Ron Arad at the Downtown Gallery, Paris

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Lemme tell you about this wonderful exhibition: Ron Arad at the Downtown Gallery in Paris. Ron Arad (born 1951) is an Israeli architect, artist and designer.

He's well known for his "furniture/sculpture". He only realized unique pieces or limited edition and some of his tables climb walls instead of being centered in a room! It's up to the owner to hang the "table" on a wall if he's afraid to damage the piece by using it as a coffee table. Also all the shapes are biomorphic and always made in steel, his favorite medium. one remembers his famous shelves Bookworm (1994) which is still produced by the Italian company Kartell. Exhibition runs til the 1st of December...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhfl-YNFi90&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEWGi5DPmzY&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th28XevS1Nk

Eric Clapton’s Gerhard Richter

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!

"A painting by Gerhard Richter from the collection of Eric Clapton has been sold for 21,321,250 GBP ($34.19 million) at auction in London setting a new auction record for a work by a living artist. Acquired by Clapton from Sotheby’s New York Contemporary Art Part One sale in November 2001 for 3,415,750 USD against an estimate of 1,000,000 – 1,500,000 USD, Abstraktes Bild (809-4) sold to an anonymous buyer after three telephone bidders competed for the work for over 5 minutes."

READ MORE: http://www.artmarketblog.com/2012/10/14/eric-claptons-gerhard-richter-sets-auction-record-for-living-artist-artmarketblog-com/

Jean-Baptiste Huynh "Remanence" at the Louvre

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Yesterday night the luckiest of us have had the chance to admire the latest photographs of Jean-Baptiste Huynh at the Louvre. He's a French-born (1966) photographer who's well known for his portraits in black and white. His work is focused on light and lighting. Wether it's a portrait or a still life, the creative process for each shooting is based on essence: an often single subject, a single source of light, a neutral bottom in background. Sonnabend Gallery in NY represents his work, around the notion of transition and of course focusing on the light. The Louvre invited him to exhibit a new series inspired by the museum collection...

In this exhibition he revisits some of the masterpieces that belong to the collection of the Louvre in his own way. A piece of a Greek face, a twilight landscape, the flame of a candle, a skull made of crystal, a strainer... are all highlighted on a deep black background.

Exhibition runs from October 4th to December 31st 2010.

Verschaere performs at Faith Pop Up Store

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
Tonight at 7pm the luckiest of you will have the opportunity to see a new performance of Fabien Verschaere, a French-born artist and one the most promising and emerging French artist. In association with Faith Connexion he's gonna paint a fesco directly on the window. As he already did in Anvers.

For more informations about the artist:

http://delphinedecausans.blogspot.fr/2010/01/fabien-verschaere.html
http://www.artnet.com/artists/fabien-verschaere/

Art meets Fashion

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
If fashion helps to make the spirit of an era, it may be the best way to capture art. Art and fashion have always been linked, with designers sketching from live model muses in the same manner as classical artists. The runways where designers display their creations have even become art performance, as they collaborate with visual artists and musicians. More and more frequently, museum directors curate exhibitions about designer collections or fashion photographs, while in auction houses vintage pieces of haute couture go under the gavel alongside antiquities. There remains very little difference between a classical painting and a piece of Haute Couture; they both stand today as a definition of luxury and commercial demand. The emerging cross overs are multifaceted and varied....

READ MORE

http://www.hautefashiondaily.com/art-meets-fashion

Sigalit Landau: "Soil Nursing" at the Kamel Mennour Gallery

Good morning contemporary art lovers!

The Kamel Mennour Gallery - one of the most famous and well known galleries in Paris - is pleased to announce its latest exhibition which choose to show the new work of Sigalit Landau, an Israeli-born artist (1969) who lives and works in Tel Aviv. As you may know Kamel Mennour is a French self-taught art dealer who became one of the best because of his passion for art and his relation with the artists. Their collaboration started a few years ago and its new exhibition is focused on three videos and several photographs that basically show the viewer the work done by the workers in the olive groves. 

After a very warm welcoming, Kamel explained us and told us about Sigalit work, her inspirations, her goals… Palestinians workers are working on Israeli lands. The tone is set. It's difficult to pay attention to the intensity of her work if we only look at the pictures. the sizes of the videos are huge, monumentales and they reprensent the collect of olives. At the first sight, it seems to be a very calm and peaceful day and suddently the machines are setting off. All the serenity of the scene is gone... We think about the duality between Israelis and Paslestinians. The small farmers, who used to get in the harvest hardly and with their own hands, are suddenly stumped by the arrival of those new machines. The first rom is though : the duality between Israelis ans Palestinians ; the calm of a harvest and the harsh sound of the machines, the sunlight that one can see through the branchs and the sound of the olives falling down from the trees…

In the second room, she decided to show another side of her work. She's one of those women who got the chance to become a mother later in life. This room is dedicated to her maternity, to her fears, to her apprehensions. Her sculptures, all made out of different types of marble, are the perfect representations of pillows that help women to breast-feed their babies.

Once again one can feel the contrast between the unbearable noise of the other room and the serenity of this one. One wants to talk in a low voice !!

Exhibition runs until July 25 and I really encourage all of you that are in Paris to go to see this exhibition ! 

Alighiero Boetti: Game Plan at the MoMA

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
For those who may have missed the opening a few days ago, on July 1^st, it’s one of the most interesting exhibition in New York this summer. Indeed this retrospective is the largest exhibition outside Italy of works by Italian-born artist Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994). This wonderful show was organized by the MoMA in collaboration with the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and the Tate Modern in London.

Alighiero Boetti was a conceptual artist often related to the art movement Arte Povera which is an art movement that was created at the end of the 60s in Italy. Artists used to attack the values of established institutions of government, industry, and culture, and even questioning whether art as the private expression of the individual still had an ethical reason to exist. They are well known for using found objects in their works. Antoni Tapies, Alberto Burri, Pierro Manzoni and Lucio Fontana can also be involved in the Arte Povera but Boetti was one of the leading artists. 

The exhibition is organized according to a chronological order. The first pieces to be seen are his sculptural works, his objects, made in wood, cardboard and aluminum. He gave priority to natural materials… At the beginning of his career his works were essentially made to experiment materials and measurement. Time after time he started to explore notions of duality and multiplicity, order and disorder… Each gallery hidden a trap, a trick, that symbolizes the indissoluble link between the artist and his admirers.

"This exhibition will celebrate the material diversity, conceptual complexity, and visual beauty of Boetti’s work, bringing together his ideas about order and disorder, non-invention, and the way in which the work addresses the whole world, travel, and time, proving him to be one of the most important and influential international artists of his generation." Exhibition is on view until October 1^st.

Laurence Jenkell

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
Here is the latest interview I did with a French-born artist Laurence Jenkell. Well-known in France, her "candies-sculptures" can be seen everywhere in Paris in most of the famous places such as Matignon, Arc, Laduree..... Born in 1965, she used to work in hotel business before becoming an artist. She currently lives and works in South of France.

Your influences range from Pollock to Arman and before being a sculptor you were a painter. What did you learned from those artists and how did they influence you?

I am self-taught and when I started to visit museums, I was literally impressed by the impressionists. I was impressed by the sheer joy of their paint, their innovations, the motion of the colors by small stroke. I used to love the Musee d’Orsay for its unequalled collection of paintings by Monet, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Renoir, Sisley, Degas… What I basically retained from those early experiences is that one must free oneself, go out to the cancans, invent one’s own color palette, in the same way as one invents ones own life and innovate without fear of what people might say. I was then and am still fascinated by Picasso whom people think they know because they have seen several of his works, only to discover new works and especially in these works, an intelligence which can only serve as reference.

Your work is henceforth recognized by your huge “sculptures-candy”. Why did you choose this emblem as a reference?

An artist must find his own language. Impose his/her style. As far as I am concerned, the subject of Candy imposed itself on me because, as a child, I was not allowed any sweets and I suffered not being able to eat candies like my friends did. A childhood frustration is today my revenge since Candy has now become my predilection which I continue ad infinitum. The first Candy works were composed on canvas with real candies which I heated in the kitchen oven, then I continue with abstracts compositions on canvas treated with resin or epoxy.

READ MORE:
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/06/haute-art-exclusive-one-on-one-with-laurence-jenkell/

"Escape Hotel Stories" by Francisca Matteoli

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
A few days ago I've been invited to a party hosted by Assouline, the famous publisher. It wasn't exactly a party but rather a cocktail in the honor of Francisca Matteoli whose the new book is entitled "Escape Hotel Stories".

Chilean-born with Scottish origins on the mother side, Francisca, spent her childhood in South America. She's now living in Paris after spending many years in Brazil. From all of those trips, she retained a deep love and admiration for Nature, the beauty of landscapes, the serenity and the inspiration she could find... She wrote many travel essays and books. Her last travel book is based on some of the world's most stunning hotels and follow in the footsteps of influential writers and inspirational artists who took refuge in many different places equally serene and inspiring. She brings us into her own world and reveals us all her favorite places where each time a hotel developed a unique relationship with its surrounding universe.

Credit: Assouline
To buy this wonderful book: 
http://www.assouline.com/9781614280477.html

INterview with Michaela Gleave

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
Michaela is a young Australian-born artist (1980) whose work questions the passage of time and the relationship to the nature...

1 – Dear Michaela, what made you decide to become an artist? Who are those who influenced you?

« The first job I remember wanting to have as a child was to draw pictures of animals, but growing up in remote and regional Australia being an artist wasn’t something I ever thought of as a possibility.  I didn’t see any contemporary art until I was 18 and spent a gap year in Europe, and experiencing installation art for the first time was tremendously exciting.  I remember a work at the Tate St Ives that included a sea of rotting carrots, and one in Paris which was a giant blanket cubby that had to crawled through on hands and knees.  I was also lucky enough to stumble across the Venice Biennale when travelling through Italy and saw the work of Ann Veronica Janssens.  She had filled the Belgian Pavilion with cloud, completely arresting the viewer’s experience of time and space.  The use of the viewer as a physical agent in these and other works, and the dissolution of the traditional gap between audience and object dramatically changed my perception of what art was and the possibilities available to an artist. »

2 – Some of your works question the passage of time and our relationship with the nature. Environmental problems are important to you?

« I think time is the ultimate sculptural material, virtually impossible to manipulate in any real sense, so the suggestion I saw in Jansenns’ work that this might be possible through art was an important formative moment for me.  Time is a crucial element in my works and generally I have very little desire to make things which will last, due mostly I think to the futility of attempting to do so in the face of infinite time and space.  Creating things which unfold in real time, unmediated experiences of an actual event occurring before the viewer, has always been a key focus of my practice. I aim through my work to connect the viewer to things that are larger than themselves and I’m not interested particularly in making work about people, rather in exploring that which exists just beyond the realm of human perception as a means of questioning how it is that we see, interpret and engage with the world around us.  On a personal level I have a deep love for the natural environment – the beauty inherent in nature far outstrips anything that can be created – but I see the role of the artist as one of asking questions, not dictating answers.....

READ MORE: 
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/05/haute-art-exclusive-interview-with-australian-artist-michaela-gleave/

‘The Scream’ Is Auctioned for a Record $119.9 Million

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
wwooowww One thing's certain is that the art market is doing well. Here is a great article wrote by Carol Vogel about the new record for a work of art in an auction house:

"It took 12 nail-biting minutes and five eager bidders for Edvard Munch's famed 1895 pastel of “The Scream” to sell for $119.9 million, becoming the world’s most expensive work of art ever to sell at auction. Bidders could be heard speaking Chinese and English (and, some said, Norwegian), but the mystery winner bid over the phone, through Charles Moffett, Sotheby’s executive vice president and vice chairman of its worldwide Impressionist, modern and contemporary art department. Gasps could be heard as the bidding climbed higher and higher, until there was a pause at $99 million, prompting Tobias Meyer, the evening’s auctioneer, to smile and say, “I have all the time in the world.” When $100 million was bid, the audience began to applaud.

The price eclipsed the previous record, made two years ago at Christie’s in New York when Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” brought $106.5 million. Munch made four versions of “The Scream.” Three are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sold by Petter Olsen, a Norwegian businessman and shipping heir whose father was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist. The image has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, becoming a universal symbol of angst and existential dread and nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa....."

READ MORE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/arts/design/the-scream-sells-for-nearly-120-million-at-sothebys-auction.html?_r=1&hpw
ALSO:
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/05/haute-art-“the-scream”-by-edvard-munch-is-a-new-record-for-sotheby’s/

Domingo Zapata!!! Artist to watch...

Good evening contemporary art lovers! A
Domingo Zapata is a Spanish-born artist (1974) who maintains studios at the historic Bowery Hotel in New York City, the legendary Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. He’s well-known for his works which explore themes of sexuality, opulence, and vitality. Texts and visual cues can also be included in his works that attracte many of the world’s most prestigious collectors. He’s an “artist to watch” and he will announce the details of his first museum show in the coming months.

1- Domingo, have you always wanted to become an artist? Who are the artists who have influenced in your youth or the works of art that have thrilled you?
“I have always been a painter, an artist throughout all of my life. I choose to do this fulltime now and all the experiences I had in the past have contributed to what I create today. Paul Cezanne to me is the master of Modern art! From him Picasso developed and open all the new doors to my inspiration… I try to learn about Cezanne everyday looking for answers and bring it contemporary using today’s techniques.”


2 - You explore themes such as sexuality, opulence, vitality through colorful, bright and joyful paintings. What message would you like to pass on through your art?
“I am using a more urban approach with mixed-media, influenced by the streets near where I stay and the time I have spent in New York. I love using vintage posters and imagine what would happen to them if they were posted in the street. What would street artists do to them? How the weather might affect them.
Polo horses remind me of my youth and love for horses.
Bullfighting is a passion that I even practice when I go back to Spain at my friend El Litri’s estate (he is the best bullfighter in the world and one of the nicest people I know). He is my inspiration for this motif....


READ MORE: 
http://www.hauteliving.com/2012/04/haute-art-domingo-zapata-or-the-one-who-runs-the-art-world/


www.dzapata.com/

Rob Wynne !!!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
I'm very pleased to present an interview of Rob Wynne, a good friend of mine and an amazing artist....

www.robwynne.net/

1 - Dear Rob, could you please introduce yourself and tell us what is your background? How did you become an artist?

As a young child I had dyslexia - which made it extremely difficult to READ. Oddly, I could read music very easily……but knew that I would not be able to excel as I wanted in that field. I could draw and when it came time to go to college, I went to Art School (Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn NY) After a long period of making abstract paintings - I took a long pause and redirected my work to TEXT, challenging my childhood issues, and began working with NARRATIVE . The ability to change my mind and point of view was for me a life changing experience.

2 - Words mean a lot to you. They are the main subject of your art, why?

See ABOVE!!!

3 - Why did you choose to use glass a main material?

I am NOT a classically trained "glass artist" about 15 years ago, I was making an exhibition for Holly Solomon, my dealer at that time. It was called "SLEEPWALKING" and was loosely based on an early 19th century Opera, "La sonnambula"  I had wallpapered the entire gallery and made large scale silkscreen paintings on fabric….I wanted to have a pair of GLASS FEET - to convey a sense of being and not being present. Not knowing anything about glass working , I was put in touch with a trained technician…and was able to make the FEET. After that I just started hanging around the glass studio and watching and picking up bits of technique. I was then invited to be a "visiting artist" at Pilchuck in Seattle, which is the mecca of the studio glass art movement in the USA. I started to just fool around with GLASS and tried to use it in unorthodox ways. That said, working with glass is collaborative, insofar as you cannot do it alone. I have worked with a crew of assistants since then…always trying to break rules and embrace the imperfection in glass making, which runs contrary to the typical techniques used.

4 - How do you position yourself compared to Jean-Michel Othoniel and Angelo Filomeno who also use glass in their works?

Vis a vis Othoniel and Filomeno, whom I admire very much…..I think the commonality that we share is that we are NOT "glass artist's" in the traditional sense. Interestingly the range of contemporary artists using glass as a material in their work is fairly substantial: ie: Kiki Smith, Beverly Sims, Robert Gober, Mary Carlson, Joan Jonas (in performance), etc. - some Modern Masters like Duchamp( The Bride Stripped Bare) and Pollack ( who mixed glass in his pigment) also used glass. For me, glass is another material to experiment with, albeit, one that does need a large amount of knowledge to handle.

5 - How do you place yourself in the contemporary art market? Do you feel any affiliation to one movement or another?

I don't place myself in the Art Market…I just try to make things that interest me.

6 - Could you please tell us about your collaboration with Dior?

The Architect Peter Marino ( a collector of my work) approached me through JGM.Galerie some years ago about doing a piece for the flagship DIOR boutique in Paris. Peter is in charge of the design of DIOR world wide. He has since then asked me for pieces for other DIOR venues. They typically tell me the perimeters and then I give them drawings  of various ideas in my Poured Glass work. Et Voila!

Thanks a lot my dear Rob. It's always a pleasure

Isa Genzken: Rose II - New Museum

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
Each time I walk by the New Museum, seeing the twenty-eigth feet tall rose that is standing in front of the facade reminds the roses made by Will Ryman. For those who may don't remember Will's roses were blooming on Park Avenue for four-six months in the beginning of 2011. At this time all the New Yorkers were living in the Wonderland!

Isa Genzken is a German-born artist who was born in 1948. She lives and works in Berlin. She studied fine arts and art history in Hamburg and was the subject of a major retrospective in 2009 in Cologne and then in London. She used to be married to Gerhard Richter who was her teacher. She is best know for her sculpture Rose (1993). It is a single long-stemmed rose made from enamelled stainless steel that towers eight metres above Leipzig's museum district. A second version Rose II (2007) is standing in front of the facade of the New Museum. 

Genzken is one of the crucial figure of the Post-war contemporary art scene. Her works, sculpture essentially, are made of many different materials and media such as video, photography, film, works on paper and canvas, collages and books. The replica of the first sculpture Rose is her first public artwork in the United States. She's trying to explore through her work the way in which each one perceive objects, images, nature... She integrates the notions of architecture, nature of mass culture by creating unique works has the enormous scale.

Looking back on that experience, she has commented, “To me, New York had a direct link with sculpture… (It) is a city of incredible stability and solidity.” The installation of Rose II can be seen as a tribute to a place Genzken continues to love.

"The Spirit Level" at the Gladstone gallery

Good evening contemporary art lovers!
The Gladstone gallery is one of my favorite gallery in NYC. For those who like Minimal and Conceptual art. They represent artists such like Sol Lewitt, Dan Flavin, Banks Violette, Donald Judd, Fausto Melotti, Robert Ryman, Damian Ortega, Mario Merz and many others.... Ugo Rondino, who is also represented by the gallery is the curator of the new exhibition. Ugo Rondino is a major Swiss artist who was born in 1962. His installations, which often include a performance by the artist himself and keep track video, depict a central character, alter ego of the artist, a clown, a figure of sadness and disappointment. Once he said: "I'm an artist first—but I like to have other people's art around me."

The Spirit Level is a group show featuring 19 artists curated by Ugo Rondino. The exhibition takes places in both galleries: the one on 24th street and the one on 21st street and is organized like an initiation. One advices you to start your visit at the 21st street space with Peter Buggenhout's three and leaning constructions, parrafin-coated crepe-paper leaves made by Martin Boyce, black printed-stars by 

Joe Bradley, two particolored, unstretched canvases by Sam Gillian...

In the other gallery one can see the three giant - four-foot-high - penises made by Sarah Lucas and made of bubblegum-pink,plaster and rubber. In another room Hans Josephson's small odalisques are grouped with Alan Shields's large triangular canvases. Works exposed balance each other even if they seem paradoxical at first. they are captivating, erotic, fun, innocent ...

Exhibition just opened a few weeks ago and will be on view until April 12!!

MoMA presents "Cindy Sherman"

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
To those who might have decided to go to NYC for Eastern, there is one exhibition you definitely have to see! At the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Exhibition Gallery, sixth floor. This exhibition is curated by Eva Respini, Associate Curator, and Lucy Gallun, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography. Cindy Sherman is an American-born artist who lives and works in New York. She's well known for her conceptual portraits in which ones she's the only model, always disguised and masked!

Throughout her career - more than 30 years - she has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. she was always interested in the role of women in society, human behavior, to society of consumption and its impact on human... She has created a myriad of characters using wigs, costumes, makeup or other accessories. To make her photographs she had to stage herself in enclosed places, in the middle of intersections, in public places... 

Bringing together more than 170 photographs, this retrospective survey traces the artist’s career from the mid 1970s to the present. The exhibition will explore famous themes such as artifice and fiction; cinema and performance; horror and the grotesque; myth, carnival, and fairy tale; and gender and class identity.

Sherman has selected films from MoMA’s collection, which will be screened in MoMA’s theaters during the course of the exhibition. Exhibition will be on view until June 11th!!

Guggenheim presents “Choices”, a major retrospective of John Chamberlain.

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
This exhibition is curated by Senior Curator Susan Davidson and supported by the Henry Luce Foundation and the Terra Foundation for American Art. Chamberlain was first celebrated at the Guggenheim in a 1971 retrospective. This show examines over than one hundred works made during his sixty-year carrer. One can see works from Chamberlain’s earliest monochromatic iron sculptures and experiments in foam, Plexiglas, and paper, to his final large-scale foil pieces, which have never been shown in the United States.

John Chamberlain is an American-born artist who was born in Indiana in 1927. He briefly studied art at the Art Institute of Chicago and at the avant-garde Black Mountain College. He created energic, dynamic, and vibrant sculptures hewn from disused car parts that can remind us sculptures made by the French-born artist Cesar . They both brought the Abstract Expressionist style of painting into three dimensions. Chamberlain created originale and unique sculptures not only by the materials he used but also because he painted them ! There are examples of airbrushing from the 1960s, drips and pours from the 1970s, sandblasting from the 1980s, and freehand and stenciled patterns from the 1990s forward. The  sculptures range from the size of a fist to the girth of a generous hug to the height of a tree. Most recently he used vintage cars. The sculptures grew in scale and possess a new-found gravity. He was often inspired by small sculptures that served as models for larger ones.

He's an outsider. He's not related to any particular art movement and he's well-known as a standard-bearer of sculptural practice. Chamberlain's inherent creativity was enhanced by a passion for music and language, which gave way tot he noted color and movement in his works. His work is represented in many major public collections. He also made abstract colour paintings, films, and photographs. John Chamberlain: CHoices opened at the Guggenheim on February 24th and will remain on view through May 13th, after which it will travel to Bilbao, Spain. 
   

Pepe Smit !!!!!

Good afternoon contemporary art lovers!
here is the an interview of a young an wonderful artist Pepe Smit... I let you discover her work...

http://www.pepesmit.com/recent_work_video_picnic.html

1- Dear Pepe, tell us about yourself, what is your background and who inspired you when you were young?

I come from The Hague, my father was a filmmaker and my mother a set dresser. I have always seen my mother make all kind of things. I think this has helped me to believe you can make almost anything yourself. I always make my own film and photo sets and I like to make things look good with very little money and a lot of tricks...

2 - What is the impact of the Luncheon on the Grass made by Manet on you?

"Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe" by Edouard Manet made a real stir when it was first exhibited at the "Salon des Refusés" in Paris in 1863. The impertinence of the naked woman sitting between the two dressed men was of a totally different order than the aesthetic nudes known in the arts at that time. The woman stares provocatively at the viewer and in doing so she makes the viewer into a voyeur and accomplice.  In my video I reverse these roles: the man is naked and the women are having a picnic. Just like the work of Manet the video carries a provocative tone in which the viewer is challenged to form an opinion. Making the spectator an accomplice is something I that is very appealing to me and many times I have used this in my work.

3 - Why have you decided to make your own one?

The use of naked woman in art is something that interests me. Manet in a way questioned this role. The most degraded naked woman are perhaps naked woman used as furniture. In the seventies the artist Allen Jones made a coffee table out of a female doll, but also the Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orangeis full of women who serve as furniture. The masculine furniture in the my work can be understood as a hitherto missing counterweight in art history. I thought it would be a way humorous revenge these women.

4 - In yours, the man is naked and the girls are eating on his back like a dinning table. Is it just like a joke or did you want to convey a deeper message?

In the work we see two women and a naked man. The naked man is hardly a character, he is degraded to a "prop": a side table that provides the women with all kinds of decadent and luxury items. In spite of their unbridled lust for extravagant luxury such as lots of champagne, chocolates, cakes and fruit, they cannot suppress boredom. This is pure decadence but also something that could have taken place anywhere, anytime: women who can afford to look beautiful in expensive clothes, who can eat and drink whatever they want, spending all day gossiping and laughing with a friend. They are trophy wives who serve as a status symbol or, later in life, like the woman in this video, have ones been trophy wives and are now obliged to forfill this role forever. A state of being which inevitably leads to enormous boredom.

5 - What do you think of Feminist Art? do you feel any affiliation?

Growing up in the seventies I was raised between feminists. Being independent was a must. But nowadays I notice that a lot of women (especially the Nouveau Riche), to whom freedom and independence is totally normal, independence and freedom do not mean much anymore. They throw it all overboard to stay home and bake cookies with the kids in their expensive kitchen on their Gucci boots. And I myself like to do things like that to. Sometimes. I like my position to be on the sideline. I see what happens and I see the weirdness and the humor of it but I could be doing the seem thing myself. So I try not to be judgmental, I just want to reveal even to to fillet everyday things like gender roles, power relationships and stereotypes. In a humorous way and with sugar-sweet venom. I do feel affiliation with some feminist art. I like Dana Wyse for instance, Cindy Sherman and also the Guerrilla Girls girls. But in general I like art or I don’t, regardless if it was made by a man or a woman. Because my name is also a man’s name people often think that my work was made by a man. It can be quite a surprise when they find out I’m a woman!

Rafael Barrios takes Park Avenue!

Good morning contemporary art lovers!
To all the Upper East Siders who walk everyday on Park, I think I can answer to a lot of questions you may have. From the Waldorf Astoria to the Park Avenue Armory, 10 sculptures made by Venezuelan artist Rafael Barrios, born in Louisiana in 1947 and grew up in Venezuela. He's now living between Paris, caracas and Miami. He's the second latin artist invited to participate to this event after Fernando Botero.

The inauguration of the sculptural display will be schedule on the night of the March 2, just before the opening of ADAA (the Art Dealers Association of America that takes place from March 8 through March 12). Characterized for its geometry and conceptual approach, the ludic work by Barrios is an exploration of fundamental principles of perception-such as dynamism, balance, and distortion-that stems from the reinterpretation of elemental abstract forms from everyday life. In this sense, the works that stand out are his well-known sculptural series of tables, chairs, and doors. Not lacking in humor, these works explore the sense of three-dimensionality. His works, made of stainless and acrylic lacquer are definitely made for being outside. 

Those monumental and geometric forms are a wonderful trompe l'oeil with a profound playful sense.

happy belated valentine's day

LOVE IS IN THE AIR!!!

Love is all around us, love is all we need and even if I’m not usually a romantic at heart I might be inspired by Valentine’s Day. It was originally a feast organized by the Catholic Church and destined to celebrate physical love. Father Valentinus, dead on February 14 (one doesn’t know what year exactly), gave his name to this event. During Renaissance and Classicism, artists painted lovers, love stories and their paintings were full of erotic and sexual symbols. In the modern and contemporary art scene it’s not uncommon that artists choose their mistresses to be their muses. Some of them also work together on one unique piece.

Jeff Koons (an American artist born in 1955) and Ilona Staller (the “Cicciolina”, a Hungarian-born porn star) were one of the most famous couple that worked together. Known for his giant reproductions of banal objects such as balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror finish surfaces, Koons also made a series of paintings, photographs and sculptures that showed the couple in various sexual acts: Made in Heaven, a series that aroused much controversy and critics, specially during the first exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 1990. Most of the works were unveiled in 1991. These works of art describe Koons’ excursion into the world of glamour-porn and are the witness of their love and their passion. Many works from this series were destroyed by Koons himself as a result of these events and the exhibition at the Guggenheim has been questioned several times and finally canceled. This series is one of the most important of his work and according to him the most sincere, the most radical and the most risky.

Less risky but equally radical, work made by Sophie Calle (a French artist born in 1953) is like a diary, her diary. She is a visual artist, a writer, a photograph, a movie director…. She uses many different mediums to produce art pieces extremely provocative and subversive. No Sex Last Night, also known as Double Blind, is a personal and intimate movie that traces, like a diary, an escapade with her lover Gregg Shepard (an American photographer born in 1949) from the East coast to the West coast of the US. This road trip will ended up in a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. There are two versions of the videos: when Gregg films Sophie makes comments in French and the other way around. This picture was taken from a video made after reconciliation in bed! She invites the viewer to get into her universe that question relationship between human being. One no longer speaks of individual identity but of the identity of the couple…

One of Sophie’s video was exhibited in the same show (Emporte moi, Sweep me off my feet, Mac/Val, Vitry, France, 2009) than The Kiss made by Ange Leccia (a French artist born in 1952).  He’s best know for his photographs and videos. He’s also a painter, a movie director and has made a lot of installations. Through this installation, Leccia shows us his own interpretation of the feeling and the signification of love and kiss. A kiss is an act extremely intimate and decisive in a loving relationship, isn’t it? This installation is made with two big brutes that face each other, like two human mouths just about to kiss each other. They don’t touch each other, which intensifies excitement and arousal that precedes the first kiss. Pink color and brightness also give to this work his strength.

Rose remains essentially the symbol itself of love and passion. It’s a privileged gift given by all lovers all over the world. Will Ryman (an American artist born in 1969) knew how to do justice to this beautiful and mysterious flower. Well known for his huge and figurative sculptures that represent some kind of caricature of the human race, he brings us, with his roses, to a wonderland that might reminds us the one of Alice. In 2011, a public exhibition took place on Park Avenue. An exhibition in favor of the roses. They were gigantic, the height of a human being of average size. The colors are vibrant, bright and cover all the tonalities from pink to red. Furthermore it’s not uncommon to see ladybugs, dragonflies and other small beasts climb along the stems… About the exhibition he said: “With these roses I wanted to do something that was larger than life and site-specific. In my work I always try to combine fantasy with reality. In the case of The Roses, I tried to convey New York City’s larger than life qualities through scale; creating blossoms which are imposing, humorous, and hopefully beautiful »[1]

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!!

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[1] http://willryman.com/pdf/the-roses.pdf