CIPRIAN MURESAN

Posted on 2013-01-28

The central work of the exhibition, Shredded Masaccio Book, presents the shredded paper remains of a hand-drawn version of Ornella Casazza’s text on the Italian Renaissance painter Masaccio. Titled Masaccio: and the Brancacci Chapel and published by Scala/Riverside (1990), the Italian artist Masaccio died at the young age of 26, while Muresan’s pencil-drawn book likewise had a short life, remaining in tact only for the days that it took for the artist to complete its pages. Before deconstructing the book, Muresan documented its pages and converted them into the form of a video slideshow. Nonetheless, Muresan invites the individual who purchases the work to devote an extensive amount of his or her time to taping the paper fragments back together.

For the video piece Untitled, Muresan worked with two stage directors to simultaneously orchestrate two different performances on the same stage. The directors were given complete freedom in choosing the play they would stage, while both they and the participating actors remained unaware of what the other group would perform, until both parties got on stage. Through this forced overlap, Muresan generates a new text, but also creates moments of chaos and harmony, thereby extending the communicative boundaries of the two individual theatre pieces.

Opposite – Untitled (From the Story ‘Invisible Clerk’ by Ilf and Petrov), 2012

Exhibition runs through to February 10th, 2013

Wilkinson Gallery
50-58 Vyner Street
London
E2 9DQ

www.wilkinsongallery.com

  

KURT SCHWITTERS – SCHWITTERS IN BRITIAN

Posted on 2013-01-28

Schwitters in Britain is the first major exhibition to examine the late work of Kurt Schwitters, one of the major artists of European Modernism. The exhibition focuses on his British period, from his arrival in Britain as a refugee in 1940 until his death in Cumbria in 1948. Schwitters was forced to flee Germany when his work was condemned as ‘degenerate’ by Germany’s Nazi government and the show traces the impact of exile on his work. It includes over 150 collages, assemblages and sculptures many shown in the UK for the first time in over 30 years.

Schwitters was a significant figure in European Dadaism who invented the concept of Merz – ‘the combination, for artistic purposes of all conceivable materials’. Whether those materials were string, cotton wool or a pram wheel, Schwitters considered them to be equal with paint. He is best known for his pioneering use of found objects and everyday materials in abstract collage, installation, poetry and performance. Schwitters’s time in Britain was quite extraordinary and continues to reverberate today, with the influence he has exerted over artists such as Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi and Damien Hirst.

Opposite – Untitled (This is to Certify that), 1942

Exhibition runs through to May 23rd, 2013

Tate Britain
Millbank
London
SW1P 4RG

www.tate.org.uk

  

RICHARD PRINCE

Posted on 2013-01-28

Fourteen expansive canvases hybridise the forms of various recent series. Each canvas features an over-painted ink-jet print of a single female figure or giantess, a hybrid of Prince’s Rasta paintings, De Kooning paintings, and a separate series of works inspired by Picasso. The women teeter between the appearance of neoclassical marbles and fragments of soft porn. Through Prince’s interventions in acrylic, the torsos metamorphose into gigantic sculptural bodies, with wrestling mask heads and elongated, angular limbs painted in grisaille tones.

In line with much of Prince’s art, these paintings grapple with the idea of influence, reusing and deconstructing his own and other artists’ iconography in order to challenge the avant-garde gospel of ‘originality’. In the late 2000s, Prince began a cycle of paintings which similarly corrupted Willem de Kooning’s ‘Women’ series – conflating the originals with pornographic ink-jet prints and sections of expressive, ‘painterly’ brushwork. In this latest series, the figures’ masked faces, box-like appendages and clubbed extremities often jar absurdly with their agile poses. In defiance of painting’s fervent movement away from photographic styles of representation throughout the twentieth century, Prince cheekily injects photography back into the picture. These works profess their sources – their debt to Cubism and Abstract Expressionism, at the same time as they express a close sympathy with (and perhaps a nostalgia for) the grand painterly statements of Modernism.

Exhibition runs through to March 23rd, 2013

Sadie Coles
4 New Burlington Place
London
W1S 2HS

www.sadiecoles.com

  

TOM FORD BONDAGE STRAPS THIGH HIGH BOOT

Posted on 2013-01-28

The Tom Ford Bondage Straps thigh high Boot is one of the signature shoes featured in Tom Ford’s SS13 main collection and comes available in a variety of colours and exotic skins including smooth calfskin, shiny alligator, patent leather, metal python and mirror lambskin.

Recognisable by its signature zigzagging of straps going up the calf. this boot when worn should feel like a second skin and directly references the bondage inspiration. The most recognisable detail is the bold hardware and layers of leather contrasting with the luxurious skins used to make it.
All the hardware used on the Bondage Straps thigh high Boot is in solid brass coated with 0.5 micron gold plating. And each strap along the calf is reinforced with small elastics at each extremity in order to ease the fit.

www.tomford.com

  

ADIDAS CONSORTIUM X HANON CNTR

Posted on 2013-01-28

For this release Hanon pay tribute to their hometown of Aberdeen – The Granite City!
Both the colour way and material application are inspired by the surroundings which were historically built from locally quarried granite.
Executed in suede, mesh and nubuck, the grey upper of the Centaur depicts the seasonal change of Aberdeen’s granite landscape. At the rear of the shoe there is a dark grey suede with a heavy nap representing the gloom of winter which is offset by a dual layered silver mesh and light grey nubuck that leans towards the fairer months of the year.
Additional features appear by way of red accents, granite three stripes and multi print sock liner. The detail on the stripes was created by applying a mirror image print of the grain on the stonework at our warehouse to a black 3M reflective material, while the footbed and tongue backer draws inspiration from adidas’ archive boxes and tissue paper.

Further detail on the shoe appears in the form of dual branding via debossed heel tabs and embroidered Consortium tongue pulls. The hanon flame appears on the left shoe whilst the adidas Trefoil is applied on the right. Each hanon Centaur comes with silver foil footbed labels, three sets of laces – one tonal, one contrast and one with a reflective weave.
A limited edition dust bag will be released with a number of pairs of the shoe and 50 pcs of a special edition ‘granite’ tshirt will accompany the shoe for the instore launch only.

www.adidas.co.uk
www.hanon-shop.com

  

LACOSTE 80 YEARS ANNIVERSARY POLO SHIRT DIY KIT

Posted on 2013-01-28

Celebrating their 80th anniversary, French brand Lacoste created a total of 12 different DIY customizing kits for their iconic Polo shirt. Based on a design by legendary art director Peter Saville, every month another highly limited kit will be exclusively available from the brands F-store on Facebook.

www.lacoste.com