ALAN BUTLER – HELIOSYNTH

Posted on 2017-03-20

HELIOSYNTH is the artist’s first exhibition in a commercial gallery and comes at the end of a plethora of exhibitions and curated online shows in Ireland and internationally from Belgrade to Skibereen. Butler has garnered a reputation for being one of the most insightful and inventive artists whose “raw material” is the virtual. His use of digital simulacra has unexpected, ravishing and perplexing philosophic results and is as close to the pioneering technologies of the early 19th century daguerreotype and cyanotype as it is to the silicon technology in your pocket and on your desk.

The exhibition will include new, unique monumental works on paper, digital photograms, new sculpture and video works.

Opposite – Sierra.jpg (v1) 2016

Exhibition runs through to April 29th, 2017

Green On Red Gallery
Park Lane
Spencer Dock, Dublin 1
Dublin
Ireland

www.greenonredgallery.com

  

ERIC CAHAN – RABBITS, RATS & CATS

Posted on 2017-03-20

Cahan visited Havana, Cuba and its nearby villages three times in 2016, spending significant time in El Barrio del Fanguito, where he was witness to Cuba’s social immobility and poverty, as well as to a lifestyle more in harmony with nature and the basic needs of its citizens than that of much of the West.

While in Cuba, Cahan took part in two Ayahuasca ceremonies, which opened his heart and mind to new ways of seeing, and gave him a sense of connection to the people around him, and to their own connection to their land. Rabbits, Rats, and Cats was born out of these experiences. It integrates Cahan’s artistic practices, presenting photography, painting, and a film documenting his alternative vision of Cuban life, where inhabitants are portrayed as hybrid animal-human forms and anthropomorphic extensions of their surroundings.

Using his photographs as a blueprint, Cahan enhanced each image through an alchemic treatment that tessellates the photographic surface, some of which is layered in oil paint, while other sections are reduced to phthalo shimmers, before the picture is finished with a crackle varnish that resembles the scaling in the initial strata. Cahan’s manipulations unmasks the supposed objectivity of the photographic process as the subjective perspective it is, while the arbitrary and often surreal details of the painted imagery acquire a documentary inevitability in conjunction with its photographic base.

Opposite – Fibonacci, 2016

Exhibition runs through to April 15th, 2017

Benrubi Gallery
521 West 26th Street
2nd Floor
New York
NY 10001

www.benrubigallery.com

  

LIFE

Posted on 2017-03-20

Life is a terrifying sci-fi thriller about a team of scientists aboard the International Space Station whose mission of discovery turns to one of primal fear when they find a rapidly evolving life form that caused extinction on Mars, and now threatens the crew and all life on Earth.

In theatres March 24th, 2017

www.lifemovie.com

  

RAPHAELA SIMON

Posted on 2017-03-20

Simple forms and vibrant colours define Raphaela Simon’s canvases. The clear compositions are consciously simple, structures are being taken up again, gestures are being repeated which both carry like a thread through the entire work of the artist. Simon works in several layers, she overpaints and modifies previous elements over and over in a continuous and at times longterm process. However, the traces of editing, of adding and removing remain always visible. Coloured forms shine through white areas and here and there dark brushstrokes are spotted underneath lighter parts. Thus, her paintings appear as a form of palimpsest which is being overwritten and reused while still preserving the references of former layers.

Simon gives her paintings concise titles like Föhn, Pflaster or Schacht (hairdryer, band-aid or shaft). Seemingly banal terms of everyday life suddenly turn into the meaningful sense of the work. Simultaneously, she reduces the single work to a first association, a key word. This provides the paintings with a symbolical character that makes them appear like icons.
Thus, the artist creates a contrast to the actual size of her works and the highly charged medium painting. Focused on a word, the abstract visual language seemingly loses its complexity and, similar to a pictogram, emphasises the informative content. In so doing, Simon also plays with the desire of the viewer to construe figurative elements in abstract forms as well as search for references even though these always remain personal interpretations.

Opposite – Waschmaschine, 2017

Exhibition runs through to April 22nd, 2017

Galerie Max Hetzler
Berlin: Goethestraße 2/3
D-10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg

www.maxhetzler.com

  

AQUARIUS

Posted on 2017-03-20

Clara, a 65 year old widow and retired music critic, was born into a wealthy and traditional family in Recife, Brazil. She is the last resident of the Aquarius, an original two-story building, built in the 1940s, in the upper-class, seaside Boa Viagem Avenue, Recife. All the neighboring apartments have already been acquired by a company which has other plans for that plot. Clara has pledged to only leave her place upon her death, and will engage in a cold war of sorts with the company. This tension both disturbs Clara and gives her that edge on her daily routine. It also gets her thinking about her loved ones, her past and her future.

In theatres March 24th, 2017

www.vitrinefilmes.com

  

PATAGONIA – PATALOHA COLLECTION

Posted on 2017-03-20

Patagonia debuts its limited edition “Pataloha” collection, which features an original print in honor of the Polynesian Voyaging Society, the Mālama Honua voyage and the return of Hokuleʻa to Hawai’i — a voyage that begain in 2013.

The collection includes the “Patahola” shirt for men, made of 60% hemp/35% recycled polyester/5% TENCEL® lyocell blend, featuring an original depiction of Hokuleʻa at sea, and the “Patahola” dress for women, made from lightweight TENCEL® lyocell, with a soft and natural drape.

www.patagonia.com