SOUND TRACKS : HIGHLIGHTS PART I

 

Sahar Ghanbari illustrates Woodpecker Wooliams 

for Sound Tracks Festival 2013 

at the Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe

Video edit & projection by Anomalous Visuals

Wet Dream 

perspex, light and water sculpture 

by Sarah Cocking & Laurence Symonds 

for Sound Tracks Festival 2013

at the Bussey Building, Peckham

SOUND TRACKS FESTIVAL

Come see artworks, apps and installations I'm curating for Sound Tracks festival - happening on Saturday 11th May along the East London Line between Dalston and Peckham.

http://soundtracksfestival.co.uk/

AMELIE HEGARDT FOR SHOWSTUDIO

Last week Nick Knight invited my pal and housemate Amelie Hegardt to interpret the London Fashion Week collections for Show Studio. Visionary that she is, Amelie mixed paint, ink and photography to create some very personal and abstract responses to the A/W 2013 catwalk. These three are my favourites - her take on Jonathan Saunders, J.W. Anderson and Mary Katrantzou. 

http://showstudio.com/contributor/amelie_hegardt

SURREALSCAPES

Berndnaut Smilde, Nimbus Cukurcuma Hamam I, 2012

 Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Photo Onur Dag

Berndnaut Smilde, Nimbus NP3, 2012

 Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Photo Cassander Eeftinck Shattenkerk

Berndnaut Smilde's Nimbus photographs were some of the best received imagery of last year. The series is showing in The Uncanny, which opens tonight at the Ronchini gallery. Less often seen are Smilde's Cumulus works, which are very different in character despite their same cloudy subject.

Although I like the Cumulus models, their reframing of a natural phenomenon is less magical, less awe-inspiring than the Nimbus sequence. Architectural models just don't hold the same empathetic draw as large format photos of real interior spaces setting off the fluffy white spectacles.

 

Berndnaut Smilde, Cumulus- Mijnsherenlaan 2, 2012

Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Berndnaut Smilde, Cumulus- Adlergasse 1, 2011 

Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

 
Metaphorical readings relating to entrapment and impermanence could abound when talking about the Nimbus pieces but I'd rather focus on the sense of surprise they generate. It gives the viewer that moment of wonder we so often miss in the pre-emptive Googlable world. Although I'd suggest that Google ad words have more of the Uncanny about them than Berndnaut's clouds, the double-take factor has brought the Nimbus pictures the celebration they deserve.

That these images have remained so popular is perhaps testament to something more permanent than wonder - and that is beauty. Whether seeing one of the individual images for a second, third, fourth time, or seeing the different versions in their fantastic interior sets across the series, you are still struck by a moment of dreaminess and awe each time you see these photographs. Which after all may be the perfect uncanny image - a bundle of suggested metaphors wrapped up neatly to strike you every time. 

 

Adeline de Monseignat, Loleta, 2012

Vintage Fur, pillow filler, glass, motor, wood on 2 tonnes of sand

Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Dree Hemingway for Mania Mania's Astral Plane story

Photography by David Mandelberg

Surreal sculpture and photography by Adeline de Monseignat places oversized fur balls and micro sandscapes like cabinets-of-curiosity details alongside Smilde's clouds in The Uncanny. Aside from Dali, they bring to mind the Black Rock desert in Nevada, where Burning Man is held, and Mania Mania's Astral Plane shoot starring Dree Hemingway.

[The Smithsonian has more on Smilde and his cloud-making.]

GAETANO PESCE : GENIUS

Remember Gaetano Pesce's Montanara sofa? Here it is again. Isn't it the best piece of furniture you have ever seen?

And now he's done these:

Six Tables on Water highlight our injured waterscapes using the mind-expanding digital/natural aesthetic that defined the dawn of the 21st century - Google Earth style. It looks almost as good in sculpted resin as it does on screen.

Here are some highlights from an interview with Gaetano in the exhibition catalogue for the current show at David Gill in Mayfair (open until 22nd December, then at Design Miami):

'Colour is an element which helps us to think positively, it is able to transmit feelings that are related to joy and pleasure, happiness and energy, sensuality… an interior without colour is depressing, but if you have a dialogue with different colours you have a dynamic space.'

'Design is not the decorative expression that we thought and instead is a very deep and complex language which is a commentary on reality, meaningful and philosophical: that is what art is. A practical art - but wasn't art always practical?'

'Let's talk about an art which is related to our time, which is not romantic at all… materials, marketing, advertising… these are all things of our time and all these together are related to design, a discipline which has a strong power of communication: it speaks to everybody.’

'People have the right to be different, democracy protects difference. At a certain point I started thinking about why objects have all to be the same. Humans are full of imperfections. Each one of us works, lives or thinks in his or her own way. I asked myself - why not objects as well? Maybe this was a third industrial revolution, because what could the next industrial revolution be, if not about the profound nature of objects?' 

See my LSN story on the same here.

JOE CRUZ'S SWEET SQUARES

Illustrator Joe Cruz was inspired by the charm and showmanship of old fashioned magic shows when making the silk squares he designed for YCN, the creative network for emerging illustrators and graphic designers. 

Having launched his label JCRUZ in February this year with a collection of images about celebrity-obsessed culture called Rise & Fall, YCN asked Joe if he'd like to get together. Clearly he said yes.

He's also been working with Browns Focus and Mary Portas - fashion heads are bashing down his door to get a piece of his pastel action.

He doesn't need much - 'Just my pastels, paints and a printer' - and keeps his process simple. 'I don't over think it. If a method makes the work more accessible and direct, I will use it.'

As you can see, his signature thing is adding bright colours and naive strokes over black and white photography to give his collages their poppy postmodern look - like in his Build People series that mucks about with Utopian architecture from the 1950s and 60s. 

Joe says of the YCN squares, 'I didn't change the way I worked for the silk editions - I wanted the fashion accessory to be a work of art in itself.' Pretty swanky for a hanky.

GREY SKIES BY SAM IRONS

Kingsclere to Avebury series 2012

samirons.com

LUNE AND TIDE

Visit www.luneproject.com to find out about the mesmeric new art installation that will be travelling around the USA throughout September 2012.

ANIMA TERRA

Loving the aurora of Eighties neons given off by Yves Behar's light sculpture, conjured up in the experimental lab of his San Francisco design studio Fuse Project. Sheets of metal conceal LEDs that shift between lighting expressions inspired by natural phenomena, like the changing light from dawn to dusk. The shape is an abstraction of a natural landscape. Commissioned by the Art Institute of Chicago in 2009 and still in its permanent collection.

SUMMER MARKET STALL

My sister Lucy and I will be selling accessories like these plus lots of one off fashion finds at Netil Market in Hackney on Saturdays and at Portobello Road on Sundays throughout summer 2012... come down! 

ROYAL ACADEMY SCHOOLS SHOW

RCA SCULPTURE SHOW HIGHLIGHTS

RCA FINE ART SHOW HIGHLIGHTS