A$AP ROCKY – GOLDIE
2012-04-23The video was shot in Paris and directed by Rocky himself. “Basically, the concept of the video is to be more flamboyant and to showcase a lot of flash, a lot of luxury. Old foreign cars and fashion models”.
TweetJUN WATANABE X TAMIYA RC CARS X THE HORNET
2012-04-23Fashion designer Jun Watanabe has designed a scheme for The Hornet by Tamiya RC cars. This is a special model with purple chassis parts, white springs, pink wheel nuts and various other coloured parts as designed by Jun Watanabe. The body design features a black polka dots on white base. Tire & Wheels, includes standard black and white wheels for running and pink tires with black wheels for display. The new box art is completed designed by Jun Watanabe as well.
Tweet
MICHAEL DEAN – GOVERNMENT
2012-04-16Michael Dean’s sculptures are either the perfect size to be carried or quote their surrounding architecture where they are then to be found lurking, propped against gallery walls. Made from cast concrete, the surfaces are veined and ridged, offering invitations to be touched. Tactility is an essential sculptural quality for Dean – he wishes us to first ‘touch with the eyes, and then allow ourselves to touch with the hand’.
Government quotes from and transforms the Institute’s galleries. The concrete floor has been covered with a thick, wool, wall-to-wall carpet, becoming something to touch, with the new surface changing the visual and sonic experience of the spaces. Instead of standing, the Institute’s Information Assistants sit on the floor. The door handles at the entrance to the galleries have been recast as four forearm-sized sculptures, titled ‘Yes (working title)’ and ‘No (working title)’. These flat, grey, concrete bodies leave themselves no choice but to touched, their patina changing as the raw, unsealed surfaces pick up the traces of each person’s hand.
Exhibition runs through to June 17th, 2012
Henry Moore Institute
74 The Headrow
Leeds
LS1 3AH
ÍVAR VALGARDSSON – POWER LINES
2012-04-16In Power Lines Valgardsson continues his investigation into the materiality of art and his interrogation of ready-made materials. Here the artist presents his viewers with a medium that is familiar to nearly everyone, but at a different scale: generally we see these cables at a distance as part of the landscape, not up close as we see them here. Throughout his career, Valgardsson has used other custom-made DIY materials to produce works of a transient nature. In particular, he has explored the conceptual properties of paint as part of his research into the relationship between nature and the man-made environment, for instance, likening a stream of paint to a stream of water. Thus the power cables are part of Valgardsson ongoing interest in currents, both in the physical and the metaphysical sense.
Valgardsson scrutinises the aesthetics of the quotidian and as he has pointed out, power lines are an ordinary part of our environment: “They are just there.” Unlike the simple building materials and paint he has chosen for previous works, the power line is a phenomenon that is much more loaded, criticised itself as a blot on the landscape and as a symbol of a contested infrastructure. In this exhibition, Valgardsson strips the cables of their specialized function and uses them to create a three-dimensional drawing within the space of the white cube, thereby placing this industrial material into an aesthetic context.
Exhibition runs through to May 5th, 2012
i8 Gallery
Tryggvagata 16
Reykjavik
Iceland
BRETT AMORY – WAITING 101
2012-04-16The compositions in the exhibition focus on Amoryʼs newfound relationship with technology, and the implicit freedom it allows in his work. Delving into documentation methods which new modes
of ambulatory technology offer, Amory experienced a metamorphosis in his painting preparation and application. With intimate, firsthand knowledge of the many ways that technology can affect the lives of those it touches, Amory explores the avenues itʼs opened up for him as an artist in Waiting 101.
Inspiration has never been so easy to manipulate and document. Amory expertly wields the tools available to him, with the intent of maintaining and evolving the series that has garnered
him international acclaim. Prior to Amoryʼs use of the camera phone, his process involved painstaking research and meticulous stake-outs at chosen locations. This was always with the hope of capturing a moment and individual suitable to his artistic vision. His compositions show a radical departure from his historical works in their obvious spontaneity, yet remain true to his unequivocally distinct technique.
Opposite – Waiting #121, 2011
Exhibition runs from April 20th to May 26th, 2012
The Outsiders
77 Quayside
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE1 3DE
JUN WATANABE X ATMOS X REEBOK INSTA PUMP FURY
2012-04-16Jun Watanabe and atmos follow up with version 2 on their collaboration with Reebok on the Insta Pump Fury shoe. In typical Watanabe fashion, we see the use of a very bold print with bright accenting colors. Black polka dots are the dominating design element, especially against the magenta and purple sole
Tweet