Artists: Liam Gillick, Paul Purgas, Claudia Wieser, Appau Jnr Yiadom-Boakye
This week we’ve been excited for the launch of Isle Skateboard’s limited-edition line Tweaked Modernism. Curated by Twin’s art editor Francesca Gavin, the artist produced decks are accompanied by a printed publication by Birmingham design studio An Endless Supply.
The four specially created skateboards unpick the aesthetic and conceptual ideas of modernism, meta modernism, and off modernism.
Founded by Isle Skateboards is the skateboard label founded by artist Nick Jensen and Paul Shier. Past collaborations with artist have included boards from Kira Freije, Oliver Laric and Christian Hidaka.
As curator Francesca reflects, “there are fascinating connections between skating and modernism. Both have rethought what the human physical relationship is to form and space. Street skating approaches architecture in a way no one would have imagined. I was interested in bringing together four varied artists who all tweak modernist ideas or aesthetics in their work. I liked the urban slang take on tweaking as getting high – it felt apt for addressing how artists rework history.”
The Artists:
Liam Gillick studied at Goldsmiths and lives and works in New York. His work, ranging from small books to large-scale architectural collaborations, explores the aesthetics of the constructed world and dysfunction of modernism.
Paul Purgas is a London-based artist and musician working with sound, performance, and installation. Originally trained as an architect, he has presented projects with Tate, Spike Island, Glasgow Tramway and Kunstverein Gartenhaus. He is one half of Empyset, and has performed at Berghain, Serpentine Gallery, CTM and Atonal.
Claudia Wieser is an artist based in Berlin known for creating geometric installation, sculptures and wall works that unpick the legacy and aesthetics of modernism. She has had solo shows Hamburger Bahnhof, The Drawing Center and has collaborated on projects with Hermes and Musée Yves Saint Laurent.
Appau Jnr Boakye-Yiadom is a London-based multi-disciplinary artist working with found materials and objects, sculpture, photography, sound, performance, archive, and self-produced moving image. He has exhibited at National Portrait Gallery, Jerwood Space and Southwark Park Galleries.
Boards available from skate shops across the United Kingdom, United States, Holland and Japan.
The second issue of Good Trouble issue 22, the zine produced by former Dazed & Confused editor Rod Stanley and designed by Richard Turley and Sophie Abady, is out this month.
Slightly confusing though the name of the magazine may be, the work included this issue is straightforwardly fantastic. The publication features original work by Wolfgang Tillmans, Sara Rahbar, Boychild, Scott King, Torbjørn Rødland, Helena Foster and others, curated by Francesca Gavin.
The broadsheet newspaper champions activism and resistance, bringing together a selection of creative and dynamic voices. This latest issue spans 32 pages and includes a pull out ‘Unmanifesto’ poster.
Watch This Space is a book that examines our relationships with our screens, ‘the defining object of the twenty-first century’. A limited edition collaboration between writer, editor and curator Francesca Gavin, and Pentagram partners Luke Powell and Jody Hudson-Powell, the book questions the function of our screens, and how they shape our everyday experience. Watch This Space provides an in-depth analysis of the object that has become an extension of our modern bodies, looking at the impact of screens on society, culture and the self.
The book includes the work of almost 50 contributors, including Yuri Pattinson, winner of the 2016 Frieze Art Award, conceptual documentary photographer Richard Mosse, and artist and director Margot Bowman. It has been produced by Pentagram, an independently owned multidisciplinary design studio with offices across Europe and the United States.
The design of the book actually reflects the subject matter, with the material used on the cover replicating the physical feel of a screen. Inside, pages are printed using Vivid Colour, a new five colour process that adds violet to CMYK, combined with stochastic imaging, which creates a near photographic definition image.
The book launches on November 8th at Tenderbooks in Leicester Square.
Francesca Gavin (Twin, Art Editor) curates a new exhibition in Paris, inspired by the cultural power of the humble champignon.
The exhibition explores the mushroom through cultural and historical narratives, focussing on how this simple fungi has operated at the heart of ritual for thousands of years.
Hannah Collins, ‘The fragile feast, madonna and ceps.’ 2012 – 2017. | image courtesy of galeriepcp
“They were an early form of female empowerment” Peter Cybulski, of galeriepcp tells me, adding that women used mushrooms for a source of income throughout the 19th century.
Throughout contemporary art, the mushroom can also be seen as a source of inspiration, with creatives looking towards it for its ability to signify nature, as well as more abstract, and psychedelic references.
Seana Gavin, ‘mushroomscape’, 2017 | image courtesy of galeriepcp
Bringing together a diverse and exciting range of international artists which includes Hannah Collins, Sylvie Fleury, Seana Gavin, Carsten Holler and more. This new exhibition covers painting, collage, film and photography to offer an exciting and surprising survey of the mushroom, and the strangeness it embodies.
John Millei ‘maria sabina #1’, 2016 | image courtesy of galeriepcp
Champignons! curated by Francesca Gavin is at galeriepcp in Paris until 10th November 2017.
For Issue 15 it’s all about the pursuit of the personal, and deconstructing the concept of perfection. Photographer Thomas Giddings turns his lens on the kids of Amsterdam in homage to the Dutch Masters, while fearless artist Rachel Maclean presents the unashamed power of pink. We see Dree Hemingway cavorting with Chanel’s Cruise 2017 collection in Upstate New York, and explore the fluidity of gender in modern-day Tel Aviv. Yves Saint Laurent presents a study in beauty through the ages, artfully reworked to be the very definition of now, and we meet LA-based model-turned-musician Kacy Hill, who has recently caught the eye of Kanye West. In addition to this, Francesca Gavin takes us on a visceral MDMA trip with artist Geoffrey Farmer, and we sit down with Jane Moseley, the sex-boot wearing model who piqued Demna Gvasalia’s interest.
European capitals have long been considered to be temples of art, with a roster of household names to bolster their reputations – Madrid has Picasso, Florence has Leonardo da Vinci, Paris has Monet. Copenhagen, however, is current cool kid on the block when it comes to the art scene, and Chart Art Fair might just be the place to discover a corresponding famous face. From 21 -23 August, the fair will be holding a unique exhibition of contemporary Scandinavian artists from 28 countries at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts Kunsthal Charlottenborg. Its unique presentation will propel the viewer through a unique and distinctive experience of the many different facets of contemporary Nordic art.
One of these facets is performance, and as such the fair will feature Spectrum, a programme created by Twin’s own art editor, Francesca Gavin. Intended to demonstrate how performance can be relevant, engaging and complex, Gavin’s programme will focus on Nordic artists who work in different areas such as architecture, sound and textiles.
Friday will see Tori Wrånes create dramatic aural audio works, while on Saturday, Sirra Sigrún Sigurōardóttir will focus on spectrum and movement through interactive spaces and David Mullett will leverage a psychedelic virtual reality. For the final day, Nadine Byrne and collaborators Julie Verhoeven and Peter Jensen will channel a variety of mediums including sound, sculpture and textiles.
Gavin has also created series of special projects: Video Video presents a series of video works from artists such as Joe Winograd, Katarina Löfström, Martin Erik Andersen, Rhys Coren, Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowksi, and Sara Ludy, with the films being shown on designated screens in shop windows around Copenhagen.
Elsewhere, Carsten Höller’s graphic works (pictured) are a highlight, as are pieces by Franz West, John Kørner and Jaume Plensa, to name but a few. With accompanying events covering architecture and gastronomy, the fair looks set to chart a stylish voyage of discovery into Scandinavian culture.
Francesca Gavin, Twin“s Art Editor, has curated an online-online exhibition available on Artsy.net as well as the Artsy iPhone app. Decline and Fall, which is available available now, features work from artists Amy Bessone, Ben Sansbury and Sara VanDerBeek to name a few. The title is taken from Evelyn Waugh’s novel and refers to Edward Gibbon’s famous tome about the decay of the Roman Empire, which aims to to show how these references (like modern vanitas paintings) can also be seen to reflect the cultural, moral, and social upheaval of contemporary life.
“This exhibition aims to look at how The initial deal result in the development of The The almighty from the Rings: The Fellowship from the Ring online slot and was because of permit more to make later on. the bones, ruins, and remnants of history, in particular classicism and modernism, are being rethought—how artists are digging amongst the past for new aesthetics; pushing the future by reinventing the past,” states Gavin. It”s fitting then, that the exhibition is being displayed online. Art can be seen as one of the oldest forms of creativity and an exhibition that looks at both the past and the present is taking it into the future with this new way of delivering it.
V1 GALLERy in Denmark presents a group exhibition with work responding to the legacy of World War II and Nazis, but the aim is to create an exhibition that highlights the increasing perils of the far right in contemporary Europe – such as the Golden Dawn in Greece, Svoboda in the Ukraine and the Jobbik party in Hungary.
Mel Brooks, the American writer, director and actor, has spent much of his career parodying Hitler and German national socialists, and his aim was to bring Hitler and the Nazi’s down with ridicule and laughter.
In 1945, he responded to the Nazi’s propaganda broadcasts by setting up speakers and singing Jewish musical theatre performer Al Jolsonʼs song ʻToot Toot Tootsie Goodbyeʼ on repeat to the Germans.
By placing together work that veers from the satirical to the deeply disturbing, the aim with the exhibition is to create a real effect in the viewer. Hitting them with horror and the unacceptable at moments when humour has lowered their barriers.
And Twin’s art editor, Francesca Gavin, is the curator of the exhibition. She is also the curator of the Soho House Collection and has curated shows internationally that include The Dark Cube at the Palais de Tokyo 2012, and The New Psychedelica at MU Eindhoeven 20.
The exhibtion is on display at V1 Gallery from September 13 until October 14.
This weekend, Twin’s art editor Francesca Gavin opened up her exhibit The Dark Cube at Palais de Tokyo in Paris. An experiment combining static art and UV light, the literally ‘glow in the dark’ experience applies neon colour and an innovative viewing experience of every artwork from Kasper Sonne’s Untitled (carpet) No. 3, which is given a colour kick thanks to luminescent paint, to Scott Treleaven’s painting The Body Electric, with five of the piece’s six floating bodies immersed in a neon orange glow for a further intensification of its dreamlike feeling. Like all good things subject to limited availability, the exhibit runs until next Monday.
Twin spoke to Gavin about modern-day psychedelia, electronic nature and teenage memories of Camden market’s Cyber Dog…
From disco to rave, UV lighting has had quite a history in it its own right. What made the time ripe to do this exhibition now?
I think it’s to do with our relationship with technology. Many of my exhibitions in the past have explored that relationship – how we look at screens, the psychedelic experience of going on the internet. This is actually my least high tech exhibition but I think that this now old fashioned technology feels very relevant in terms of contemporary feelings about the world of wires, electrics and Wifi around us.
How did you go about choosing which artists to display?
A few artists I know had worked with UV in the past – Jeremy Shaw, Jeremy Deller and Thomas Dozol. Many I had worked with before, others I had seen work that I felt would fit. It was very organic. A number of the artists – Oliver Laric, Anne de Vries, Juliette Bonneviot – were part of that Berlin post-internet scene which I felt really connected to the idea.
What was the process of putting it all together like, for example where there any changes in vision throughout the project?
In a way it was like putting on an exhibition in the dark! It was impossible to know the results until I turned on the black lights and saw the works glow. A lot of the artists were making things partly in normal light and at night with hand held small black lights. It felt quite risky compared to a normal exhibition when you just have to work with the hang and hope the screens work okay!
A large part of the exhibition aims at literally looking at things in a different light. Would you say that it is a reaction against the times of our short attention span digital generation or is it something else?
I think because we are so used to seeing the entire world through a screen that the process of looking at objects, at images, at things in real time is really important. Arguably something with political undertones. Thought it was fascinating see many of the hundreds of visitors who came during the opening on Nuit Blanche immediately want to engage with the work through their camera phones. UV also ends up being an interesting metaphor for the electronic nature we give to the world in our screen culture.
On a more personal note, what are your own fondest black light memories?
I grew up near Camden market and when I was at the end of my teens it was the early days of techno. My sister was going to free parties and was part of the whole Spiral Tribe scene. Very hardcore. She was obsessed with reflective materials and circuitry. We used to go to this T shirt stall in a sort of cave-cellar there by a label called Cyber Dog (which over the years turned into a crazy huge techno mecca) and I bought a shirt with a circuitry star on it that glowed in UV… For a brief moment it was the epitome of cool.
What future projects do you have lined up?
No shows lined up quite yet – I’ve done three this year which feels like a lot! Possibly an exhibition at a project space in Belleville in the spring. And of course the acres of writing for Dazed, Twin, AnOther, Sleek and the rest.
The Dark Cube is on display until October 15th at Palais de Tokyo.
If you don’t already have plans for today, Twin recommends heading down to Jacob’s Gallery in Butler’s Wharf for The Responsive Eye exhibition.
The original The Responsive Eye was an exhibition held at MoMA in New York in 1965. Bringing together artworks by so-called ‘Op’ and minimalist artists such as Bridget Riley, Josef Albers, Viktor Vasarely and Almir Mavignier, audiences were challenged to rethink ways of viewing art.
For 2012, Twin’s own Francesca Gavin has curated an exhibition of contemporary optical artworks, with the same aim of exploring our mental and physical relationship with art. And as part of South London Art Map Late Fridays the exhibition will be open until 8.30pm tonight. Utilising digital techniques such as gifs as well as video, this is optical art brought to date.
The Responsive Eye is at Jacob’s Island Gallery until 12 May 2012
For our final rewind, Twin names the art shows, books and music that made it big, as well as those waiting to enter centre stage…
Francesca Gavin – Art Editor
For me this has been the year of Mark Leckey – both his solo show at the Serpentine and an hypnotic installation at the Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse. I’ve been obsessed by his work for years and think he has a massive influence on a whole younger generation on artists with his fascination with pop culture, technology, music and screens. I like many others wait with excitement at whatever comes next.
In 2012, I’m really looking forward to surviving the apocalypse and visiting the Marrakech Biennial in February. Some really great artists are in the line up including Aleksandra Domanovic, Jon Nash and Matthew Stone and I think its going to be a fascinating trip.
Elsewhere 176 new monthly programme of emerging artists, Yayoi Kusama and Edvard Munch at the Tate Modern, Rashid Johnson’s big shows at Hauser and Wirth NYC and London throughout the year, Urs Fisher at Palazzo Grassi in Venice, and the Berlin Biennial (which can only be an improvement on two years ago which was uber-dull).
Aimee Farrell – Features Director
In terms of writers in 2011 it has to be Caitlin Moran at the top of the list. How To Be A Woman managed to make feminism funny and accessible.
In 2012 I’m excited about Rachel Cusk. Her Granta essay about life after marriage, which throws a feminist light on the institution of divorce has been developed into a major new work of non-fiction, called Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation. Published by Faber the book will be a series of meditations on women’s mid-lives and family life after divorce.
Last year marked another 12 months of female dominance in the music industry, whether it was Beyonce at Glastonbury or Adele taking America. There were strong albums from the likes of Feist and a great debut from songstress Anika. For me though, the highlight was PJ Harvey storming the Mercury Music Prize for a second time. Let England Shake easily summed up the zeitgeist for 2011 and proved that there are still important albums being made.
For 2012, there’s a feeling it’s going to be the year of the viral superstar. We’ve already had Azealia Banks’ 212 and Lana Del Rey’s Video Games, now we need to hear the albums.
After meeting artist Leslie Kulesh at our recent Twin Speaks salon, we fell in love with her can do attitude. From coloured yarns to acting out Nineties classic flick Clueless with friends, anything goes. Originally from San Francisco but now living in London, we thought we’d share her with the rest of you…
Do you remember the moment when you decide to be an artist?
Vividly! I was in Hawaii with my grandmother and my father, who’s an art conservator. I was about 11 years old and we went to a museum show of Hockney’s opera sets.
The interior of the museum was entirely dark, save for the lights on the sets, as they would have been in use. Recordings of the opera music played loud from room to room, and as is custom over there – the air conditioning was blasting. The whole experience was multi-sensory and emotional to the point of almost being frightening. I knew I wanted to make things like that – environments that transported people that had their own history, but perhaps a future potential as well.
Your work involves both performance and hand crafted structures – how would you define your own work?
My practice is definitely process oriented. It’s important to work with the material and understand what goes into production. In works such as No Fear, I spent about six hours a day for the best part of a month measuring, cutting and tying each piece onto the grid I had designed.
That work becomes very meditative and wouldn’t have the same energy had it been made by another person. Decisions get made throughout the creation and I see what is developing. With performance work, it’s the same in a lot of ways. There is an idea, multiple ways to approach it, script writing, or improv, work-shopping, then re-working – always guiding back toward the original idea. By taking full ownership of the work there is room for it to start mutating.
When performing with others, I have always called upon friends. Unlike actors, I know their qualities, or suspect there is something that will come out once placed in a specific environment. That open-plan style work also allows for excessive collaboration that proves for a much stronger performance.
How important is popular culture in your artistic practice – are there any elements you find yourself consistently retuning to and why?
Pop culture is great – it mutates in that same way as I see my work. Someone puts forth an idea, others riff on that, it gets co-opted, becomes a meme and by then there’s a whole new story happening. I do consistently return to the digital/analogue exchange- both literal and symbolic. I’m sure it’s generational, having to do with growing up in Silicon Valley – learning DOS instead of Dewey Decimal.
Nonetheless, it continues to be relevant. As technology trudges forward, those same senses that were so stunned back in the Hockney exhibit in Hawaii become stunted when I try to take in a 500px X 340px Katharina Grosse image. I know I am not experiencing it – it’s a point of reference; and I often wonder if there will be a movement away from this half baked form of research.
What drives you to create?
Different things, different days. To prove something to myself, to scare myself. You always hear that new age-y talk about internalizing instead of externalizing, living in the moment – divorced from the future and the past. I feel that way when I am making something. That time becomes like a line, one dimensional.
If you weren’t an artist what would you be?
A musician – god knows I travel enough. At the least I should have the reward of a crowd acknowledging me for my travel every couple of days!
What’s up next for you?
I have a video in a group show at French Riviera opening tonight 6-9pm and I’ll be DJing with Twin’s Art Editor Francesa Gavin afterwards!
I’m also speaking at Camden Arts Centre with Kate Cooper (co-director of Auto Italia) on December 7th and I’ll be in performance during Bodies Assembling at Auto Italia on Saturday, December 10th.
This month Twin’s art editor Francesca Gavin curates ‘Syncopation’, a ten-day Berlin exhibition that explores personal notions of selfhood. Gavin’s work as a curator, editor and writer is already varied, yet: “My true alternative self is a musician,” she explains.
Gavin grew up making music, performing below fleapit cinemas; steeped in the embrace of jazz and folk. Her grandmother’s record label Dial Recordings, which released Charlie Parker and Mile Davis’ records, sparked a love of soul, jazz, hip hop and black music culture and its relation to art.
The show presents the work of artists and musicians Cory Arcangel, Frankie Martin, Jeremy Shaw, Matt Stokes (pictured, top) and Mark Titchner, and is one part of a bigger exhibition – Despina Stokou’s project ‘D12’. Like the Detroit rap group who failed to find twelve members, instead asking six MC’s to create alteregos, Stokou has invited six artists to showcase theirs.
Head to the private view to catch a live lounge jazz performance by Gavin, accompanied by Julien Quentin. The party continues at Bierhaus Urban from 11pm with Jeremy Shaw and Gavin on the decks. Deeply buried true selves may just be revealed.
Jayson Scott Musson, How to Hip Hop, 2010, video still.
21.10-31.10, Grimmuseum, Fichte Straße 2, 10967, Berlin, open daily 2-7pm. grimmuseum.com.
The after party is on the 21.10, Bierhaus Urban, Urban Straße 126, corner Graefe Straße
Twin’s art editor Francesca Gavin has been busy working alongside artist Jonathan Yeo co-curating a permanent collection of artworks for the Dean Street Townhouse, the latest addition to the Soho House Group, which opens tomorrow.
In the style of Colmbe D’Or artists Tracey Emin, Sam Griffin, Fiona Banner, Tim Noble and Gavin Turk – to name just a few – were all given credit at the hotel, which was once the notorious Gargoyle Club, in exchange for their artworks. So visitors know they will certainly be in good cultural company.
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