THE NATURAL CURRICULUM – MIDDLE
2016-09-12The video for ‘Middle’ by The Natural Curriculum. Taken from the album ‘The Best Fertilizer is the Gardener’s Shadow’.
TweetKAMBUI OLUJIMI – WHAT ENDURES
2016-09-12Inspired by dance marathons of the 1920s and 1930s, Olujimi’s exhibition features photographs, works on paper, and video in proximity to a large site-specific sculpture of interlocking platforms that serves as the stage for multiple encounters during the exhibition.
What Endures investigates the gesture of dance as a symbol of persistence and resilience amidst the economic downturn and global social upheaval. The focal point of the exhibit, Just Because We’re Magic Doesn’t Mean We Aren’t Real, consists of interlocking platforms on which Olujimi performs at the opening reception, and upon which the artist’s works on paper are based. The wood sculpture was designed in conversation with the enduring architecture of the Coney Island Cyclone, a wooden roller coaster constructed in 1927, and still in operation today. The sculpture is both a stand-alone work, as well as an evolving and integral part of each separate performance and encounter to which it lends a physical scaffold. Breathtaking work from the series Blind Sum showcases Olujimi’s mastery of long exposure composition and print production. Olujimi’s photographs reflect the complex role of dance marathons as mass entertainment events during the Great Depression. These endurance contests often lasted weeks, providing much needed entertainment, purse money, and fame during an era of severe deprivation. With an eerie prescience to present day “reality shows,” these contests blurred the line between theatre and reality. A mix of the heroic and grotesque, of kitsch and desperation, these spectacles were meant to test the capacity of individual will. While the dance marathons challenged many gender and class expectations, they were vehemently racially segregated. Olujimi’s work examines the repercussions of such omissions in the creation of mythic space. Blind Sum emblematizes the common contests of endurance, persistence, and defiance and the desire to live beyond the capacities that we have internalized.
Opposite – Untitled (Blind Sum) #8 , 2014
Exhibition runs through to October 16th, 2016
Catharine Clark Gallery
248 Utah Street
San Francisco, CA
CA 94103
California
PETER THOMAS – SPACE PATROL (ORION 2016)
2016-09-12SPACE PATROL (“Raumpatrouille – Die phantastischen Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Orion”) was the first German science fiction television series. Its seven episodes were broadcast by ARD TV, the first episode being aired on September 17th of 1966. Being a huge success with audience ratings up to 56%, the series acquired a distinct cult status in Germany and worldwide.
Now, 50 years on, The Mighty Mocambos teamed up with the legendary musical mastermind a recorded an up to date, truly global and funky 2016 version in tribute of the original theme. “Space Patrol (Raumpatrouille)” is the only official recording of the track released for this anniversary and authorized by Peter Thomas, who even plays on it himself. To give this 50 years version a new twist, the specially formed Mocambo Astronautic Sound Orchestra adds steel band orchestration to the massive brass and funky rhythm section.
Orion 2016 is available as a 7inch single in a deluxe picture sleeve on Mocambo Records and as a digital download on Légère Recordings legererecordings.
TweetFABER-CASTELL KARLBOX
2016-09-05A collaboration between Karl Lagerfeld and Faber-Castell, have created the KARLBOX which all the tools you may need for drawing and painting — all sorted by shade in removable drawers housed within a custom cabinet resembling a traditional Chinese wedding chest.
The KARLBOX unites the traditional values of the family-owned company Faber-Castell with the modern, unique and innovative spirit and style of Karl Lagerfeld. It is a symbol for the long term relationship of both brands and represtens the symbiosis of the fashion, art and design worlds.
It is divided into several drawers which include the primary colours. In total it contains 350 drawing instruments that were chosen by Karl Lagerfeld: markers, crayons, colour pencils, including reds, blacks, greens, yellows and blues set out like a colour chart. The KARLBOX is limited to 2.500 pieces worldwide.
TweetFIS – FROM PATTERNS TO DETAILS
2016-09-05Natural patterns of organic life make the most efficient use of space and surface area and in permaculture design one observes natural patterns in a landscape and plans details accordingly. Taking a self-occurring pattern like the veins of a leaf, contour lines, or the spirals of water and letting that guide interactions with the surface of the earth. The ethos is to work with natural flow and processes rather than to impose.
Mirroring this idea From Patterns to Details draws from the sense of a deeper underlying order. It sees continuity between environment and individual, continuity between external bodies and the internal emotional landscapes that music can communicate beyond the affordances of language. The album embraces technology as something that is not in conflict with the organic processes of nature. Technology is treated as life in a different state. Human beings are gardens in a different state; all temporary forms of the same thing. From Patterns to Details imagines states of alignment with all, and harmonious design, a complete integration between personal and external systems whether organic or technological.
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JENNIFER STILLWELL – NEW WORK
2016-09-05In order to create new work Jennifer Stillwell finds an original process. Her material processes are physically amplified into playful, formal and critical responses to a site and its context. Concepts of the gallery space, the industrial space, the domestic space, the landscape and the body collide in her forms. Time, gravity and material tendencies become vehicles of expression with forms set in suspended animation. In her recent pieces, meaning and scale shifts with changes in perspective. Art historical references are embraced but at the same time deconstructed through her seemingly naïve use of everyday items. Within her forms one recognizes the familiarity of what they’re seeing while also being given the opportunity to redefine the embedded constructs.
For her new solo exhibition at Pari Nadimi Gallery, Jennifer Stillwell appropriates the classic prank of a bucket of liquid balanced on top of a door and combines it with the domino effect in order to create a new series of painterly sculptures. With the resulting spilled forms one has the opportunity to rewind back and forth through the process in order to imagine their original static state and how they may have been activated. The speed of the objects tipping over can be imagined but the character of the materials allows one to slow the image down.
Exhibition runs through to October 29th, 2016
Pari Nadimi Gallery
254 Niagara Street
ON M6J 2L8
Toronto
Canada
