“Within The River of Time Is My Mind” will open at MOCA Pacific Design Center on June 29th and will be on view through September 22, 2013. A new exhibition by Chris Johanson organized by guest curator Andrew Berardini, the exhibition features new paintings, sculpture, and found wood site-specific installation. Read more about the exhibition here.
Prudence Peiffer wrote a praising review of our recent show, Mary Beth Edelson, “22 Others, 1973” for the May issue of ArtForum. Read the review here
The premiere screening of “A Clean Sweep,” will be hosted at the Apple Store Soho at 8pm this coming Monday, April 29th. The short film is in anticipation of his upcoming exhibition opening at SGC on May 8th from 6-8pm. After the film, Lucien will discuss the making of the film with the film’s director of photography Deering Reegan, producer Jake Hanly, editor Benjamin Morsberger, together with Glenn O’Brien and Bill Powers.
In celebration of MOCA Miami’s 15th Anniversary, the museum exhibited new acquisitions and important works part of MOCA’s history in the show, “Pivot Points: 15 Years & Counting.” Included is assume vivid astro focus’s installation from the 2004 Whitney Biennial. This is the first time the installation has been restaged.
Last week Karen Rosenberg of the New York Times reviewed our current exhibition “22 Others, 1973.” It is the first time since 1973, that the works that comprised Mary Beth’s conceptual project “22 Others,” are on view together. Read the review here.
“22 Others, 1973” is now on view at the gallery through April 20th, 2013. Edelson has installed one of her most seminal projects, 22 Others, for the first time since it was exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in 1973. Edelson is considered to be a pioneer of the Feminist Art movement. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at The New Museum, The Museum voor Moderne Kunst, The Brooklyn Museum, and others. During an extended study of Jung’s collective unconscious in the early 1970s, Mary Beth invited 22 artists and friends to prompt her to create artworks. The resulting body of work, 22 Others, engaged a fusion of consciousness with her peers and audience.
We will be presenting new work by assume vivid astro focus at the Armory Show 2013. We hope you can visit us at Booth #907
In the Observer’s recent feature on “New York Artist Now,” the editors compiled a list of artists contributing to the New York scene- “The Establishment,” “Next Generation,” , and emerging artists discussed in Andrew Russeth’s essay “2013 in 2033″. Kristin Baker has been spotlighted on the list “Next Generation.” Read the full article and lists here.
DISimages.com is now up and running. Explore the site to view the array of stock photography created in the gallery over the last month. There are only two days left to check out DIS Image Studio- come by to see Xavier Cha and DIS at work.
Former City College students, Johanson, McGee, and Reid will come together to collaborate and create new work for “(Almost) Free Formed: Celebrating Old Days and Hoping for New Times at CCSF”. The show opens Thursday February 21 and will be on view through March 20, 2013. To learn more about the City Arts College Gallery visit their site here.
On February 12th, “Antonio Lopez and the World of Fashion Art,” curated by André Leon Talley opened at the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum. The show is an extension of Antonio’s recent retrospective here at SGC and includes over twenty additional drawings selected by Talley. It will be on view through May 5, 2013.
DIS Studio Images has transformed the gallery space into a photo studio. Models, props, make-up artists, and photo equipment have been coming in and out, while the public is invited to take a peek into how DIS and other photographers produce their work. The first week included collaborations with Dora Budor and Frank Benson. Next week will continue with shoots by DIS, Max Farago, Anicka Yi, Jordan Lord, Josh Kline, and Jogging. All photographs will be available for sale after the show at DISimages.com- a stock photography website coming soon. DIS Image Studio will be taking place through February 24th at SGC.
Chris Johanson has been included in The Ackland Art Museum exhibition More Love: Art, Politics, and Sharing since 1990s. It is the first major exhibition to investigate the ways in which contemporary artists have addressed love as a political force, as a philosophical model for equitable knowledge exchange, and as social interaction within a rapidly changing landscape of technology and social media. Organized by consulting curator Claire Schneider, it includes 48 works of art by 33 emerging and established contemporary artists who actively engage with love and the many ways it can be expressed through beauty, emotion, humor, texts, elaborate craft, sound environments, and interactive projects. It is on view through March 31, 2013.
Curated by Anthony Elms (upcoming curator of the Whitney Biennial 2014), White Petals Surround Your Yellow Heart presents the work of artists engaged with clothing, adornment, and self-presentation to highlight the inventive design, tactical implementation, or sartorial sense by which we multiply and complete our personalities. The exhibition will include five of Rammellzee’s signature masks and several collages. On view in ICA’s First Floor Space February 6 through July, 28, 2013. For more information on the exhibition visit the ICA site here.
In conjunction with DIS Magazine’s Stock Photography Issue, DIS Image Studio at The Suzanne Geiss Company will become the center of production for DIS Images – a serial project focused on manipulating the codes and trends in stock photography. DIS will invite a select group of artists and photographers to participate in what is to become an assembly line of image-making. Come by the gallery Wednesday through Sunday during the month of February to see the shoots in action and follow DIS on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for the latest schedule and live coverage of the unfolding events.
The Rammellzee Galaxseum, the current show on view at the Children Museum of Art, reveals the inner workings of Rammellzee’s artistic vision and traces his career trajectory beginning in the 1970’s. It will close this coming Sunday, February 3rd. This is the last month to view the comprehensive collection of works that expounds on Rammellzee’s legendary Battle Station and his treatise Gothic Futurism. For more information on the exhibition and museum hours, visit their website here.
Andrea Scott reviews Ryan Johnson Self Storage for The New Yorker. Read her descriptive write-up here.
After visiting the gallery for Ryan Johnson’s opening, Adam wrote the wonderful review, “In Storage,” for V MAGAZINE.COM. He writes, “In Self-Storage, we find a brilliant attempt to actualize the contours of his memories and their effect on his psyche. His last minute paint strokes suggest he was still wrestling to reveal their shape. This unfinished process is a welcome show of humility.” Read the full version here.
In anticipation of Ryan Johnson’s opening tomorrow, Art Info visited his studio in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn. Ryan shared his new sculptures while discussing the inspiration behind them. Watch the full video here. And be sure to view Self Storage opening Saturday, October 27th from 6-8pm.
On August 23 2012, avaf transformed the Museu de Arte Moderna, São Paulo for the museum’s 2012 gala party. The immersive installation included a projection-mapped façade on the famous Oscar Niemeyer’s building on Ibirapuera park, along with interior installations of amassed wall panels, fluorescent lights, masks, and countless balloons that spelled a slew of portuguese words built from the letters that make up avaf’s name. See the facade in motion here.
For the current October issue of Art Forum, Jon Raymond explores the art of Chris Johanson from its early West Coast roots, Mission School days, and to his foray into abstraction in a feature entitled “Golden State”. Raymond’s praising piece identifies Johanson as “…not only a great chronicler of this culture, but one of its great shamans. Using only his mind and his hands, he has created a wild path for himself, and a vision of hard, hilarious truth for his community.” Read the full article in print in the latest Art Forum issue or online here.
Currently on view at The Children’s Museum of the Arts, is a comprehensive retrospective on RAMMELLZEE curated by Prescott Trudeau. The exhibition reveals through life-size costumes, masks, character frescoes, figurines, paintings, and the iconic letter racers, his unique self-made mythology known as Gothic Futurism. This mythology included not only the visual arts, but performance and musical recordings. Listen to RAMMELLZEE’s legendary “Beat Bop” here and check out images of the preview of the show that SGC enjoyed on October 3rd, 2012 here.
If on the West coast, don’t miss Melodie Mousset’s current exhibition “Impulsive Control”, on view at Susanne Vielmetter gallery through October 20th. The show centers around a performance where the artist privately performed in her studio a collaboration with the ceramist Christopher Miller. Mousset positioned herself on a potter’s wheel while the ceramist shaped a series of the vessels over her face, mask-like clay skins that covered her entire head above her mouth. The result of the project extended to 10 ceramic vessels - sculptural snapshots of moments of osculating movement, as well as several videos filmed from above and recording the progression of the vessels as they seemingly grow out of the artist’s head. The videos capture the initial impetuous of the project – the idea of the artist’s head as a malleable mass - and present the illusion of this mass to be opened, molded, transformed and extended. Read the press release here.
From September 18th-23rd, SGC exhibited an immersive installation of new work by Kristin Baker and Chris Johanson at the Expo Chicago Fair. Continuing her exploration of the luminosity, color, and the material qualities of paint, Baker layers acrylic on PVC, refracting space to reveal atmospheric moments. Johanson’s poetic phrases extend across a series of paintings on paper installed throughout the booth. Following the words through bold shapes, colors, and speech bubbles, we experience his meditation on art and human experience. Side by side, we can see both artists’ use of unique painterly language as a means to interface themes of existence, casuality, and space. A highlight of our booth, was the unique pyramid designed from found wood which we used to display the new paintings.
Johanson’s first solo show since 2008, opened last week at Mitchell Innes & Nash, titled Windows. The show presents new work by Johanson that explores the meditative qualities of being and art-making. The new works on found wood, several incorporating paint directly on the gallery walls in a play on windows and transparency, take on a poetic quality communicating notions of peace, coexistence, and compassion. Read the full press release here.
An admirer of Antonio’s work, Guy Trebay for the cover of August 29th Thursday’s Style section, wrote a wonderful piece about the dynamic circle of people that surrounded Antonio throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and how these people became vital sources of inspiration. Trebay remembers that Antonio’s work was more than a chronicle of fashion illustration, but was “a nexus of high and low, rich and poor, of outlandish self-presentation and serious business, of 110th Street and Boulevard St-Germain.” Perhaps the same type of cultural mixing that leads so many to be drawn to Antonio once again. Read the full article here.
We are thrilled that Antonio Lopez: Antonio’s World is now on view. The immersive exhibition includes over 100 of Antonio’s original works, including never before seen drawings and photographs. Showcasing three decades of the artist’s work, one can see the diverse range of historical and artistic movements that influenced Antonio. To celebrate we had a private preview, where the likes of Bill Cunningham, Donna Jordan, Corey Grant Tippin, and Pat Cleveland came to honor their old friend.
For the last night of our summer series, Blasting Voice, Tim DeWitt started the performance with a solo drum and electronic set to accompany a wood cobra snake placed in the middle of the stage. His pulsating beats set the tone for the following act by James Ferraro, that continued to trance the audience with an electronic set that was both calming yet enervating with shrilling background voices. Waking up the crowd from a hypnotic state, Shayne Oliver adorned in numerous metal chains and grey fur undergarment, danced and sang with attitude. Lastly, recalling Yoko Ono’s “Cut Piece”, Wu Tsang sat on stage with his hair freely down, except for a bun tied on top of his head. Staring at the audience with a despondent look, there was silence until Ashland came onto stage to clip away a segment of Wu’s hair, instigating other audience members to come up and cut away Wu’s hair as well. The tension steadily built as some dissented by cutting their own hair and finally came to head when one girl went for the protected bun on top of Wu’s head. The audience shrieked in protest, “Don’t do it!”, as someone ardently went to take the scissors away from the stage. Stay tuned for videos of the performances coming soon!
Blasting Voice continued with four exciting performances last night. First J. Patrick Walsh III served DiCosmo’s homemade Italian Ice to a welcoming crowd. After which Phoebe Jean and The Air Force livened the gallery by mixing signature club beats of Baltimore with her poignant soulful vocals. She was not afraid to climb the trusses and get the audience dancing. Analisa Teachworth engaged the audience with a narration about the possibility of a sentient robot, which was projected on the wall. Contrasting to the projection, Analisa painted water bottles and spray painted roses on the stage while an audio of her voice played, expounding on the fluidity of different mediums of art and the influence of art history itself on her own practice. For the finale, Devonte Hynes of Blood Orange treated us to a few new tracks he has been working on, as well as classic Blood Orange hits, “Champagne Toast” and “Sutphin Boulevard”.
Vishwam Velandy suspended himself from the gallery ceiling, equipped with a flashlight and headset like a CIA agent. A youtube video projected on the wall shifted the audience’s attention to a Sergeant (Vishwam’s brother) reporting back from the front lines of a terror-stricken war zone. Vishwam’s mission for the night was surfing the Internet, seen in a live-stream projection, while ranting about his role as a “fun maker,” though he’s really “just as melancholic as the next guy”. On a much different note, llyas Ahmed tranced the audience, strumming his guitar and signing seraphic harmonies. Greeting the audience by throwing out egg shells, Lizzi Bougatsos narrated her New York City survival tips. Before jumping on stage to sing, she claimed “I’m always walking on eggshells.” Once on stage, her voice reverberated throughout the space from behind a reflective Mylar screen.
Last night, Colin Self lit up the stage, jumping out of a plastic tarp dressed in drag. Pulsing his body and singing an incarnation of Whitney Houston’s “When You Believe”, his body activated the main gallery space while unraveling a nonsensical narrative. Kelela Mizanekristos’ voice captivates. Singing along to tunes on her Ipod, she sang everything from jazz to Arabic in a nostalgic act that remembers years of practicing to fine tune her voice. The debonair Andrew Aged lullabied the audience with a mix of high level bass and electric strokes. We were left with a gifted moment of silence, as Ouida A. Biddle erected a tent for meditation.
Video and performance artist, Kalup Linzy writes a lovely recap of the performances on July 13th, 2012 for Huffington Post Blog. Read his full article here.
Friday the 13th brought three diverse performances to SGC. First, Mark Treise of San Francisco’s trance-folk band Jealousy, talked us through the Tenderloin with 20 minutes of barefaced spoken word. Geneva Jacuzzi followed with a synth-pop set that transformed the stage into a mythical, space-age portal. Smoke and monochrome back-lighting played apt accomplices to Geneva’s haunting vocals, angular silhouette and robotic movements. Two metal-clad dancers contributed to the bionic environment. Butchy Fuego, of The Boredoms and countless other notable collabs, wrapped the night with a masterful techno-rhythmic set on the drum sampler.
For our second night of Blasting Voice, we welcomed to the stage Ashland’s brother Kyp Malone, of TV on the Radio, for a radical performance in stream of consciousness. While drinking Chaga tea, a concoction made from Siberian Chaga mushrooms that is an agent in boosting immunity and overall vitality, we watched as Malone graffitied the gallery walls with his declaration for us to all write a song to “Fuck the war on drugs.” The following act was, singer for Mirror Mirror, David Riley. In a short but intense ten minutes, he sang with an empowering gaze that was both captivating and mysterious. Lastly, Lee Relvas, who sings about the gulf oil spill disaster in her solo project “Rind”, shared a new piece about the transformation of becoming old and imagining your own trajectory into the future. Slowly peeling away dramatic transparent masks to reveal her own face, Relvas sang a heartfelt song that transformed us to a place somewhere between the imagined and the experienced. Tonight’s performances include: Butchy Fuego, Mark Triese, and Geneva Jacuzzi!
Last night we kicked off the performance series BLASTING VOICE with Robert Girardin and Nao Bustamante. With tall standing trusses, strobe and fluorescent lights, and a four foot wide stage, our main gallery morphed into a theatrical space fit for many scenes. Girardin mixed electronic beats to refract traditional musical forms, with a physically engaging narrative that hovered between protest and acceptance. Contrastingly, Bustamante performed a short play retelling her encounter with a green bug. Dressing in a nude leotard and paper thong, Bustamante put vulnerabilty front and center. Check out pictures from last night’s event. Tonight we get start at 6pm with Kyp Malone, David Riley, and Lee Relvas
For a second time, the PBS series, Art21, a short-format documentary series that chronicles contemporary art and artist, interviews Eli Sudbrack of assume vivid astro focus. In this episode, filmed in his Brooklyn studio, Eli discusses the motivations behind their use of masks. You can also watch the full video here.
Last Thursday we celebrated the launch of Cyclops Trannies, a publication created on the occasion of the recent exhibition at SGC (November 8-January 28, 2012). The book capture’s avaf’s 102 paint-marker portraits of trannies, half which were displayed at The Suzanne Geiss Company and the other half at Casa Triângulo in São Paulo. Eli Sudbrack, one half of avaf signed books while guests enjoyed wine and perusing the unique books available at Printed Matter. Cyclops Trannies is color offset printed and measures 8 x 6 1/5 inches. The book retails for $15.00 and is available at the Printed Matter store and online here.
Pure Perception, opening today at the Monica de Cardenas Galleria in Milan presents new work by four contemporary artists: Kristin Baker, Laura Owens, Mai-Thu Perret, and Amanda Ross-Ho and is curated by Margherita Artoni. Bypassing traditional and over played conversations on the concept of “abstraction”, the exhibition seeks to redefine the term with new propositions in the hopes of viewing abstract art with a novel and authentic sense. Baker’s work Current Automation Matter, engages with the aesthetic experience through the tension between light and color furthering the potential of a pure perception. The exhibition will be on view through July 28th, 2012. Read the press release here.
As part of the Glasgow International Festival of Visual Arts 2012, “Dialogue of Hands”, is an outdoor sculpture park for children and adults. Along side artists Camilla Low, Mary Redmond, and Corin Sworn, Johanson has been chosen to produce sculptural work to be played with in this outdoor environment. The works engage opposing dichotomies of art and play, control and freedom, and the boundary between adulthood and childhood. The project will be on view from April 20th - May 7th at the East Gymnasium, City of Glasgow College, City Campus. More information from Three Blows here.
Dave Tompkins, author of How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, was one of the few lucky enough to not only have spent time in the Battle Station but also shared a beer or two with The Equation, discussing everything from Grimm’s law to the welfare of the alphabet. Tompkins recounts his personal experiences with Rammellzee, while also taking a deeper look at his art and presence in the New York art scene. Read “Period Piece: Rammellzee and the End” here.
Ryan Johnson’s work makes its way to The Netherlands for “Pewter Wings, Golden Horns, Stone Veils” at Grimm Gallery. Fellow Brooklyn-based artist Nick van Woert organized this group exhibition that engages an alternate dimension where the political and psychological implications of materials are explored, and ultimately materialized. Ryan’s Tongues - made of casting tape, acrylic, wood, paper, stainless steel, pennies - manifests the playful, and at times irascible, relationship between form and function. Everyday materials, like pennies and steel, morph into forms that merge and distort the expectations of various mediums and artistic movements.
“Art in the Twenty-First Century”, season six chronicles thirteen profiles of artists from five continents through thematic episodes covering: Change, Balance, History, and Boundaries. The program films the artists at work and speaking about the power of art in contemporary culture. The episode will air April 13th, 2012 on PBS. Check out a preview of avaf in episode 6 here.
Dorothy Spears explores Kristin’s new work in “Full Spectrum,” published in the April issue of Architectural Digest. Spears highlights Kristin’s dynamic exploration of light, color, and speed when she writes, “Cacophonous bursts of color and exuberant zigzag marks trigger alchemical surprises in a fleet of acrylic-on-PVC-panel paintings that evoke her forebears, the Futurists…” SGC is excited to present the anticipated new work by Kristin in our next show, “ILLUM-MINE”, opening May 4th, 2012. Read the entire article here.
Last Thursday we were thrilled to open to the public with the work of Rammellzee. From long time Ramm followers to first time viewers, we welcomed an incredibly enthusiastic crowd. Alain Keit, Martha Cooper, Charlie Ahearn, Henry Chalfant, Fab 5, Maripol, Lee Quinones, and Glenn O’Brien, among others stopped by to view both the Letter Racers and the Wild Style series together for the first time. Upon entering the main gallery, dimmed with black-lighting, viewers were faced with the Letter Racers, hung from the ceiling and sharply angled, they are “ready for battle”. The Signoverture wrap around the walls and make for an interesting counterpart to the animated racers. Graffiti artists gravitated towards the rare marker-on-wood panel piece from 1982, which outfits our entrance hallway along with Letter M Explosion, a relief work from 1991. In the side gallery, guests debated Ramm’s take on the Western alphabet in his Wild Style series, the most recent work on view, from 2008.
Thanks to the blog Arrested Motion for snapping these amazing shots of the opening.
HELLO? I FORGOT MY MANTRA, a group exhibition on view at Clifton Benevento through April 14th, features sculptural work by Melodie Mousset. The show focuses on the themes of meditation, transcendence, leisure, and pleasure. Mousset’s work, infused with her love for the West Coast, specifically focuses on transcendence of object-sculpture-ornament.
A blanketed figure, suggestive of the yoga pose Downward Dog, also acts as a textile block design of relief ornamentation modeled from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House. Mousset is drawn to the “strange and free” characteristics of West Coast aesthetic and, in this case, the pattern apparent on the house, over the house itself, was integral to the making of the sculptures. Mousset’s works are an animated juxtaposition to the monochrome paintings by Paul Cowan, video installation by Aleksandra Domanovi?, and the collaborative dice installation by Nina Beier and Marie Lund.
The Suzanne Geiss Company is pleased to announce its inaugural exhibition RAMMELLZEE: THE EQUATION, The Letter Racers, which opens this Thursday night from 6-8 pm. Rammellzee’s manifestoes “Iconoclast Panzerism” and “Gothic Futurism” explored graffiti’s ability to liberate the transcendental powers of the alphabet that had been corrupted by Western culture. A manifestation of the artist’s theories, his Letter Racers were created over more than 15 years in his loft, The Battle Station. They are being shown in New York for the first time.
The exhibition coincides with the installation of RAMMELLZEE’s third set of Letter Racers at The Museum of Modern Art as part of the Print/Out exhibition on view from February 19th through May 14th, 2012.
Indeed, as the Huffington Post describes it, Tim Noble & Sue Webster “rule all things trashy and flashy.” British Rubbish, the duo’s first major monograph, explores the artists’ work over the last twenty years. Blain Southern, New Museum, The Suzanne Geiss Company, and Rizzoli celebrated the launch of the book with a signing at The New Museum bookshop on March 2nd. Noble & Webster’s cheeky, pop-conceptual sculptures get their due praise with an introduction by Nick Cave and contributions by Jeffrey Deitch and Michael Bracewell. Keep up with Noble & Webster’s many upcoming projects here and on their website.
Randy Kennedy breaks the news of our Rammellzee exhibition, and gives a rare view into the mind and myth of the reclusive artist. Check it out in print this Sunday, or online now.
MoMA curator Sarah Suzuki and artist Ellen Gallagher included Rammellzee’s Gold Letter Racers in Printin’ at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The exhibition chronicles over 70 projects that engage in a range of printing methods. The Letter Racers, made between 1987 and 1989, are small sculptures made from pieces of wood merged with dislocated body parts of dolls and toy dinosaurs, each representing a letter of the alphabet. In Rammellzee’s view, the alphabet was three-dimensional, weaponized, and engaged in a symbolic war against the homogenization of language.
Lotte Johnson writes on the work of Ellen Galalgher and Rammellzee for MoMA’s blog. The exhibition will run until May 14th, 2012. We are thrilled to see Rammellzee represented alongside major artists like Ai Wei Wei, Martin Kippenberger, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Christopher Wool, and many others.
After the success of Gaga’s Workshop, avaf turns to another retail project with the new Melissa boutique. The Brazilian footwear brand, known for its rubber shoes, opened a store here in New York with the aim to radiate the brand through art and design. A rotation of art installations will take place, beginning with assume vivid astro focus. A wall of sequins skirts the entryway, a flashing neon installation consumes the storefront window, and projections animate the walls and floor of the store thanks to avaf. The opening saw a slew of Brazilian models, Dita von Teese, Marc Jacobs, Jason Wu, among others welcome the coveted plastic shoes to New York. For more Melissa happenings, check out their blog.
Aaron Rose catches Chris, his free and easy style, and his awesomely buoyant outlook for Comme des Garçons’ “The Generic Man” campaign.
Kristin Baker’s Once in a Mooning, 2011 is featured in The FLAG Art Foundation’s In Living Color, which opens today. This group exhibition engages with the vagaries of color as explored by assume vivid astro focus, Baker, Olaf Breuning, Dan Colen, Gerhard Richter, Fred Tomaselli, Cy Twombly, Rachel Whiteread, and others. Themes of chaos and order, collapse and expansion emerge through unexpected saturation, nuanced monochromes, and provocative medleys of pigmentation.
As part of the Barneys 2011 Holiday Campaign, avaf collaborated with Lady Gaga on an immersive installation that spans the 5th floor of the department store. Art objects and other holiday gifts are displayed throughout the explosively imagined world. The focal point of the installation is the larger-than-life Lady Gaga sculpture that greets visitors at the entrance.
The very talented Leitzes & Co produced the project.
To soft-launch our new home at 76 Grand Street, we’ve installed a installation of new drawings by of assume vivid astro focus.
avaf’s Cyclops Trannies, 50 characters drawn with paint-marker on tear sheets from the artists’ own monograph, are mounted on wallpaper designed by the artists. Accentuated hips, protruding lips, and sexual poses, play with contemporary culture’s idealization of the feminine body. The burlesque caricatures offer an analysis of female representation in a saucy, yet serious manner.
The installation coincides with the launch of avaf’s exciting collaboration with Barneys New York for their holiday campaign, “Gaga’s Workshop.”
Linda Yablonsky talks both projects on T’s blog.
Last night, the Louis Vutton Librarie hosted the release of Tim Noble and Sue Webster’s new monograph British Rubbish, published by Skira Rizzoli. The die cut cover, designed by the London-based FUEL, is one of the best we’ve seen in awhile.
Chris Johanson’s band, Sun Foot, releases its debut LP today! Chris, Ron Burns, and Brian Mumford played a fantastic set for friends and admirers in a Portland garden to launch the record.
Sun Foot also played a great set at Portland Art Museum. Footage here.
Last night, we stopped by White Columns for the opening of Perfect Man II, curated by Rita Ackermann and Parinaz Mogadassi. In a bold move, the curators addressed the metrics of contemporary masculinity with work by twenty artists, including our own RAMMELLZEE. The show will be on view through October 15th.
NYT’s Holland Cotter gives a plucky review, here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/07/arts/design/perfect-man-ii.html
Chris Johanson’s first major retrospective opened yesterday at Malmo Konsthall. His kaleidoscopic, total-immersion vision emerges from intimate works on paper, stilted paintings, and architectural sculptures. A monumental pallet pyramid steps toward a bright yellow sun, and stands as the fountainhead of Chris’s honest, ultimately optimistic worldview. A performance by Chris’s band, Sun Foot, provided a calming coda.
To coincide with Art Basel 2011, Chris Johanson will perform on a Rhine-bound cargo ship with his band Sun Foot. The show is enhanced by a multi-part collaboration that includes a human scale installation by Johanson, an immersive projection by Johanna Jackson, and a DJ set by Christopher Garrett.
A mythic polymath, Rammellzee engaged his mystic vision of the world through sculpture, manifesto, rap, and graffiti writing. His manifestos “Iconoclast Panzerism” and “Gothic Futurism” explored graffiti’s ability to liberate the transcendental powers of the alphabet. His unique nasal style of rap, dubbed “gangsta duck,” inspired the likes of Beastie Boys and Cypress Hill. His three-dimensional paintings and signature masks, reminiscent of shamanistic experiments and science-fiction scapes, rendered him legend.
Battle Station, the loft where the artist lived and worked from the mid–1980s for almost 25 years, has been recreated as part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles’s Art in the Streets exhibition. An immersive expression of art and life fully combined, Battle Station presents Rammellzee’s experimental body of work for the first time in a museum. The installation is produced by MOCA Los Angeles, The Suzanne Geiss Company, and The Estate of RAMMELLZEE.
Kristin’s work is displayed in retrospective scope for the first time at The National Art Center Tokyo (NACT). The museum’s annual contemporary art survey presents solo presentations by a carefully selected crew of contemporary artists. This year, NACT brought creatives working outside of Japan into the fold.
Downtown legend Joey Arias helped us celebrate avaf’s labyrinth with a spellbinding dinner-side performance last night. Arias, a good friend of SGC, got his start singing alongside Bowie and Klaus Nomi in the late 70s. He’s now made a forceful solo career of his cabaret-cum-comedy act.
assume vivid astro focus’s archeologist verifies acid flashbacks is a visually explosive labyrinth built from the collective’s signature hybrid-collage wallpapers. In typical avaf style, this mash-up maze consists of zones designed for interaction. Each surface blends abstract bursts of color and light with visual and cultural references to conjure vogue balls, pop pastiches, viral web videos, and baroque carnival sprees. The labyrinth continues onto the façade of the building as a kaleidoscopic mural.
A larger version of the Miami labyrinth was presented in a major 2009 avaf retrospective at The National Museum of Art, Design, and Architecture in Oslo. The unveiling of archeologist verifies acid flashbacks coincided with the release of avaf’s first monograph, published by Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
