With bookshops on every corner, a unique mix of architecture and coffee shops as far as the eye can see, Buenos Aires is like a sweet marriage of New York and Paris, with lots of Latin influence. For art fans who want to see an authentic piece of the city, don’t skip out on visiting La Boca. This little corner of Argentina is in flux: enterprising entrepreneurs set up kiosks every day, peddling kitschy souvenirs next to artists lofts, while the artists themselves keep studio doors open to attract patrons. The real enjoyment, though, comes from walking the winding streets of this neighborhood and looking for the tiny details, like a pint-sized painting at the foot of a building, a neon yellow fountain in a fenced yard, or a political declaration sprayed on a curb.
Inspired by everything from Cecil Beaton’s portraits of Audrey Hepburn, Charlie Chaplin’s short film The Count, Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik, and 1950′s/1960′s Cadillac advertisements, Anna Battista’s cinematic, pop art creations are like a wearable gallery of art and culture’s finest. The Italian writer and film lecturer — who runs one of our favorite blogs, Irenebrination — creates these works mainly for fun, recycling and reusing different materials that have a quirky and usually very personal narrative behind them. Her surreal eyeball necklace was born in part from the memory banks of her brother slicing open the blue eyes of her childhood dolls. “I don’t think you can get the same reaction by wearing a diamond necklace … ” she recently told us. Click through the gallery below (and the links within to learn more about the inspiration behind each piece) to see the transformation of toy cars, 8mm filmstrips, and an “asylum of spoons.”
We love all things Pee-wee Herman, so when we heard that the culture vultures at Venice’s Gallery 1988 were mounting a group show in his honor, we marked our calendars. The adorably named I Know You Art, But What Am I?opens from 7-10pm Friday and runs through August 19th. Many artists from the exhibition have already posted their contribution online, and we love what we’ve seen so far: an old-school baseball team where every player is Pee-wee; our hero as a ventriloquist dummy, a piece of toast, and a tequila ad; and even a bloodthirsty zombie Pee-wee. In other words, the art is as odd and imaginative as Paul Reubens’s character himself. Check out what we’ve spotted so far, and keep an eye on Gallery 1988′s website for more work and information on buying pieces from the show.
You may think it’s just there to keep your head warm – or to keep you from looking like an alien – but the truth is, hair has a variety of conflicting connotations with a distinct bearing on our lives. A shiny, full head of hair is a sign of health and attractiveness, or even a symbol of virility, but hair disconnected from the head (ie in your soup, in the shower drain, etc) is usually seen as dirty or disgusting, even though it’s not any more or less dead than it was when someone was wearing it. There have been many religious and social practices to do with the way hair is styled, indicating adherence to a set of beliefs or loyalty to a certain group, whether it be flappers chopping their hair off to protest the traditional role of women, to Hasidic Jews growing out their side curls, to punks rocking mohawks. It makes sense then that something so ubiquitous and yet with such possibility for controversy be integrated into the art world, where artists can both rebel against and embrace the implications. Click through to see our gallery of follicle art, and let us know what you think in the comments.
A provocative photographer and filmmaker, Laurel Nakadate is widely known for her disturbing encounters with older men on film; she taunts while her awkward new friends just stumble around her stupidly. In her latest series of photographs, 365 Days: A Catalogue of Tears, the Yale-trained artist may be feeling some regret, but we doubt it. The tearful series, which is on view in totality at New York’s Leslie Tonkonow Artworks + Projects through June 25, captures Nakadate “taking part in sadness each day.” She weeps on planes and trains, in the bed and on the pot, half-dressed and fully naked. Made in response to the diaristic nature of present-day picture taking, the artist states her photos are inspired, somewhat contrarily, by the “happy self-portraits people make day after day with their cell phone cameras and post on Facebook.”
Today, when Ai Weiwei’s new outdoor sculpture, Circle Heads/Zodiac Signs, debuts in Central Park, the artist won’t be around to celebrate. Instead he will be serving time in a Chinese jail because of the powerful messaging behind his controversial work and his politically-charged personal life. Inspired by Ai’s plight, we took a look back at 10 of the most controversial artists of the last century; whether they had heated personal dramas, or widely-criticized artwork, these talents helped open the eyes of patrons everywhere.
Where have all the young artists gone? Well, they’ve been priced out of Melbourne, New York, Barcelona, and all of those other city enclaves that promised low-rent and lots of encouragement. But new art communities are popping up every day on unexpected parts of the globe. Creative hubs, city funded projects, and lots of public works are just some of the perks these locations offer to young artists who seek refuge. Click through for our eight favorite cities for young artists, and leave a comment if we forgot your favorite.
The legendary French filmmaker and photographer, Chris Marker, turns 90 this year, but he shows no signs of slowing down. The writer and director of such influential films as 1962’s La Jetée, which Terry Gilliam remade as 12 Monkeys, and 1982’s Sans Soleil, a meditative film about travel and memory, Marker took to the trains of the Paris Métro for two years to shoot PASSENGERS, a marvelous series of more than 200 color photographs of people in transit currently on view at New York’s Peter Blum Gallery. Using a concealed camera, Marker captured intimate moments between couples and family members, as well as a diverse mix of individuals in periods of reverie in a public place — occasionally digitally altering the images to make comparisons between the random passengers and classic subjects from the history of art. When was the last time you saw Mona Lisa on the subway? As Marker reveals, she may be sitting across from you. It’s all a matter of recognizing the pose.
An outrageous yet elegant purveyor of youth, Ryan McGinley has photographed feral kids naked in caves across America, posed them nude with animals in black-and-white studio shots, and zoomed in their goose-bumped flesh on seamless paper. For his second solo show in Amsterdam, and his first at Galerie Gabriel Rolt, the talented Mr. McGinley shuffles the deck to present a masterful mix of uninhibited 20-somethings frolicking in nature — naively picking flowers or wildly jumping from trees — and amusingly embracing birds of prey, kittens, and snakes in stark studio settings. Printed on a large scale, McGinley’s somewhat cinematic scenes capture an age of innocence and exuberance better than most movies nowadays — and they’re quicker to view. Click through a gallery of McGinley images from Somewhere Place after the jump.
Mark Morrisroe was a gifted artist who died poor and in relative obscurity, while suffering from AIDS related illnesses, at the young age of 30 in 1989. Born to an alcoholic mother and absent father, Morrisroe was the ultimate poetic punk of his time. Claiming to be the son of the infamous Boston Strangler, who was actually his mother’s landlord and neighbor, he became a teenage prostitute in order to get his own Boston apartment and pay for his high school graduation. Savvy and talented, he gained acceptance to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where he soon met such artists as Nan Goldin, David Armstrong, Jack Pierson, and Mike and Doug Starn.
