‘American Photographs’ is a 75th anniversary re-issue of the book that accompanied Evans’ 1938 MoMA exhibition of the same name. Evans painstakingly picked out all the photographs himself, choosing the ones that would end up defining his enviable legacy as a chronicler of American life.

The 87 crisp duotone plates in this book are as much about the social history of a nation as they are about the art of photography. You might want one of Evans’ photographs on your wall, but you’d hang it for the story as much as for Evans’ undeniably artistic eye.

The book is divided into two parts.

The first section is of American people – close-up portraits, group shots, little figures in the shadows of buildings, film posters and, even, empty rooms that people have apparently just vacated. Some of the images are sad – a jumbled room with hardly any furniture has a plaque saying ‘The LORD will provide’ hanging on one plaster wall – and others (like no. 44, ‘Arkansas Flood Refugee’) are unsettling, verging on voyeuristic. There are, unsurprisingly, a couple that strike us now as seriously racist.

The second part comprises photographs that were included in a 1933 MoMA exhibition, of Evans’ architectural photographs. People are largely missing from these images of quintessentially American clapboard houses, churches and industrial buildings, but there is still a very human, lyrical, story-telling quality to the whole series. This is what 1930s ‘ordinary’ life looks like in the Eastern United States; our perception of the period is due in part to Walker Evans, even if we didn’t know it.

In the original 1938 book, Evans’ friend and patron Lincoln Kirstein (a leading cultural figure in 1930s New York) wrote an essay that has been faithfully reproduced in this edition. It’s a lovely piece that tells us as much about contemporary social ideas as it does about Evans’ pioneering documentary photography.

We also have some valuable notes on the photographic process from MoMA’s Associate Curator in the Department of Photography, Sarah Hermanson Meister. She acknowledges that this re-issue has taken full advantage of digital printing technology, making modifications that closely capture the ‘cool beauty’ of Evans’ originals, but also explicitly says that the creators have scrupulously avoided any ‘digital mischief’, which is a relief…

This book is worth buying, both for its fascinating historical context and the crisp, honest images that, lest we forget, were a lot more difficult to create 75 years ago. Walker Evans books have a tendency to disappear out of print, and it would be a massive shame if you missed it now and had to wait until the centenary for another re-issue.

(For more documentary-style photographs of people just being people, we recommend you check out Diane Arbus. She was one of many photographers influenced by Walker Evans’ work.)

Walker Evans – American Photographs. £24.99

By Jennie Gillions

First up is the annual Streetfest, held at Hearn Street car park in Shoreditch and highlights the talents of up-and-coming and established artists. Look out for the work of Hannah Adamaszek whose work Beautiful Crime has been following and the crew behind the Digital Graffiti Wall, where you can digitally spray your own art work (tried and tested by us – we love it). Fused with live music, urban sport, fashion and spoken word, Streetfest has evolved to become more of an ‘Urban Culture’ festival, but we still think it’s the street artists whose live art stands in the spotlight.

Streetfest is on 5th May 2013, from 1 – 11pm at Hearn Street car park, EC2A 3LS. See here for more info.

StreetFest LDN

Then home to Banksy, Inkie and many more street artists, Bristol is hosting the annual Upfest, which is set to offer audiences yet again another cracking line up of talent – amidst music, live installation, food and dance – as well as live street art. Graffiti, street and illustration artists will cover car parks, a skate park, a subway train, a theatre, beer gardens and streets with their artworks, with other attractions of music, pop-up cafes and stages full of hip hop, RnB and beatbox acts to impress the crowds. This year artist Turroe has created the design for this year’s festival and look out for Faith47, DALeast, C215, Peeta and Inkie. The festival this year is sponsored by POSCA pens.

Upfest will be based at the Tobacco Factory and throughout North Street, Southville, Bristol.

Saturday 25^th May through to Monday 27^th May, 11am-9pm.

Once again Upfest will help raise money for and awareness of The National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA) who offer a confidential phone line for children effected by alcoholism with the family unit.

Upfest 2013

Homepage image: Soulful Crew, photography by Paul Green

Zara Martin

To see the show, head down to Love Hate Social Club, 5 Blenheim Crescent, Notting Hill, London, W11 2EE.

To purchase Fin DAC’s work, please head right here.

Urban Tag

The art fair scene is booming like never before, yet there’s still only very few that offer artists the chance to sell their works wholly on their own, thus gaining all the profits. This week sees the fourth edition of such a key artists’ fair, The Other Art Fair gearing up to satiate our thirst for new art.

A selection committee of industry experts have handpicked 100 of the most exciting and unrepresented artists from across the globe to showcase and sell their pieces of work. You can meet and buy directly from the artists with plenty of artworks under £50 at The Print Shop while performances, talks and live acoustic sessions from London’s best unsigned musicians will ensure the experience is worth the visit.

Naturally, the calibre of artists has grown with each season of The Other Art Fair, and so director Ryan Stanier has matched this standard by launching a whole new look including new features – this season, renowned tattoo artist Mo Coppoletta (who also inks a few peeps at Love Hate Social Club) will also be present offering four new designs to select visitors who wish to brave the pain to be inked by the man himself. The designs can also be bought as limited edition prints exclusively at the fair by the man who has inked the likes of Paloma Faith.

Be sure to catch some art, some inkings and some other exciting activities at the Other Art Fair which runs from the 25^th April to 28^that Ambika P3 in Marylebone.

by Roxy Mirshahi

Entry: Tickets from £6 in advance at www.theotherartfair.com

Richard Zarzi

Fin DAC, copyright Seth Spector

Fin DAC is having a pretty good time at the moment. From Cartegena to LA, and now from Agent O to Belloloha for Beautiful Crime‘s Love Hate Social Club collaboration, Fin DAC’s name is a globally-recognised one on the urban and street art scenes now – from inside gallery walls to various streets on all corners of the Earth. We tore him away from his spray cans for a few minutes to get his views on the popular Belloloha print, before we launch his work officially on Thursday 18th April at the Love Hate Social Club in London’s Notting Hill.

1. Where did you get the inspiration from for the LHSC print?

I simply thought of the type of women who helped to change the image of tattoos in my own mind many years ago – such as Suicide Girls – and recreated one.

2. Many of your female subjects in your work feature tattoos – why is this?

Because I love tattoos on women… It really is that simple. Tattoos say a lot about the wearer and I try to imbue my subjects’ tattoos with a relevant back story.

3. Do you think street art and graffiti are closely tied to the art of tattooing?

Definitely. I know many artists who tattoo as well. The graphic nature of both is similar but also the rock ‘n’ roll edginess too is something that both genres have a liking for.

4. The splash across the eyes of your artworks has become a key signature feature in pretty much all of your works now… where did the idea come from / how did it evolve?

It was a simple exercise in making my girls more iconic. Many people had told me I had to find different subject matter if I wanted to succeed. But I didn’t want to.  Instead I found a way of ensuring that my work was instantly recognisable as mine. The evolution was nothing more than refining how the splash should look… The first drafts were not much different to how they look now.

Tattoo of Killer Instinct

5. We have seen many people have starting having your works tattooed on their arms – that must feel like a big compliment?

It does. I consider it a validation of the work too as those tattoos are essentially there for life… It takes a huge psychological investment for anyone to take that step.

6. How is work in LA & Cartagena going and what are the locals saying about your work?

This trip has been the best in so many ways… I’ve pushed harder than I have before but the results and reaction have been worth it.

7. What do you like about Beautiful Crime working with Love Hate Social Club?

It’s a match made in heaven as far as I’m concerned… A very very cool collaboration to be involved in.

Redemption of Angels by Fin DAC and Dtoar, image by Sean Clark

Fin DAC and work in Cartagena, image by Rainbow Nelson

The cloud will be suspended from the ceiling of the historic building and will be visible from anywhere along the station’s upper terrace. Lucy and Jorge Orta took inspiration from the station as a hub for shoppers and commuters, and the skies of renaissance fresco paintings which are depicted as popular meeting places, filled with laymen, prophets, angels and deities.

According to the duo, the cloud represents, “the intermediary between two worlds – between reality and the imagined, between heaven and earth, between lightness and gravity.” Ironically, the Terrace Wires initiative, – which is the hosting the display, – is helping to turn the station into a destination in itself. With an arcade of shops and public art-works which have become talking-points for many Londoners, St Pancras is becoming more rather than just somewhere to pass through.

Lucy Orta is currently a professor of Art and the Environment at London College of Fashion, and she and Jorge’s studio is located in Paris and at Les Moulins. Their work was chosen by a panel of judges who were impressed by the influence of the station on their designs. It is a great platform for the artists, whose art will be seen by the one million visitors who pass through the station every week. The installation will grace the rafters of St Pancras until early 2014, when a new winner will be selected.

‘Cloud: Meteoros’ will be unveiled on 18th April 2013

by Jo Gilbert

The green Belloloha beauty is in a very low edition number, but is also being donated specifically to Macmillan Cancer Support. Fear not though, as we will be adding new Fin DAC works to the BeautifulCrime.com shop for the launch of Love Hate Social Club vs Beautiful Crime on 19th April. Be sure to pop in to Love Hate Social Club if you’re in London on this date, as original artworks and limited edition collage pieces will be on the walls and available for sale.

For more information about Fin DAC’s Belloloha prints, please contact ruthie@beautifulcrime.com.

Ami James

How did you both meet and how did LoveHate Social Club come about?

Huey and I have known each other for ages. For us to get together and do this project was just a matter of the right time and right place. We had a great idea and we were lucky enough to be able to make it work.

Tell us more about the concept of LoveHate Social Club – it’s a bit different to your usual tattoo parlour isn’t it?

Huey is an artist, I am an artist and we both love what we do. And we are both fortunate that we can make money from what we love. To take what we are good at and blend that together – great music and great art – is where LHSC stemmed from.The rest is just about doing it right.

What made you decide to work with Beautiful Crime and the company’s MD, Liam West and why do you think the LHSC and Beautiful Crime are such a good match for a collaboration?

I feel these two companies compliment each other because they are all about the art and street art as a whole. There have been a lot of efforts to bring these aspects of art to a house hold name. And it is with these great partners that I believe we can make that happen.

Your initial love for tattoos in your teens not only led to your own parlour, then hit tv programme, Miami Ink, but also a jewellery line and designs for a Motorola phone – which have been the most interesting or challenging parts of the story of your career so far?

Miami Ink was a roller coaster ride, that was interesting and challenging, but it taught me a lot. And also opened up a lot of doors and for that, I am again lucky. I feel since then, it is now just up to me to try to bring more quality work to the world and make my businesses be the best that they can be.

What’s your favourite tattoo (on you) and what story does it tell?

Mine is the portrait of my daughter. I have her with me at all times as a reminder to keep me grounded.

What do you think about Fin DAC’s work and in particular the print he’s created for the collaboration?

I think Fin DAC has captured what the soul and essence of what street art is, and he can offer that to people’s living rooms. It is exciting to get a real version of something that was so hard to find, until recently.

To see or purchase Fin DAC’s specially created Belloloha print which was made exclusively for the collaboration, please click here

www.lovehatesocialclub.com

www.beautifulcrime.com/lovehatesocialclub

Below is a video featuring the graffiti work of street artist, Lady Karma, a fantastic peek in to the world of her work.

See Kamakari Collective for more details.

Image courtesy of Liam West.

Part of the collaboration Beautiful Crime are doing with the Love Hate Social Club will see it transform into the UK’s first ever tattoo studio-cum-art gallery in Notting Hill (read more about it here) run by Huey Morgan of Fun Lovin Criminals and Ami James of hit TV programme, Miami Ink. The work of Beautiful Crime artist, Fin DAC  ’Belloloha’ (below) launches next week along with other works featured on the walls of Love Hate Social Club, the first of several interchanging art shows by Beautiful Crime artists during 2013.

‘Belloloha’ is signed and numbered by Fin DAC and also signed by both Huey Morgan and Ami James.

Each print is 55 x 70cm. Both the pink and turquoise versions are available at £125.00 and the metallic silver and metallic gold versions at £150.00. Note that each print is limited to one colour per person.

We are currently taking pre-release sales for Fin DAC’s ‘Belloloha’ screen prints, so if you are interested in purchasing one, two, three or all four versions of the screen prints, please contact ruthie@beautifulcrime.com

'Belloloha' in metallic silver

What’s more, the authors also look at how those with no experience and little budget can invest in art, as well as those (who sometimes also have no experience) with millions in the bank. Usefully, they also look at how to separate the hype from the hyperbole and delve in to the complexities of the art market. Whilst looking at art as investment, Thea and Ethan Wagner also touch upon the idea of collecting art for social, intellectual and emotional reasons – something which is usually clouded by the grip of the art market for many art buyers – old or new.

Our verdict? It’s definitely worth getting a copy of this book – art buyer or not, it’s a great read for those interested in art in all forms. Also take a look at this video which features the authors talking about the book.

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‘Collecting Art for Love, Money and More’ by Thea and Ethan Wagner. £22.95

by Ruthie Holloway

'Studies of a Head' by kennardphillips

“Art workers, artists, writers and musicians have the means through their work to rip through the onslaught of lies and be a part of the movement against this marching inhumanity” is the opening statement from Cat Phillips and Peter Kennard. kennardphillips are artists-cum-activists not to be taken lightly – some of their works feature in the permanent collections of the Tate, V&A and Imperial War Museum, and Banksy was one quoted saying: “I take my hat off to them.” Nice. And we haven’t even told you about the show yet.

Blue Murder is an exhibition which investigates the social decline and conservative ideologies that exist in contemporary society today. The ‘deconstruction of the welfare state’ is represented through hacked up newsprint, charcoal and ink, with layer upon layer of newspaper broadsheets reflecting Cameron’s actions.  Both artists have dedicated their lives to voicing their campaign through activism, and using art as their medium.

'Studies of a Head'

Do we need more artists like this? Yes. In the world of art today, it’s mainly the likes of street artists (like the aforementioned Banksy) which get the limelight for their politically-charged art. Let’s hope kennardphillips will be part of the next movement of activist artists that get politically charged art on gallery walls.

Starting in 2002 in response to the invasion of Iraq, the duo’s work aims to confront power and war across the globe. Campaigning for political and social change, their art is part of those movements that focus on confronting established political and economic systems – effectively they see their work as a ‘visual arm’ of it. Not to be missed.

'Studies of a Head'

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‘Blue Murder’ by kennardphillips

HangUp gallery, 56 Stoke Newington High Street, N16 7PB

Opening hours: Mon-Fri: 10am – 6pm; Sat-Sun: 12 – 6pm

'They Said It Would Get Better' by Fran Williams

27th March – 12th April 2013

We tend to think of an artist’s journey as being a typically solitary one – the expression of one person’s thoughts, feelings and perceptions projected onto a canvas. So when two artists join together to display their work side by side, it can open up a whole new way of looking things and generate new ways of stimulating creative expression.

That is what we are expecting from the upcoming show featuring the work of Matt Small and Fran Williams. ‘The Way We Were’ will see the two artists joining together for the first time with newly commissioned pieces.

Although the artists hail from very different backgrounds (Small has been making waves for several years in the urban art scene with his unique, kaleidoscopic portraits of young black men, whereas Williams began her career in amongst the fine art community) and use very different techniques, their work has found a kinship in the emotive and almost melancholic nature of their portraits.

A work by Matt Small

Shown side by side, the works will contrast and complement each other, showing two very different types of portraiture which seem to share a sense of loneliness and alienation. Williams says of her work, “I relentlessly explore the emotive qualities of paint, surface and form. My ethereal figures that take the viewer on a journey within. The paintings are a visual diary of my life experience so far, as I aim to capture and trap my feelings and emotions in paint.”

These emotions certainly leap from the canvas’ of both artists. Watch out for Small’s use of found metal objects – another trademark of the urban artist.

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‘The Way We Were’ – Matt Small and Fran Williams

Signal Gallery, 32 Paul Street, London EC2A 4LB

Opening times: Tues – Sat: 12pm – 6pm

Homepage image by Fran Williams. Words by Jo Gilbert.

Enjoy the ride…

25th April  - 9th May 2013

Opening a show that has a title Beautiful Crime wish we’d thought up, is Opera Gallery, who will exhibit the work of 40 renowned Middle Eastern artists for ‘Peace from the Bottom of my Art’. The show will offer some enlightening perspectives of the word ‘peace’ from artists that include Tanavoli (whose work is worth the most out of all living Iranian artists), Shadi Mahsa, Koorosh Shishegaran, Agheli Ghodratollah, Ramzi  and Shadi Ghadirian.

Curators Leila Varasteh & Vida Zaim  explain “This exposition is a forum to allow different Iranian artists to express their inner feelings toward the world, its structure and their vision regarding the environment they are living in. Beyond the artworks presented, the exhibition ‘Peace from the Bottom of my Art’ is an expression of everyone’s dream of peace.”

Also look out for works by Farsad Labbauf, whose works are on display at the Saatchi Gallery, and Koorosh Shishegaran, whose 3D works have caught the attention of the wider art scene, and placed him as one of the most important figures of the Iranian contemporary art movement.

A work by Shadi Mahsa

Expect a wide range of mediums including photography, painting, sculpture, film and installations all encompassing the main theme of peace at the centre of them.

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Peace from the Bottom of my Art – various artists

Opera Gallery London, 134 New Bond Street, W1S 2TF

Opening hours: Mon-Sat: 10am – 7pm. Sun: 1pm – 7pm

Homepage image by Shadi Mahsa

A work by Tavakolian, 'Newsha'

When I am offered

The show offers a huge insight in to his life (of course it does – it’s a retrospective) but what’s prominent is the communication to us, the audience, of his other self, his being something and someone else in the most heightened form of experimentation with his image, sexuality, art, wardrobe and music. Then it also illuminates the ‘normal guy’ behind the face paint (again, you need the headset for this part). It addresses periods of his life where he was not so high on life – such as in Berlin, where he headed to recuperate after getting over drug addiction, and where he focused on painting (see below).

The suit Bowie wore in the video for 'Life on Mars'.

Bowie is also not shy of being slightly obsessive in the past about wanting to look good – he talks about buying books way beyond his capability of understanding so that he could tuck them in his pocket with the title poking out the top. It’s endearing to hear he him talking as a fellow human (an icon of this calibre is hard to imagine as similar to the rest of us). It’s not hard to imagine how Bowie might have ended up mentally ‘on Mars’ whilst physically on Earth.

A marriage of old and new also takes place at the V&A. Footage of music videos for his most current album, ‘The Next Day’ also play on old-school tvs. Tilda Swinton features in ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’, cutting up raw meat with a chainsaw (we wouldn’t expect anything less from the actress, a lover of the weird and wonderful herself – and a genuine fan of Bowie).

The crystal ball from 'Labyrinth'

The best bits? Seeing the original paper with the lyrics of Starman on it, written in ink by David Bowie. It was a wonderful thing to see the very first stage of something that became such a huge part of Bowie ‘s career, not to mention British (and global!) music history. And if you keep your head set on, you can (quietly) sing along whilst reading the lyrics to the song, written by the man that made the film Labyrinth as cool today as it was when I was eight years old. And if you’re were born in the 80s (as the song goes) you will need to spend a few minutes gawping at the crystal ball and sceptre used in the film.

'Head of Mishima' by David Bowie, 1977.

Go once to this show, but definitely consider going twice.

‘David Bowie is’ at the Victoria and Albert Museum until 11th August 2013

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Words by Ruthie Holloway

Bowie's hand-written lyrics for 'Starman'. (BETTER IMAGE COMING SOON)

Zezão

Renowned urban art critic, artist and curator, Cedar Lewisohn (who Beautiful Crime interviewed last year) has been using his expert curatorial skills yet again… He’s commissioned works from a series of urban and street artists which will pop up along East London’s waterways. The Canals Project will provide areas of London’s waterscapes with original street art and murals by artists from the Ukraine, France and Brazil.

If there’s one thing Lewisohn is good at (though there are many), it’s introducing London to urban art talents from other parts of the world many of us haven’t heard of – but should know about. For some artists, such as Interesni Kazki, this will be their first time painting in the UK. Other artists include Zezão from São Paulo, Mark Lyken, from Glasgow who will be painting with Teo Moneyless from Lucca, Italy; Remed from Lille, France and Ekta Ekta, from Gothenburg, Sweden. Lewisohn chose these artists for their versatile styles and approach to any given subject matter, and is proactively encouraging involvement from the community – something that more recently, street art can encourage.

Remed

The Canals Project is commissioned by The Legacy List and is one of the first projects to benefit from a new corporate partnership with Bloomberg LLP. Lewisohn has commented on the project, saying ”I am delighted to bring these enormously talented artists to The Canals Project. They are all highly regarded innovators of the hugely popular street art movement, and each pushes the boundaries of what street art can be. I hope that the project will prove to be intelligent, accessible, and fun to a wide range of audiences, both in the local community and from further afield.”

Mark Lyken

Look out for the new artworks at Hertford Union Canal and Lee Navigation in Hackney Wick.

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Teo Moneyless

Follow the projects here:

www.facebook.com/TheCanalsProject

www.twitter.com/CanalsProject

Interesni Kazki

Ekta Ekta

Homepage image by Interesni Kazki

Ever wondered what kind of sleeper you are? Are you the type to toss and turn, or wake up in the same position you started? If filming yourself Paranormal Activity-style doesn’t appeal, then you might like the Sleep Art app from ibis, which not only tells you what kind of night you’ve had, but transforms your sleep patterns into a beautiful and unique work of art.  Give ibis a pat on the back for implementing such an engaging campaign via the outcome of interactive and digital art. Key players? You, the consumer of course. But this one is well worth trying out. And you can turn the artwork in to a canvas if you so wish – the sleep pattern outcomes are very pretty indeed.

So how does it work? The app captures data from the sounds, movements and vibrations you make during the night and converts these signals into virtual brush strokes on a digital canvas. Simply set the alarm, plug in your iPhone and place it on the mattress near or next to you. Instead of your usual detested alarm tone, you will wake up to a gentle tune and a personalised work of art on your pillow.

In the morning, users can chart their picture’s progress minute and by minute on screen to see how it was created and have the option to share with friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

Jamie Theakston joined the trend this week by sharing his Sleep Art with his Twitter followers. As the host of Heart FM’s breakfast show, Theakston is someone who knows a thing or two about alarm clocks and early mornings. He is partnering with ibis to champion the importance of a good night’s sleep throughout March – which is also National Bed Month, – in the run up to British Summer-time which begins on the 31st March (it can’t come sooner).

The Sleep Art app, available for new generation iPhones and the iOS 5 and 6 operating systems is free of charge for all. Download it from here and watch the video of how it works right here.  And if you give it a go, don’t forget to tweet about it! #ibissleepart

by Jo Gilbert

21st – 24th March 2013

Exploring the unpredictable nature of love is the next theme for Charming Baker, in this, his largest show to date at the much talked about Milk Studios in LA. Baker shot to art fame in a flash, starting out in a South London council flat-cum-studio before achieving a sell out show at Truman Brewery five years later. Just goes to show you never know what’s round the corner… as the art market suddenly found out.

20 paintings as well as prints and sculptures fill the space, which forms a solo show which has much to live up to: his New York solo show also sold out and other projects he’s been involved in since have gained him huge recognition as one of the Contemporary Art scene’s ones to watch.

Our LA-based writer reports from the show:

British artist Charming Baker turned LA upside down last night. Along with a gigantic model airplane which was the centrepiece of this show. ‘Love’s Revolution’ is a massive sculptural piece that takes the form of a 28 foot child’s toy airplane inverted – a motive repeated in a snow globe, on canvas and in print format.

Even the Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Rosamund Pike turned up for the opening night.

‘Lie Down I Think I Love You’ – Charming Baker

Milk Studios, LA

If you haven’t seen

The notion of deceased pop culture icons has had even more limelight recently, with the Tu Pac hologram at Coachella and various other advertising campaigns such as the Dior perfume advert featuring Marilyn Monroe and other stars. Why do you think we have such a fixation on these people, like the people in your Forever 27 artwork?

Photo Opp (landscape) 2012

There’s no doubting the public fascination with celebrity… just look how many magazines and newspapers are sold off the back of it – plus the ratings for the celeb reality shows are staggering. And none of us are immune to it, I have my heroes too. I guess it’s escapism. But while there are many celebrities these days, few become legends.

Sometimes icons are created because they die too young and remain beautiful and relatively untainted for ever. James Dean, Marilyn, Tu Pac – we will never see them old and balding and we’ll never see them sellout, make a duff movie, album or grab a desperate appearance on a reality TV show. And then there’s the tragedy of work we will never see them create – John Lennon – what more would he have achieved had it not been for his killer, Mark Chapman?

‘Twenty Seven‘ tapped in to the mystery surrounding the Forever 27 club. I had wanted to do the print for ages. But while there are many members of the club I felt at the time there were only seven truly iconic musicians. Then Amy Winehouse tragically died which brought the number up to eight. I was looking at a Paul Insect print that I have at home and saw how he had laid out a series of eight head and shoulder shots in a grid of nine. The last square was blank and I thought wow, that would work. The empty square in 27 makes quite a statement – who will be next? And it’s received a lot of feedback. I like the fact an empty box made such an impact.

We don’t produce as many legends today as we used to. Maybe it’s the over exposure of our modern celebrities. We get too familiar or perhaps too close to them and the magic is spoilt. Maybe too many TV shows, magazine interviews and pictures of celebs pushing prams in the park are diluting the star status – and now with Twitter and Facebook we have 24/7 access to our idols. We can even insult them over the internet, for example, #ihateherorhim. So we look back to a bygone era where access to celebrities through the media was less widespread and we only really saw them performing, not grabbing a photo opportunity.

'Twenty Seven' 2012

Pictures that catch my eye are the candid shots of yesteryear. When press photographers spent time with their subjects and took beautiful black and white portrait shots in members’ clubs with a cigarette or a drink in one hand – you’ll never see this today… unless it’s been snatched on a camera phone and the quality of image is just not there. You see stylised pictures, airbrushed and doctored to create unachievable, yet supposedly perfect images of how people should be.

How do you get the rights to use the photographs of the icons featured in your work and how did it all start?

It all started after a trip to the Affordable Art Fair a few years back.  I reckoned I could do better than some of the work available. My girlfriend told me to stop talking about it and get on with it.  So I designed a print, created the artwork, took it along to Jealous print studios and commissioned them to produce an edition of 25. My work was at the next AAF – I sold 24 prints.

The easy answer for how I gain the right to use the images I use, is lots of different ways. Public domain images are good – although sometimes risky – but I have great contacts in the newspaper industry and this has given me access to a massive picture library. I also license images direct from picture agencies.

There was a particular image I wanted to use for the canvas work I produced for the Joss Parkes ‘Something Special’ charity art auction in Shoreditch on 14th March. For this, I found an amazing public domain image of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull. The edition was printed first and then messed around with in different colour ways. We also filmed it.

'Mouse Arrest' 2012

For ‘Mouse Arrest‘ I created the image from several different pictures. Added an arm in here and leg in there, bits of it I drew from scratch. I actually created a colour photo-realistic image and then deconstructed it to look a bit like an old newspaper picture. Sometimes a lot of work goes into making something look battered. Mickey was taken from a holiday pic snapped at Disneyland.  The coppers are real officers – sometimes I wonder if they’d recognise themselves in the print… and what they’d think. But I won’t be sending the Met a copy to find out!

What sort of screen prints and other works are you looking to do next?

“The next collection of prints are in progress, the ideas are formed and roughed out and I’ll be starting on the artwork when I get back from LA – I’m there for Charming Baker’s latest show. I also have several acid etched stainless steel pieces I’m working on too.”

Any shows we can see your work in, London or otherwise?

“I’ve just done a few shows, and the next London show is at the planning stage right now. I want there to be a mix of canvas work, plywood and stainless steel, and other media than just the prints, so there’s a great deal of work and experimenting to do. It’s likely I’ll be having a new London show towards the end of this summer.”

Who in the art world do you admire and why?

“Pretty much everybody who’s doing their own thing and getting by. I love the support and shared interest among the art community.

Artists whose work I particularly admire are Greg Gossel, Charming Baker and Marybeth Rothman. I’ve met a lot of artists recently and one of the many things they all have in common is their drive. Antony Micallef and Adam Bridgeland have been very supportive as has Ryan Callanan (RYCA) – and Ryan is incredibly industrious and a phenomenal craftsman/technician as well as a major creative force.

I love spending time at Jealous Studios – there’s such a buzz going on there. The word “no” just doesn’t exist. Everybody chips in with ideas or solutions – it’s a great place to work. And of course I can’t forget my friends at Beautiful Crime.”

'Elvis Presley' 2012

What do you think of the art scene in general? Is it too saturated, are there too many art fairs and what sort of future do you think it has?

“I think it’s very healthy. It’s an exciting time to be involved in the industry and despite naming two Americans previously, I think the Brit contemporary and urban art scene rules the world. While art may be perceived as a luxury and as such, prone to suffer in a difficult economy – my observations are the opposite. It seems very bouyant right now. New fairs keep popping up – but this can only be a reflection of the market.

From what I’ve heard Art13 was a success. If people don’t buy at these fairs then the galleries won’t take stalls and the shows won’t exist.

The art industry finally seems to be getting the recognition it deserves for its part in political and social commentary – an area that music seems to have forgotten. When I was a teenager bands sang about bringing down governments. Nowadays you are more likely to see bands attending garden parties. It’s like punk never happened.

As for the future? Like Joe Strummer said, it’s unwritten…”

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You can see more of Russell Marshall’s work and available works for sale right here.

by Smates

Sometimes it impresses us just how many talented street artists stick to the walls rather than applying such great works of art on canvas, especially when their work is as good as this. This is the street art of Smates (Bart Smeets), the artist from Belgium whose murals pop up on various walls around Brussels, much to the delight of the city’s inhabitants.

Along with these, is his popular ‘Vandal’s Bedroom’, an installation which was recently shown at the LA MOCA’s Art in the Streets exhibition. The piece – not just a bedroom-cum-battleground – perhaps more importantly pays homage to the NY street art scene’s diverse and often controversial yet expressive past. Expect letters that recall the graffiti of the 80s subway scene, as well as chaotic colour, slogans and images. A career highlight for James was one of his earliest installations: “One that stands out was in the very beginning when me and Steve Powers found out we would get a grant from the ICA in Philadelphia to make Street Market. We had only done one small show before that,” he told us.

Blue Shade Tree. 2013 (c) Todd James

The ‘World Domination’ title of the show pays homage to London’s WD crew, a.k.a. World Domination, who were active in the 80s. Certainly this show promises to be a bit of a history lesson in graffiti and street art from one of its earliest members, focusing on a time when it was just starting to make the art world sit up and notice.

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‘World Domination’ – Todd James

Lazarides Rathbone, 11 Rathbone Place, London, W1T 1HR 

Opening hours: Tues-Sat: 11am – 7pm

Avacado Sea and Banana Clips (c) Todd James

With an in-depth analysis of renowned contemporary video, as well as multidisciplinary artists, author Joan Truckenbrod draws upon contemporary cultural studios and forges links with social, political and economic agendas. Artists under discussion include: Susan Collins, Tim Head, Tony Oursler, Bill Viola, Ann Hamilton, Joan Truckenbrod, Shigeko Kubota, Alan Rath, Nam June Paik, Krzysztof Wodiczko and Jaume Plensa.

The sculptural aspect of video is maintained through the belief in activating sculptural forms whereby they take on new meanings. Through memories, associations and the viewer’s response, the line between video art and the life it mirrors is becoming wafer thin. As we are well aware, with the art world moving forward, technologies in art have allowed for a new space within contemporary visual culture – and this is only the very beginning.

‘The Paradoxical Object: Video Film Sculpture’ by Black Dog Publishing
Price: £24.95

by Natalya Paul

It is Olek however, that is making the contemporary art world look up most recently, with an exhibition of works at Jonathan LeVine gallery in New York. Well-known for her Charging Bull street installation, which saw her cover a sculpture of a bull with crocheted wool on Wall Street (ten points for getting away with it), Olek has created a series of 2D wall pieces and 3D sculptures which are a mixture of camouflage backgrounds and pretty unassuming fonts that shout boldly deeper messages.

Mixing the home sweet home image of crocheting with bold subject matter such as death, love and money with objects like skulls, skeletons and boxing gloves is the winning formula in these works.

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‘The End Is Far’ – Olek

Jonathan LeVine Gallery
529 West 20th Street, 9th floor
New York, NY 10011

Below is a video of ‘Simulcra: Projections in a Church‘ which took place last year in a neo-gothic church in Brooklyn. “The content questions the rapid parade of simulations making up our post-modern human experience” say the artists.  Watch as the light bleeds across the curves of the church ceiling , it’s inspiring stuff.

For Karkonosze’s Festival of Lights, Augsburg Church got a similar treatment. ‘Genesis of the World’ mixed video mapping and audiovisual mayhem to the mix. (Photos below)

“Simulacra” was created by Ryan Uzilevsky and produced by Light Harvest Studio and Bobby Redd. The work features sound design by Brandon Wolcott and Sky White Tiger. Animation by Whitney Alexander, and 3D camera by Kevin Bleach.

Image from David Burn

Mixing old generation street artists with new, forms the basis of Thierry Noir and Stik’s most recent collaboration with Street Art London – painting the outside of street art hotspot, Village Underground. We spoke to Stik about the project, before both artists give a talk at The Courtauld Institute of Art at Somerset House about the political significance of street art which takes place tonight (see below for ticket information).

Berlin street artist, Thierry Noir is best known for spray-painting the Berlin wall from 1984 until 1989, when it’s fall marked an important part of political history. He is a key figure in the political side of street art, arguably one of its most important strands. A privilege then, for Londoners to see some of his work in the East London location, and also for Stik, whose stick men have been gracing London in the last 4 years. On working with Thierry Noir, Stik told Beautiful Crime, “It is important for me to make a connection with my lineage in this way. Thierry defined a movement and gave courage to artists like myself to go out and paint the streets, even if it was unofficial at times.”

Image from David Burn

Last time we saw Stik, Beautiful Crime was interviewing Ben Eine on Ebor Street, and we had spoken to Eine about whether it was okay for street artists to work with brands or whether the whole idea of ‘selling out’ can still haunt them. Since it’s such a touchy subject, we thought we’d ask Stik about it too… his answer was impressive: “Different artists have different agendas as far as brand endorsements go. I generally reserve my endorsements for organisations such as Amnesty International and such charities. I have a project with the Big Issue Foundation at the moment.”

Image from David Burn

Stik’s project with Thierry Noir is a fantastic example of the community spirit that can occur in street art and between street artists. Whilst it can get catty (one need only visit the forums of the Urban Art Association to discover some of the overt negativity which gets voiced about street artists), there are many artists who get on with it – for the love of it – and are still pioneering new ways of visual communication regarding social and political messages. “Street art is the original ‘Social Network’” says Stik, referring to the film which uncovers the beginnings of the Facebook age. He adds, “It is important the people have a place to express their feelings and ideas.”

Tickets to the event.

Image from David Burn

The show runs from now until 28th March 2013. Click here for more details.

Such is the sad paradox of Banksy: the man becomes a celebrity artist (albeit in a more dignified and unintentional way than the likes of Warhol or the YBAs) and now, when many look at his work, they see money not the message. The works become a tourist attraction, a visual free-for-all, so how many people – after delighting in the viewing of a Banksy street work  - forget to take in the social commentary his street art is making?

'HEY' by last year's winner Wonwoo Lee

Born out of the emerging talent of the Young British Artists at the infamous Royal College of Art, the second annual Coutts Cowley Manor Arts Award finalists were decided on 28th January, with the exhibition spanning from May to September 2013. The winner will be selected on 7th May, on the launch of the outdoor sculpture appraisal.

The award fosters young talent by providing funding for materials and tutorials as well as showcasing these works in front of a panel of esteemed judges. The panel of judges include  Millicent Wilner, Director at the Gagosian Gallery in London, John Swannell, photographer, artists Mat Collishaw and Polly Morgan, amongst other reputable names. Providing a strong support for the arts and the RCA in particular, the award also presents an opportunity for students to create a commercial commission, as the winning sculpture will be purchased for permanent display within the grounds of Cowley Manor. 

Last year’s winner was Korean artist Wonwoo Lee with his sculpture, ‘HEY’ made of large white painted metal letters. The large letters distort as they reflect on to one of the lakes on the beautiful 55 acre park land.

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May – September 2013

Cowley Manor,(Cowley Manor Hotel),  Gloucestershire,  GL53 9NL

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MSAGallery, 21 Rue d’Arcole, 75004, Paris

Light Show is testament to light art as a genre in itself. It comes in plenty of forms, from neon and LEDs to sensor-reactive lights and light projections. And interestingly, light art not only brings science and technology together with design and functionality, but it doesn’t command an understanding of a lot of tech-y stuff – so forget brain power, you can just enjoy it for what it visually offers.

Light Show also brings together some of the founding and best artists in the genre. Dan Flavin, James Turrell, Nancy Holt and Jenny Holzer are just some of them. Below is a selection of works on display. Pay the Hayward Gallery a visit if you can whilst the show is still on.

For a full list of artists, and more about the show, click here.

Light Show runs until 13th April 2013 at Hayward Gallery.

Jim Campbell, 'Exploded View' 2011. Photo by Linda Nylind.

A work by Leo Villareal

A work by Jenny Holzer

A work by Anthony McCall

Ivan Navarro

Beautiful Crime spotted some new vases recently – with 3D skulls attached to them – so we just had to find out more about what’s up next for the guy whose vases are far better than Grayson Perry’s. 

The Picnic

1. I want to start 10 years ago, with your digital design for ‘The Picnic’, because it’s so different from the final version; you kept the same name for the work despite how far the concept had come. How did that process work?

Well spotted – in 2003 I made a digital collage as preparation for a photo-realist painting. In that period I was developing my style heavily and still finding one that was mine. I had made two very detailed works in oil and wanted to push this technique. I spent a long time on ‘The Picnic’ (1) – it was loosely based on ‘The Picnic’ by Manet, a serene impressionistic painting of nude women and gentlemen dining by a lake. I had the idea to bring this up to date digitally with porn stars, Burger King and elements relevant to contemporary life, like skyscrapers, cars and kitsch, but the work only existed as a digital plan. Then in 2012, I made ‘The Picnic’ (2) as a first experiment in painting on ceramic tiles – 90 of them mounted onto two birch ply panels – incorporating the techniques I’ve used on pots, like precious metals and glazes. When it was complete, I smashed every tile, because it was stronger when ‘deconstructed’. It’s also a comment on Catholicism, as the figures have halos; I’m non religious, so the conscious smashing of the tiles for me is a powerful comment.

Pot with revolvers

2. ‘The Picnic’, like a lot of your canvases and pots, has a slightly nightmarish quality to it – you use children’s illustrations and motifs. Do you pick images you’re fond of, or ones that have also seemed a bit creepy and inverted to you?

Both. In all my work I aim to create a feeling… dreamlike, I’d say, or possibly nightmarish at times. Playful. It might be beautiful, or unsettling, and always edgy. But also, because they’re unplanned and spontaneous, they can go in other directions. Quite often though they incorporate many areas in one, with a carefully balanced tension in the composition. I’m drawn to imagery. I like ambiguity.

3. You use fewer Disney images in your pots and canvases than you used to, but you’ve maintained the childhood illustrations and imagery – do you think there are more stories to tell with the theme?

With childhood yes, that theme is prevalent in all my work. Disney was in my work in 2005, maybe 2007, but it was  looking at the darker side of Disney – linking it to religion and war; placing Mickey Mouse next to Jesus and Hitler was interesting then, but when I saw other artists incorporating Disney I stopped and moved away from it. Same with McDonalds, there are paintings I made in 2004 and 2005 with McDonalds elements in them, but then it was everywhere so I stopped any use of that as a conscious deleting of my own ideas. Though I made a conceptual work in 2012 out of hundreds of Happy Meal toys; I didn’t want to go back to McDonalds, but I liked this idea – it felt relevant to me. I researched Happy Meals and their history and collected about 400 for one work.. So things come back round but in new ways.

You Will Have Fun

4. The relief sculptures on your newest pots are a bit of a departure – you’ve used a lot of the symbolism (skulls, guns) before, of course, but why were you inspired to build them in relief, with no painting this time?

Natural progression. By chance I doodled on a pot from the pound shop in 2004, with a marker pen. That’s where it began. To get a pot like one of my paintings was my initial challenge – new paints to learn, glazes, firing, etc. I wanted to push each pot to a new place. I use 3D mixed media in my paintings, so it was natural to mould 3D objects in clay – brass swallows, guns, hand grenades, hearts, bullets, – and incorporate those into the design. I want freedom of form, like I have freedom of image, so we have made about 50 moulds now. We start with a still wet pot, hand thrown, then I choose what I want to decorate it with and we apply these clay elements, freestyling as we go. I had an idea to make a pot with a hole blasted through it, and that’s now in progress. Like everything, it develops.

Skull pots

5. How did your collaborations come about? You worked with prop-maker Schooney for ‘Boy Soldier’ in 2010, and then there’s your relationship with the wonderful Sicilian potter…

Schooney wasn’t a collaboration as such… I was offered one of his amazing boy soldiers to transform how I wanted to – as a challenge.  One  strong  collaboration was the fashion range with UK designer Sara Berman – we made a dress and a silk scarf, then a bag, and more scarves the following year. To see a painting printed onto fabric is exciting – no two were the same.

With Roberto, the Sicilian, I had been trying for years to find someone to make me pots, as almost every pot I’ve painted in 6 years has sold – they are a strong part of my output. The place in Brighton I had been using to fire my factory pots was more used to ‘baby draws Dad a plate’ stuff, so I was stalled with my ideas and really frustrated. Then one day Roberto went in there looking for a studio and that was it – bang – freedom! Our relationship is one built on respect and trust – my ideas couldn’t come to life with him. But it’s not really a collaboration… I’m employing his technical abilities in clay, like a painter buys a professionally stretched canvas.  But that doesn’t do justice to his passion and dedication to my work with him. I direct him, in a way, and he guides my vision. I like to think I’ve rekindled his passion for clay again, though – before we started working together he was making teapots and cups, and now he’s on fire! I think we’re doing something really exciting.

6. You’re a keen musician, you’ve been a skateboarder, you seem to be influenced by Sailor Jerry images… are there any of your hobbies or interests you think are more prevalent in your work than others?

I love music. It’s my constant  for my six days in the studio, and a vital part of my working practice. Like my art, the music reflects my mood – Mozart fighting Motorhead! I’m musically minded, rather than a keen musician. I can’t read music, but I play the drums and I was in a band. I really enjoyed becoming good enough to play a gig. It’s a release, like piano, which I struggle to play well, but love. My dream is to play boogie woogie like Jools Holland! I skated for many years, it was my first love. I loved the imagery and what it represented. I think I have to let out a lot of pent-up aggression – that’s why painting and music work well, and skating did. I find a peace and calm through art. It’s cathartic. You see this in my paintings, aggression mixed with calm.

TV Eyes

I don’t actually care for Sailor Jerry or tattoo art. I’m not interested at all apart from maybe some Russian prison tattoos. I’ve used the swallow a lot, but that’s more to do with the symbolism of innocence and freedom. I guess music is the main factor in my work now as it’s what energises me when I’m in the studio .

7. How important is your charity work to the way you paint? Are those works commissioned, or existing works that you decide are suitable for the auction/event?

It depends. In 2012 I donated my LOVE print to Teenage Cancer Trust at the Groucho and it sold for £8K – highest sale of the night, which is amazing – and I also spent a week painting a pot for Save a Child. For the British Heart Foundation we printed a one off on canvas, Love In The Garden (2008), and I went up to Coriander studios and applied gold leaf and varnishes by hand. I have an affinity to the charity as it’s linked to CCA galleries, which publish my prints, so we wanted to do something special. Another good one was for Shelter, where we chose a week of the year, and my piece went in the week my son was born, so it was personal to us and the work we donated. There are so many charity events now and you can’t do them all, but it’s hard to say no to, say, children with brain tumours, especially when you’re a parent.

8. And finally, what can we expect from you next?

In February I have my second group show at Cat St Gallery in Hong Kong, which is called ‘Surface Tension’, and there’s the print show at the Royal Academy in April. And we are starting my first book which is really exciting – something to encapsulate the last 23 years and something I’ve always dreamed of doing since art college. I’m illustrating a piece of text by a famous musician for a book project out in L.A with artists and musicians, and doing an album cover for a charity album for Darfur. I’m exploring a whole new concept – a new silkscreen, a dyptch work where figurative meets abstraction, and there’s talk of a  solo show ‘tour’ of the uk with CCA galleries with my silkscreens and the book, which could be great fun.

Interview by Jennie Gillions

Eine's latest work on Ebor Street, East London

To non-art fans, EINE is known as the one whose art was gifted from David Cameron to Barack Obama, or most recently the one who started a mile high club of a very different kind – Virgin Atlantic recently worked with EINE, creating gallery space and the opportunity to sell his works on their planes and in their departure lounges. “£15,000 Eine painting with your vodka, slim-line and soda, M’am?” – we can just picture it. ‘Gallery In The Air’ as it has been named, is most definitely one of a kind. To art fans though, particularly street art fans, Eine is known as the one who big font letters helped kick-start a different sort of communication and visual freedom of speech with the public in East London, over ten years ago.

When I meet with EINE, he is painting what has unofficially become his own street / canvas – Ebor Street, where Shoreditch House resides. For anyone else to paint over his big letters would be infinitely frowned upon by both graffiti and street artists, who carry around with them an unspoken respect for one another, although it can sometimes seem otherwise – street art has some of the most opinionated and catty characters I’ve ever met.

'Change' in East London

We do the interview on the street, with Stik (who Beautiful Crime interviewed last year) not far away. The street, one must remember, is a street artists’ office and meeting place – it is another man’s desk or another’s lunch meeting at The Worseley.  It’s no surprise then, to find one established player chatting to another, with cigarettes and coffee cups, on one very windy (and bloody cold) Wednesday afternoon.

“This artwork has been on this wall for about three years,” says EINE, referring to his massive painted words on Ebor Street. It has effectively become EINE’s permanent territory, “it’s become my little street now,” he acknowledges. EINE though, has made a bigger impression on the world than just this ‘little street’. From big painted words in East London to global recognition, massive shows and even a short creative film highlighting his work, EINE is now in the process of trying to ship most of his the contents of his studio to San Francisco, where he is living for half of each year. Will a gallery be representing him over there? “No-one really represents me,” he tells me. Such is the case with many street artists who do a double-act as artist and agent. “I work with lots of different people on projects, but I do have a major show coming up in LA with Corey Helford on 15th June.” (Those in LA should diarise this one.)

“It’s the first time I’m actually doing a show with them. I’ve been doing some works which feature characters in them – these 60s caricatures of kids, a move away from the letters.” EINE has been finding colouring books for inspiration and taking elements of the drawings from these books for the show. “It’s kids doing naughty  things, so it’ll definitely be a bit different from the usual stuff!”

'Virgin on the Impossible'

The gift to Obama of EINE’s work from David Cameron might have become a bit of an overused reference to him and his work, but Eine would never knock it:  ”The Obama thing definitely helped me break America. I’d done shows in the States before, and I’d normally do alright, but I was only selling under half of my works, but now I’m able to sell the same amount of works to an American audience as I do to a UK audience.” One thing the popularity of the ‘gift’ has also achieved is bringing EINE’s work to the attention of big brands. The idea of street artists collaborating with brands was (and by some, still is) viewed as ‘selling out.’ But in a society where brands increasingly have more power and money to publicise an artists’ work, and also give artists a chance to do something a bit different than a gallery show (most of the top artists do so many) so it’s conceivably inevitable that more and more street artists are starting to work with said big brands.

Eine seems undecided whether it’s become an acceptable thing to do or not: “It’s down to the individual artist whether they want to work with a brand,” he says, “and whether they’re comfortable with it. Personally I’m not hugely comfortable working with brands – but I do! – for example there’s the one I’ve just done with Virgin Atlantic. I did that partly because I think Richard Branson’s pretty cool! Had British Airways asked me to do it, I probably would’ve said no.” Perhaps this is a sign of Virgin’s advertising and marketing working – certainly for EINE, though you’ll be hard-pushed to find someone who hasn’t got a favourite clothes brand or coffee brand – perhaps it’s virtually impossible to be brand-indifferent.

“In an ideal world, I would only paint the streets and do gallery shows, and that would be how I generate all my income, but working with brands gives you the opportunity to do something you wouldn’t normally do AND pay the mortgage. Different projects, different ideas and different locations all make it appealing. It’s personal choice. I don’t think it’s fair to say you’ve sold out because you’re working with brands from time to time – it’s become part of the job!”

You can see Eine’s work on Ebor Street in London right now, in a group show MESS at Galerie le Feuvre in Paris from 21st March and at the Corey Helford gallery from 15th June in LA.

Ebor Street, East London - the other side

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Interview by Ruthie Holloway

On display now as part of Opera Gallery‘s latest show, ‘Contemporary Emotion’.

courtesy of Opera Gallery

courtesy of Opera Gallery

2nd February – 2nd March 2013

Maxim’s work devotes time and attention to a fairytale darkness in many forms. Remember the points in Tim Burton films, or Pan’s Labyrinth, where you feel like the fantasyland has become just a little bit mysteriously dark? Yet your inquisitive nature can’t help but want to know more? This is just a small dose of what it is like to view one of Maxim’s artworks. In the flesh, his works are even stronger. He shines a heavy spotlight on the heritage of his ode to this darkness, with references to gothic literature, medieval paganism and our own primeval instincts playing out in his work.

The production of his paintings relies on various processes – from painting to spraying, from collage to montage, before a heavy resin gloss is applied. Battles between moths and butterflies have become a signature feature of his work, and inspirations from comic book illustrators such as Mobius and Mike Mignola are also present. Expect skulls, bombs, wars, gas masks and bugs amongst a palette of murky purples, charcoals, reds and dark blues.

We’re particularly fond of the butterflies with skulls for faces, though Maxim doesn’t see skulls as a representation of death – more a part of our biological make-up. He sees a type of beauty in things where others might not, and it is this which prevails in his work, along with the visually translated fears and horrors of the world in a post-religious society where destruction is fed to us on a daily basis. It’s definitely dark, but more fruitfully, captures the imagination and the human desire / default to want to know what the world in its darkest nature will offer us next.

If you’re in LA at the moment or over the next month, this is definitely one worth a visit.

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Merry Karnowsky gallery

170 S. La Brea Avenue, (in the Art 170 building) Los Angeles, CA, 90036

www.mkgallery.com

And as you can see, as one local pointed out, they’ve “really pushed the boat out!”

Fin DAC's Mauricamai lady. Image courtesy of Annar_50

A full view of the Duke of Lancaster. Image courtesy of Fragglehunter

Fin DAC. Image © Annar_50

DuDug collective's orange characters. Image © Annar_50

The Prophet for Profit by Me Zero. Image © Annar_50

Work by the Cream Soda Crew. Image © Annar_50

Masked man by Bungle. Image © Annar_50

It’s not every day you get the chance to see Dame Vivienne Westwood posing naked on a sofa, legs akimbo (pubes, vagina and all) with a calming smile and a glint in her eye. This is one of the photographs that stands out

Teller is respected as both a commercial and as an art photographer, but does he lean one way more than the other? The exhibition is a certainly a reflective assemblage of his career, showing his fashion-shoots, personal projects, landscapes and intimate family portraits. He started in the late 80s, when he was cast into the limelight through a photo-shoot of Sinead O’Connor. Teller has an ability to subvert conventional fashion photography, and do something so remarkable with his images, and it is this that puts him up there with the likes of Rankin and La Chapelle.

It is not his intention to shock the viewer, merely find a way to capture the individuals’ personality and if that means lying stark naked on an antique floral sofa, as it was for Vivienne Westwood, then so be it.

Teller has an impressive collection of clients and projects. He has worked with numerous magazines, as well as shooting campaigns for countless brands all seeking his talents – Marc Jacobs , Céline and Yves Saint Lauren are just some of them. Celebrities he has photographed include Lily Cole, Kurt Cobain, Kate Moss, Helena Bonham Carter… the list goes on. Running parallel, his art photography has also generated much praise and prestige with works displayed at the MOMA, Tate Modern and the Venice Biennale.

One must question what it is about his style that differentiates him from other photographers and which allows his practice to filter across fashion and art. Teller affirms in a recent interview: “It’s about me as a whole…I’m just producing work and I try to find channels where I can express myself. That can be a magazine, a book, a poster… whether it’s art or photography I really don’t care.” It is this confidence in his own vision, which may be accountable for his distinctive style, imbued with humour and a unique quality he infuses in every shot.

The staging is important in his photography, but not the posing of the model. Although many A-list celebrities seem to have a good rapport with the photographer, judging on the fact they agree to be photographed for personal projects as well commissions, his practical photo-taking technique can be quite aggressive. He uses two Contax G2 cameras in each hand and proceeds with a continuous barrage of flashing. It’s in-between these flashes, certain emotions emerge from his subjects and he finds that moment which has the power to embody a complex narrative, the split second moment of lost inhibition. None of his photographs are retouched. In an interview Stefano Tonchi editor-in-chief at W magazine gave recently, he praised Teller: “The idea of stripping [the subject] until you’re defenceless – he’s wonderful at that.”

The 49-year-old German-born photographer also shows parts of his personal life in this exhibition. There are examples of his editorial and advertising work in a documentary type set up. In addition, complaint letters which he received when he worked as a writer for the controversial magazine publication Die Zeit are exposed for all to read.

One of his more recent projects, ‘Irene im Wald’ which was first exhibited at The Journal Gallery in Brooklyn is a poignant and personal body of work. The photographs narrate a story based around his mother who is photographed within great woodland landscapes. Teller openly talks about feeling a sense of isolation coming to England as child from Germany, and you can’t help but feel that the series focuses on that exploration of new territory and finding a sense of homeliness within an environment, as well as a tribute of tenderness towards his mother.

It may be the porcelain white body of Vivienne Westwood, the Marc Jacobs ad campaign involving Victoria Beckham saddled inside a bag with her legs dangling out, or the photographs of his more personal life which entice you, but whichever it is, Teller puts on an eclectic show. There is something optimistic about all his photographs, which run deeper than the glossy veneer of a fashion magazine. So is it more art than fashion photography? Its difficult to define it as one more than the other… its an absolute fence-sitter for us.

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Juergen Teller: Woo - 23 January 2013- 17 March 2013

Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH

Opening Hours: Tuesday- Sunday: 11am – 6pm, except Thursday: 11am – 9pm.

The Fastener and Deadly Knitshade were in Ferndale Road, Brixton recently adding their touch of colourful yarned flowers and words in an effort to brighten up Brixton.

What do you think?

One place you don’t expect

In 2005 artists Michael Elmgreen and Ignar Dragset, together with American architects Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello created a Prada store in Marfa as an art project, and one who’s story would be told globally . Miuccia Prada encouraged the project; she even picked out the stock from the A/W collection and allowed the artists to borrow the trademark logo.

Andy Warhol once famously predicted, “All department stores will become museums, and all museums will become department stores” – Prada certainly paid homage to Warhol’s words. They were already at the centre of the media eye with their forward-thinking marketing campaigns and their collaboration with celebrity architect and highly talented Rem Koohaas on the main store designs, exterior and interior.  The New York flagship store features huge interior ramps, manikins floating on varying levels of stairs and elaborate displays, thus the stores became spectacles and subject to a wealth of critique thereafter – perfect timing then, to shout back with a non-functional store-cum-artwork in Marfa.

Not least of all, it showed Prada could poke a bit of fun at their own industry. Ms Prada noted that the ‘store’ was “an intelligent work, and rather than shy away from it, we recognize the strength of its statement.” It goes without saying that this was a far cry from Prada’s flagship store, due to a combination of the non-functional door, the limited stock, and of course, the not-so-prime position in Marfa amidst miles of desert wind and sand.

The desert shop in it’s luxurious untouched state, didn’t last long – it was vandalised after only three days.  The artists didn’t mind: “We purposefully will not preserve Prada Marfa. It will eventually become a ruin so that even in a future decayed state, it will remain relevant to the time in which it was made.”

Along the white exterior wall was written the word ‘DUMB’ in an act of vandalism (it was soon after removed), which only enhanced its power to impress, causing people to consider the opacity of high-end fashion and luxury goods under an umbrella of consumerism and globalisation. But let’s not forget that any brand that can laugh at itself will more often than not, be admired.

The Prada Marfa remains as a decaying building in Western Texas and as a significant contribution to this little piece of Prada (and Marfa) history.

Alexis Hunter

14th March – 19th April 2013

Man Up! is the social expression of today, or other variations of a similar thing, such as “Are You Man Enough? or Be A Man! The latter, Be A Man!, is the title of Sumarria Lunn gallery’s next show, which delves deep into what it means to be a man in modern society – and more to the point, what is expected of men via sexual, social and cultural constructs. It very heavily turns the idea of the male gaze on its head.

The male gaze was a term first used in feminist theory, in association with the cinema by Laura Mulvey. It occurs when the camera puts the audience into the perspective of a heterosexual man. Scopophilia, the pleasure of looking, is also linked closely within the psychoanalytical realms of the male gaze, and can certainly be linked to Alexis Hunter’s work (left and below, last), she herself being an important contributor of 1970′s feminist art. Her attempt to turn the camera back on to the man is all to clear – and probably enjoyably so for the heterosexual woman…

As well as the feminist view, there are also explorations in to what it means to be a man in terms of cultural environments. Mahtab Hussain has spent three years photographing Pakistani communities in Birmingham addressing what it means to be a British Pakistani in today’s world.

Other artists explore other channels: Claude Cahun challenges notions of gender and sexuality whilst Hank Willis Thomas addresses the identity of men by looking at history and pop culture.

This show promises to propose a deep set of questions to all viewers of both sexes. And more than that, it offers a fresh change from the over-analytical subject matter of the female body image which our media so constantly like to explore and examine.

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‘Be A Man!’ – various artists

Artists: Claude Cahun, Alexis Hunter, Mahtab Hussain, Ali Kazim, littlewhitehead, Miguel Rael, Hank Willis Thomas

Sumarria Lunn Gallery, 36 South Molton Lane, London W1K 5AB

Opening hours: Tues – Sat: 11am – 6pm; Sun: 12pm – 5pm

A work by Mahtab Hussain

A work by Claude Cahun

Alexis Hunter

Bruce Nauman, 'Sex and Death / Double "69"' 1985.

30th January – 9th March 2012 

Certainly not one for the easily offended, ‘Mindfuck’ offers a selection of light artist Bruce Nauman’s works, which span his whole career. Curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, the exhibition includes to date, some of the most important contributions to light art as a micro-genre within the contemporary art scene.

Whilst psychoanalysts will, and most likely have had, a field day with Nauman’s work (to say it is heavily wound up in the philosophy of psychoanalysis is an understatement) fans of his work will enjoy a large dose of its central themes: human nature, the mind-body split, language, sex, death and aggression. From the hysteric to the psychotic, and from the commands of the super-ego to the logic of dreams, Nauman’s works have the ability to explore the deep network of the human unconscious.

‘Mindfuck’ marks both the situation and action, the ‘mindfucker’ and the ‘mindfuck’ which will materialise in many a form. The show is accompanied by a book which features a plethora of information about the artist and his work.

Untitled (Helman Gallery Parallelogram) (Detail), 1971

For more information, please click here.

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‘Mindfuck’ – Bruce Nauman

Hauser & Wirth, 23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET

Opening hours: Tues – Sat: 10am – 6pm

'Run From Fear, Fun From Rear' 1972.

7th February- 24th March 2013

Following his well-received series of London based solo projects; David Breuer-Weil brings us ‘Project 4’. The ambitious endeavour includes 70 canvases alongside a number of his sculptures. The artist’s role as both commentator and creator is very much central to the project and avenues such as humanity, philosophy and politics are explored.

Breuer-Weil’s distinct style is categorised by recurring motifs such as: boxes, scrolls, books, distorted landscapes and figures. His compositions are disorientating, eccentric and cinematic as he toys with ideas of territory and belonging. Through the combination of depicting familiar settings, which are manipulated into inconceivable realities, the artist succeeds in creating both a sense of limitation, yet also that of hope and possibility. 

His site-specific projects succeed in creating an authentic edge to his work that wouldn’t be attainable in a white cube type gallery. As a London-born artist, Breuer-Weil’s knowledge of the cityscape and landscape aid in him building a connection through his work and enable him to consider new ways of understanding the encountered space as well as new considerations of cosmological structures.

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‘Project 4’ – David Breuer-Weir

The Vaults, Arch 233, Leake Street, London SE1 7NN

Opening Hours: Mon –Sat: 10am – 6pm; Sunday: 12 – 4pm

Love Hate Social Club vs Beautiful Crime launch the UK’s first tattoo studio-cum-art gallery.

Love Hate Social Club is the hip new tattoo parlour brought to London by Huey Morgan of the legendary Fun Lovin Criminals and Ami James of invincible Miami Ink fame. It’s no secret that urban art and the world of tattoos often collide, so when Huey and Ami asked Beautiful Crime to collaborate, we knew exactly the artist for the job. Fin DAC‘s female portraits more often than not, feature tattooed girls amidst some skilful stencil work and free-hand spraying techniques.

Fin DAC has created a unique hand-finished print, ‘Belloluha’ specially for the project which will be sold through BeautifulCrime.com and which will see Love Hate Social Club become London’s first ever tattoo studio-cum-art gallery featuring the limited edition ‘Belloloha’ screen print and unique originals on paper and canvas.

Fin DAC’s ‘Belloloha’ print:

‘Belloloha’ will be available in 4 colour-ways, each in an hand-finished edition of 30. The colour-ways are pink, turquoise, metallic gold and metallic silver, and each screen print will be signed by Fin DAC, as well as Huey Morgan and Ami James. 

Visitors to the tattoo parlour-meets-art gallery should look out for the ‘Belloloha’ original on wood which can be spotted on the back wall of Love Hate Social Club.

You can contact us at info@beautifulcrime.com for any pre-order enquiries.

Love Hate Social Club:

Huey found worldwide fame with Fun Lovin Criminals and Ami was catapulted into the limelight in 2005 when TLC’s reality television programme Miami Ink – and later, NY Ink – were watched by millions across the globe. Ami, global godfather of body art, then became credited with breaking down the stigmas surrounding tattoos and smashing myths that tattoos are the preserve of ‘sailors, hobos and rock stars’. There’s a fair few lawyers and doctors out there wearing Ami’s art on their sleeves.

Love Hate Social Club will be a hangout for creatives, with live music and events set to enhance its already cool appeal. With Rebecca Morgan, Huey’s wife and an interior designer taking care of the interior of the tattoo parlour, Love Hate Social Club is a marriage of functionality and eclecticism and conceivably, could change the way tattoo parlours are designed in the future. “It’s more like
a salon than an old school tattoo parlour” says Huey. With 60% of their customers being female, it makes perfect sense to create a space which is a stylish hub to hang out in.

For up-to-the-minute news about the collaboration:

BeautifulCrime.com will be covering all aspects of the collaboration with news, interviews and of course, images of Fin DAC’s art and tattoos from the ink-on-skin artists.

And we’ll let you know as soon as the print is available for sale. Needless to say, we’ve already got a waiting list. Contact us at info@beautifulcrime.com for more info and print pre-orders.

We are also pleased to announce that Love Hate Social Club and Beautiful Crime will be collaborating on a number of other projects throughout the year.  Love Hate Social Club & Beautiful Crime Gallery opens to the general public at midday on 19th April 2013.

www.lovehatesocialclub.com

www.beautifulcrime.com

www.beautifulcrime.com/shop/lovehate-social-club

This Red Door

Ah, that postmodern art movement which many can’t quite put their finger on – ‘relational aesthetics’ or more simply put, ‘art as experience.’ This Red Door focuses on such, and raises questions about art going one step further. ‘Relational aesthetics’ is a term coined by French art critic, Nicolas Bourriaud in 1998 which explains the attempts to promote the artist as a catalyst of creativity, rather than performing as the central creator; breaking down the conventional hierarchical structure. This practice encompasses convivial activity, such as social gatherings, dinner parties and a hang out space for open discussions, with an array of art on display and in action. Unravelling the concept is to consider inter-human exchange and interplay of various aesthetics within the space in which they exist. 

Tapping into the notion of ‘art as experience’ are New York artists Jomar Statkun, Jared Friedman and Christopher Stackhouse, who instigated This Red Door. In their mission statement the artists explicate the project as, “a collaborative attempt to expand the terms and conditions that may define studio practice. Our room behind the door is a discursive space where we integrate an address to the plastic arts through a salon styled rotation of objects, tandem lectures, informal talks, literary readings, film/video screenings, short plays, music, dinner parties, among other kinds of impromptu gatherings and aleatory occurrences.” The resident artists transformed the Kunsthalle Galapagos, a space which takes pride in its multi-disciplinary artist-centric space into an experimental art lab. The fruits of collaboration take an ever-evolving form of dialogue, spontaneity and a new found freedom of expression. Kunsthalle Galapagos encourages artists to explore outside the boundaries of commercial concerns, giving birth to organic artistic practice.

This Red Door is typical of the experimental artists emerging from New York. It is a counter-culture movement, where lectures turn into discussions and the intellectual exploration of the arts is made accessible to a wider audience. To create a communal environment within the exhibition space, tables and chairs have been placed in strategic positions. Other comforts include a fridge, so visitors can help themselves to snacks, as well as wifi, responding to visitors’ modern needs, all part of their creating a make-shift living area. Alongside this, there is a hugely engaging programme of future events, as well as constantly rotating exhibitions. Prospective visitors can track whether the door is open through checking the website, which displays – as expected – a big red door, sometimes open, sometimes shut. If you are an insomniac New Yorker at 4am, it’s worth checking out if the This Red Door is open. The founding artists’ ambitious, yet altruistic aims give rise to what can only be described as a micro utopia.

A reassessment of social forms, a world of unimagined journeys, a sustained environment through human exchange can all be found on the other side of This Red Door. As with all Utopian dreams it’s only transient and like the Lost City of Atlantis, it could disappear overnight.

To enter This Red Door at Kunsthalle Galapagos:

Enter on Main Street – when facing the main entrance to Galapagos, go to the side entrance on the right & look for the This Red Door sign and the doorbell, “ring it and we’ll come down to greet you.”

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Kunsthalle Galapagos
16 Main St. at Water, 2nd Floor
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NY
www.kunsthallegalapagos.com

by Natalya Paul

AAD LAB

Now in its fifth year, Kinetica is the only art and design fair in the UK that really cuts the digital and interactive mustard when it comes kinetic, robotic, sound, light, time-based and new media art.

Galleries and art institutions from all over the world – from as far as Japan and Indonesia – will be exhibiting works by established and next-generation artists and designers in this still relatively unacknowledged genre in the art world. A featured exhibition, a series of programmes, talks, presentations and screenings will be on offer, all under the theme of ‘Illusion and Reality.’ Eminent pioneers, experimental artists, performers and key figures in the field of kinetic and electronic art, cybernetics and neurosciences have been invited to participate.

It is perhaps the involvement of Musion, the company behind the Tu Pac hologram at Coachella last year, which will impress most non-industry viewers. They have been asked to help curate the fair’s programme of augmented reality, 3D projection mapping and live performances through their own state of the art holographic screen.

Highlights to look out for include:

Individual: Architectural models and 4D projections from AAD LAB; Giant Wave sculpture by Matthieu Schönholzer; Holographic works by Andras Mengyan – Gallery A22, Budapest; 1960′s Op works by Italian kinetic artist Alberto Biasi; Kinetic work from Indonesia by Edwins Gallery and an ‘Ocean of Light’ by Squidsoup.

A special exhibition: a unique show housed within Kinetica will feature 8 artists which they consider to be pioneering in the contemporary art world in this genre. These include Gregory Barsamian, Tim Lewis, Chris Levine and Christian Zwanniken. The art fair has attracted many collectors including Damien Hirst and Anthony Horowitz.

Kinetica Oxygen Artists: The Oxygen Artists Membership scheme gives 10 up and coming artists the chance to exhibit at Kinetica. For a peak at this year’s talent tipped for the top, click here

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Kinetica Art Fair

Ambika P3, 35 Marylebone Road NW1 5LS

Ticket prices:

Art fair only: £16 at the door / £12 in advance. Concessions: £12 at the door / £10 in advance. Children
under 16: £10 at the door / £8 in advance

Day Ticket (includes fair, talks and performances): £20 at the door / £16 in advance. Concessions: £16 on
the door / £12 in advance. Children under 16: £12 at the door / £10 in advance.

VIP launch ticket (limited availability): £25 (advance sales only)

Website and ticket booking: www.kinetica-artfair.com

'Different Directions' RAE, 2012

Brooklyn street artist RAE is bringing his lively installations made up of found objects and paintings to the heart of London.  Not only do his geometric figures and faces appear to pay tribute to late Picasso works, but he incorporates a smorgasbord of ideas. He admits he “enjoys combing through dumpsters for found objects rather than romantic walks on the beach.”

Perhaps not romantic in the conventional sense, but there is a certain charm to RAE’s hodgepodge creations. New York is also a canvas and playground for him. The position and places of his sculptures are as integral to his practice as the works themselves. RAE is an explorer of unusual places and his works can be found on all sorts of inaccessible spots, for instance, on top of lamp posts. He even refers to himself as a ‘spot stalker’ seeking out hidden locations.

RAE has been involved with the vibrant Brooklyn street scene from an early age, from back in the 80s where his main interests were beat-boxing and girls, before maturing into a curious and passionate collector and creator. Winning a place at art school, he gained a degree in Fine Art.

‘Nocturnal Trips’ will be his first UK show and explores his imaginative, playful style. The ‘trips’ refers to his night-time expeditions on the streets to install his works, where he aims to transform the city in his own way. The title is also evocative of the complex thought processes that can happen at night when you’re unwillingly awake: A feverish state of exaggerated ideas. RAE has tried to capture some of the semi-conscious dream state images in the works for his show.

Toy Face 3 by RAE

Like a myriad of Meccano pieces slotting into each other, RAE’s continuous journey through the darker and untrodden paths, show his natural desire to find light in new places, uncovering inspiration from all facets of daily life; ranging from old detergent bottles to a man’s iridescently, shiny forehead. It will be interesting to see how he translates this idea when he makes his mark in and around East London.

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‘Nocturnal Trips’- RAE, 24^th January- 16^th February 2013

Signal Gallery, 32 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4LB

Opening hours: Tues-Sat: 12 – 6 pm, and by appointment at other times

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Words by Natalya Paul.

RAE 'Face Pastes' in New York

'Oh Jeff... I Love You Too...But...' by Roy Lichtenstein, 1964.

21st February – 27th May 2013

We’re getting in early with this one, because it’s going to be big. For the first time in 20 years, we’re being treated to a major retrospective of Pop Art supremo Roy Lichtenstein. Among the 125 influential paintings and sculptures will be his 1961 painting ‘Look Mickey’ and, of course, ‘Whaam!’ (1963), which is a leading attraction in the Tate Modern’s permanent collection.

Much of Lichtenstein’s work was based on comic strips and popular advertising, so expect comic-influenced pieces like ‘Drowning Girl’ (1963) and ‘Oh Jeff…I Love You, Too…But…’ (1964) to feature heavily, showcasing his ‘Ben-Day Dots’ technique. Also included is his ‘Artist’s Studio’ series (1973-4), a set of five interior paintings that reference Henri Matisse’s 1911 ‘L’Atelier Rouge’.

The exhibition will be complemented by a programme of talks and workshops. We will be reviewing the show nearer the time.

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Lichtenstein: A Retrospective

Tate Modern, Bankside, London SE1 9TG

Opening hours: Sun-Thurs: 10am – 6pm; Fri-Sat: 10am – 10pm

Whaam! 1963 by Roy Lichtenstein 1923-1997

If you haven’t come across Chris Bracey

His neons merge the categories of ‘functional lighting’ and ‘light art’ harmoniously, and have appeared in both Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick films, (my favourite film to feature his work is ‘Blade Runner’) as well cropping up and being commissioned for the excessive delights of David La Chapelle’s photography and the (conceivably) excessive scenes of London’s Soho.

Beautiful Crime has worked with Bracey whose work we sell, as has Eddie Lock and LA gallerist, Guy Hepner. His latest feat, a pop-up shop-cum-neon light curiosity shop, ‘Circus of Soho’ was a huge success, drawing in a huge plethora of art lovers and famous faces (who have consequently and previously bought Bracey’s works – see below for the long impressive list).

Beautiful Crime caught up with London’s ‘neon man’ to find out just how much of Soho he las lit up, which are the most rare and dangerous neon colours and how he got to work with Stanley Kubrick.

An image of 'Circus of Soho'

1) How did you become a neon artist (we hear your father was one of the first neon makers?) and just how much are you responsible for lighting up Soho with your neons?

I did 99% of every sex business in Soho between the 70s and the 90s and dealt with the Soho under world on a daily basis! My first job was in graphic art in Soho. I left there and wanted to work for my Dad making neon and learned the craft. My Dad made the original ‘Raymond Review’ neon in 1957; it was the first striptease sign in the UK. So it was natural for me to go back there and make my mark with my infamous ‘GIRLS GIRS GIRLS’ strapline. If you watch the movie ‘Mona Lisa’, with Michael Caine and Bob Hoskins, it’s got my stuff all over it.

I generally use Murano glass from Venice which is the best and most expensive in the world. Ruby red with 24 carat gold is the hardest to get hold of. Krypton gas is a fabulous colour but if you use too much it is highly radioactive (you know what happened to Superman!) so you have to be careful.

A 'Forever' neon by Chris Bracey

3) Neon by its very nature and use, means you are both a designer providing a service for various clientele as well as an artist making neons for art’s sake / your own self-expression. Which projects or individual neons, in both these roles, have you most enjoyed making?

My favourite job in 40 years was working with David La Chapelle on ‘Vegas Super Nova’. This project went from commercial to contemporary art in its highest form. I was paid £300,000 for the privilege, so it was good in every way.

4) How did you end up making neons for Kubrick, Tim Burton and Bladerunner?

It was a Saturday, August Bank Holiday, and Les Tomkins the designer called me up and said: “Hi Chris, Stanley wants to meet you, bring your magic suitcase.” I had a suitcase which when you opened it, brightly lit up. I met him at Pinewood after a long wait – three hours to be precise! He came to see me on the set, it took two hours to gain his confidence, after which I did every neon he wanted.

I met Tim Burton through my friend Peter Young, the triple Oscar-winning set decorator. He worked on most of Burton’s movies. He [Tim Burton] is a really nice down-to-earth type of guy.

Blade Runner was a long time ago, I did neons for the art department on that project.

Bracey's neons featured in 'Eyes Wide Shut'

5) What projects are you working on next?

I’m just starting a neon project for Jay-Z.

Last week I did a neon ‘Oh Baby Baby’ for the person in L.A. who wrote the hit for Britney Spears. I am also working on various art works for gallery shows and private collectors.

6) What do people say about your work (celebrity, press or other)?

A neon for a Selfridges window featuring David La Chapelle's work

I’ve heard people call my work “glamorous”, “outrageous” and “sexy.” Jude Law once said that my pop up shop in Primrose Hill was the best in the world.

 7) Who have you worked with and who owns your work?

I’ve worked with Tim Burton, Stanley Kubrick, Anton Furzt, Paul Greengrass, Alexander McQueen, Joe Corre, Vivienne Westwood, Mary Portas, David La Chapelle, Rankin, Patrick Cox, Terry De Havilland.

People that own my works are Kate Moss, Jude Law, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Myleene Klass, Richard Bacon, Jamie Oliver, Feargal Sharkey, Daisy Lowe, Nick Grimshaw, Sadie Frost, Emma Freud, Richard Curtis, Gordon Ramsey, John Bishop, Charlene Spittari, Danielle Steel, Ray Winstone and Helen Fielding.

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You can see more of Chris Bracey’s work in our online gallery and shop and in his pop-up, ‘Circus of Soho’ which is open until 15th January 2013. He is also exhibiting in Scream gallery’s ‘The Space Between The Stars‘ show which launches tonight.

Contact us about arranging a neon commission at info@beautifulcrime.com

Bracey's neons featured in one of the Batman films

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Interview by Ruthie Holloway

Helen Tam Ms 1929 by Man Ray. Collection du Centre Pompidou, Paris, AM 1994-394 (3200) © Man Ray Trust, ADAGP Paris © Centre Pompidou

7th February – 27th May 2013

Man Ray Portraits

Despite thinking of himself foremost as a painter, May Ray is probably best known today as a photographer. This, his first major museum retrospective, will showcase more than 150 of his photographic portraits, including subjects as diverse as Pablo Picasso (see below) and and the French actress Catherine Deneuve.

The show concentrates on photographs taken in America and Paris between 1916 and 1968, where he spent the majority of his career, revolutionising aspects of photography and becoming an influential player in both New York Dadaism and the Surrealist movement. Surrealist photographer Lee Miller, also a noted fashion model, will feature in this exhibition as the subject of some of Ray’s most striking images; she and Ray had a long relationship during which she was model, muse and mistress.

‘Man Ray Portraits’

National Portrait Gallery, St Martin’s Place, London WC2H 0HE

Opening hours: Sat – Wed 10am – 6pm; Thu and Fri 10am – 9pm

Pablo Picasso, 1922 by Man Ray

Zurkow was recently accredited with a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship and is known for her cross-disciplinary animation as she explores mankind’s relationship to various eco-systems. ‘Necrocracy’ is a word usually assigned to a government which operates under instructions from a dead leader. Zurkow adopts this notion to explore the geological chronology of oil and the culture of petrochemical production.

The bitforms exhibition features four new projects which outline her ambivalence to the Romanticism era. Whilst engaging in its vocabulary of the almighty force of nature, rather than an attack on science, her works are only reinforced by it, down to the very medium in which she uses to create much of her art, computer technology. Thousands of sketches drawn from life and online research make up the character elements of her animations. At the heart of her exhibition is, ‘Mesocosm (wink,TX)’, depicting landscapes that develop and change over time in response to software-driven data inputs: The artist creates her own series of eco timelines which are looped, with no beginning or end.

(Continued below)

Courtesy of bitforms

Her poignant works explore the theme of decay, and the ever continuing life forms which are a reminder of the fragile line between life and death. In 2011, Zurkow travelled to the high southern plains of Llano Estacado in West Texas where she met naturalists, activists and oilmen in the Permian Basin to discover for herself the geological riches. The drying out of the sea, over millions of years has caused marine micro-organisms to be transmuted into hydrocarbons and this would inspire much of Zurkow’s recent works.

Zurkow’s work responds to the complexities of the landscape, highlighting the independency of humans and hydrocarbons, which transform into petrochemicals achieving a form of rebirth, and even immortality. Her rich use of medium and her constant interplay of references, such as the visual language of early video gaming, as well as her collection of soft sculptures, photography, and historical objects are a cacophony of styles and intellectually demanding. The exploration of environmental issues alongside human’s impact on the world will continue to evolve in Zurcow’s work and spur much conversation.

For more information about her work, please click here.

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Necrocracy – Marina Zurkow, 10th January – 13th January 2013

bitforms gallery, 529 West 20th Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10011

Opening hours: Tues – Sat 11am – 6pm

Words by Natalya Paul

16th – 20th January 2013

The London Art Fair is back again with a host of top galleries and emerging artists ready to flood the Business Design Centre in Islington. Whilst we could harp on about the galleries exhibiting (just see here) we think some of their other strands are worth talking about: take for example, the London Art Fair’s ‘Art Projects‘ which has attracted much attention from the art press for it’s fresh approach and visual allure.

Large-scale installations, solo shows and group displays feature heavily along with some experimental film and video projects. The Hannah Barry gallery will feature works that decipher what it means to be a painter in the 21st century. Last year Salon Vert presented the work, ‘Falling to Silence’ of American-Chinese artist, Lucy Liu - whose art is fast becoming as credible as her acting.  The series of work featured embroidered and stitched skeletal totems which were set among small found objects such as wood, broken glass, butterfly wings or crumpled notes.

Other highlights include a talk by Matthew Collings who looks at how art’s crazy prices affect our experiences of art, as well as talks by Iwona Blazwick, Sue Steward, ArtTactic, Paul Hobson of the Contemporary Art Society, Charles Saumarez Smith and Simon Baker. See the full programme here.

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London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, 52 Upper Street, London N1 0QH

Tessa Farmer

Ticketing information:
Day Ticket: £11.00 adv. / £16.00 on the door / £11.00 conc.
Six Day Ticket (includes Preview Evening): £30.00 adv. / £35.00 on the door
Preview Evening: £25.00 adv. / £30.00 on the door
Child under 12 years old (accompanied by an adult): FREE
Please note: £1.50 booking

London Art Fair

To mark London Underground’s 150th anniversary this year, Beautiful Crime have hunted out 12 of its top art-related happenings, bombings (sticker bombings before you raise your eyebrows) and art projects that have caught your attention on the underground, made you smile (for a split second) and made you forget all the things you find irritating whilst underground… like people talking too loudly, playing their music too loudly, not moving far enough in to the aisle so that you can’t get on, standing on the left of the escalator, worse still – standing still at the top of escalator… we could go on. We imagine you could too.

But enough of that, here’s our top picks:

By an anonymous sticker-bomber

Slightly controversial, but amusing nonetheless.

by Anna Barriball

The ‘Art On The Underground’ series produced many a wonderful artwork, but this one, with its George Orwell ’1984′ / Big Brother-style approach really cracked it.

Seeing double...

Hands up who’s taken a drunk tube journey home… and perhaps even missed your stop and woken up at the end of the line? Another sticker-bomber has some fun with the central line.

Art Below

Art company, Art Below has been seeing to it that the masses get a fair dosage of modern art via its many posters on the underground. This is one of their own pieces, of which we’re a huge fan. Dark humour to boot.

Anonymous sticker-bomber

Yes, yes, another sticker, but they do provide the most laughs. And their effect is second to none. Certainly a trend we hope will continue in to 2013.

Fin DAC's portrait of Jimi Hendrix at Old Street tube

We had to get one of our own in here: in 2010 Fin DAC’s 9-layer hand-sprayed image of Jimi Hendrix was fixed to the wall of Old Street tube station.

Take me back in time

This Doctor Who-inspired reworking of the Central Line’s East section offered a bit of wishful thinking… but would you really want to go back to 1984? We’re thinking the Summer of 1969 might be a better call.

Another comment on eye contact

Too true. One should never get caught looking at anyone on the underground – for some reason it’s become an unwritten rule. Avert your eyes.

Michael Landy

Michael Landy’s art project-cum-promotion for selflessness on the underground was an uplifting feat contrary to the usual ‘first come, first serve’ attitude we usually take when it comes to things like getting a seat.

Sausages and mash

Quite a daft one, but raised a smile, and probably inspired a few passengers about what to have for dinner.

Charles and Camilla

Where the worlds of Facebook and the London Underground collide. Again, this is a slightly dark one.

Walk on the Left

What can we say. We agree.

Words by Ruthie Holloway

Scene From 1984 and Beyond

17th January – 8th March 2013

Irish artist Gerard Byrne has become known for intelligent, witty film installations and photographs that explore how the past aids our understanding of the present. Past works include a narrative of the Loch Ness Monster myth, and a fascinating recreation of a 1963 conversation between sci-fi writers, in which they predicted where we’d be by 1984.

Byrne has been heavily influenced by literature in his work, particularly by Dublin-born Samuel Beckett, whose work Byrne references repeatedly. A series of photographs, each image luridly lit, starts with ‘A country road. A tree. Evening’, a title taken from Beckett’s first stage direction in his play ‘Waiting for Godot’. Byrne’s inspirations also include Minimalism and the history of men’s magazines, and his wide-ranging influences make for a satisfyingly diverse collection of works.

This will be Byrne’s first major UK retrospective, and will include the UK premier of a new multi-screen installation called ‘A man and a woman make love’, which re-enacts a 1920s Surrealist discussion about sexuality and eroticism.

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‘A State of Neutral Pleasure’ - Gerard Byrne

Whitechapel Gallery, 77-82 Whitechapel High Street,London E1 7QX

Opening hours: Tues – Sun 11am – 6pm, except Thu 11am – 9pm

Gerard Byrne

'En Morn' 1947, Kurt Schwitters, courtesy of Pompidou Center

30th January – 12th May 2013

This is the first large-scale show of late works by Kurt Schwitters, who arrived in the UK as a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1940, and later established himself in London as a master of the collage. Schwitters was already a major player in European Dadaism, but the pieces he produced between 1940 and his death in 1948 show a change in style – the Tate will examine how his exile from Germany affected the way he worked.

The exhibition will include more than 150 collages, assemblages and sculptures, many shown in the UK for the first time in over 30 years. It will show how Schwitters invented the concept of ‘Merz’, defined as ‘the combination, for artistic purposes, of all conceivable materials’, and how his pioneering use of found objects and everyday materials influenced artists like Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Hamilton.

Highlights look set to include an early Merz piece, ‘The Skittle Picture’ (1921); ‘Anything with a Stone’ (1941-4), from his 1944 London solo show; and his final installation,The Merz Barn’, a seminal piece of architectural modernism.

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Schwitters in Britain

Tate Britain, Millbank, London SW1P 4RG

Opening hours: Sat – Thu 10am – 6pm; Fri 10am – 10pm

8th – 22nd February 2013

Probably one of the most interesting, unique (and authentic) artists we’ve come across, the faithful dungarees-wearing Butch Antony from Alabama is a self-proclaimed ‘artist, builder and picker of things.’ Anthony is a collector of unusual items ranging from taxidermy, antiques and photographs, and enjoys pairing unusual materials and concepts together to tap into questions surrounding identity.

Amongst other things Anthony is a sculptor, inventor, designer and folk artist. His work knows no bounds and his repertoire includes creating Christmas decorations for The White House, fortune-telling roosters as well as a burning vagina which was his take on the ‘burning man’ tradition.

His first ever UK show, in association with Black Rat Project, has found an appropriate temporary home in Bateman Street, Soho London. Introducing ‘Interwangleism’ to the Brits, the show promises an insight to his collection of found objects, paintings and photographs inspired by his very own art gallery-turned curiosity shop, ‘The Museum of Wonder’ in the backwoods of America’s Deep South.

‘Interwangleism’ is a label he pins to many of his artworks, a self-invented genre which he defines as: “how I look at people and break them down to their primordial beginnings. Almost like x-ray vision, seeing through a person’s clothes, through their skin, and muscles and veins and bones and even their shadow. .. If I make up my own ‘ism,’ no one can say anything or tell me I’m doing it wrong.” His morbid and child-like skeleton paintings are his way of breaking down barriers to unearth a raw and intangible facet of human nature.

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‘Interwangleism’ - Butch Anthony

A show by BlackRatProjects 15 Bateman Street, Soho, London, W1D 3AQ

Opening hours: Mon – Fri 11am – 6pm & Sats 12 – 5pm

Portrait of the artist

Words by Natalya Paul

The documentary explores ideas concerning the city as a canvas for multiple voices, its surfaces as a place for propaganda – both social and political – and also as a platform for change and progression through artistic freedom.

Direction, edition and camera by MaicknucleaR

Featuring the work of Laura Guimarães, Miurrauze, Thiago Império, Sickera, Mozart Fernandes, Gosh, ANIC, Svop, Luiz Lend, Radical Sem Dó Crew, Nakedz Crew and others.

Soundtrack of Fronteira Hits; Zamba

11^th January – 9^th February 2013

Award-winning photographer Nadav Kander has built up an enviable reputation taking beautiful, ‘honest’ portraits that show humans stripped of any affectation, and his next exhibition looks set to boldly continue the theme. In ‘Bodies’, Kander will be showing photographs of six stark naked adults, photographed against plain black backgrounds, inviting visitors to pore over them as we would classical statues.

Kander deliberates evokes Renaissance sculpture in both his poses, and the white marble dust he uses to lighten his subjects’ skin. Kander says one of his influences is the Elizabethan notion of purity as white, which further explains the marble dust and also clarifies his choice of exclusively auburn-haired models – Elizabeth I was, famously, red-haired.

If this show sounds a bit voyeuristic, worry not. Kander really wants you to closely examine these people in all their raw, naked beauty – he’s posed them to look away from the lens, so you won’t be meeting their gaze.

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‘Bodies. 6 Women, 1 Man’ – Nadav Kander

Flowers Gallery, 21 Cork Street, London W1S 3LZ

Opening hours: Mon–Fri: 10am – 6pm; Sat: 10am – 2pm

A portrait of Surrealism's favourite, in 1939.

Trying to pigeonhole Salvador Dalí is like trying to lick your own elbow. So the Pompidou Centre in Paris hasn’t attempted it. Most Dalí exhibitions look either at the ‘good’ pre-WWII years or the ‘bad’ 1960s onwards, when Dalí was as well-known as an egocentric showman as he was a painter, but the Pompidou’s vast retrospective covers his entire rambling, varied, brilliant 60-year career; it was important, the curators thought, to show how Dalí’s early years influenced his later work, and how his later work in turn influenced icons like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.

Visitors enter the exhibition through an egg, a curious start that sets the scene for a weird and wonderful collection of paintings, pen-and-ink drawings, sculptures, manuscripts, photographs and films. The exhibition is divided into seven thematic sections, each one exploring a different facet of Dalí’s inspiration, which means there is no strict chronology, though some of his earliest works do appear at the start. These include a 1921 self-portrait, and a vaguely unsettling painting called ‘The Spectral Cow’ (1928).

The Swallow's Tail — Series On Catastrophes, 1983.

There are so many works here that to name even a quarter would take a long time and be very dull for you, the reader. Suffice to say, the things you would hope to feature, do: ‘The Metamorphosis of Narcissus’ (1937-8); ‘The Persistence of Memory’ (1931); ‘The Temptation of St Anthony’ (1946); ‘Raphaelesque Head Exploding’ (1951); and Dalí’s last painting, ‘(Untitled): Swallow’s Tail and Cellos’, completed shortly before his death in 1983. His 1968 advert for Lanvin chocolate (which, among other well-paid stunts, earned him the unkind anagrammatic nickname ‘Avida Dollars’) is here as well. However, these iconic pieces are almost less interesting than the many lesser-known gems dotted around.

If you aren’t familiar with Dalí’s ability to produce gorgeous, ‘normal’ paintings, then have a look at ‘Image Mediumnique-Paranoiaque’ (1934), which is hung across from an energetic pen-and-ink sketch called ‘Chevalier de la Mort’ (1933) and close to a crayon drawing of a ‘dynamic omelette’. There is a wonderful statue, playing on a recurring theme, of a white Venus with drawers in her, a version of his famous lobster phone, erotic sketches, and politically-charged works created around the time of the Spanish Civil War.

Image Mediumnique-Paranoiaque, 1934

What links all of Dali’s works is an insatiable curiosity, and a passion for experimentation, delving into all sorts of media to see what he could produce. He loved film, and his first experiment, a 1929 collaboration with director Luis Buñuel, was well-received. (Their second, ‘L’Age D’Or’ was banned for being blasphemous and scandalous; you can see for yourself why in this exhibition.) He loved to perform, and made several videos of his stunts – in one from the 1950s he made use of his celebrity status by filming the late actor Bob Hope eating dinner. A particular favourite is a video of Dalí using women in automatic baths, and pigs, to ‘paint’. Watching Dalí on the phone, trying to sell this work to an American art gallery, is just the epitome of unhinged genius.

He also loved theatre; his theatrical work is gathered together in a side section, next to one of the show’s main talking points – an installation that allows visitors to become part of Dalí’s Mae West portrait. The red lips couch is surprisingly comfortable, but unfortunately the queue of people waiting to sit on it was too long for any serious lounging to happen.

Deputy Art Editor, Jennie on the famous Mae West lips sofa

The final section is dark, and shaped like a brain (ah – so the egg makes sense. We start with an embryonic Dalí and leave when he’s fully-formed). It contains mostly photographs, including Philippe Halsman’s shots of Dalí chucking water and having cats thrown at him. By the time you’ve emerged from this wonderful show, Dalí is about as well-rounded a human being as any exhibition is likely to make him. His flaws and quirks are laid bare alongside his brilliance. There will something new to learn about him for most people, so leave your preconceptions at the door.

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‘Dalí’ 

Centre Pompidou, Place Georges Pompidou, Paris, 75004

Opening hours: Weds-Mon: 11am – 11pm; Tues: closed

Bohyun Yoon - Unity (view 2)

Since the 1960s, artists like Robert Irwin, James Turrell and Dan Flavin have manipulated all the qualities that light possesses, from the phenomenological and spiritual to the mobile and transient. That light art has been able to offer the viewer an immersive and interactive experience is nothing new, but thanks to Scream gallery, you can now take a look at what is new in the light art genre and who’s exploring it in ‘The Space Between The Stars.’

One of our affiliated artists, Chris Bracey – who has been making neon artworks and signage since the 70s – will be exhibiting works as well as Bohyun Yoon (Korea), Caroline Jane Harris (UK) James Hopkins (UK), Regine Schumann (Germany), Tsai & Yoshikawa (Japan & Taiwan), Shane McAdams (USA) and Sylvia Hommert (USA).

In particular look our for James Hopkins’ work which will twist the viewer’s judgement, in looking at the dichotomy of light and shadow, reality and illusion; Bohyun Yoon who looks at our social environments and how systems of politics, mass media, technology and science can affect our fragile states of being; Regine Schumann who meshes colour with light, and uses acrylic glass and a special phosphorescent pigment that allow the works to glow from within, whether in day light or UV light; and of course, Chris Bracey, whose pop culture neon words have made their way from Soho to Stanley Kubrick films.

For the full list of artists and their works, click here

Sylvia Hommert

Shane McAdams - Synthetic Landscape 60 (Kayenta)

Regine Schulmann, 2011 installation

'Enjoy' Chris Bracey

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‘The Space Between The Stars’ – various artists.

Scream, 27-28 Eastcastle Street, London W1W 8D

Opening hours Mon-Fri: 10am – ­6pm; Sat: 11am ­‐ 4pm

All details remain strictly confidential.

22nd March – 13th April 2012

‘I love Paris in the Springtime…’ and you’ll love it even more if you visit the Grand Palais early next year. The house of Dior has given 20 international female artists creative freedom for this art-meets-fashion project, inviting them to take inspiration from the prolific world of Dior’s iconic fragrance, Miss Dior. Art will be exhibited by various artists that include Lee Bul from South Korea, Joana Vasconcelos from Portugal, Shirin Neshat from Iran, Liang Yuanwei from China and Carole Benzaken from France.

See our recent review of Joana Vasconcelos’ last show at Haunch of Venison.

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‘Miss Dior et Les Artistes’ – various international female artists

Grand Palais, 3 Avenue du Général Eisenhower, 75008 Paris

Opening hours: Every day except tuesday: 10am – 8pm

16th January – 16th February 2013

The title of this show comes from an essay by Freud, who proposed that ‘uncanny’ doesn’t just mean strange, but strangely familiar. The ‘strangely familiar’ is what links the work of artists Adeline de Monseignat and Berndnaut Smilde, whose own unique brands of uncanny will be found at Ronchini Gallery, London in January.

De Monseignat creates sculptures and installations made of tactile and organic materials, particularly fur, which she encases in glass so that people can’t fulfill their understandable desires to touch and stroke her work! The ‘uncanny’ element comes from the pieces’ resemblance to dead animals, which she acknowledges by calling them ‘creaptures’ (creature – sculpture – geddit?) Look out for ‘Loleta’ (2012), a weirdly cute motorised installation that looks a bit like a brain.

Smilde’s work is very different, but no less interesting. For ‘The Uncanny’ he will be showing a selection of his cloud images, which he creates by using a fog machine to build real clouds inside empty rooms. The clouds last just long enough for him to photograph them, meaning there is a slightly ghostly, ephemeral quality to his work. Sticking with the eerie theme, Ronchini commissioned Smilde to make new pieces for this show, using aerogel, a material made of 99.8% air, to create translucent smoke that hovers hauntingly over buildings.

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‘The Uncanny’ – Adeline de Monseignat and Berndnaut Smilde

Ronchini Gallery, 22 Dering Street, London, W1S 1AN

A boat mural

Ever since his first major solo show in 2010, (watch the video here) Fin DAC has been gaining much attention. And his audiences? Quite varied actually. His street works which he has spent much time working on, have gained him local audiences from aged 5 to 75 in Bogota, Colombia and many different parts of Europe. Across the globe, his canvases have ranged from walls to boats and even the side of a lorry – how’s that for mobile art. An expanding UK audience and the urban art scene have been keeping a watchful eye, whilst global brands and events from the Lulu Guinness to the 2012 London Olympics’ Athletes Village have also seen the Fin DAC treatment come their way.

Always striving for new ways to develop and better his work, both in form and in content, Fin DAC’s unusual spitting technique and exhaustively sharp eye for detail have afforded him a large and growing respect, from lookers-on and keen art lovers to artists and industry folk. Beautiful Crime caught up with him to find out how things have moved on and where things are heading…

Fin DAC makes it mobile: in Paris

“This year has mainly been about travelling and painting the streets – and a boat. I set out to go to as many places as possible to start promoting my work to other nations and nationalities. The scene in London can sometimes be a bugbear for me so recently I’ve found it better to ignore what’s going on here and set my sights further afield. Colombia was first this year and a hard one to top. But trips to France, Ibiza, Poland and two trips to Germany all had major highlights and I met lots of very cool people  and received a lot of love wherever I went.”

How has your work progressed over the last 12 months – any signature features?

Crime LAB project for BEAT club in London

“The paint splash has been the defining feature over the last twelve months and has become so synonymous with my style that I don’t think anyone else dare paint a picture with a similar splash else they be accused of plagiarism. I have strived to paint stencils in a way that no one else does and now I’m kind of known for that. But, I’m branching out into using brushes and anything else I feel will help me get a look and feel that is unique to me. There’s no time to rest on my laurels or start patting myself on the back for anything I’ve achieved so far because there’s so much more I want to achieve.”

How would you describe your work now, it’s subject matter and themes?

“Well I still use the same two models for most of my work and the work still has essentially the same feel to it. I guess you could say that they have become a little more eye-catching or iconic due to my improved and increased use of colour, but I don’t think that’s really for me to decide!”

You’ve been doing a few creative collaborations for brands recently – through Beautiful Crime to highlight your work and also through our sister company Crime LAB, tell us about some of these and what’s been the most enjoyable? What has the reaction been?

“There were so many this year it’s hard to pick highlights. From The Globe at the Athletes Village at London 2012, Leon De Bruxelles’ first venture in the UK and a huge Gorillaz/Manga style wall at ChinaWhite, through to the latest artwork at BEAT, a new club in London and the limited edition hand-sprayed original I did for the Lulu Guinness ‘Eye’ clutch bag. Each and every one of them has afforded me the opportunity to stretch myself and my abilities.”

A Crime LAB project and commission for the Evening Standard

What’s up next in terms of projects and shows?

“I’m trying to get back to Colombia for the Hay Festival at the end of Jan / start of Feb and there are other trips in the pipeline to Istanbul, Brest, Paris and Berlin again. A solo show is also in the pipeline. I don’t like to plan too much as it suppresses the ability to act on a whim and do something mad.”

New paint with collage art work by Fin DAC

Who do you think is doing interesting things in the urban contemporary art scene?

“My favourite artists right now are Carne Griffiths and Morten Andersen but I have little or no idea where they fit into the grand scheme of things. Morten is part of the whole supposed Grafuturism movement but in my opinion his work puts the rest of them to shame. And Carne, well he’s just out on his own… a completely unique, talented and humble individual.”

Fin DAC was interviewed by Ruthie Holloway.

If there’s one person

Beautiful Crime caught up with the art world’s rebel with a cause…

The art you sell is given a lot of labels these days, from street art and urban to contemporary and Outsider art – do you consider it comes under all or just some of these labels? 

“None of them, it’s just art. I don’t like giving art a label.”

How about Outsider art in the wider art scene; do you think it ties in well with street art’s existentialist approach, though perhaps it could be dubbed a bit more rock ‘n’ roll?

Antony Lister

“I think the labels on certain types of art are very narrow, I’ve had lots of shitty emails from people telling me how we’ve bastardised the use of the word ‘Outsider art’. I mean, a lot of the guys are self-taught, some are a bit mental, so they and their work do fit well within the brackets. But the whole movement is so fragmented, I don’t think there’s one umbrella term that can describe it. And then you know, there’s the ridiculous notion that someone like Antony Micallef is still branded as ‘street art’ which is the complete opposite of what he is – he’s a fine artist! I think Outsider art is not so much about the artist but more about the nature of the way things are done. It’s the way we put on shows, the slightly edgy way we do things, standing outside of the mainstream… that’s the more rock ‘n’ roll side of it.”

In terms of digital and interactive art, we see you’ve been working with Doug Foster, who we recently interviewed. Will we see this type of art more often at your galleries?

“This type of art lends itself perfectly to the big spectacular events, shows that happen outside of a gallery – by its nature, it’s very interactive for the public. These type of artists’ works are great for institutions too – spaces where there is a high volume of people going through, but would I have one on my wall at home? I don’t think so. But do they have a stunning impact in certain spaces? Certainly, yes.”

The whole street artists concept of ‘selling out’ is starting to bore art industry folk now – artists need to make money. Is it more acceptable for an artist to work with major brands, no matter how big or how small you are, or does it affect how much your work is worth after a while?

“Depends what brand it is and how they’re doing it.”

JR

Who do you think is doing really interesting art work in a political sense, or socio-political sense nowadays? Has the next Banksy or Shepard Fairey already arrived on the scene?

“There’s not really much going on in the world in terms of political commentary. Things go in waves, you know, and I just think that type of art has not really got a focus right now. The only person you can say who’s out there delivering and striving to get across a really strong political message with his work is JR. His message is easily as strong as Banksy or Shepard’s if not stronger than anything they’ve ever tried to do before.”

Will he be working with JR in the near future? 

Yes.

In some parts of the world, street art is more useful as a freedom of expression or visual manifestation of political protest – are there any parts of the world you’ve been to that street art is a vital tool in this sense?

“On a global level, I haven’t seen a great amount of good political stuff recently, most of it is coming out the Middle East in a very crude and rudimentary form and as a form of protest. People have been doing things out there out of pure desperation, as a reaction to what’s going on around them.”

I’d love to know what you think of Mr Brainwash and his work? We think he’s a bit like Marmite, in that some people hate him and some love him.

“Have you found someone that loves it? I’ll leave my comment at that.”

Who are your artists for the future? Who’s on your ‘next up’ list?

Lucy McLaughlin

“There’s a fair few that are coming through at the moment. Brett Amory for one, he’s making great strides. There’s Borf who’s doing some very interesting work and Antony Lister who’s also doing some great stuff – they’re all really helping to push things along in a wider sense. Then there are also artists like Lucy McLauchlin and Nina Pandolfo.”

How about Micallef, he’s pretty big now… 

“He’s already made it! He’s a genius – him and Conor have both got to a level now where they are firmly, firmly established. I think they’re both exceptionally talented individuals who don’t churn out masses of work, and their work stands the test of time. They are genius painters in the true sense of the word, and two massive success stories from the scene. There’s no ‘fad’ attached to their work, it’s got a timeless quality and that’s what makes it so successful.”

Steve Lazarides was interviewed by Ruthie Holloway.

On a recent visit to Paris

The piece, called Space One, was launched from the Everglades on a device the artist designed himself using a weather balloon. The artwork also had a camera attached to it to record the journey. We’re hoping a species or aliens from another planet have hung it on their wall, lest they have already sold it at auction to an eager bidder.

You can see a clip of the video below:

Invader’s trademark mosiac works of the late 70s archaic computer game first appeared in the late 80s and early 90s when the street art scene in Paris was just taking off. His work has graced many a building’s walls, and has even made it on to other surfaces such as road signs and a sculpture on the bed of the ocean in Cancun.

'Quicken' by Saad Qureshi

If you watched BBC 2′s ‘School of Saatchi‘ back in 2009, you might remember an artist called Saad Qureshi. Qureshi, then aged 25 and a student at the Slade School of Fine Art (he gained his MA in 2010), was a finalist in the much-talked-about programme, in which Charles Saatchi and Tracy Emin were two of the high-profile presenters searching for new contemporary art talent.

Since the programme Qureshi has participated in several group exhibitions, including one at the Saatchi Gallery, showing works that concentrate on the central tenets of his practice – cultural ‘otherness’, and the conflict between following a religion and surviving in the modern world.

Qureshi was born in Bradford, a city well-known for its large Asian community; he describes his ethnicity as British Asian, and his art has consistently demonstrated a wry appreciation of Islamic and Christian shared origins. His installations, sculptures and paintings tend to ask us to look closely at politics – migration, alienation and, in the case of his last showing at Gazelli in 20011, the destruction left by Afghan suicide bombers. This particular piece, ‘Quicken’, looks at religion and, in Qureshi’s own words, ‘the failure of communication’, but in press accompanying the show he was clear that he is not a politician and he does not take sides; he uses his art to explore his personal feelings.

Qureshi made the 2012 Celeste Prize shortlist for this piece – another honour to add to his impressive collection. Prior to appearing on ‘School of Saatchi’ he had won the Red Mansion Prize, established to promote artistic exchange between China and England, and had spent a month in Beijing. The Eastern influences he picked up in China are evident in his first solo exhibition, ‘Other crescents other moons’, which is currently being shown at Gazelli Art House in … The show comprises a series of landscapes based on skewed perception – the ideas for each piece come from the memories of individuals, which are then woven into intricate wood-and-beeswax sculptures that might or might not be accurate representations.

'Other Crescents, Other Moons' by Saad Qureshi

by Jennie Gillions

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‘Other crescents other moons’: Saad Qureshi

Gazelli Art House, 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN

Opening hours: Mon-Fri 10am-6pm; Sat 11am-7pm; Sun 12noon-5pm

Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10.30am-6pm

DIETER REHM "untitled II (blue)" 2011.

PULSE

The idea of fleeing cold, wet England for hot, sunny Miami is very attractive, especially when there’s a leading art fair to visit. Pulse, now in its eighth year, is the US’s foremost fair devoted solely to contemporary art and this year it will showcase an impressive 86 national and international galleries. British interest includes The Fine Art Society Contemporary (London), presenting works by Chris Levine; and Visor Gallery (Valencia) representing British artist Hamish Fulton.

Unsurprisingly for a fair with its headquarters in New York, galleries and artists from the city feature heavily. Director Cornell DeWitt has maintained Pulse’s long-standing relationships with NYC galleries bitforms, Davidson Contemporary and Julie Saul, and has thrown galleries representing acclaimed French street artist Invader, Julianne Swartz and Ken Solomon, into the mix. Add galleries from Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna and what you have is an exciting international event encompassing all media – drawings, paintings, sculptures, performances, installations, and video art. With this line-up, Pulse looks set to keep hold of its reputation as a barometer of the global art market.

If you can’t make it to Miami, Pulse New York will be taking place from 9th-12th May 2013 and Beautiful Crime will of course be giving you the low-down nearer the time.

Art Basel

Need we enlighten you to the art fair scene’s considerably biggest player other than Frieze, Art Basel which will see more than 260 galleries take part on an international scale. Hotly tipped to be the next big thing, or fully established and selling for tons of money, Art Basel is the one to be seen at.

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Pulse Art Fair Miami

The Ice Palace, 1400 North Miami Avenue, Miami

Image by DIETER REHM “untitled II (blue)” 2011. From Andreas Binder gallery.

From 6th December 2012

Smarty Pants Launderette is soon going to be the most interesting place in London to do your washing. Yes, we are absolutely serious, it’s being turned in to an art gallery but it’s not giving up its day job – it will maintain it’s normal function as a launderette throughout.

The idea was developed by Pamphlet, which markets itself as a ’new platform for artists to showcase in public spaces.’  They are turning a working launderette into a permanent art space, showcasing local talent to local people. The exhibition is called ‘Heartbreak’, and will feature 40 London artists responding to the theme of – you guessed it – broken hearts. Pamphlet wanted a light-hearted show for Londoners with tales to tell of lost love and evil exes, and where better for a cathartic public cleanse than in a shop full of industrial tumble dryers?

Ilua Hauck da Silva; 'Dilacerated Heart and the Menace Knickers', 2012

Taking art out of a gallery space might not be a new idea, but putting it in a launderette is certainly a fantastic spin on the ‘art for everyone’ idea. In the show, which is also in support of Art Against Knives, a selection of all submissions will be reproduced into posters that will be sold in support of the charity. The exhibition launches this week, and will include sculpture, painting, drawing, creative writing and film. We will certainly be keeping an eye on it – if it’s a success then who knows? Maybe other unlikely candidates on your local high street will morph into pseudo art galleries.

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‘Heartbreak’ – various artists through Pamplet

Smarty Pants Launderette, 222 Bethnal Green Road, London, E2 0AA.

Opening hours: 10am – 6pm daily.

Opening night: 7pm-10pm

David Bowie taken by Leee Black Childers

5th – 22nd December 2012

Photographer Leee Black Childers was an active witness to one of the most exciting, hedonistic periods in music history, and he’s finally published a book about it. To coincide with the book, titled ‘Drag Queens, Rent Boys, Pick Pockets, Junkies, Rockstars and Punks’, The Vinyl Factory Chelsea is launching a major new exhibition documenting Childers’ insightful pictures of London during the late 1960s-mid 1970s.

Childers’ CV is extraordinary. After arriving in London from Kentucky he became friends with Andy Warhol and stage-managed his legendary musical ‘Pork’ in 1971; heworked on tours for Iggy Pop and Johnny Thunders; he was instrumental in creating Ziggy Stardust and was Bowie’s tour manager for two years.  Unsurprisingly, the photographs he took during those years capture hedonism of the highest order – the epitome of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. As well as Bowie, Warhol and The Sex Pistols, the exhibition will include never-before-seen pictures of Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop.

There will only be 1000 copies of the book (200 of these will be deluxe editions), and they will be available exclusively from The Vinyl Factory and its partner for the exhibition, The Society Club.

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‘Drag Queens, Rent Boys, Pick Pockets, Junkies, Rockstars and Punks’ – Leee Black Childers

The Vinyl Factory Chelsea, 91 Walton St, London SW3 2HP

Opening hours: Mon-Sat 10.30am-6pm

The project highlighted street art’s ability not only to uplift (via a face lift of sorts) communal spaces visually for all and anyone to see and enjoy, but also it’s social ability to bring a community closer together. Other artists involved in the project were Wesam Shadid, Msallam Hdaib, Mazen Shahin, Odai Mohammad, Suhaib Attar, MIKE V. DERDERIAN, Ammar Sinan Mohannad (Hype), Eman Ayid, Nour Ayed Ahmad and Mesmar Bassam.

© Stik

© Stik

Work by one of the other Jordanian artists

You can see more photos of the project and some of the other artists’ work right here.

30th November – 5th December 2012

[s] edition, the online gallery that gives you a chance to own artworks by leading artists such as Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, will – along with other innovation brands – be selling their digital artworks at WIRED magazine’s pop-up shop, sponsored by Samsung Smart TV. Products, exhibits and demonstrations of all things digital will take place, and as well as the digital gallery from [s] edition which Beautiful Crime is looking forward to, key highlights include a flat-pack house you can design yourself from WikiHouse, a glimpse of the future of 3D printing for the home by MakerBot and a tiny networked printer that offers bespoke newspapers every morning from product innovation studio, Berg.

The WIRED film lounge and recording studio will play host to a variety of film screenings and expert talks (details yet to be announced) as well as live audio recording sessions for BBC Radio 4.  And WIRED US will open their 8th annual Pop-Up store in New York later this month.

Check out the WIRED pop up at The Quadrant Arcade, 80 Regent Street, London W1, or click here. 

Each clutch bag, of which there are just 40, comes with a limited edition hand-sprayed original poster by Beautiful Crime’s ‘on fire’ artist right now, Fin DAC. Proof that fashion and art really do mix very well together, the eye motif is a bold new addition to Lulu’s famous lips clutch bags, and a tribute to Dali and the Surrealist and Pop Art movements of times past.

The clutch bags and Fin DAC hand-sprayed posters will be available from 1st December from luluguinness.com

The Lulu Guinness limited edition Eye clutch and Fin DAC's hand-sprayed original.

‘Primal Creation – Planet’ for Hyundai’s Vison Hall.

“Made By Humans’ for Hyundai’s Vision Hall.

‘Super Computer Romantics’ for La Gaîté Lyrique.

Long live Ziggy Stardust costumes

If you were given unprecedented access to the David Bowie archive, which 300 objects would you choose? The V&A’s Theatre and Performance curators had that tough decision to make when they were preparing for ‘David Bowie is’, a unique exhibition of handwritten lyrics, costumes, photography, film, music videos, Bowie’s own instruments and album artwork that trace his extraordinary influence over five decades.

This is the first international retrospective of Bowie’s career – strange, considering how iconic he’s been for so long. He’s been a cultural pioneer, both on his own and in collaboration with important figures working in fashion, sound, graphics, theatre, art and film. Who can forget the Freddie-Buretti-designed Ziggy Stardust bodysuits? Or the lightning-across-the-face photography by Brian Duffy? The originals will be in this exhibition, alongside personal diary entries, sketches and musical scores that give us an idea of how Bowie’s creative processes evolve.

Let's not forget his incredible 'Labyrinth' outfit.

Book your tickets early – this is going to be a big one.
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‘David Bowie is’

Victoria & Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 2RL

Sat – Thu 10am – 5.45pm; Fri 10am – 10pm

21st November 2012 – 25th March 2013

Salvador Dalí polarises people. To many art lovers he is, quite simply, an unrivalled genius; others perceive him as an overrated showman, more concerned with money and fame than with art. For decades critics have argued over the ‘good’ decades of Dalí - the years that produced ‘The Persistence of Memory (Melting watches)’, ‘Le Grand Masturbateur’ and ‘The Metamorphosis of Marcissus’ – versus the ‘bad’ years, which people remember largely for unpopular political affiliations, increasingly bizarre television appearances and adverts for French chocolate. Oh and there’s that Chupa Chups story we mentioned too…

This bold new retrospective at the Georges Pompidou Center, Paris, marries those two apparently competing Dalís for the first time, in an exhibition that features more than 200 works and covers 70 years. Entering through an egg (a play on the concepts of birth and fertility), visitors wind their way through seven sections filled with paintings, sculptures, drawings, film and TV excerpts and photographs before leaving through a brain – the idea is that people have entered a body and departed a fully-formed mind. It’s odd, but then we are talking about Dalí.

The iconic lobster phone

The curators hope that the reconciliation of the artist Dalí with the self-absorbed, obsessive showman will prove to visitors that, despite the derision with which it’s traditionally greeted, his later work was important; for example the exhibition references Dali’s influence on Roy Lichtenstein. Time will tell whether ‘Dalí‘ will finally overtake the Pompidou’s current most popular exhibition of all time – a 1979 retrospective. On Salvador Dalí.

Beautiful Crime will be reviewing the exhibition at the beginning of December.

by Jennie Gillions

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‘Dalí’

Centre Pompidou, 75191 Paris, cedex 04

Opening hours: Sun-Weds: 11am – 9pm; closed Tues; Thu-Sat: 11am – 11pm

The Mae West couch

Read more about it right here or see it at Old Street tube station from 26th November 2012.

Jackson Pollock in paint-flinging action

Whilst a new wave of performance art seeps heavily in to today’s contemporary art scene (Tate even devoted a whole new space – The Tanks – to its revival) Tate Modern has just opened a show which offers the viewer a vital insight in to what happened to painting (and paint) after performance art tackled the art world first time round. Movement, improvised expression, experimental autonomy; art loosened up (much like people, music and everything else did) in the 60′s and 70′s, so that paint was no longer a tool used to make a form or a line. Rather it was chucked, sprayed, dribbled or used to mimic or reflect movement.

David Hockney explains 'A Bigger Splash'

‘A Bigger Splash’ certainly recalls many a painter’s intentions during this period, highlighting this phase of painting’s importance in canonical terms. And whilst it might seem obvious to include Jackson Pollock, his work is undeniably an integral part of the experiment: using paint in an uncontrolled manner, Pollock flung, flicked, and chucked it, in a fashion which still remains hypnotic to watch and offers one of the best depictions of what might best be understood as a ‘performance’ of paint. David Hockney’s ‘A Bigger Splash’ from 1967 offers a slightly different understanding of the substance, which was used and manipulated to represent movement rather than ‘become’ the movement. Other works such as Niki de Saint Phalle’s multi-coloured paintings, which were created by firing a gun at paint-filled plaster, show the reactionary qualities of paint, moving the artist as far away as possible from any type of say in where it might land.

Niki de Saint Phalle

The show appears to steer away in parts from what it’s title might suggest should be an analogy of painting after an injection of another genre in to the art world has influenced it, as opposed to a merging of painting and performance: Cindy Sherman and Bruce Nauman for example, may use paint, but it’s on their faces in face paint format. And the room-filling theatrical sets and backdrops created by contemporary artists look like they are painted for a performance, rather than offering examples of painting as influenced by performance.

But what ‘A Bigger Splash’ does do well, is inform the present state of performance art in it’s new-found position by elaborating on its past. If, as is the usual practice, one looks to the past to make sense of the present, then ‘A Bigger Splash’ at Tate Modern is not only useful but vital.

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By Ruthie Holloway

Image credit: David Hockney looking at A Bigger Splash from bbc.co.uk

Are you an artist?

To find out more about the action-packed heist movie, click here. To be in with a chance of getting you and your work in LA, click here.

a work by Six Point Harness

'The Singing Butler' by Jack Vettriano in 1992.

Testament to the ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try try again’ saying, Jack Vettriano is an artist who proved that public opinion can hold a stronger grip over the approval of an institution. The painter, who’s portfolio was rejected from the Fine Art clan at University of Edinburgh, went on to produce (aside many others) one of the most loved works of our time, ‘The Singing Butler’ which in terms of reproduction, puts the Mona Lisa and Warhol’s Marilyn (and Banksy’s Moss as Marilyn for that matter) in the dark.

For The Great Scot Awards’ 2012, Vettriano has created a new work, ‘Night-time Rituals II’ (below) for an auction which is expected to raise over £100,000. The proceeds from the auction will go to a number of Scottish charities selected by the winners. The Opera Gallery’s Jean David Malat has noted that Vettriano’s works will only go up in value as they are the epitome of what can easily be classed as timeless classics.

'Night-time Rituals II' by Jack Vettriano, 2012.

Of the work, Vettriano says: “I was lucky enough to have been given the Great Scot of the Year Award in 2010 and feel hugely honored that I have somehow ended up in a peer group of recipients that includes Sir Jackie Stewart and Sir Tom Hunter. I was asked to donate a painting for the charity auction and have chosen ‘Night-time Rituals II’, which explores a theme that I like to return to from time to time – it’s about creating an atmosphere of anticipation and indulging in those rare moments where all your senses collide.”

The Great Scot Awards 2012 are sponsored by Aberdeen Asset Management.

Art Istanbul also launched this year, a week-long celebration of art including exhibitions and screenings in the popular town of Beyoğlu, which suitably maximises the hype surrounding the art fair. Now in its 7th year, Contemporary Istanbul offers Turkish and international art including painting, sculpture, video works, installation and limited editions from local and international galleries. With more eyes on an international scale paying closer attention to Turkey’s art talent, this art fair is certainly one to keep an eye on, especially as it offers welcome respite from the money-driven big wigs that flood the media during Frieze Week.

Images from Contemporary Istanbul art fair:

Opening performance by Ozgur Erkok

Krampf gallery

Mario Mauroner Contemporary Art

Riff Art Projects

A performance by Voin De Voin

Image credit: ContemporaryIstanbul.com

Remember when we told you about new stencil book, ‘Stencil Republic’? Well creative heads at Ollystudio have coordinated featured artists from the book to create a limited edition cover, amounting to 50 covers and aptly titled, ‘Bomber Jackets.’ The urban art covers span works by Aiko, Dan Innes, Dr.D, Rene Gagnon, Oriticanoodles, Ezbai, Run Don’t Walk, Ozi A1one, Sr X, Pisa 73, Artist Ouvier, STF and Alto Contrast.

‘Bomber Jackets’ will be released in editions over the next few months. Each edition costs £70 and will include a limited edition signed and numbered ‘Bomber Jacket’ wrapped around the latest of the street art stencil books, ‘Stencil Republic’ and ‘The Street Art Stencil Book’ which come with a certificate of ownership. The first five ‘Bomber Jackets’ editions will be on sale from December via www.ollystudio.co.uk and www.laurenceking.com but there will be a chance to view and purchase these limited edition art books at a launch event and pop up shop at East London favourite, The Griffin pub on Leonard Street in Shoreditch on 6th December. Not only is this a free event, but artists will be signing the books whilst London town DJs spin some tunes – far more hip than your usual Waterstone’s book launch / signing.

‘The Street Art Stencil Book’ book and ‘Stencil Republic’ are also available in Magma, Foyles, Rough Trade, Blackwells, Walther Koenig, Start Men’s Shop, Artwords, and Design Museum.

Chupa Chups logo, as designed by Salvador Dali

How art’s craziest came to design candy’s most loved…

It’s Movember, so who better to talk about than the man with art’s best moustache, Salvador Dali.

In 1969, Dali, then in his mid-60s and living back in his native Catalonia, had a meeting with a friend of his, Enric Bernat, to discuss the marketing for a sweet Bernat had invented. Bernat had developed a new type of lollipop back in 1958 – originally called ‘GOL’ but later changed to ‘Chupa Chups’, after the Spanish ‘chupar’, meaning ‘to suck’. Bernat wasn’t happy with the branding, so he invited Dali for a coffee and a chat.

Dali apparently spent an hour doodling on a piece of paper and came up with a deceptively simple logo, based on a daisy design. You’ve all seen it, right? But how many of you thought about how brilliant an idea it was to put the logo on the top, rather than the side, so it’s always seen intact? The design has changed a bit since then, but it’s still recognisable as the one Dali came up with; you know a brand is pretty genius if it doesn’t need changing in 43 years.

The craft of the Founders of London can be traced back to medieval times, as early as 1365 and is one of the oldest livery companies of the City of London. George Triggs has also been shortlisted for several other prizes including the V&A Sculpture Prize and the also prestigious Threadneedle Prize, and was printed on the front cover of Art Of England magazine earlier this year.

You can check out more of his works in our shop here and look out for Beautiful Crime’s interview with the masterful sculptor, coming soon.

The winning prize by George Triggs

It was a hauntingly beautiful film

The two are totally inter-linked.  Both ‘roles’ are conceptually led and since my concerns, in whatever I am designing or creating, are with intensity and atmosphere one leads very easily to the other. I like it that I can do both.  In architecture and design, you always have to resolve questions that have been posed in the quest for some kind of ideal or perfection.  In art, your job is to explore those notions while unearthing deeply personal feelings.  Artists and designers are lucky as we get to express ourselves fully through our work, whether it be in the design of a hotel or through delving into feelings of disengagement and hidden memory that might be acted out in a hotel such as in the ‘Hotel Kalifornia’ exhibition.

Untitled (no 5) 2009, Heidi Locher

Hotels are like a musical instrument to me, they have a certain kind of rhythm. I can read them and the people in them and hear their inner workings. I feel I can pick up the vibrations, the intensity and the mood. Hotels have a heightened frequency where tensions lurk and rituals are acted out in an extreme atmosphere, which is not really like everyday life. We never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

The ‘Hotel Kalifornia’ exhibition centres on a short film, made in collaboration with Frederick Paxton, which explores the notion of hidden memories and deep personal anguish. It is a haunting investigation into moments of change that leave mental scars hidden deep within the subconscious. The hotel, a container in which to live, houses the traces of these events and becomes a vessel for these memories. Filmed within a modern hotel room created by Studio Locher, it has three sections each focusing on one of the three stages of a woman’s life but, poignantly, all the roles are played by the same actress. The terrible moment of change is seen through the eyes of the child. The teenager suffers the consequences of the trauma while the adult experiences the ultimate cathartic release that, in turn, brings redemption. The slow-motion footage, stylised white lighting and penetrating detail, heighten the physical and emotional aspects creating a ghost-like and claustrophobic atmosphere.

3) What’s next?

A new short film, collaborating with Frederick Paxton again, called Strange Hinterland and a show with the writer Simon Moore called Gold.  Plus a pop-up show to introduce the first series of our couture furniture range.

The idea is to allow Studio Locher the space to pursue fine art commissions, both video and installation, along with conceptual design and architecture rather in the way one of my great heroes, Ai Weiwei, works in his studio on sculpture, installation, film and architecture.  I believe this kind of crossover and collaboration is incredibly rich and gives extraordinary depth to the work.

A still from Heidi Locher's 'Hotel Kalifornia' 2012

4) Your press release said the show was about ‘the geography of loneliness and the heightened intensity of our inner landscape promulgated by such disengagement and absence.’  Is this a reflection of your self in any way or any of your experiences? 

Yes I think the most powerful work is deeply personal.  However, I think that as an artist you have really done your job when the piece takes on a kind of bigger meaning that transcends the personal and touches the audience in a way that directly relates to their own experiences whilst reflecting back to us and the culture we live in.

6) What’s sad / good / bad about today’s culture? If the idea about art is that it is a reflection of our current culture, how do you conceive your work reflects it?

A still from Heidi Locher's 'Hotel Kalifornia' 2012

Good is passion and enthusiasm while bad is mediocrity and cynicism. The writer John-Paul Pryor once reminded me recently of the Andre Gide notion that as society becomes more ugly, art will become more abstract.  I do feel the world is more chaotic and I would like to feel my work reflects the issues we all struggle with as we pursue a creative life.

Locher-Paxton's Lavender House, courtesy of Studio Locher

Whatever will they think of next? we wonder.

World Toilet Day

So how better to alert Londoners to this vitally important campaign than by putting a giant toilet on Boris Johnson’s front lawn? Not his actual home front lawn, but Potters Field Park, in front of City Hall, so the Mayor can see it when he gets to the office (yes, we too are hoping many a TV channel will film it for our amusement). ‘The Public Toilet,’ funded by Domestos, will be a four and a half metre tall ‘squatting sculpture’ (great name) and it’s interactive – the sculpture will have a screen for a ‘face’ and members of the public can become that face for five seconds of toilet fame by uploading a video or photo via www.thepublictoilet.com. Its creator, award-winning installation artist Andrew Shoben of the Greyworld collective (see one of his works below), will unveil it on 19th November 2012. The hope is that art will get us talking about what is for many people a taboo subject.

The Public Toilet digital installation of a five metre tall squatting man – commissioned by Domestos © to raise awareness about World Toilet day on 19th November

Visit World Toilet Day to find out more. And to find out where The Public Toilet will be located, click here.

A new sun: a work by Andrew Shoben in Trafalgar Square earlier this year.

Front page image and credit: The Public Toilet digital installation of a five metre tall squatting man – commissioned by Domestos © to raise awareness about World Toilet day on 19th November.

Lorna May Wadsworth for 100pictures100pounds.com

100pictures100pounds.com launches on 15th November 2012 and we think there will likely be a bit of a scramble to buy Lorna May Wadsworth’s work – and not just because of the affordable price tag. The notion of a’ diffusion line’ of art may at first bring pictures of queuing/barging “get out my way” fashionistas fighting for first dibs on the Martin Margiela collection for H&M, but in concept, it is the answer to today’s savvy consumer or aspirational art buyer’s needs: it’s a one-off collection that has a ‘here today gone tomorrow’ appeal; it oozes affordable exclusivity – these artworks may be cheap in art market terms, but each one is unique; and lastly, each artwork is by one artist worth collecting… Wadsworth had the balls to ask Maggie Thatcher if she could paint her portrait (she has) and her works for 100pictures100pounds.com (pictorial references to the worlds of fashion and film, as well as more traditional landscape and figurative pieces) will give the buyer a small piece of a talented artist whose work is ascending in value.

Lorna May Wadsworth for 100pictures100pounds.com

Note also the wonderfully fresh alternative 100pictures100pounds.com offers to the notion of buying a print in an edition of 100. Granted, you many think the standard of one painting varies to that of the next, but that’s all the more reason to pip other peeps to the post, isn’t it? Head to the website now to grab your favourite.

www.100pictures100pounds.com

Lorna May Wadsworth

Chris Bracey in 'God's Own Junkyard'

21st November 2012 – 15th January 2013

Soho’s Beak St will play host to the next exciting project by affiliated Beautiful Crime artist and unquestionably the king of neon, Chris Bracey, who showed work at the Olympics’ Athlete’s Village, ‘The Globe’ as curated by Beautiful Crime and Eddie Lock. A pop-up store will see new and archived work on display by the artist – who might we add, sometimes has to travel far and wide to find various types of neon, and is one of very few neon artists who actually makes his own works. Bracey’s colourful signage was largely responsible for the transformation of Soho in the 1970s, taking it from a seedy red light district to a vibrant hub of light and pizzazz. His talent with neon caught the attention of the Hollywood film industry, including Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick. Since then he has created pieces for iconic fashion houses, including Burberry and Chloé, has showed at the Victoria and Albert Museum earlier this year, and will be exhibiting at The Emirates Towers, Dubai, in 2013.

No Place Like Utopia

Bracey is the owner of Europe’s largest collection of neon artworks, and a fair percentage of them will be on show at the pop-up store. As well as neon, he will display re-worked furniture, rock slogans and props that both complement his light work and demonstrate his passion for recycling. He loves to repair and resurrect, blending new hand-made neon light pieces with upcycled fairground and circus signs, ensuring that Soho’s extravagant past doesn’t disappear. His work is exciting, brash, and oddly beautiful.
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‘Circus of Soho’ – Chris Bracey

47 Beak Street, London W1F 9SE

Opening hours: 10am – 6pm every day
www.godsownjunkyard.co.uk

'Pretty Vacant' available to buy at EddieLock.co.uk

'I decline. I refuse to recline' Mary Sibande, 2010.

The programme has been made possible thanks to a partnership between Tate and the Nigerian Guaranty Trust Bank, which has funded a new curatorial position occupied by Elvira Dyangani Ose, and a specialist African Acquisition Fund. Tate director, Sir Nicholas Serota, intends to spend £300,000 on works by artists who are part of Africa’s emerging modernist scene. The programme will move African contemporary art from the periphery to its place within modern art’s story.

And it appears that Serota has shrugged off implications that he is practising ‘cultural colonialism’ – taking all the best art out of Africa for the benefit of Western audiences; press so far on the subject suggests he doesn’t believe artists in Africa want their stuff to remain unknown. The suggestion of colonialism is almost insulting really, insinuating that the Tate’s relatively tiny collection will create a major dent in Africa’s artistic culture. Considering the amount of artists who have come out of Black Africa in recent years (Romuald Hazoumè and Gérard Quenum, both from Benin, who have had solo shows at London’s October Gallery, Congolese Chéri Samba, who showed at the Hayward Gallery in 2005, Samuel Fosso, from Cameroon, whose photographs will be included in ‘Across the Board’, and new South African kid-on-the-block Mary Sibande, to name a few) this is palpably not going to be the case, plus, as Serota points out, ‘Across the Board’ will be touring Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria.

'The Inevitable' Ibrahim El-Salahi, 1984.

It might seem strange to talk about an ‘African’ contemporary art scene given that Africa comprises 54 countries, all with their own influences, audiences and cultures. After all, we wouldn’t talk now about a specifically ‘European’ scene. However Elvira Dyangani Ose (who is Spanish but has roots in Equatorial Guinea) believes that art in Africa can be viewed as a more homogenous thing. Interviews with her suggest she still sees it as hugely political, because post-independence politics played such a large part in forming African cultures during the 1960s and 1970s, and are embedded within the African psyche, because art is fundamental to Africans’ everyday lives. She also recognises a pervasive performance element to African art, stemming from local street theatre.

Looking at the artists mentioned above, it’s easy to agree with her on the political nature of African modernist art – Hazoumè’s work, for example, references petrol smuggling and Government finances, and Sibande creates sculptures exploring identity in post-colonial South Africa. The Meschac Gaba piece that Tate will show next year is called ‘Museum of Contemporary African Art 1997-2002’, and consists of twelve rooms arranged into an art gallery – a commentary on the staggering fact that there is no such thing in reality anywhere in Africa.

As far as art being just a part of life, when Beautiful Crime went to Quenum’s show in September he expressed surprise that people thought what he was doing was new and exciting – for him, his sculptures were no better than some of the ‘installations’ his grandmother created in their yard.

'Museum of Contemporary African Art 1997-2002' Meschac Gaba.

What seems clear from Tate’s planned programme is that African contemporary art is every bit as diverse as its European and North American counterparts. Though Tate hasn’t revealed full details of planned acquisitions, ‘Across the Board’ will be worth keeping an eye on – and, hopefully, increased exposure will result in Africa getting the Museum of Contemporary African Art that it surely warrants.

by Jennie Gillions.

You can read more about Tate’s plans here.

A Vhils street piece in Lisbon

30th November 2012 – 5th January 2013

Contrasting somewhat to his previous shows, this exhibition of Vhils’ works focuses more on the individual as affected by the overpowering force of urban environments and their accompanying noise, as created by the communication lines in various cities. His work in such cities as Shanghai and Paris will feature as well as the favelas of Rio and Lisbon.

Vhils, who is best known for his portraits of people created by etching away at a wall or various surfaces and assortments of brickwork, has been exploring the complex relationship between the individual and the urban environment since he started his unique form of street art in his native town of Lisbon. Seeing public space as a territory which is filled with media, advertising, consumerism and various signage, Vhils has learnt how to understand or read urban environments around the globe, and continues to explore an ever-changing rapport with it.

Although Vhils works offers a simple visual appeal, the aesthetics behind them address an important awareness about our relationship with urban spaces.

Vhils in Rio de Janiero, image from Lazinc.com

“This ephemeral character that interests me in my work is the transience I witnessed while growing up, in the street, in the transformation and development, in all the changes: Nothing Lasts Forever…the contrast between the glamour of the new and the decadence of the old. All this ephemeral nature that can be observed in the street says a lot about the state of people and their way of living in a given moment of time.” (Vhils)

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‘Devoid’ – Vhils

Lazarides Rathbone Place, 11 Rathbone Place, London W1T 1HR

Opening times: Tues-Sun: 11am – 7pm

Vhils work in Shanghai

Giles Walker 'Born to be wild'

Opens 10th November 2012

Mike Snelle is back with The Museum of Curiosity, a venture to inspire inquisitive minds by a sea of objects and artworks including taxidermy (Tessa Farmer is exhibiting we’re pleased to hear), skeletons and other animals whose presence has been prolonged in death. Another highlight includes a rare North Italian taxidermy ostrich dating from 1785 and works by Butch Anthony, whose 80 acre compound in Alabama has become a highlight destination for fans of folk art. Other exhibiting artists include Oskar Rink, Giles Walker, Delaney Martin,Taylor Shepherd, Jessica Harrison, Tessa Farmer and Nancy Fouts.

Tessa Farmer 'The Marauding Horde'

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‘The Museum of Curiosity’ featuring various artists

Pertwee, Anderson & Gold Gallery, 15 Bateman St. Soho, London, W1D 3AQ

Opening hours: Mon-Fri: 11am – 6pm; Sun: 12pm – 5pm