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Alexey Titarenko: The City Is A Novel

Culture

One of the defining qualities of photography is that it can cast the familiar in a different light, to make you look again. The photos in Alexey Titarenko’s new book The City Is a Novel (Damiani, $60) do just that. Titarenko’s signature style is a washed out grayscale that recalls early platinotypes. If you lived in the Soviet Union, as did Titarenko (and I), you would understand where the grayness comes from. Everything in the Soviet Union seemed gray, reflecting the drabness in the water supply, from the country’s soul to its streets.

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Inferno: Alexander McQueen

Culture, Fashion

Proliferation of books on the designer Alexander McQueen since his suicide in 2010 has been a boon to his fans. Or an unabashed attempt by publishers to exploit his death for monetary gain – you decide. On my recent visit to the “Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty” exhibit in London there was literally a wall of books devoted to him. Before his death the number of books I remember seeing devoted to McQueen, probably the most talented designer who has ever lived, was zero. The best attempted at analysis was done by Caroline Evans in her important book, “Fashion at the Edge.”

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Berlinde De Bruyckere Monograph

Culture

The Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere is famous for her striking sculptures of wax and epoxy that resemble flesh in all its disfigured, vulnerable glory. She has been making these since the 1990s, but there has not been a definitive monograph of her work until now.

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Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace

Culture

Postpunk and goth are two subcultures that came and went without a bang – amorphous, indefinable, unbracketed. There was something, and its elements were clear enough to see, but to make a structure of the thing was futile. And that is exactly the way the scene liked it.

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Roger Ballen – Outland

Culture

The New York born, South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen’s breakthrough came when he published “Outland” in 2001. The book made a splash, sold out quickly, and is now being republished by Phaidon. Ballen was already an established photographer when he produced a video I Fink U Freeky for Die Antwoord in 2012. Most recently, his work has been painted onto the backs of leather jackets for the latest Comme des Garcons Homme Plus collection.

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Sacai: A to Z

Fashion

Despite her commercial success and critical acclaim Chitose Abe and her Tokyo label sacai are still a pretty well kept secret among the fashion industry’s cognoscenti. A product of the Comme des Garcons design lab that is adept at turning out prodigies, Abe has launched sacai in 1999, while she was at home nursing her child (Chitose is married to Junichi Abe, also a CdG alumni, whose label is kolor).