2012 May : EXIT

RICHARD AVEDON – MURALS & PORTRAITS

Posted on 2012-05-28

In his large-scale murals and the smaller, related portraits of the 1960s and 1970s, Avedon sought to depict the spirit of the times. The transgendered Candy Darling and the naked Taylor Mead testify to the provocative countercultural behavior of the Factory; the positioning of characters within the mural suggest a complicated group dynamic. The spirit of political rebellion is embodied by the Chicago Seven mural, as well as the individual photos of writer Jean Genet, Weatherman leader Bernardine Dohrn, and former turf gang-turned-human rights group, the Young Lords.

The expanding definition of the American family is represented by the mural of the Ginsbergs, while earlier images of Allen in nude embrace with his partner Peter Orlovsky, were found to be too shocking for most publications in 1963. Finally, the war administrators – the Mission Council – are juxtaposed with victims of the war: Vietnamese survivors of napalm attacks. Powerful and dynamic, Avedon’s images became icons of their embattled times that resonate for the present and future.

Opposite – Andy Warhol and members of The Factory, New York, May 21, 1969

Exhibition runs through till July 6th, 2012

Gagosian Gallery
522 West 21st Street
New York
NY
10011

www.gagosian.com

VEE SPEERS – THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

Posted on 2012-05-28

This is the first commercial UK exhibition of the critically acclaimed photographer Vee Speers and her infamous series The Birthday Party – which has been published & exhibited worldwide and is now part of many private & public collections. It includes two new images exhibited for the very first time.

Vee Speers is an Australian artist living in Paris. She studied fine art and photography in Brisbane which was followed by a five year career in Sydney with ABC Television as a stills photographer. A short stay in France in 1990 became a permanent move to Paris where she became established in the art world with her hauntingly beautiful portraits of children The Birthday Party.

Exhibition opens September 4th through to October 20th, 2012

The Little Black Gallery
13A Park Walk
London
SW10 0AJ

www.thelittleblackgallery.com

ZED NELSON – LOVE ME

Posted on 2012-05-28

The exhibition explores a new form of globalisation, where an increasingly narrow Western beauty ideal is being exported around the world like a crude universal brand. Whilst Nelson’s subjects appear willing participants in an omnipresent culture of bodily improvement, they might equally be considered hapless victims – at the mercy of larger social forces and locked into an insatiable craving for approval.As the subject’s frailties and pretensions are exposed, so too are we the viewer: our motives for looking, for inspecting, along with uncomfortable reminders of our own vanities and insecurities.

Exhibition runs through till June 24th, 2012

DLI Museum and Durham Art Gallery
Aykley Heads
Durham
DH1 5T

county.durham.gov.uk

ARIRANG

Posted on 2012-05-28

Arirang is a 2011 South Korean documentary film by Kim Ki-duk. The film addresses a personal crisis Kim went through, sparked by an incident during the filming of his previous film, Dream, where the lead actress nearly died by hanging. The titles comes from a Korean folk song with the same title. In a heavily line-broken text released about the film, Kim writes that “Through Arirang I understand human beings, thank the nature, and accept my life as it is now.” Kim produced the film entirely on his own.It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, and won the section’s top award for best film.

In theaters June 8th, 2012

www.arirang-arirang.jp

SING YOUR SONG

Posted on 2012-05-28

Sing Your Song is an up close look at a great American, Harry Belafonte. A patriot to the last and a champion for worldwide human rights, Belafonte is one of the truly heroic cultural and political figures of the past 60 years. Told from Harry’s point of view, the film charts his life from a boy born in New York and raised in Jamaica, who returns to Harlem in his early teens where he discovers the American Negro Theater and the magic of performing.

From there the film follows Belafonte’s rise from the jazz and folk clubs of Greenwich Village and Harlem to his emergence as a star. However, even as a superstar, the life of a black man in 1960s America was far from easy and Belafonte was confronted with the same Jim Crow laws and prejudices that every other black man, woman and child in America was facing.

In theaters June 8th, 2012

singyoursongthemovie.com

PROMETHEUS

Posted on 2012-05-28

Set in the late 21st century, the story centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus as they follow a star map discovered among the remnants of several ancient Earth civilizations. Led to a distant world and an advanced civilization, the crew seeks the origins of humanity, but instead discovers a threat that could cause the extinction of the human race. The fifth entry in the Alien franchise, directed this time by Ridley Scott, who directed the original in 1979.

In theaters June 1st, 2012