BECH-00006-SP

August Sander / Bernd and Hilla Becher: A Dialogue

CultureLeave a comment

The gallery release reads, “Bruce Silverstein in collaboration with Sonnabend Gallery is pleased to present August Sander / Bernd and Hilla Becher: A Dialogue, curated by Hilla Becher.”  Packed into that one sentence is plenty to put a grin on the face of a fan of conceptual art, straight photography or even fashion (Yohji Yamamoto being a devotee of Sander).  The typological but also the technical and the sensual are in play and there is the unique plus that Hilda Becher herself curated the show and flipped the typical installation such that August Sander’s photographs are presented in grids while the Bechers’ are hung one-by-one.  In a delicate way, it is also a show about family bonds: his grandson safeguards Sander’s work and it is well known that the Bechers worked (Bernd died in 2007) as a husband-and-wife team over 50 years ago.

CoverPoster3

Limited Edition Steidl Volume 5 Poster

Culture, EventsLeave a comment

We are incredibly privileged to offer you this poster that Steidl publishing has printed for us in limited edition of 20. Steidl is the only premier art book publisher in the world that uses artisanal production methods and prints everything in-house. Printed in Germany using museum exhibition quality paper and ink and the same equipment on which Steidl produces fine art materials for Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld. Each poster measures 60 x 80 cm and is signed by Gerhard Steidl in silver marker.

ColdCave

COLD CAVE

CultureLeave a comment

Last year I was asking around for music recommendation when the name Wesley Eisold, the musician who records as Cold Cave, came up. I gave it a listen and then slowly started sinking into Eisold’s world. The songs seemed simultaneously familiar and new, the electronic sound that could be both melodic and harsh, and the dissatisfaction with the world in the lyrics that was set to just the right pitch.

Several months later news came out that Cold Cave will be opening for Nine Inch Nails on their European tour. This made total sense as both Eisold and Reznor have an auteur’s approach to their work, recording pretty much all of their music on their own, and obsessing over every detail not only in their music but in creating a complete aesthetic universe. For Eisold this also includes personal style and it was no surprise to find out that he sees kindred spirit in the likes of Ann Demeulemeester and Rick Owens.

DieHamletmaschine

Die Hamletmaschine

CultureLeave a comment

This week in New York the model and actor Paul Boche, who has modeled for our magazine, will be starring in a new interpretation of Die Hamletmaschine, an experimental, postmodernist play by the German playwright Heiner Muller.

Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the play fuses German language, acting, and music into an intense, dynamic performance that puts the roles of Hamlet and Ophelia in a new light.

Tickets are available through the play’s website and we hope to see you there.

Powell_AfghGold_1_Cov

Luke Powell – Afghan Gold

CultureLeave a comment

It has taken years to produce Afghan Gold, the new photography tome from Steidl publishing, what with exacting natures of both Luke Powell, the photographer, and Gerhard Steidl, the publisher. But the result, an outstanding, slip-cased two-volume set, is a testament to the notion that some things are worth waiting for.

Powell had traveled extensively in Afghanistan in the 70s and 00s, documenting both the quotidian lives of its people and the magnificent nature in which those lives took place.

5308cb533ed06

Todd Hido, Excerpts from Silver Meadows

CultureLeave a comment

We would like to bring to your attention Todd Hido, “Excerpts from Silver Meadows” at Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York.

Bruce Silverstein Gallery is mounting its third solo show of new works by Todd Hido.  According to the gallery, the show coincides with the publication of Hido’s latest book, “Excerpts from Silver Meadows,” (Nazraeli, 2013) and “the gallery will feature a selection of images from this highly personal yet fictionalized body of work that surrounds his return to the ‘architecture’ of his childhood and a particular street in suburban Ohio where the artist was raised. The works displayed introduce a new larger format for the artist and are printed in an edition of one.”

Grind

BLACK ASTEROID: GRIND

CultureLeave a comment

“Grind” is the recent single from Black Asteroid that will be a part of his new album to be released later this year. For clothing in the video Bryan Black reached to Rick Owens, who asked his New York boutique to accommodate Black’s request. Rick Owens’s art work will also be featured on the cover of the album. We will keep you posted on its release with a feature on the making of the album.

black asteroid C

SZ MIX | BLACK ASTEROID

CultureLeave a comment

Here is the newest SZ Mix by Black Asteroid, also knows as Bryan Black. He started his musical career as a sound engineer for Prince, and has remixed music for Depeche Mode.

Black has produced tracks for fashion shows of Rick Owens and Raf Simons, and is a die-hard fan of all things black.

LM.2014.S.1548.Regime_Detail02.site

Lionel Maunz Deluge

CultureLeave a comment

It’s often revelatory and requires a bit of self-discipline to step into a contemporary art gallery and take in the show without having first resorted to the gallery release to get one’s bearings. It’s revelatory because, every so often, the intellectual and emotional tenor of the art at hand is transparent and immediate without the guiding voice of the gallery release. It’s also somewhat unfair because it’s not saying anything new to note that the nature of the game in much contemporary art is the intellectual context in which the artwork was created and within which it was intended to be contemplated.