘black’ or ‘white’, the components that remain ‘active’ beneath the surface consist of a much broader spectrum. What superficially appears to divide us is in fact something that we all share, and like these photographs, we are not merely black and white - we are red, yellow, brown, and so on; we are all, in fact, coloured’.

Atelier de Chaudronnerie, parc des Ateliers.

www.pieterhugo.com

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Lucien Samaha

The Flight Attendant Years: 1978 - 1986

June 6 - August 2 2013

Lebanese-born Lucien Samaha photographs from the late 1970s and early ‘80s record a particular intimacy between Flight Attendants, pilots, and passengers that was rarely revealed at the time—and is certainly not seen in today’s climate of heightened airline security. The Flight Attendant Years covers all aspects of daily life: training sessions, uniform fittings, in-flight fraternization, and layover breaks. Samaha’s eye for detail and composition, matched with his direct access to his subject matter, allows for his documentary photography to exist within an extremely personal and aesthetic milieu. His images—Polaroid snapshots, elegant candid portraits, and group photographs—emphasize the spirit of adventure and conviviality integral to his surroundings.

Lombard Freid Gallery 518 West 19th Street New York NY 10011

http://www.lombard-freid.com/home.htm

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Bruce Davidson - Time of Change: Civil Rights Photographs, 1961-1965.

7 June - 31 August

Howard Greenberg Gallery

Bruce Davidson, now a famed Magnum photographer, was a 28 year-old white kid from Illinois in 1961 when he began photographing what has come to be called the Civil Rights struggle in America – when African-Americans sought through voting rights, desegregation and changes in public accommodations laws to claim the birthright of equal opportunity that until then had been only selectively bestowed. Stepping off the buses in Jackson, the riders were hustled into paddy wagons, under arrest for inciting riots, breaching the peace and failure to obey a police officer. They were the first group of some 400 students that would make the ride and be thrown into a maximum security prison for their peaceful protest. The day was a turning point for the photographer. “It sensitized me to something, something that needed to be recorded, something I had to bear witness to,” says Davidson, who would follow the movement for four years—photographing everything from Malcolm X to a bullet ridden car of a white woman who tried to advance the movement—right up until the Selma March. “I was able to see America in a way I’d never seen it before.”

The Fuller Building 
41 East 57 Street
Suite 1406
New York, NY 10022

http://www.howardgreenberg.com/#home