MATTHEW STONE – UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Posted on 2014-03-03

Unconditional Love introduces lush digitally printed paintings. Stone hand-paints on glass and photographs the resulting compositions. These high-resolution details are then digitally intensified and retouched to remove subjective imperfections, such as dust and hairs. The paint is then printed onto veneered wooden panels, sheet acrylic and mirror. The resulting works employ photography and digital printing as part of an extended artistic process that furthers the visual and practical potential of paint, rather than as an objective or documentarian means to an end.

Almost offensively juicy and often steeped in visceral colour, the works upturn the holy status of art history’s worship of “paint handling” and “brushwork” as untouchable cosmic flesh, whilst simultaneously and sincerely reasserting its living legacy of visceral and emotionally manipulative power. Stone’s paint gestures mimic the movements and colours of Renaissance painting and sculpture and suggest the punchy thrusts and flair of dancers in motion or joyful movement in general. Their genuine love of colour and movement draw the viewer in and celebrate the eye and its joys in the realm of paint. While ostensibly resembling a scaling of the “masterful” brushwork of Motherwell or de Kooning, the final works, perhaps like Lichtenstein’s spoofy quoted strokes, live as flattened snapshots of captured and ephemeral moments. They are digitally composed gestures, flat and practically inert but imaginatively ecstatic. The turns of the wrist that twist the paint into three dimensionality suggest the contrapposto twirl of a dancer or the circular helix of a Michelangelo marble, while the gush of colour is un-gendered orgasm.

Exhibition runs from March 6th to April 6th, 2014

The Hole NYC
312 Bowery
New York
NY
10012

theholenyc.com

   Tweet

YOKO ONO – HALF-A-WIND SHOW. A RETROSPECTIVE

Posted on 2014-03-03

With nearly 200 pieces including installations, objects, films, drawings, photographs, text and audio pieces, and documented performances, this exhibit offers a complete vision of the multiple productions of this pioneer of conceptual and performance art. Ideas, not materials, are the main component of Yoko Ono’s work (Tokyo, 1933), which is often imbibed with social criticism. Many of these ideas are poetic, absurd and utopian, while others are specific and attainable. Some turn into objects, while others remain immaterial.

The starting point for many of her pieces can be found in Yoko Ono’s Instructions. Guidelines the artist developed for her viewers, which gives the audience a much more active role than they are accustomed to. The exhibition covers Ono’s entire career up to the present, from her most significant works from the 1960’s to recent installations and pieces created especially for this retrospective, with a special section dedicated to her music and film production.

Opposite – Walking On Thin Ice, vídeo, 1981

Exhibition runs from March 14th to September 4th, 2014

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao
Av Abandoibarra
2 48009 Bilbao
Vizcaya
Spain

www.guggenheim-bilbao.es

   Tweet

KID ACNE – ADAPTATIONS

Posted on 2014-03-03

Adaptations is a solo exhibition by UK Street Art stalwart and modern-day renaissance man, Kid Acne. A celebration in printmaking and illustration, this exhibition explores the notions of sampling and remixing and aims to highlight the distinction between ‘loving homage’ and ‘plagiarism’ – arguably a grey area within the art world today.

Part retrospective, Adaptations showcases selected artworks from the Kid Acne archives, which pay dividends to seminal moments in popular culture, such as his re-imagined versions of Wizbit, The Beastmaster, Paul’s Boutique and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen – many of which are being shown in London for the very first time. Alongside such pieces are new and exclusive works made specifically for the show. Expect a heady mix of 80′s flashback and B-Boy decadence.

Exhibition runs from March 7th to March 30th, 2014

The Graffiti Life Gallery
26 Cheshire Street
London
E2 6EH

thegraffitilifegallery.co.uk

   Tweet