Most of you have probably heard of the Chanel mobile art pod that Zaha Hadid designed for Der Keiser.    Well, Mr. Lagerfeld's pod is coming to a city near you and will be in NYC in Central park Oct. 20-Nov. 9, 2008.    You should check it out. 
One of my favorite artists, Swiss born Sylvie Fleury is showing her Costom Commando purse sculpture.     Sylvie is amazing and has been doing edgy installations and fashion savvy art work for over a decade.

Here is some of her work.    She is so seductive and polished.   I just love it.   

Her little glittering heirlooms are the bejeweled evening clutches I have been lusting after.   I love Judith Leiber's little bauble bags too, these are just edgier.

Streetwear brand FUCT has always done cool shit.    Erik Brunetti, Fuct's founder and designer is a dear friend and creative force.  My Jaws Fuct t shirt is still one of the coolest shirts ever.  His videos are hilarious and the clothes have attitude for days.  Since the early 90's Erik was an enfant terribe on the streetwear scene. All grown up Erik is now an indie dad, look out for his hot wife Emmelie who is working with him to bring us Baby Fuct.    I love this video footage.   It's like Steve McQueens wet dream.     Erik will be releasing a new collection in mid OCT.

Manufactured and sold exclusively in Japan, the FUCT- SSDD (Same Shit Different Day) collection is inspired by classic, traditionally American style . Each garment was carefully engineered to convey a vintage, "worn in" look, using special aging and distress techniques as well as simulated magic marker print detailing. Referencing styles of cinema classics like Vanishing Point, The Trial of Billy Jack and Easy Rider, FUCT's SSDD collection echoes the societal landscape, issues, and tensions in the United States during the 1960's and 70's such as the rise and fall of the hippie movement, drug use, and communal lifestyle./

         fuct  

I really enjoyed this show and it was quite unexpected.   Something a bit street edgy, even for MOMA NY.   Television by Nam June Palk and Otto Piene 1968.



Amazing works by Jeronimo Lopez Ramirez, Nicolas Lampert, Pol Bury stood out.   

From MOMA Press release.
In the 1960s, the decade that saw astronauts land on the moon, artists were likewise seeking to expand boundaries of time and space and to have new experiences. At the same time, portable video equipment reached the consumer market--suddenly simultaneity and "now," the present and the past, became content. Musicians led the way in developing new working methods, and music was at the forefront of interdisciplinary experimentation during the early days of media art. This exhibition looks at the dynamic connections that occurred from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s with a display of early media works by Nam June Paik, Bruce Nauman, Steve Reich, Joan Jonas, Yoko Ono, Laurie Anderson, and David Bowie presented alongside related drawings, prints, and photographs by John Cage, Jack Smith, Ray Johnson, and others.  FYI: Those are nipples on the outside of the bustier.

Only the good die young.     Nagi Noda, a friend and artist I admired passed away Sept. 7 at her home in Tokyo, Japan.  I had to wait two weeks to write this post because I was so sad to hear the news.    I hope that many will discover and enjoy her amazing talent eventhough she is no longer with us.   

Her family issued a statement on her website.   She was 34 years old.   My sympathies go out to her loved ones and many admirers.    She will be sadly missed.
Nagi Noda's art site


Her work was dark and witty and had an air of elegance and sophistication.   A beautiful, talented woman,  she was also an amazing director of music videos and TV commercials and worked with many artistic collaborators (Mark Ryden, Colette, Libertine, Nike, Coke, Laforet and Jack White)  creating memorable projects in the fashion and contemporary arts world.

The amazing funeral cake sculptures were part of a larger fashion collaboration, unfortunately all a bit too ominous.    Portrait of Nagi by Kenneth Capello and images of Nagi's work from her website.   Rest in Peace Nagi..

Oops he did it again.    Damien did it his way and won, again.    I speculate that Damien, Larry Gagosian and Jay Jopling, (his power dealers) have been buying back his works for the last couple of years to make this auction historically profitable.     Luckily for them it happened one day before the dow jones industrial average dropped over 300 points.    You know those hedge fund guys.   Good for Damien, bad for artists and the gallery system.

Damien is quoted as saying an auction is , "a very democratic way to sell art."

LONDON -- A sale of pickled sharks, butterfly paintings and other pieces by provocative British artist Damien Hirst has raised $198 million, silencing his doubters and defying the global economic gloom.

Sotheby's auction house said the total for the two-day sale was a record for an auction of works by a single artist.

The turmoil engulfing global financial markets did nothing to dampen prices as more than 600 prospective buyers packed the showroom for each of the three auction sessions. Others around the world bid by phone. (LA Times/ Assoc press) Images from White Cube gallery

"Although there is risk involved, I embrace the challenge of selling my work in this way," he said. "I never want to stop working with my galleries. This is different. The world's changing. Ultimately I need to see where this road leads."

The lots, previewed Monday, include "The Golden Calf," an embalmed calf with hooves and horns of 18-carat gold. It is expected to fetch 12 million pounds (US$17 million) at the Sept. 15-16 sale. "

The Incredible Journey," a zebra in formaldehyde, has an estimated sale price of 2 to 3 million pounds (US$2.8 million to US$4.3 million).

The sale also will include Hirst's paintings of spots and butterflies.

Four of the works are being sold to benefit charities, including youth group Kids Company and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Hirst, 43, is among the best known of the "Young British Artists" who came to prominence in the 1990s. His often provocative and disturbing works have included a diamond-encrusted skull, sharks and sheep preserved in formaldehyde and maggots attacking a cow's head.

Contemporary art collectors such Charles Saatchi helped make Hirst famous and his works expensive, and they are displayed in museums such as the London's Tate gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. (source:  Herald Tribune)

Damien piece

Her photomontage work is sexy, glossy, provocative and contemporary.      Can you believe she's been doing it for over 30 years.   Meet Martha Rosler.    
Rosler is one of the most influential artists of her generation and her work frequently compels the viewer to rethink the boundaries between the public and the private, the social and political. During the Vietnam War, she produced Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful (1967-72), a series of photomontages assembled from the pages of Life magazine, where news stories featuring images of the dead and wounded shared column inches with glossy adverts for consumer products.    Martha's new work, "Bringing the war Home" will be running thru Oct. 11.

The work shown here, Bringing the War Home: House Beautiful, new series (2004), is a reworking of that project. A critique of the current war in Iraq, it draws an immediate comparison with Vietnam. Re-connecting the reality of a distant war with the living rooms of America, she underlines the relationship between the spoils of war and a consumerist society.  (source:www.tate.org.uk/.../mediaburn/martha.shtm)

     
For Martha is represented by:  Mitchell-Innes & Nash
more information about Martha Rosler:   

Martha RoslerMartha Rosler was born in Brooklyn, New York. She took her B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1965 and her M.F.A. from University of California, San Diego in 1974.

Rosler works in video, photo-text, installation, and performance, and writes criticism. She has lectured extensively nationally and internationally. Her work in the public sphere ranges from everyday life -- often with an eye to women's experience -- and the media to architecture and the built environment.


She has published several books of photographs, texts, and commentary on public space, ranging from airports and roads to housing and homelessness. Her work has been seen in the "Documenta" exhibition in Kassel, Germany; several Whitney biennials; the Institute of Contemporary Art in London; the Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Dia Center for the Arts in New York; and many other international venues.Tate museum (www.tate.org.uk/.../mediaburn/martha.shtm)

A retrospective of her work has been shown in five European cities and in New York at the New Museum and the International Center of Photography (2000). An accompanying book has been published by MIT Press. Her writing has been published widely in catalogs and magazines, such as Artforum, Afterimage, and NU Magazine.

Rosler has ten published books. She has produced numerous other "Word Works" and photo/text publications -- now exploring cookery in a mock dialogue between Julia Child and Craig Claiborne, now analyzing imagery of women in Russia or exploring responses to repression, crisis, and war.


Martha's gallery and information

TARYN SIMON show opens this weekend at Gagosian in LA.    An amazing fashion photographer turned art photographer Taryn is worth checking out.    A little backround//   Her first book, The Innocents (2000-2003) is amazing and definately made me take an interest in her work.    In the mid nineties she also did a funny fashion story with all the hasidic jewish salesmen and studio guys that ran Adorama in NYC-  it was brilliant and I can't believe she got them to do it.    I loved those guys.   Her new work is pretty amazing too.

Here is her press release. ALL work and release Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.

Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern Washington State
Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity. It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States. The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium. The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States.
2005/2007
Chromogenic color print
37 1/4 x 44 1/2 inches framed (94.6 x 113 cm)
Ed. of 7



"What is not known, rarely seen, possesses a form of occult glamour, and it is that black beauty which [Simon] so brightly, and brilliantly, reveals."
--Salman Rushdie

Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition by Taryn Simon. This will be the first viewing of her series An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar in Los Angeles.

In this body of work spanning over four years, Taryn Simon confronts the obstacles facing public access to expert knowledge by offering entry, via photography to a selection of restricted or rarely discovered sites across the United States. The resulting series is an exposé of the unseen realities beneath the surface of modern American culture. Simon documents subjects from a wide span of cultural sub-headings, including nature, science, government, and religion. Her photographs range from eccentric to haunting, from a copy of Playboy written in Braille to a portrait of a cancer ridden patient fighting for the right to end his life. She uses a large format view camera when conditions permit, and each of her compositions is accompanied by a text explaining subject and context. The addition of word to image underscores Simon's dual role as voyeur and informant. An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar reveals that for every visible facet of American culture there is an obscured recess equally fundamental to the framework of a national identity.

Taryn Simon was born in New York in 1975. She is a graduate of Brown University and a Guggenheim Fellow. Simon's photographs have been exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo shows at: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2007); Kunst-Werke Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2004), P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York (2003); High Museum of Art, Atlanta (2006); and Museum für Moderne Kunst (MMK), Frankfurt/Main (2007-2008). Permanent collections include: The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her photography and writing have been featured in numerous publications and broadcasts including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, CNN, BBC, Frontline, and NPR.

In keeping with the spirit of fashion week, I thought I would do a little post on RODARTE.    Pronounced Ro-DAR-tay.

Sisters Kate and Laura have only been around 3 years but they are taking the fashion world by storm.  Based in Pasadena and showing since 2005 they have a great team of collaborators including my favorite shoe designer, Mr. Louboutin. 
  Part ballerina, part fairy, part cyborg their unique vision is a delight to watch.   Hard edged with soft and feminine qualities.    I just adore them.    Unfortunately, I can't afford their clothing which starts at two grand a pop, but I can admire from afar.  


Portrait by Tierney  Gearon
backstage shots by Autumn de Wilde
TO read the full story about these amazing designers see NYTimes Magazine Sept. 7, 2008

You know those Greeks and their yachts, well this is nautical art on a whole other level.   Based on a WW1 camouflage pattern, art genius Jeff Koons created this yacht for billionaire art collector Dakis Joannou.    Architect Ivana Porfiri created the angular facade.   The boat was christened "GUILTY" after a text painting by Sarah Morris.  (see her feature on our site)  Insane and incredible isn't it?


Yacht name: Guilty
Length: 114 ft • 35 m
Year: 2008
Builder: near Rome
Exterior art: Jeff Koons
Design: Ivana Porfiri
Owner: Dakis Joannou

Photos: A • Rhodes • 1 July 2008
Photo: Aeolos • Faliro marina • 13 July 2008