ROOMS 17 presents: PING WANG
Ping Wang’s works display themes of isolation, solitude and resignation in a variety of different settings and are teemed with a sense of renowned admiration, a timeless energy, as if one were seeing the world again for the first time.
Photographer Ping Wang graduated from the New York Film Academy in 2014 and is currently completing a Master’s in Digital photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His works display themes of isolation, solitude and resignation in a variety of different settings and are teemed with a sense of renowned admiration, a timeless energy, as if one were seeing the world again for the first time. I caught up with the artist to find out more.
Hi Ping, tell me a little bit about yourself.
Born and raised in Beijing, I am the single child in a traditional military family. No one in my family has any background in art; actually, my family still do not really understand what exactly I am doing now. I live and work in New York City. My photographic works evidence a delicate balance between Eastern and Western visual culture, resulting in a personal style characterized by drama and restrain. My emotional sensitivity drives me to focus on the subtleties of light, architecture and the moments that often go unobserved.
What are your inspirations?
Talking about inspirations, I have to mention Michael Jackson. He is the first western artist came into my world. The first time I saw the video of his Billie Jean performance in his concert, his stage lighting and the way he controls the rhythm of the performance fascinated me. That triggered my interest in music videos and stage arts. Since then I began to explore the dramatic stage setting and the way to present the climax of the scene.
Are there any particular artists that have influenced you?
Tableau Photography: Gregory Crewdson, Jeff Wall, Ray K Metzker
Painting: Edward Hopper, René Magritte | Minjun Yue
Your photographs are very theatrical in the way that they are staged, like the sets to a film. How has film influenced your work, if at all?
Actually, I am more influenced by music videos and live performances (and stage arts). Because music videos are so short and delicate, I feel that it is more significant to focus on the rhythm and hit the climax than actually telling a story. Similarly to my works, I tend to present a feeling or a vibe instead of telling a complete story. Also, talking about music videos, Michael Jackson’s music video Smooth Criminal greatly influenced me in how it carefully stages every scene, and how each scene is related to one another.
Do you think that our ability to interact with one another is being affected by the digital within our lives?
Well, I would say the digital or digital lifestyle within our lives enables us to be exposed to the outside world. I can see what everyone is doing more easily, and can get inspirations from other artists’ works. It accelerates the speed of getting know each other, but also makes it hard to “really” know each other—the connection could only be on the surface.
From time to time, as an artist, I feel that I need a space to be isolated from the outside world in order to discover myself. Sometimes artists might lose their direction when marketing their career, but they really need to “go back to the nature”. For me, I don’t have a logical storyline behind my works; I focus on the feelings. Isolation enables me to discover this feeling. It opens up a door to let the curiousness and aspirations in, and my feelings are then automatically projected onto certain objects to make a photograph.
You grew up in Beijing and now live in New York. To what extent have these cities influenced your visions?
The military community in Beijing, a relatively closed, rigorous and a secure place for me. That environment influenced me a lot in the form of my works; you could see very few people in my works, in a clean and precise setting. But New York helps me to be fearless. Being with so many talented artists in New York, I feel free and bold to break the “rules” in my mind.
Check out Ping Wang's work in our current issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
The Writer’s Selection: Angel Chen
As much as this issue’s No Borders, No Boundaries sub-section pushed the boat out in terms of vibrant design, Angel Chen’s motley collection is a clear stand out for me.
As much as this issue’s No Borders, No Boundaries sub-section pushed the boat out in terms of vibrant design, Angel Chen’s motley collection is a clear stand out for me.
Chen describes herself in the article as a newborn baby, “curious about growing up and experimenting with prints.” This self-evaluation hits home with her latest collection, AW15The Bunny With Short Legs.
It is a explosion of colour in which patchwork cloaks hang over red rompers, puffed out bonnets dangle streamers onto the floor and scribbled faces adorn 3-piece pyjama suits. The collection bares resemblance to a troop of scouts on a weekend exhibition to the Highlands; albeit with the uncanny ability to actually suit yellow and blue pinstripe.
If Chen’s combinations in AW15 seem to be pushing the boundaries, a glorious pastiche of 70s high fashion, then her earlier work goes fully beyond the left-field.
AW14 Les Noces is the story of two girls who met in Africa and decided to get married. “My collection is a narrative of that story,” Chen says. “It’s a beautiful, colourful wedding, because in Europe weddings are always in black and white. The characters I portrayed are four friends who came from all over the world to celebrate.”
It is a charming story and a charming characterisation by Chen, who glosses over the fact that the four friends all seem to work as bedraggled clowns. Les Noces is stupendously surreal. The patterns are intense and the cuts chunky. Although it veers far closer to the farcical than later work, it remains in the sublime with a similar joyous giddiness as FRUiTS.
At the end of the article Chen talks about the direction she going with her work.
“I’m growing up with my customer. I’m really crazy about colour too. I want to explore detail and colour as much as I can.”
Whether this admission signals a continuation along the svelter lines of AW15 or a return to the brazen textures of Les Noces, Chen’s work will undoubtably continue to be as eye catching as it is unique.
The Ones to Wear: Angel Chen, Monique Daniels, Magdalena Brozda, Ka Kui Cheng, Shimell and Madden. Check out the interviews by Alyss Bowen in our new issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
ROOMS 17 presents Phil Ashcroft
London based artist Phil Ashcroft combines influence from abstract expressionism, landscape painting, Japanese woodcuts and graphic street art to present a vision of environmental, financial and political threats.
Cave Paintings (Ramsey 1 & 2), studio view, both works acrylic on canvas, 122 x 92cm, 2014. photo: Joe Plommer
London based artist Phil Ashcroft combines influence from abstract expressionism, landscape painting, Japanese woodcuts and graphic street art to present a vision of environmental, financial and political threats. His works immerse the viewer in surrealist settings in which cartoon-like motifs deconstruct modernist ideals.
Was there a shift from some form of realism to the abstract work you do today? If so, what brought it about?
I switch between figuration and abstraction depending on the project at hand, but it is true that most recently I have focused on more abstract process-based painting. However, even the recent abstract works aren’t truly abstract; they hold a basis in landscape, even if its just a horizon line to ground the work in some way. I plan to work on more detailed architectural graphic works soon. It's something I’ve left since 2009 but have an urge to return to.
Practically and technically, how do you create your works? Do you make sketches first or is a lot of the work freestyled?
Basically pretty old school, I produce paintings on canvas, layering individual elements quickly over a period of months. I usually work on three to four at a time, developing all works as I go. These works are intuitive but do begin from an initial thumbnail sketch or idea I want to explore. I don’t know how the work will finish or whether it will succeed and that’s the way it should be. Some areas contain crisp gradients, other areas are flat colour. Loose washes of paint complete the work in a manner that can never be produced digitally. Practice, planning and not planning.
You have described your work as depicting the detritus of the modernist ideals of the past. What are these ideals, why have they failed and how do you depict them?
This phrase related specifically to my more figurative architectural studies of ruins of buildings from 2006-2009. I wanted to show respect to those fallen ruins of the imagined future of the 1950s and 60s, a future that never came.
Their titles referenced ‘future music’ that I listen to, titles that I felt added an emotional charge to the work, ‘Fragments of a Lost Language’, 2008 (from Jacob’s Optical Stairway, London, 1995, 4 Hero at their best), ‘Good Life’, 2009 (Kevin Saunderson’s Inner City, Detroit, 1988), ‘Where You Go I Go Too’, 2008 (Lindstrøm, 2008). ‘The Skid Stops At This Point People’ 2006 was a phrase I saw on the back of a lorry whilst driving.
Are these modernist ideals in conflict with the corporate commissions you’ve done?
I don’t think any corporate commissions I’ve worked with to date could have any such impact.
What did the No Soul for Sale project hope to achieve?
This was a weekend celebration of independent artist groups to celebrate Tate Modern’s 10th anniversary in 2010. The curators’ idea was to bring attention to artist collectives on the fringe of the mainstream, hence Scrawl Collective’s involvement painting live in the Turbine Hall. Others participants included The Museum of Everything, Liverpool’s Royal Standard, Hong Kong’s PARA/SITE, New York’s White Columns. It was a fun weekend.
The intensity of colour and the hardness of the shapes in your work can make for intense viewing. What do you hope this intensity conveys?
I want my work to visually energise the viewer, to be dynamic. I hope it's not for sleeping to.
What are you working on at the moment?
Currently working on a new series of my ‘Cave Paintings’. Also just remixing an existing record cover album gatefold for ‘Beyond The Goldmine Standard’, an art project curated by Matthew Hearn at RPM Records, Newcastle.
What’s your favourite film?
‘Bladerunner’ (1982), as per usual, followed closely by Tony Hancock’s ‘The Rebel’ (1961).
Check out Phil Ashcroft's work in our new issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
The Writer's Selection : Ping Wang Xin
Miranda Hill reviews Ping Wang's photography, featured in our current issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
ROOMS 17 presents Ping Wang Xin
Here are the works of an artist whose images capture and communicate the moments of solitude that too often in our busy lives, go unnoticed. In a world that has become so fixated on being constantly connected, these moments are becoming harder to visualise and harder to find, which is why I was drawn to the works of New York based artist Ping Wang. Ping’s photographs give way to these moments of reflection and serve to remind us of the small but important presence of things that we take for granted. The subtleties of light that frame our ever changing landscapes, for example, or the architecture that stands before us as we venture into work. Ping’s images remind us to look up from our screens, to take a break from the digital infusing our lives and to take pleasure in the fact that we live in a world filled with splendour and beauty.
With an emotional sensitivity that many photographers lack, Ping explores the subtle interaction of human beings and the environment and in capturing the lone figure in moments of silence, skillfully manages to recharge our own appreciation for such feelings. I was particularly drawn to Ping’s series of travel inspired images that effortlessly capture scenes of people and sweeping landscapes to express his overriding themes of solitude and solace. Among them, the hazy image of a young child wandering absent-mindedly amidst the blushing orange sun that sets low on Brooklyn’s Coney Island and the simple yet refreshing scenes of humans interacting with one another on a ferry to New York. For London’s underground would have you thinking otherwise. And then there is my favourite image of a man pondering and absorbing in the realm of nature as he tends his leaves (Shan Dong in China, 2014). The photograph documents nature and man working together to create an isolation that I believe, is often the driving force behind creativity.
With these images comes an amazing ability to fill you with a desire to experience these new cultures and feel the energy of such exotic locations. An ache for distant places, the craving to travel. These are the scenes prior to the indoctrination of digitalisation and they are like bouts of fresh air, captured so beautifully and artistically by Ping that it would be hard not to miss them.
Check out Ping Wang's work in our current issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
Resistance is futile against the slick new album Alone by the iconic Terakaft
Terakaft presents album Alone at the Rich Mix, London.
By Bunmi Akpata-Ohohe
Formed in 2001 and hailing from Mali, a landlocked nation in West Africa, the Tuareg band Terakaft (meaning “The Caravan” in their mother tongue) are regarded as the forerunners of desert rock/desert blues. The group are back with a new album, their fifth, titled Ténéré, which translates to Alone. All nine tracks in Alone will delight both aficionados of African music and newcomers to the genre, with their immense talent and fresh vibes, firmly rooted in tradition. The album expresses the kind of feeling and emotion that can’t be summoned up by commission in a studio. Also, it is an extremely personal nine-song discussion of love and identity which is what you want from a singing/songwriting group. According to the press statement by ilkamedia, the group’s music PR Alone was born out of “a need to maintain sanity in times of broken dreams and lies. It might be their most rock oriented album to date but at the same time it is their most poetic.”
It fuses the rhythms of Afrobeat, hi-life and that deep Saharan mesmeric rhythm into one infectious whole. It has the kind of poetic self-reflection of the pre-war years of Mali. “There are too many characters in the picture, too many chiefs and not enough people“, says Liya ag Ablil (aka Diara: guitar and vocals), when asked about the political developments in his country in the last years of conflict that only ended in December 2014. Diara used to sing political songs back in the days of his rebel youth when he was still playing guitar with Tinariwen, a Grammy award winning group of Tuareg musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. Critics have pigeon-holed their songs as protest songs and protest vibes. Call it what you will, but Terakaft just keeps doing dazzling music and dazzling political stuff. It’s like they are a piece of equipment – always finding some novel issues to sing about.
These Malian desert blues legends are a band that must be seen live in all its amazing fierceness. They make their return to London for their album launch gig on 29th April 2015 at the intimate arts space Rich Mix venue.
35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road
London E1 6LA
United Kingdom
REVIEW | Klangkarussell @ The Nest
Austrian house duo Klangkarussell showcase an impressive ability to mesh thrusting bass lines with electronica and jazz-infused house.
You’re in a dry, dust infused desert with nothing but the hot hot sun beating down on your neck, a lost cause, clinging onto the visions of a river that once flowed; breathing, meandering, in and out and you’re tired. Your mouth is dry, your feet blistered and you need water.
And then suddenly, as if burst forth from your own teardrops, you see a cloud. Its drops of rain hit you like stones to water and you feel graced, graced by the reassuring sensation that is life. Living. Water never tasted so good.
Put that feeling into a song and you get ‘Netzwerk’ by Austrian house duo Klangkarussell (Tobias Rieser and Adrian Held) who showcase an impressive ability to mesh thrusting bass lines with electronica and jazz-infused house.
Following on from the release of their hugely successful single ‘Sonnentanz’, their new album in 2014 stood out for its jolting pulses of twisted beats and synth driven bass lines that propelled the tracks forward to culminate in a fusion of beatific synths, vocals and sunny melodies. What made this album so special was its ability to evolve so steadily, each track effortlessly combined like the sequence to a good film. The intoxicating beats of Sternenkinder for example, climaxing in a meticulously edited patchwork of African chants and tribal baselines. These are tracks that would erupt even in the biggest of venues, so when Klangkarrussell announced a set at Dalston’s intimate venue, The Nest, I was beyond excited.
Truth be told, few of the album’s tracks were played, but I took comfort in the fact that it is not always the technical skill of the performer, explicitly, that makes a performance. Often the energy that fills the room is of utmost importance and Klangkarussell did well to prove exactly that. And when they did play some of their better-known tracks, Dalston’s dark cavern of a venue erupted within seconds, the crowd’s energy in complete symbiosis with the duo’s, feeding off of one another to ensure the extremely up-tempo, infectious layers of electronic house were kept going up until the early hours.
Their set marked an album that few will grow tired of and a combination of tracks that are only going to get bigger and better.
Catch them next at London’s XOYO, Sunday 3rd May
Rafaël Rozendaal: The Internet’s Artist
In the rising field of Digital Art, Rafaël Rozendaal’s interactive websites, colour-changing paintings, and immersive installations offer a fresh take on the definitions and limits of contemporary art.
By Lucy Saldavia
In the rising field of Digital Art, Rafaël Rozendaal’s interactive websites, colour-changing paintings, and immersive installations offer a fresh take on the definitions and limits of contemporary art.
Where some artists specialize in oils, and others in sculpture, Dutch-Brazilian artist Rafaël Rozendaal is best known for his work in pixels. His playful websites allow visitors to poke and prod a wobbling red jello mold, or unroll an endless roll of toilet paper, or simply watch an array of colors play across the screen. Some websites are completely abstract, while others contain recognizable shapes and symbols for viewers to manipulate. They are endlessly entertaining, and strangely hypnotic—like arcade games with a conceptual twist. Websites as art may seem a like strange idea at first, but in the growing field of Digital Art, Rozendaal’s work is a pioneering example of the ever-growing opportunities available to artists working with modern technology.
www.nevernowhere.com
The internet, for Rozendaal, is both his platform and his canvas. Like the works of other artists, Rozendaal’s websites can be bought and sold, but they must remain online and accessible to anyone. Where other works of art can only be reproduced on screen, Rozendaal’s pieces can be viewed and interacted with by anyone, anywhere.
Rozendaal’s ‘lenticular paintings’ are more traditional, but still involve the viewer to create their effect. Using the same technology that makes the figures on baseball cards to appear to move, Rozendaal’s swirls, blotches, and shards of color shift hue and form as viewers walk past. They give the impression of digital animations placed within frames.
As well as his websites and paintings, Rozendaal also creates installations, drawings, haikus, writings, and lectures. His installation works utilize light, reflections, and animations to cultivate an immersive experience, and his writings often explore the nature of his art and the art world in general. In 2010, Rozendaal founded BYOB (Bring Your Own Beamer), an open source series of exhibitions created by artists worldwide. The idea is simple, as the BYOB website explains: “Find a place, invite many artists, and ask them to bring their projectors.” This avant-garde approach to art and exhibitions, utilizing new media and the internet, is typical of Rozendaal’s progressive style. His work has been exhibited at the Pompidou Centre in Paris, at the Venice Biennale, and at numerous smaller galleries across Europe, the United States, and Asia. He has lectured at prestigious universities, including Yale and the École beaux-arts. He currently lives and works in New York City.
Check out some his Internet works:
All Images via © Rafaël Rozendaal
Hackney-made acrobatic expression of ‘Bromance’
Bertil Nilsson’s new short film ‘Bromance’ tells a story of brotherly affection through the artistic movement of acrobatic dance.
Bertil Nilsson’s new short film ‘Bromance’ tells a story of brotherly affection through the artistic movement of acrobatic dance.
Swedish born Nilsson collaborated with the award winning, experimental acrobatic company, Barely Methodical Troupe, to create this 3-minute short.
Nilsson describes his film about the exploration of “…intimacy of physical interaction between guys; of their bromance. The concept of the film was to set something unusual in the real world, almost a documentary in the most abstract of senses.”
It’s refreshing to watch the affection of three men depicted through this close union of dance moves that interlace with each other to create this free flow choreography.
The familiar East London streets of Hackney where the boys relay their professional dance routine gives this film its contemporary edge, which paired with the theme of the film, translates as a beautiful and modern depiction of love and friendship.
Nilsson is used to pairing dance with film, as a trained photographer, he shot his collection ‘Naturally’ based on contemporary dance expressions in natural surroundings.
There is a level of purity in Nilsson’s work in his natural subjects and themes, which elevate its beauty and resonates with its audience. After watching ‘Bromance’, it left me with a profound feeling of togetherness you cannot find easily with just anything.
Watch Bromance and check out Bertil Nilsson’s photography collection
Images via Bertil Nilsson website
ROOMS 17 | Who decides what you see? Unravelling Perspective
We invite you to embrace the un-embraced, explore the unexplored, in an adventure of perception. Will you unravel yours? NEW ISSUE OUT NOW!
How do you gain clarity in a world of instinctually different perspectives? Of minds fixated in black and white, oblivious to those standing boldly in-between? The greys, the what ifs, the could haves… the creators. This April, ROOMS answer exactly that and invite you to explore the ever-growing path of fresh talent and raw perspectives, bringing to you a carefully selected, impressive host of artists, designers, musicians, filmmakers and world class, working creatives.
Among them, exclusive interviews with former graphic designer and now director Greg Barth, composer and video artist Michael Nyman and the man behind the lens, photographer Luke Wassmann. Delve into the delicate works of Yuko Oda, the perceptive designs of Asa Ashuach and the playful works of Olaf Breuning. And skillfully mastering the art of art making with tea drinking, we speak to Carne Griffiths about his drawing rituals, catch up with the visual charmers of PUTPUT and Luis Vasquez tells his beautiful story of how his music turned into an engrossing passion of survival that saved his life.
We invite you to embrace the un-embraced, explore the unexplored, in an adventure of perception. Will you unravel yours?
Also in this issue, we talk to Addictive TV duo, Bianca Pilet, Daisy Jacobs, George Vasey, Realities United, Tom Hancocks and so much more.
Greg Barth: Icons of the Unpredictable
Greg Barth is a London based award winning artist and director from Geneva, Switzerland, and the cover artist of our brand new issue ROOMS 17, photographed by Alexandra Uhart.
The cover artist of ROOMS 17 uncovered
Greg Barth is a London based award winning artist and director from Geneva, Switzerland, and the cover artist of our brand new issue, ROOMS 17 -- photographed by Alexandra Uhart.
Barth is known for producing work that combines Surrealism, Minimalism and Pop. His work seemed perfect for ROOMS 17’s tagline: ‘Who decides what you see?’ This question combined with Barth’s image creates a cover that approaches both art and politics.
Is the mask an act of censorship or an act of art?
A mask covers a person’s face. Who put the mask there? Is he forced to wear it, or is he willing? Why are his eyes covered up? What doesn’t he want to see? The mask could be obscuring his vision of the outside world, preventing him from seeing something. Or, the mask could be showing him something; inside the mask could be a digital screen or images, which showcases something, new and wondrous to him.
In either case the question still throws up political questions, both about state and about art. Thankfully in most countries, the state cannot control what you watch. This came to the fore when working on this issue of ROOMS, as many in the cultural world where still reeling from incident surrounding the infamous film ‘The Interview’. In art, the question of ‘Who decides what you see?’ is bound up is questions and theories surrounding the artist. Ultimately, when viewing an artwork the viewer’s thoughts return to the artist and why they created the work: ‘what do they want me to see?’ However, I would suggest more emphasis needs to be put on the viewer and what they can add to the work, rather than what they need to see. In this instance the same can be applied to our cultural freedom. I was encouraged when I saw members of the public, including the heads of film industries, critics and cinemagoers protesting and wanting to see the film. In the end we all have to stand up to our cultural freedom. We have a right to choose to look.
Jesc Bunyard interviews Greg Barth in our new issue ROOMS 17, Who decides what you see?
Visionaries and reporters united : Unknown Fields Division
This summer on the salt flats of south-west Bolivia, a pan-global group of artists, designers, architects and filmmakers are digging down through the caked up layers of sodium chloride.
This summer on the salt flats of south-west Bolivia, a pan-global group of artists, designers, architects and filmmakers are digging down through the caked up layers of sodium chloride. Their aim is to find a chemical that laid unused for 140 years after its discovery. A largely unwanted and impure element, good for little more than turning flames red and refusing to disconnect from aluminium.
This is lithium, and it is now the beating pulse of mass communication that lies at the heart of the green revolution. The group are the Unknown Fields Division, a collective that undertake artistic studies into the mechanisms of a modern world.
In Bolivia, the group will turn its attention to lithium, or ’grey gold’. The fascination in what is to a cursory glancer dirt stems from its seeming lack of worth. For years it was underrated, hoisted up with the elemental also rans. A neighbour of dull old beryllium. This all changed however, when a Stamford graduate, M Stanley Whttingham, suggested that the then nuclear associated chemical might serve better in batteries. After 30 years of development he proved right. Lithium is now the core component of every electronic mobile device and the future of electronic cars.
The goal of Unknown Field’s trip is to study lithium, to dissect its new found cultural significance and then, through written reports, films and sculptures, to communicate these findings to the wider world.
With all of Unknown Field’s work, there is a focus both on the end product, the smart-phone in your pocket, and its origins. For Bolivia, this is a found reserve that has added billions to the country’s economy. On a previous trip, it was a town turned upside down by global demand.
Unknown Fields Winter 14 Expedition
Liam Young + Kate Davies
Showrell Dir. by Rich Seymour + Jonathan Skerritt
In 2014 Unknown Fields undertook a three week journey up the global supply chain, tracing back the path of consumer goods taken from the factories of China and into our homes. What they encountered was the brutal side effects of an industrial machine. Situated in northern most China, Baotou, or Deer City, was a settlement of 97,000 in 1950. It is now home to 2.5 million and is the world’s biggest supplier of rare earth minerals.
The environmental impact of such an unprecedented boom is severe. Vast refineries sprawl endlessly through the cities neon lit streets. Massive pipes erupt from the ground and run along roadways and pavements, arching into the air to cross roads like bridges. Despite such a man-made, synthetic dent, the work produced by Unknown Fields is free of condemnation.
One piece was formed from radioactive clay from the city’s polluted lake. It is a series of ceramic pots modelled on traditional ming vases, with each proportioned on the amount of toxic waste produced by the city’s use of different minerals.
A vessel takes shape, formed from the amount of toxic material produced in the manufacture of a single mobile phone. Film Still © Toby Smith/Unknown Fields
Another is a video of visceral quality. It looks inside the factories, glimpsing the might of un-fathomably powerful machines. The effect is something similar to Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi.
The result of such considered work is profound. The approach is subtle, with the viewer coaxed rather than forced to reflect on the weighty topics. From the Texaco oil fields of the Ecuadorian Amazon to The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the subjects are massive, and a personal, emotive response undeniable.
All images via © Unknown Fields Division
NEW PRINT | Benjamin Murphy’s Conversation Among the Ruins
ROOMS are delighted to announce the release of London’s super talented Benjamin Murphy’s popular print Conversation Among the Ruins.
Pigeonholed as the ‘best artist since sliced bread’, and quite rightly so, ROOMS are delighted to announce the release of London’s super talented Benjamin Murphy’s popular print Conversation Among the Ruins who, in following on from his electrical tape inspired image making, has transitioned seamlessly to create bold, striking black and white woodcuts, and we’re excited.
Hand drawn, cut and printed, Murphy’s newest print inspired by Sylvia Plath’s poem Conversation Among the Ruins, reflects the bold fluidity of a poem rooted in tragedy and the searing pain of a poet who suffered in isolation. Free of any words, the print also allows for one’s own exploration and interpretation. The tragic story of a man’s animalistic capabilities, perhaps, or the struggles of a woman bound to her role as housewife and homemaker in the kitchen. Either way, it’s an undeniably morbid print with a subtle hint of humour and we love it. Grab yours today at www.benjaminmurhy.bigcartel.com
Benjamin will also be exhibiting at the Saatchi Gallery next month and will have a solo show in Italy this May.
Details:
A2 woodcut
Fabriano Rosaspina Bianca torn edge paper
Edition of 30, £150
Simon Payne’s NOT AND OR to screen at Close-Up Film Centre
On the 16th April the Close-up Film Centre in Shoreditch will play host to a night of weird and wonderful digital creations by abstract filmmaker Simon Payne.
On the 16th April the Close-up Film Centre in Shoreditch will play host to a night of weird and wonderful digital creations by abstract filmmaker Simon Payne.
Close-Up is committed to supporting and developing the exhibition of independent and experimental cinema, focusing on the cross over between the arts and film culture.
The night is part #4 of their Teaser Screening series of videos. Simon’s film ‘Not And Or,’ will be screened last along with some of his other digital exerts such as, ‘Colour Bars’ and ‘Cut Out.’
The films all turn on the concept of indefinite qualities of images, colour, shapes and sounds from shot to shot or moment-to-moment. Hence, his erratic film making style, which sees Payne subvert the ideas of what we think we see by manipulating time and space.
In ‘Not And Or’, we see black and white quadrilaterals spinning in virtual space that alternate with the same static shapes re-filmed from screen in real space. The second half of the piece is the same as the first, but flipped, reversed and re-filmed again, through successive generations – adding while taking away.
The program includes pieces from 1997 to 2014, from observational films to hard-edge abstraction primarily focused on experimental video, promising to open up your mind to the different dimensions at the interface of digital design.
The screening is a futurist’s call for new autonomous cinema for the modern age, helping to merge the lines between artistic mediums of art and film. The event ultimately calls upon us the viewers to debate the notion of what we consider as art and the question: Can video installations be considered a form of artistic expression in the same way film is?
Expand the realm of art in this rare screening of mind-altering digital videos. Alternatively, invest in a worthy membership at the Close-Up Film Centre that allow committed film enthusiasts to raid their huge archive of experimental and independent films and discount admission on film screenings.
Time-lapse | An interview with Jeffry Spekenbrink
Jeffry Spekenbrink is a photographer, filmmaker and visual image artist whose works are the result of a very long and dedicated process involving his camera and the unremitting power of earth’s multifarious landscapes.
Jeffry Spekenbrink is a photographer, filmmaker and visual image artist whose works are the result of a very long and dedicated process involving his camera and the unremitting power of earth’s multifarious landscapes. Using his photography to create time-scapes, Jeffry’s works transform the everyday into an otherworldly representation of stunning visuals, perspectives and pure cinematography, often captured in the space of a few minutes.
In 2014, Jeffry graduated from the ArtEZ Institute of the Arts in Enschede and was a finalist in the TENT Academy’s Film Awards for his hugely successful time-lapse film, Part of the Empire/Plague. His video presented a six-minute compilation of the many highlights captured on his journey that stretched between the uniquely desolate environs of Iceland to the densely populated French capital of Paris and with it, the realisation of a growing population living in social isolation.
Jeffry’s accompanying music adds an extra exciting, slightly unnerving feel to the film and the sheer spectacle of the entire video is incredible to behold. I caught up with the man behind the lens to find out more about his journey.
How did everything begin for you? What inspired you to start making time-lapse videos?
I bought my first DSLR in 2010. Shortly after I saw a short time-lapse video from the northern lights shot somewhere in Norway. I was really touched by this phenomenon, but also by the way it was shot. It gave me a very calm and serene feeling and I realised that, although it looked very surreal, this was a real life phenomenon, captured by just a camera. From that moment on I began to experiment with my own camera as often as I could.
With every meteorological phenomenon that I was able to capture around my house, I began to wonder what it would look like in a time-lapse video. Just like analogue photography, you could never tell what the actual footage would look like until the process of digital developing… making a video out of the few hundred pictures that you take.
A time-lapse video can also create a very different perspective…
I love the perspective of the time-lapse medium… it’s almost as if you are looking at the world from another sense of time. It’s the perfect medium to let people realise what their civilisation looks like from an outsider’s perspective. I didn't realise this until I started shooting cities. This changed the composition of a wide-angle view to a shot of the people from above. I wanted to give the people a look at our world from a slightly different perspective.
A lot of your shots capture scenes without people…
I have always had some kind of curiosity for desolate places. I lived my life in the countryside in the east of the Netherlands, but there weren’t really any desolate places here, I was always wondering how it would feel to be in a place where it was just you and nature. I liked the nights because they were quiet and nobody was ever around to ruin the shot.
What was the inspiration behind Part of the Empire/Plague? Were there any main themes that you tried to incorporate within your images?
At first I just wanted to capture the feeling of serenity that I got from watching night skies and empty landscapes, but I also wanted to add a subtle storyline. I started writing ideas on paper for a short film. That's how I came up with the idea to contrast an empty landscape with a big city. I had lots of ideas but no budget, so I had to make choices… my priority was to show the biggest contrast possible.
You must have travelled quite a bit for this project…
I didn't have much of a budget, so I saved and made a shooting list with all the shots I needed. My first priority was to look for desolate places. The Northern lights was first on the list, which I knew would be difficult to capture. So after doing some research, it came down to Iceland in April.
“In April, Jeffry took a three-week trip with his car and 1.5-meter long slider to Seyðisfjörður in Iceland and spent fourteen consecutive days shooting time-lapses. The results were mind-blowing.”
Had you visited all of these places before?
I had never been to Iceland. For the cities, I had been to Rotterdam and Paris before but not to the places I needed to take the shots from. So again I had to do some research before I went.
Why Iceland?
Iceland has a very unique and various landscape with volcanic activity, glaciers, moving icebergs… its sea with black beaches. In the summertime it doesn't get dark in Iceland… that means there are no Northern lights to see and in the wintertime it stays dark, so not ideal for landscapes. That's why I wanted to go in April, the last month that you can see the northern lights, and experience Iceland with a day and a night.
After Iceland I needed city footage. I went to stay with a friend in Rotterdam to practice and shoot footage for the film but was looking for a bigger city like Paris or Berlin to shoot from a higher perspective.
Is digital manipulation a strong element of your work?
The film consists of 12.406 21-megapixel images from the 23.807 pictures shot in total. Because it is made out of 14 bits RAW-images you get the possibility to pull great details and beautiful colors out of the image. I also used filters whilst shooting to level the contrast between the sky and the ground - this is how you get more details in the clouds.
In some shots I removed smaller elements such as dust and birds… these were distracting because they were moving too fast. I wanted the viewer to focus on the slow movements that become visible due to the acceleration of time, like the movement of the clouds and the water.
Digital manipulation is an important element, but it has to remain the reality. With every shot, I experienced the environment and tried my best to express the feelings I had at the particular place through the image. I did that separately with every shot of the film.
There’s been a lot of interest recently in nature and the man-made. Do you think that your work reflects this through the contrast of rural and urban landscapes?
I think so, yes. It was my meaning to show people the contrast between the rural and urban from an outsider’s perspective, in combination with my view of the places.
The whole experience of traveling has been very important for the end result. During the city trips I experienced something really different to that in Iceland. It takes up to a few hours to take one time-lapse shot so during that time I was able to observe my surroundings very well.
Whilst I was looking around in the big cities I felt proud to be a part of a successful society. At the same time I felt a part of a huge growing population in which nobody really cares about the individual. I experienced the same in Iceland… I’d expected to find a lot of pristine nature, which we found, but it turned out to be pretty touristy.
Can you tell me about some of your favourite photographs captured within this time-lapse?
Technically, the first shot from the Eiffel Tower in Paris is my favourite, because that was number one on the list for Paris and I was quite happy with the end result, despite the challenges. I chose the Eiffel Tower because it has a fence at the top instead of windows. Taking pictures through the window of a high building brings more complications like reflections and limitations in focus length. The movement of the top of the tower caused by the win, for example. I wanted to take all of my shots at night which meant that I needed to use as much wide angles as possible and keep the shutter speed as short as possible to avoid blurry images.
Emotionally, both the Northern lights and the church are my favourites. In the two weeks that we were in Iceland, there was only one clear night when we the Northern lights could be seen so I was quite lucky to have experienced that. I drove my car up to the highest mountain in the area and aimed both of my camera’s at the sky. I go my own lightshow, which was stunning. And because I had to use exposures of 8 and 10 seconds, I had to stay there for 2.5 hours for less than 40 seconds of video, so I watched it from beginning to end. For me this was a very special moment, all alone on a mountain with a personal lightshow brought to me by nature.
After that, the northern lights only showed up once, barely visible with the naked eye, which became the shot with the full moon.
“For me this was a very special moment, all alone on a mountain with a personal lightshow brought to me by nature.”
How do you capture your chosen landscapes? What is the process?
I was well prepared before the traveling. I had already made a shooting list and decided the composition. It's always different when you get there but most of the time I stuck to the plan… that worked out pretty well, especially in the cities. For Iceland we planned the route. I had all of the spots marked on the map but I could never tell when I would see that thing on the list. The best shots were the spontaneous ones, and that's most of them!
Were there any challenges you faced along the way? Any freak weather conditions?!
Technically there were a few struggles like dust, but mainly the cold… harsh winds all of the time, blizzard, roads blocked with huge piles of snow… The shot with the wavy clouds under the orange sky, for example. I had wanted to shoot it from the top of the highest mountain on the map but that didn’t work out because of the weather conditions. I saw these clouds when we were in a village and they were pretty far away but I just had to make that shot, so I used a telephoto lens… slightly different than expected but in the end everything went well, we were pretty lucky I guess…
Timing is obviously a huge factor within your works... How long does a time lapse usually take to photograph at one specific location? The Northern Lights, for example, you capture them so beautifully!
In the daylight the interval between the pictures can be very short, but I used intervals of 4-6 seconds most of the time depending on how fast the clouds were moving. In the cities I chose to shoot everything at night. I think cities show their true beauty at night, when you see only the things that matter and all the movements become visible in lights.
With the Northern lights it was really dark so I had to take exposures of 8-10 seconds with a high ISO. For 10 seconds of video in 30 frames per second you need 300 pictures and the actual time to take the shot varies between 20 and 75 minutes.
And I understand you composed the music by yourself? (which is stunning!) What was the process? The film’s sense of discovery and wonderment is just incredible.
In my opinion music is a piece of art on its self, that's why I didn't want to use the music of another artist. Music is very important for guiding the viewer through the images. To me the choice of music is responsible for half of the emotion you are trying to express through the film. Because the whole film is a very personal work to me, I couldn't think of another way than to make my own music for it.
I play guitar and I also took it with me to Iceland. There were a lot of moments when I could play the guitar and so I began to come up with the basics of a song for the film. The guitar at the beginning of the song was recorded at home and I went on from there digitally, using the same chords for the other instruments.
I then categorised the shots and adjusted the music to that. Basically I worked the other way around… the images were most important and the music had to bend and support the images. That’s a really satisfying thing to do because you’re not able to do so with the already existing music.
Is music making something you intend to pursue?
Yes, at the moment I am quite busy recording my own guitar playing and singing to improve the quality of my music for my next work.
All images © Jeffry Spekenbrink
Michael Porten: The Spinning Beach Ball of Death
Made up of 50 self-portraits of near pop-art impact, The Spinning Beach Ball of Death collection typifies the artistic intensity and creative endurance of one of America’s finest surrealist painters.
Made up of 50 self-portraits of near pop-art impact, The Spinning Beach Ball of Death collection typifies the artistic intensity and creative endurance of one of America’s finest surrealist painters.
Born in Huntsville, Alabama, Michael Porten earned a B.F.A. in illustration from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2004. Despite waylaying plans to work as a computer animator after rooming with a particular gifted fellow student, Porten’s work at Georgia’s prestigious SCAD institution bares more than a ghost of his early intentions.
Traditional portrait work is often laid-over with bold, clean edged lines, repetitive pictorial refrains or, as in the case of the Spinning Beach Ball of Death series, a primary colour filter. A quick glance at Beach Ball would have it as little more than the result of a Photoshop drop down box, or perhaps homage to the head rupturing Tizer man. A further glance shatters the initial reading.
50 24inch by 24 inch portraits stand side-by-side, each painted in oil. The first shows the back of Porten’s head and shoulders in bright red. The second, third and fourth fade to yellow then green and blue as his exceptionally bearded bust turns face on.
Porten says that the title of the collection borrows a metaphor from Mac’s rotating wait cursor, a spinning beach ball as seen from above that indicates processor-intensive activity. “For example,” tech website Thexlab aptly explains, “applying a Gaussian blur to an image in Adobe Photoshop.”
Such convenient clarification alludes to the artistic intentions of the digital designer turned painter.
The ease of computer based image replication and manipulation is parodied by Porten on the canvas. Each click of a button becomes a painstaking act of perfectionism and minute, barely detectable yet integral changes of perspective and pallet. What takes seconds on Photoshop is drawn out into a relative age. The motivation, Porten says, is to create a set of paintings undercut with an allusion to surrealist literature.
Surrealism first infiltrated a scene otherwise occupied with modernism through André Breton and Philippe Soupault’s 1920 work Les Champs Magnétiques. The principal piece of automatic writing, Les Champs Magnétiques is the fruit of shambolic sessions of free flowing thought underlined with a desire to be rid of classic literary influences.
The connection between Spinning Beachball and works born of such conceptual anarchy is clear. Porten’s portraits are at once striking works of pin-point accuracy with a photorealistic quality, and absurd, comic manifestations of self-examination; the product of an artist intentionally shackling themselves in terms of style and medium.
The end result of weeks of work, the product of far-gone literary movement and born from an ability to stare unwaveringly at his own image, The Spinning Beach Ball of Death is both a remarkable artistic achievement and a stunning collection.
Images via © Michael Porten’s website
Marlene Dumas Retrospective – The Image as Burden
“Art is not a Mirror. Art is a translation of that which you do not know.”
Born in Cape Town 1953, Marlene Dumas has had a long and distinguished career. After studying psychology, Dumas focused her energies upon painting, often referencing the darker side of the human psyche. Sex, Death and Love, are often explored in depth, as well as Homosexuality, Shame, Celebrity, Religion, Gender and Race.
This retrospective shows a diverse plethora of work spanning her entire career. In the first room we are greeted by her ‘Rejects’, almost monochrome and darkly melancholy paintings of larger-than-life faces that fill an entire wall and intimidate all that enter. To begin a retrospective with paintings that you essentially been rejected from other projects is a bold move curatorially, and one that in this instance has definitely paid off. Dumas is not one for convention, and in this the show doesn’t disappoint.
These gritty portraits set the theme for the whole show, and some even appear as if they have been painted with real dirt. It is difficult to avoid the icy chill that these works issue down your spine. On a few of these paintings the eyes have been cut or burnt out, to reveal other painted images beneath, peering through. This twinned with the vast foreheads and blank stares, makes these paintings appear as if they are deathmasks of the recently deceased. A chilling indication of things to come, and an apt way to begin the show.
In room two the large blueprint collage ‘Love verses Death’ poses much subtler and unusual questions. It is less bold and striking than the first room, and for this reason could be overlooked. Simple line drawings of people, with the recurring image of the Caritas Romana (a man being breastfed by his daughter to save him from starvation), show not only her true skills of draftsmanship, but also her knowledge of, and interest in, the darker and more esoteric sides of art history.
Dumas’s paintings are dark and dangerous, the skin on many is painted so thinly and transparently that it appears as real skin. Not the perfectly smooth and radiant skin of the classical portrait painters, but pale and unctuous and unglamorised. Like that of a corpse.
Many of the paintings are larger than life sized and hung higher than eye-level, two devices that are utilized to emphasize the haunting and forceful nature of the works. Dumas paints things that are often swept under the carpet, but here she brings them out into the open and forces us to look.
Her colour palate is unusual, choosing blues and greens for areas that are usually pink and red. This serves to heighten the feeling of unease felt upon viewing the works, as one is forced to wonder what purpose this strange juxtaposition serves. A panorama of navy blue and purple spans the forehead of one African male, suggesting immense wisdom.
Corpses also feature heavily in the show, sometimes life-size and prostrate. One of these is titled ‘Dead Girl’, and is painted from a photograph that Dumas found and then kept for twenty years before painting it. This kind of connection to a subject is how she has been able to paint such a haunting and yet beautiful portrait, long after the girl has gone.
Displacement is often hinted at throughout her oeuvre, which echoes her own displacement from South Africa to The Netherlands in 1976, where she still lives and works today. Censored paintings of a nude woman being led away by two soldiers still retain the black modesty boxes added by the publisher of the source photograph. These boxes do nothing more than heighten our awareness of her nakedness, and show how out of place and vulnerable she is in-between these two men, who hold her arms apart to expose and display her frailty. Dumas did two different paintings of this same photograph, both of which are in the show.
Another key element in this show is the text, cleverly written titles such as ‘Evil Is Banal’ and ‘The White Disease’, add another dimension to the already poignant paintings about evil and race. The painting ‘Magdalena’ in room seven, for example, has exaggerated birthing hips that represent fertility and traditional ideals of beauty, but small and awkward breasts that hand limply on her chest. This is hung with the contradictory subtitle ‘Out of Eggs, Out Of Business’, suggests and then subverts what the painting itself depicts.
As well as these clever titles there are many quotes and poems by Dumas herself. Her quote; “Painting as a form of exorcism or therapy”, suggests what she sees as the values of art.
Dumas has compared her paintings to ‘action paintings’, which are focused more on their gesture and method than on their subject matter. Dumas would often disregard the brush and paint with her hands or other parts of her body, if the painting necessitated it. The paintings are not there to depict exactly something as she has seen it (often she will do two completely different paintings from the same source photograph), but as a way of creating something new. “Art is not a Mirror. Art is a translation of that which you do not know.”
Her work is unapologetic in its starkness and brashness, and the viewer is merely a voyeur to many of these paintings. In describing a nude painting of her daughter Dumas remarked, “She is not there to please you. She pleases herself.” The painting exists as an autonomous entity, unconcerned with our opinions on its meaning or our pondering on the ethics of the subject matter. This quote is also important as it sets a clear boundary between this type of non-sexualised nudity depicted in her paintings of children, and the other forms of erotic nudity in her watercolours.
Never one to fall in line, this show breaks many rules. Paintings of Princess Diana are hung in the same gallery as Osama Bin Laden. Innocent portraits of children are given haunting titles, and nothing is deemed too controversial.
Marlene Dumas is a painter that shows the world as it really is, rather than how we wished it were. Her paintings are honest and brutal, showing us things that we would often turn away from. She rejects how media often glamorizes the vacuous and ignores the important, and she forces us to do the same.
Marlene Dumas once said that “Painting is about the trace of the human touch”, and in this show she has shown that this includes not only the pristine and the perfect, but also the dark and macabre elements of human life. This show proves that there is a true and unique beauty that exists in the obscene, and it shows us that we cannot experience one fully without also understanding the other.
Shorts On Tap present WOMEN IN REVOLT
There doesn’t need to be a special day to celebrate the talents and triumphs of women, particularly in film. As this event proves in every essence, celebrating the theme of women by female filmmakers.
The Art of Female-film-making
On April 6th Shorts On Tap will present its first recurrent series: Women In Revolt in London’s Stow Film Lounge. This will be the first of three screenings that will take viewers on an exploration into female-film-making. The programme is in collaboration with Club Des Femmes: a positive female space for the re-examination of ideas through art and is funded by Film London’s Boost Award.
The night promises to deliver the best of female film- making talent with a selection of extraordinary work depicting, challenging and describing every essence of womanhood.
The series also investigates the female form and the casual use of female nudity that is a topic silenced by our generations commodification over sex and sexuality. This event aims to give power and ownership of the female body back to the women who possess them.
But this is not a warning to men, who are welcome to join women on this emblematic march for equality through film.
The first chapter of the series The Chase focuses on the pursuit of a normal childhood. The transition into womanhood and the interior conflicts and challenges encountered along the journey. Chasing happiness, normality and dreams as well as being chased.
As always with Shorts On Tap, the films will be unveiled on the night and after the films have been screened there will be a platform for discussion and Q&A with the films directors and guest speakers.
Apart from a guaranteed good night out it will be an amazing opportunity to watch some radical independent films, debate social and political ideas and pave the way for more female recognition in the film industry.
What more could you be doing that evening?
Films screening start at 8pm. Show ends approximately at 10pm
RSVP & tickets | Apr 06 2015 20:00 - 22:30 | Stow Film Lounge
Orford House Social Club 73 Orford Road Walthamstow London E17 9QR , E17 9QR London
6 picks: our Photo London favourites
SELL: Photo London is back with up to 70 exhibitors. We’ve chosen our six favourite galleries we think you should check out at Somerset House this May
Photo London is back with up to 70 exhibitors. We’ve chosen our six favourite galleries we think you should check out at Somerset House this May.
Image © Samuel Hicks, Llamas Chile
Crane Kalman Gallery – Brighton
The independent British photography gallery, Crane Kalman Gallery puts the best, young and local talent on their walls. Along with some of contemporary photography’s brightest stars, it is fast becoming a place where buying, and even collecting photography is possible due to their affordable prices. Associated to the Crane Kalman Gallery, London, it has been one of the leading galleries to showcase the work of modern British painters, such as Henry Moore, for the past 45 years.
Harry Cory Wright-Plate VIII. The Coast, 2015-C print. 58 x 71 in / 148 x 180 cm (edition of 3). 32 1/2 x 39 in / 83 x 100 cm (edition of 7)
Eleven Fine Art – London
Founded in 2005 by Charlie Phillips - who was formerly the founding director of Haunch of Venison - and Laura Lopes, Eleven Fine Art runs its smooth operation from its permanent space in Belgravia, with pop up galleries throughout London. Eleven Fine Art is dedicated to exhibiting the best faces of international contemporary art. With a range of art by both well established, and emerging artists, the gallery also acts as an art advisory service.
Image courtesy of Eleven, London
Ismaïl Bahri | Eclipses, vidéo, 4/3, 4 mn, 2013
Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire – Paris
With more than half of its represented artists being photographers, Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire has truly committed to the contemporary photography scene. Launched in Paris in 1996 by art collector, Stephane Maghan, and artistic director, Christine Ollier, the gallery’s programme comprises three divisions. Fine-art photography dealing with the problematic of the image and notions of subject, the field of the abstract and figurative painting, and multidisciplinary works involving installation and video.
The Haas Brothers, Grace Tall stool and Dolph Tall stool from the Beast series (2013)
Black Icelandic Sheepskin and three cast bronze long legs; White Icelandic Sheepskin and four cast bronze long legs
34h x 18w x 15d in; 27.5h x 18w x 18d in
Kasher I Potamkin – New York
A hybrid between two well-established gallery names, Steven Kasher (Steven Kasher Gallery) and Andi Potamkin (Three Squares Studio), presents handcrafted, rare objects and unique works of art and design. As a ‘boutique-meets-gallery’, the 1,100-sqaure-foot space situates its works of art in an intimate, cosy, home-like environment, essentially exploring the connection on how to integrate art and life. Aesthetics and craftsmanship are the key elements Kasher and Potamkin look for when sourcing artists to represent.
Novye Mytischi, Suburbs of Moscow, Russia, 2010 | From the series: Pastoral | Archival pigment print 90 x 108cm Edition of 5 + 2 AP
The Wapping Project Bankside – London
Specialising in photography, film and video, The Wapping Project Bankside gallery represents a small group of international fine art photographers born after 1970. All the photographers work with the film medium, creating work with challenging subject matters. The gallery has also showcased the works of late Lillian Bassman and Deborah Turbeville, the fine art work of Susan Meiselas and the fashion photography of Paolo Roversi.
"Temple 54", 2015, pigment print, 122.5 x 156.1 cm ©Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn / JASPAR, Tokyo
Taka Ishii Gallery – New York/Paris/Tokyo
First opened in 1994, with an exhibition devoted to exploring the conceptual foundations and implications of contemporary photographic and graphic practice. The gallery now has spaces in Tokyo, New york and Paris, and has since exhibited and published works of contemporary established Japanese and foreign artists, while still supporting the development of younger, emerging artists.
Somerset House, from 21-24 May 2015
Unknown Mortal Orchestra release video game
Unknown Mortal Orchestra have unveiled a video game to coincide with the release of their latest single, Multi-Love.
Unknown Mortal Orchestra have unveiled a video game to coincide with the release of their latest single, Multi-Love.
Based around the title track from their forthcoming album of the same name, the video game takes players on a kind of kaleidoscopic rollercoaster ride of palm trees and techni-coloured fractals. It's available for PC, Mac and Unity.
As well as forming an apt means of deliverance for a brilliant piece of progressive shoe-gaze, the project has offered a platform for director Lionel Williams; a man who describes the work as representing “the vacuum of space by impressing upon inter-dimensional unfolding, immaterial objects, and time-driven reverberation of events. The virtual space allows for most 3D objects to trail in time – based on the directions one moves. You can construct & paint the objects in space to stretch them in any direction, to create infinitely vast compositional spaces.”
As much as the release of Multi-Love represents a novel multi-media move by a psychedelic band of Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s ilk, there is a long history of musicians involving themselves in the lucrative video games market.
The bonus Hotter Than Hell level on Tony Hawk’s Undergroundremains iconic for all mid 2000s, part-time skating fans. Hit a certain number of vert transfer in order and from a burst of green flames come glam-rock gods Kiss, valiantly strutting through a vaguely pixilated, hugely puppety version of God of Thunder.
In similar scenes of ridiculousness, The Beastie Boys feature on a version of NBA Jam as unlock-able characters. As well as bringing the heat against other secret characters, including Mr Leader of the Free World himself, President Obama, NBA Jam players could double up with the ludicrously bouffant Mike D and the late, great, 3 point specialist, MCA.
And from the sublime to the obscene, in 1994 Aerosmith released dystopian thriller/inexplicable rail shooter, Revolution X. In the game, players battle the oppressive New Order Nation regime in order to retrieve the kidnapped rockers. People from the ‘90s would use a mounted gun to control onscreen crosshairs and shoot enemies with compact discs.
Multi-Love is out on the 26th May on Jagjaguwar. Unknown Mortal Orchestra start their UK tour in Brighton on the 22nd September.
You can download the 3D Multi-Love app here: Mac | PC | Unity Pro Source file
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA UK TOUR DATES:
May 20 Bristol, UK @ Thekla SOLD OUT
May 21 London, UK @ Islington Assembly Hall SOLD OUT
May 22 Coventry, UK @ Warwick University w/ Django Django
May 23 Liverpool, UK @ Liverpool Sound City
Sep 22 Brighton, UK - Concorde 2
Sep 23 London, UK - O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire
Sep 24 Birmingham, UK - The Library at the Institute
Sep 25 Manchester, UK - The Ritz
Sep 26 Dublin, IE - Whelan's
Sep 28 Nottingham, UK - Rescue Rooms
Sep 29 Leeds, UK - Brudenell Social Club
Sep 30 Glasgow, UK - QMU
Abstract Creations: Robert Sosner at John Marchant Gallery
Brighton’s John Marchant Gallery presents Robert Sosner’s new works; entitled SOS, the exhibition is characterised by bold use of colour and bright abstract shapes in the artist’s usual style.
Brighton’s John Marchant Gallery presents Robert Sosner’s new works; entitled SOS, the exhibition is characterised by bold use of colour and bright abstract shapes in the artist’s usual style.
Working with canvas and paper, Sosner paints thoughtful and eye catching compositions, playfully leading the viewer’s eye across his works. His creations are enriched by varying textures sometimes visible beneath the paint, with some works also hinting at the artistic process through the inclusion of alternative colours in the final piece.
Sosner invites viewers to engage and experience his paintings subjectively, aiming to add a little magic to everyday life:
“Overt narrative is avoided and I invite the viewer to find their own way in to each painting to experience something powerful, intangible and at the same time meditative, when looking at the work.”
Born in London, Sosner studied at the Chelsea School of Fine Art attaining a BA Hons in Fine Art – he has since exhibited widely in London, while also working on commission in a variety of private and commercial projects.
Sosner has been the recipient of Pollock Krasner Foundation and Spanish Government scholarships. He currently lives and works in Brighton.
SOS
New paintings by Robert Sosner | John Marchant Gallery | 28th March - 12th April