LIARS – MESS ON A MISSION
2014-03-31For the seventeenth installment of the UO Music Video series, experimental noise-pop band Liars team up with wunderkind director Luis Cerveró on the song “Mess on a Mission” off Liars’ new album Mess.
TweetCARLY PARADIS – THE HOPE OF A FAVOURABLE OUTCOME
2014-03-31A hypnotic infinite zoom music video created entirely from Victorian phenakistoscopes.
TweetTHE ANTLERS – PALACE
2014-03-31The Antlers drop their first tune and video from the album, Familiars, their fourth studio LP since 2011’s Burst Apart.
TweetJEAN-LUC BLANC – FAUX-ROMAN VISAGE
2014-03-31In order to understand Jean Luc Blanc’s work, it is necessary to question the place occupied by images and more particularly the representation of the human figure, as well as the way in which the artist deals with it both in his choice of colors and in the construction of his drawing. By their occasional coarseness, the drawings often manage to undergo a process of de-subjectivism and break free from the average editing processes of contemporary imagery. Nowadays images at once belong to everybody and to no-one, a 15th Century Icon or any simple picture in a contemporary tabloid-magazine both find their triviality increased, while the lack of mystical aura tends to exhaust their power to “ speak to us and generate desire” (1), but what kind of desire are we referring to? In his work on images, Jean Luc Blanc redefines the idea of desire by operating a detachment between his subject and its context while at the same time introducing a notion of absurdity that will allow him to alter not only the tragic aspect of the vast process leading to the excess of global media coverage and the dumbing down of society, but also, by means of a highly developed and often cynical sense of humor, to express the resulting forms of social distress and the human behavioral disorders that it provokes.
This work tackles notions of absurdity, a sense of dismay, as well as reflections on the disgrace of a given epoch, but also the symbolic value of an image by means of the disjunction between what we see and what we feel. Akin to film-making mechanisms, especially to the techniques used by Marguerite Duras when, in her films, a voice-over describes things that the spectator cannot see, allowing him to create his own images; Jean Luc Blanc’s images leave us free to find multiple interpretations and go beyond the pre-established codes linked to painting in general, and to portrait-painting in particular. In his work, we won’t find “up to the waist” or “full length” classically framed figures; and academic rigidity is soon left behind; the framing of these frowning, plaintive and disquieting faces is strange.
Opposite – L’immortel prémice, 2014
Exhibition runs through to April 23rd, 2014
art: concept
13 rue des arquebusiers
75003 Paris
France
FRIEDRICH KUNATH – THE TEMPTATION TO EXIST
2014-03-31This exhibition explores the decade-long collaboration between Dieter Roth (1930 – 1998) and Arnulf Rainer (b. 1929). From 1972, Roth and Rainer worked together intermittently, producing pieces in tandem or exchanging works in progress which were then completed independently.
Roth and Rainer worked across media, producing drawings, collages, prints, films, live performances, sound works, over-worked photographs and poster designs. This exhibition focuses on a large group of works on paper, unveiling Dieter Roth’s share of the collaboration which has never been previously exhibited. A selection of the artists’ major film works will also be on view. The exhibition is curated by Björn Roth, son and longstanding collaborator of Dieter Roth
The group of almost 80 works on paper reveals an artistic dialogue full of creative tension. As opposed to the harmonious nature characteristic of artistic collaboration, these works depict two egos battling for ultimate victory within the creative process. Their intellectual rivalry is evident in the voracious spirit that emanates from the resulting works.
Opposite – We Better Stop Pretending, 2014
Exhibition runs through to April 26th, 2014
Andrea Rosen Gallery
525 West 24th Street
10011 New York
USA
ALEX KATZ – 70S / 80S / 90S
2014-03-31The exhibition explores the progression and distillation of Katz’s distinct style through the 70s, 80s and 90s, and focuses on the thematic significance of ‘town and country’ during this period.
Katz’s distinctive portraits and landscapes are noted for their flat surfaces, even light and finessed line. Determined to pioneer a style that set him apart from his contemporaries, Katz’s interest in scale, style and American life has remained constant throughout his influential and extensive career.
Alex Katz’s work is instantly recognisable: large scale, visually pure and often cropped. In Ada, Ada, 1991, a double portrait of Katz’s wife who remains a constant presence in his work, the vocabulary of film is evident – dramatic framing, cinematic cropping, and the repeated figure suggestive of the progression of a filmstrip. The flat, blank background of the deepest aquamarine is characteristic of the absolute immediacy of Katz’s formal technique.
Katz’s subjects, from his friends and family, and the stylish New York intelligentsia that is his social circle, to vacant buildings and parks shrouded in the darkness of night – become icons, celebrated and refined to a singular clarity. His economy of line and nuanced use of colour speaks of a confidence and lucidity of vision that has evolved since the 50s.
Opposite – Vincent and Vivien, 1987
Exhibition runs through to April 17th, 2014
Timothy Taylor Gallery
15 Carlos Place
W1K 2EX
London
