Filed under: Art | Tags: Barry McGee, Bénédicte Henderick, Benjamin Verdonck, Christine König Galerie, Folkert de Jong, Ivan Argote, Juliette Jongma, Kati Heck, Michiel Ceulers, Tim van Laere Gallery, Triangle Blue gallery
As usual Art Brussels was a visual overdose, but there’s always a few works that keep lingering in your mind. Natural selection, I suppose.
Here’s a few likes: (click for larger images)
Michiels Ceulers ‘Sexuelle Selektion und elterliche Fürsorge’ (2009) at Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam
Ceulers seems to be doing really well. He’s now represented by galleries in Antwerp, Amsterdam, London, Zurich, New York and Los Angeles.
Benjamin Verdonck with a solo show at Galerie Folrent Tosin (Berlin)
…and also a similar Verdonck totem at Tim van Laere Gallery (Antwerp)
Kati Heck at Tim van Laere gallery
Bénédicte Henderick at Triangle Blue gallery (Stavelot) (the booth also had some nice Mil Ceulemans work)
a bit of fun by Micha Payer + Martin Gabriel at Christine König Galerie (Vienna)
Really liked Ivan Argote’s ’All My Girlfriends’ (2007-2009) which shows him taking phonecam shots with random billboard girls as his girlfriend.
Folkert de Jong with his take on Mondriaan’s ‘Boogie Woogie’
I have a soft spot for Barry McGee.
Trend: a bunch of London galleries with very similar Damien Hirst produce. Which was very ‘yawn’. So NO pictures. You know them, you’ve seen them, you’ve said ‘Meh’.
At the moment the term Tea Party brings out all sorts of bad vibes.
But this is the sort of tea party that I do like.
How cool is this tattoo!? (click to enlarge)
(design by Julia Pott)
Filed under: Art, Film | Tags: Basquait, Jean-Michel Basquiat The Radiant Child, Lizzie Himmel, Warhol
After watching the great ’Jean-Michel Basquiat The Radiant Child‘ documentary, I stumbled upon 3 absolutely great photos of Basquiat, which I wanted to share. All photos turned out to be the work of the same photographer, Lizzie Himmel.
The first time she photographed him was with Andy Warhol (pictured below).
The second time he was alone in his Lafayette Street studio. This particular shoot was for the cover of the New York Times Magazine. The year was 1985 and he was at the height of his career and unfortunately the height of his drug use.
There’s a very particular reason why he’s not wearing any shoes. When Himmel arrived at his studio he was asleep in bed with his girlfriend. Having to also photograph Keith Haring that same day she had no time to waste. With the help of Basquiat’s assistant they got him up, but he was too stoned to function. He kept nodding off so they had no choice, but to dress him. After getting the suit on, Lizzie decided that she had enough of dressing him so she left the shoes off. Three years later he would be dead from a heroin overdose at the age of 27. (story via brooklynmast.com)
And another great studio shot:
Filed under: Art | Tags: Chris ofili, google art project, mona lisa, Tate Britain
All the people watching the Mona Lisa from many many meters away just make me shake my head.
It’s ridiculous. You can’t see anything. There’s no way you can enjoy an artwork this way.
And all the people taking photographs are even more hilarious.
Why on earth take yet another crappy photo of a painting when you can find way better shots online?
What’s the point? What are you trying to prove? That you were there? Congratulations, asswipe. Oh and nice camouflage shorts, dude. I really cannot see you.
And watching art from your pc just got even better as Google have launced their ‘Google Art Project‘. The project is actually a website – based on Google Street View software – that lets you stroll around in a selection of museums and look at ultra high resolution images of the artworks in them.
The quality of the photos is so high that, by using the zoom function, you can see the smallest cracks and paint smears. Pretty amazing stuff. To really appreciate a piece of art, it’s always best to see in the flesh, but you will never be able to study these kind of close-up details in a museum without getting in trouble with a museum guard.
Chris Ofili’s ‘No Woman No Cry’ at Tate Britain is one of my favourite pieces in the current selection.
You can almost smell the elephant dung.
They even have a ‘lights out’ photo of the work so you can see the phosphorescent paint (used on a second level) glowing in the dark.
Filed under: Art | Tags: Gnomes, graffiti, Holland, kabouters, KBTR, Street Art, Utrecht
Click image to play video (Dutch language).
Filed under: Art, Literature, Music | Tags: Dennis Tyfus, dEUS, Hong Kong Dong, Keep You Close, Luc Tuymans, Michiel Ceulers, School Is Cool
LOOKING FORWARD TO:
ART
Luc Tuymans @ Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp (27 jan 2011)
Luc Tuymans Retrospective @ Bozar, Brussels (18 feb 2011)
Erwin Wurm @ Middelheimmusem, Antwerp (29 may 2011)
Young Belgian Painters Award 2011 @ Bozar, Brussels (8 jun 2011)
Rinus Van de Velde @ Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp (8 sep 2011)
Michiel Ceulers @ Maes en Matthys Gallery, Antwerp (oct 2011)
(Michiel Ceulers - Who’s afraid of red white and blue, 2008)
MUSIC
Das Pop – untitled new album
dEUS – Keep You Close (sep 2011)
Future Of The Left – third album
Glasvegas – second album
Hong Kong Dong – untitled debut album
Jane’s Addiction – new album
Nicole Atkins – Mondo Amore (8 feb 2011)
School Is Cool – debut album
Sophia – Collections:Two
The Hickey Underworld – second album
The Twilight Singers – Dynamite Steps (18 feb 2011)
The Vaccines - What Did You Expect From The Vaccines? (21 mar 2011)
BOOKS
Chuck Palahniuk – Damned (6 sep 2011)
Daan – retrospective book @ Ludion Publishers
Filed under: Art | Tags: Café Johann, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Kunsthalle, Otto Wagner, Postsparkasse, Séripop, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs cake, Street Art, Vienna, Wien
Right now, there are 2 interesting exhibitions at the Vienna Kunsthalle: ’Keith Haring 1978-1982′ and ‘Street and Studio: from Basquiat to Séripop’.
The Keith Haring exhibit is a real treat as it focuses on rarely seen early work. It features a lot of collages, videos and neat little drawings, but also shows a great number of the big typical Haring paintings.
At the same time there’s also the ‘Street and Studio: from Basquiat to Séripop exhibit’. I have no idea why they made this into a separate exhibition as Jean-Michel Basquiat and Haring are contemporaries and are the first ‘street artists’ who made it in to the main stream galleries and art world. Even more: a lot of the Basquiat works on show are collaborations with Haring!
In this exhibition Basquiats work is confronted with the work of a whole slew of recent street artists like Banksy, Blek le Rat, BLU, Mark Jenkins,…
I didn’t take any pictures inside but only photograped the two works that are outside the Kunsthalle building.
First up is a typical Mark Jenkis cellotape doll (puking girl), second is a work by Brad Downey who filled a Telekom Austria phonebooth with concrete.
The Viennese streets are full of rats!
Another rodent! An artistic one this time.
Otto Wagner rules. This is just one of the many great Jugenstil buildings in Vienna that were designed by him. I love the Postsparkasse building because it has a dark and brooding undertone to it.
Forget the Sachertorte. Go to Johann in the Stadtpark for a truly delicious Himbeerschaumschnitte. Warning: addictive!
Seriously?
Filed under: Art, Music | Tags: Admiral freebee, ed templeton, Kati Heck, Mintzkov, Raising Cain, Rising Sun Setting Sun, Roadburg, The Honey & The Knife
I was glad to find out that the cover of the new Mintzkov album was done by German (but now residing in Antwerp) artist Kati Heck. She’s one of my favourite artists and this cover includes a lot of her trademarks. No sausages though this time, but hey we got a kittie!
Admiral Freebee released some more visuals from his upcoming new album ‘The Honey & The Knife”, including the final album cover, a single cover and some new photos. Like mentioned before, all the artwork was done by the great Ed Templeton.
Just wondering: is he hinting at a split personality in the photographs?
Finally, we also got the cover of the Roadburg album. No idea who the artist is, but it looks a bit like a scene from this video. Can anyone see if Robyn is under there somewhere?
THIS IS THE NINTH OF 10 POSTS ABOUT WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2010.
WoB is looking forward to the new art that Antwerp based artist Lieven Segers will show in 2010. Last year must have been his most prolific year to date, with 5 exhibitions of his artworks or photos in Belgium, Holland and Germany.
Segers originally started out as a photographer but has been making loads of drawings as well. These drawings have often been compared with those of David Shrigley, but I like Segers work way more.
Last year Segers also set up several projects and exhibitions with Cakehouse, the art intiative he hosts with Canvas Collectie winner Michèle Matyn. Most notable was the ’7000 Cakehouse Poster’ project where the inhabitants of one village were invited to put up one of the 7000 posters with artworks from young Belgian artists, in order to invade the village with art.
The most impressive exhibition was ‘She ran away over the mountains and under the valleys‘ where Segers made drawings all over two science classrooms in an abandoned school building. Visitors had to walk around the rooms on top of the lab tables to see all the drawing on the walls, floor, ceiling and classroom furniture. The unsual perspective and the abundance of tongue-in-cheek drawings had all the visitors walking around with a big smirk on their face.
More of this, please.
Filed under: Art, TV | Tags: Canvas, Canvas Collectie, Collection RTBF, School of Saatchi
THIS IS THE FIFTH OF 10 POSTS ABOUT WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2010.
Belgian television channel Canvas just launched the second edition of De Canvas Collectie - a mix between the RCA Summer Show and the BBC’s School of Saatchi - where they issue an appeal to all creative folk, both the well-known and the unknown, to help produce a snapshot of todays art.
In 2008 a total of 4,500 candidates responded; the works of 250 of these were approved by a demanding jury and presented in an exhibition that attracted 15,000 visitors interested in getting an idea of the diversity and creativity of art in todays Flanders.
The idea caught on the other side of Belgiums linguistic divide and the French-language RTBF is now involved in the 2010 edition: the new, Belgium-wide project now includes a competition, television programs and, already, a retrospective at the Bozar from 07.05.2010 until 06.06.2010.
The 2008 revealed some really great artwork and the exhibition at the Bozar in Brussels was surprisingly good. Let’s hope the tv program is equally entertaining as 2 years ago and that the quality of the submitted work is equally high.
