Four decades worth of British punk feminist work are presented in Linder Sterling’s Paris retrospective. Photography, collage, music and video works have been assembled under the exhibition title Femme/Objet, a troubling conflation of woman and commodity that lies, subverted for positive ends, at the heart of Linder’s practice: “I have always treated myself as a found object”, she says.
Interview with Tullycraft, new album out March
US band Tullycraft will release their new record Lost in Light Rotation this March. Following their 2007 release Every Scene Needs A Center, their new album is produced by Phil Ek (The Shins, Band of Horses, Built to Spill, The Halo Benders, The Shout Out Louds, Fleet Foxes, The Walkmen). Aesthetica speaks to the band about the new album, their relationship with Ek and their future plans.
Review of ECM: A Cultural Archaeology at Haus der Kunst, Munich
Munich’s commanding Haus der Kunst provided a suitably grand backdrop for the recent, admirably comprehensive survey of ECM Records’ trailblazing work over the past 44 years. The gallery, like the label’s prodigious output, impresses first through its sheer size and scale, then further exploration reveals hidden treasures around every conceivable corner. It’s a clever marriage of site and subject, made even more special a celebration as Munich is ECM’s home city.
Review of Ólöf Arnalds New Album Sudden Elevation
Sudden Elevation will be relished both by admirers of Ólöf Arnalds’s crystalline voice, and by devotees of the Nordic modern-folk music associated with fellow Icelandic musicians Björk and Sigur Rós. The multi-instrumentalist’s new release follows her acclaimed second album Innundi Skinni (2010), which caught the attention of critics at Q magazine and earned her recognition from Mojo as one of their “most exciting people” of the year. As the first of her albums to be sung entirely in English, Sudden Elevation marks a change in the singer’s creative direction and will, undoubtedly, provide an impetus for wider appreciation. It is also her first experiment in creating a conceptually unified record: she worked on it without interruption, holed up in a seaside cabin in western Iceland.
Aesthetica Issue 51 Out Now
Inside this issue, we start with Abraham Cruzvillegas: The Autoconstrucción Suites, a major exhibition opening at the Walker Art Center that features 35 individual sculptures and installations, along with his recent experiments in video, film and performance. We also look at the latest show to open at the Hayward Gallery, London, Light Show, which is a comprehensive survey of artists who use light as a material. David Bowie is opens at the V&A and is the first major retrospective of Bowie’s significant impact upon the world of visual art and design. Thomas Zanon-Larcher’s Falling: A Part blurs the lines between fashion and fine art photography, using cinema as its reference point. In photography, Garry Winogrand is widely recognised as one of America’s finest photographers, and his retrospective opens at SFMOMA, highlighting 25 years of the artist’s career. Cuba is the subject for the latest exhibition to open at Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, which showcases four decades of Michael Eastman’s work. We also introduce the works of Marquis Montes, a Montreal-based photographic duo, as well as Kevin Cooley, whose use of light creates intense drama.
Joy Division’s Peter Hook and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon at MCA Chicago
Joy Division’s bass guitarist Peter Hook is in artist conversation at the MCA on Tuesday 5 February. Reflecting on the band he helped co-found and his new book Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division. Covering the band’s friendships and fallouts, their rehearsals and recording sessions, Hook gives a truly fascinating insight, as only an insider can, into the larger-than-life characters that formed a vital part of the Joy Division legend. The conversation is led by Joe Shanahan who booked Peter Hook (with New Order) for their first Chicago appearance at The Metro 30 years ago.
Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty at Sadler’s Wells, London
Matthew Bourne’s haunting new production at Sadler’s Wells is a gothic romance; a supernatural love story that even the passage of time cannot hinder. Matthew Bourne’s Sleeping Beauty sees the choreographer return to the music of Tchaikovsky to complete the trio of the composer’s ballet masterworks that started in 1992 with Nutcracker! and, most famously, in 1995, with the international hit Swan Lake.
Aesthetica Celebrates its 10th Anniversary Out Now
This December, Aesthetica Magazine – one of the most recognised and important art and culture publications both in the UK and internationally – celebrates its 10th anniversary with a spectacular 50th issue, available worldwide from 1 December. Founded in 2002 by Cherie Federico and Dale Donley when both were university students, the publication has achieved a remarkable feat, growing in stature and readership through one of the most challenging economic periods in recent history. A major success story for publishing, it has the distinction of being the only British art magazine to start and be sustained within the past decade.
New Issue: Aesthetica October/November Out Now
The latest issue of Aesthetica has hit the shelves. It starts with William Klein + Daido Moriyama, opening this October at Tate Modern, which juxtaposes both photographers’ works and explores modern and urban life in New York and Tokyo. We also take a closer look at the work of Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, whose show Bivouac opens this autumn at MCA Chicago. Tim Walker presents a breathtakingly surreal exhibition, Story Teller at London’s Somerset House, which combines the worlds of conceptual art and fashion photography. M to M of M/M (Paris) is a survey of one of the most influential and emblematic design practices and art partnerships in the 21st century. The Serial Portrait opens this autumn and explores the practice of taking multiple portraits of the same subjects. Six Lines of Flight runs at SFMOMA, and features key artists from around the world who have developed unique artistic organisations in six different cities that have become burgeoning artistic centres. Nadav Kander travelled the full distance of the Yangtze River, capturing the changing face of China. Finally, we introduce Formento & Formento, whose works construct a powerful cinematic narrative.
Alpha-Ville Screening and Alpha-Ville Live, London
Alpha-Ville 2012 is opening this weekend on Saturday October 6. Presenting to their guests both Alpha-Ville Live and Alpha-Ville Screening, this London based organisation are dedicated to the promotion of digitial culture through their annual festival and wider activies. As their subtitle suggests, ART, CREATIVE TECH, MUSIC, WEB CULTURE, the weekend seeks to explore all types of digital art.
The Nour Festival of Contemporary Middle Eastern and North African Arts and Culture, London
The Nour Festival will be celebrating contemporary arts and culture from across the Middle East and North Africa, starting on the 1st of October and running until the 1st of December. It will be a borough-wide event based in Kensington and Chelsea and will take place at venues including the Victoria and Albert Museum, Science Museum, Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre and the Mosaic Rooms.
Festival Materiais Diversos 2012: Portugal In Brazil, Brazil In Portugal
In its fourth edition, Festival Materiais Diversos makes its first stopover in Brazil. From the 14th to the 29th of September, 13 Portuguese artists and 9 Brazilian artists bring body, movement, dramaturgy and music to Alcanena, Minde and Torres Novas, with a total of 15 projects. In the year of Portugal in Brazil and of Brazil in Portugal, Festival Materiais Diversos addresses other facts and figures.