all images © MADI JU

–

Three rad facts about Chinese photographer MADI JU:

1. In 2005, she founded After 17, an online magazine dedicated to giving female artists exposure.
2. Then later, 2006 to 2007 she and fellow photographer boyfriend PATRICK TSAI launched the bitter-sweet project My Little Dead Dick, a kind of visual love diary, which ended just before their break up
3. She self-published her first book Madi Ju: A Personal Anthology I last year

Make sure to check out her website, www.madiju.com and to browse her flickr

Nothing Is A Must. exhibition view at Modern Art Oxford. 2009

–

Nothing Is A Must. exhibition view at Modern Art Oxford. 2009

–

Nothing Is A Must (detail)

–

Don’t Adapt, Detach (detail). exhibition view at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich. 2010

–

Don’t Adapt, Detach (detail)

–

Exhibition view at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich. 2010

–

Principles of Admitting. Exhibition view at Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich. 2010

–

Principles of Admitting (detail)

–

Wish List. exhibition view at Tate Britain. 2008

–

Persuader Face. exhibition view at Der Kunstverein, Hamburg. 2009

–

Persuader Face (detail)

–

Scottish artist KARLA BLACK uses plaster, chalk dust,vaseline or substances such as face powder, lipstick and nail varnish to develop her ephemeral and delicate work.

Through their colours and materiality, BLACK’s sculptural works create an extremely subtle effect. The surfaces of some of the objects can be recognised as rough cardboard or sensitively transparent cellophane, other areas are covered by gentle pastel colours. Breaks and cracks in the structural materials split through the layers of paint. Just a tiny movement could cause the paint to rip the paper, altering the sculpture. Her fragile works are never in a stable condition as they are threatened by persistent decay.

The artist seeks to interrupt this natural process in her works, and transform them to obtain a timeless condition as close to perfection as possible. With various methods and materials, the artist probes for a more constant and unchanging condition for the work. Nonetheless, some sculptures have a lifespan only as long as the exhibition itself, after which they are destroyed. The sculptures’ very properties necessitate that her work is produced on site.

“When I’m nearly finished making a work, I ask myself, “If this was a painting, would it be a good painting?” If I decide that the answer is yes, then I’m done. I use impermanent and raw materials like paper, polythene, plaster powder, and cosmetic products in my sculptures not because they easily change and decay but because I want the energy, life, and movement that they give. I would much rather have the sculptures stay exactly as they are the moment I finish making them. But I also know that if my first priority were to preserve the work forever, or for as long as possible, then I’d use stone, metal, or wood. But those materials don’t have the qualities I want. It’s a double bind (…)

(…) In art school critiques, my classmates sometimes said my work looked “feminine” and “domestic.” I could see what they meant, but that was never my intention and still isn’t. I like pink, and if someone wants to say that’s because I’m a woman, then perhaps it is. I’m interested in those kinds of cultural judgments that come from the outside. In the end, I decided to just do what I want to do, to use the materials and colors I want to use, because I want to enjoy making the work as much as I can. It’s hard enough to make something that’s any good, so you may as well start with some sort of self-indulgence. – as told to LAUREN O’NEILL-BUTLER for artforum

And good news: you can view in person the sculptural work of KARLA BLACK at Capitain Petzel, Berlin until 22 December 2010

ARABESCHI DI LATTE by Gestalten.tv. 2010

–

Oh man, everything about this video by Gestalten.tv inspires me and makes me want to experiment!

It’s all about ARABESCHI DI LATTE, a Florence-based collective who creates food-related workshops, exhibitions, and events.

Founded in 2001 by FRANCESCA SARTI and SILVIA ALLORI, together with CRISTINA CORTESE and ARIANNA PESCETT, ARABESCHI DI LATTE is based on the idea of creating a “daily sense of happiness” that is pursued through various strategies of participation and interaction that respond to basic and pleasurable needs in our social life. The group believes that food is not just “food on the plate” but everything relating to it. Food becomes an experience.

Don’t miss the website, www.arabeschidilatte.org/: it tastes good!.

–

portraits of PIPILOTTI RIST for Another Magazine 11th Issue. 2006

–

–

–

–

Editorial work for Das Magazin, Wir sind Fleischfresser. 2009

–

all pictures © LUKAS WASSMANN

–

Born in Zurich, LUKAS WASSMANN was trained as a carpenter from 1996 to 1999 in a small town in Switzerland before assisting different photographers in Milan, Zurich and New York. In 2003 LUKAS attended a professional course at FAS Berlin Photography School by German photographer ARNO FISCHER and studied at the Zurich University of Arts in the Photography department from 2003 to 2006. Currently he lives and works in Berlin and Zurich.

There is no doubt why the Swiss Institute/ Contemporary Art, New York commissioned LUKAS WASSMANN to shoot the calendar 2010 featuring NYC artists on their bicycles. Delicious!.

Tomate by GUILLAUME PINARD. 20 illustrations, 10 euros. ISBN:978-2-35906-043-0. available in library: February 2011. Published by LIENART éditions for the exhibition “Guillaume Pinard-Tomate” (September-October 2010) at galerie Anne Barrault, Paris (view the exhibition views here) © LIENART éditions © GUILLAUME PINARD

–

Exactly a week ago, I published a short post about French artist GUILLAUME PINARD. Definitely not enough! So during the last few days, I managed to grab a copy of one of his last book “Tomate”: an outrageously and delicious selection of twenty preparatory drawings to oil paintings.

Whether they are a solar rabbit drinking the brew from a headless body, a proud well-hung horse, a virgin meaning fiercely to remain so, or a vase with balls, GUILLAUME PINARD’s figures reveal his obsession for clarity. His use of the codes of regressive drawing plays on this fixed idea. Accessible forms, simple colours, academic setting. With the subject as with the material, what is to be seen must be accepted, understood at once. Everything must be clear. Nothing must arouse interpretation. A horse with a hard-on is a happy horse, that is all. In the same way, oil painting, excluding apparent outlines – in the sense that it is understood as elborate, refined matter, or its opposite- is an oil painting, because it is in oils, that is all. – by FRANK G. RICHARD

Forget to mention the entire design – typo plus the colorful and simple binding – that I love !

Untitled (Don’t Wake Daddy). crayon on hotel stationery. 10,5″ x 7″. 1995. courtesy Metro Pictures

–

Untitled. pencil, ink, marker on paper. 11,5″ x 8″. 1990. courtesy Metro Pictures

–

Untitled. pastel on paper. 11,5″ x 8″. 1990. courtesy Metro Pictures

–

Untitled. 1993. R. Jeffrey Edwards
Untitled. 1993. Freidrich Christian Flick Collection

–

Untitled. pencil on paper. 11,75″ x 8.5″. 1992. courtesy Metro Pictures

–

German artist MARTIN KIPPENBERGER had a short life (1953-1997) but he managed to test and probe a dizzying range of styles and medias like painting, performance, sculpture, collage, video, drawing and installation.

His most intimate works were his “Hotel Drawings”. KIPPENBERGER made hundreds of drawings on hotel stationery, a body of work that comes across as a kind of travel diary. Although he often lived in hotels for weeks or even months, he didn’t stay at all the hotels whose notepaper he used, often picking it up from other sources. The stationery became, like so many things he encountered, a readymade material for his art.

Using common writing and drawing implements, he expressed the ideas that occupied his mind at particular times. He often made these sketches after or in the middle of a painting, sculpture or larger project, and each work is both a standalone artwork and a fragment or extension of an ongoing narrative.

Definitively legendary, just like his extravagant author!

MDRS #01, Mars Society, USA. 2008

–

MDRS #00, Mars Society, USA. 2008

–

MDRS #04, Mars Society, USA. 2008

–

House searchers, Caussols Observatory, France. 2006

–

Meeting Room, Guiana Space Center. 2007

–

General Boris V., Star City, Russia. 2007

–

Space Gloves, Star City, Russia. 2007

–

French-born, Brussels-based photographer VINCENT FOURNIER’s “Space Project” tackles the unknown world of space exploration head on.

He has spent the past decade and a half gaining access to some of the most controlled environments on earth – and sometimes in some of the most desolate places in the world – including the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center of the Russian Federation, the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, and the Atacama Desert Observatories in Chile. In these fascinating – and a bit weird- images, FOURNIER explores the paranoia and darkness of man’s attraction to the disconnect of space.

And good news: you can find the book “Space Project” by VINCENT FOURNIER in the WFW Store

Thoughtphotography 1 © BARBARA ELLMERER

–

Visual artist BARBARA ELLMERER is a swiss-austrian painter and drawer, educated at the Academy of Art and Design in Zürich and at the University of Arts in Berlin.

I’ve discovered her work and her experiments through www.journalfuerkunstsexundmathematik.ch, the blog of YVES NETZHAMMER, where she is an activ contributor.

Make sure to check out her work on www.ellmerer.com/

–

–

–

all pictures from the “Hackney Flowers” series

–

Hackney Wick is a little known area in East London, and also STEPHEN GILL´s latest fascination. In Hackney Flowers, he collected flowers, seeds, berries and objects from Hackney, then pressed them in his studio and rephotographed them alongside his own photographs and other found ephemera, thus building up multi-layered images built from the area. The collage-like images thus produced are a reference to unexpected ecological riches while also serving as a metaphor for the beauty that may sometimes be found in the banal.

Six relevant dates in the life of STEPHEN GILL:

1. At an early age, STEPHEN was introduced to photography by his father.
2. In 1985, while still at school, he worked with a Bristol-based photographer, copying and restoring old photographs and helping to take family portraits.
3. Two years later, he began working full-time in a one-hour photo lab in the city.
4. In 1992 he enrolled in the Photography foundation course at Filton College in Bristol,
5. and a year later, he began to work at Magnum Photos in London, firstly as an intern and then full-time.
6. In 1997 he become freelance and since has continued to make a variety of personal photographic series. STEPHEN’s photographs are now held in various private and public collections and have also been exhibited at many international galleries and museums.

And good news: you can find the book “Stephen Gill: Hackney Flowers” in the WFW Store

NO LAYOUT frontpage

–

inside f.ART, Issue one. published by f.ART. 2010

–

inside Famous 5 bis. published by Famous. 2002

–

inside Kate Moss Rorschach n°3. published by ASHER PENN. 2009

–

inside Tell Mum n°3. published by FPCF

–

If you are a magazines and zines freak like me, you will love NO LAYOUT.

It’s a fully readable library for independent publishers, focusing on art books, fashion magazines and zines. It is meant as a support for printed publications, allowing users to flip through content on any screen without downloads or apps. Just click on a magazine and you can browse the content. And yeah, good news: it’s entirely free. Second good news: you can create your own library.

Even if I think no website can beat the sexiness of a real magazine, NO LAYOUT is definitively a useful and complementary tool for printed publication and its readers.

Enough said. It’s time to improve your obsessive daily internet adventures and visit http://www.nolayout.com/

Errata, 6’05. 2005 by ALEXANDER STEWART

–

Take a photocopy machine plus endless reams of paper and you obtain Errata, an experimental film by ALEXANDER STEWART.

Errata is an animation made by photocopying copies of copies. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, each successive copy becomes a frame of animation, meaning that each on-screen image is a copy of the last (approximately 4,600 copies have been used). All movements, pans and zooms in the film were accomplished using standard zoom and shrink features on copy machines; the animation camera used to shoot the copies onto 16mm film was not used to manipulate or direct the film’s motion. 

ALEXANDER STEWART lives in Chicago, Illinois. He completed his MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in May of 2005 through the Art & Technology Department. As an undergraduate at the University of Richmond, he focused on art and American Studies. ALEXANDER teaches animation at DePaul University. Errata was his first film!

Advertisements for Architecture. 1976-1977

–

During this period, avant-garde theorist and architect BERNARD TSCHUMI created “Advertisements for Architecture”, a series of postcard-sized juxtapositions of words and images, based on the idea that most of us experience architecture through photographs, drawings and words in books, in other words, through our imagination and not through the experience of real space.

There is no way to perform architecture in a book. Words and drawings can only produce paper space, not the experience of real space. By definition, paper space is imaginary: it is an image.

So he makes a comparison of the way that advertisements show you the same image over and over to create a desire for something that exists beyond the two dimensional page: “as there are advertisements for architectural products, why not for the production (and reproduction) of architecture?” TSCHUMI wants to see if the language of advertisements can create the desire to see or to be inside the building. The first two ads are from Le Corbusier’s famous Villa Savoy of 1965 which was in a state of decay at that point, and was soon to be restored.

And good news: the book “Architecture and Disjunction” by BERNARD TSCHUMI is now available in the WFW Store. Covering roughly 20 years of theory and practice “Architecture and Disjunction” is a compilation of essays which disrupt the ideology of Modernism and Post Modernism.

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

–

all drawings © NICHOLAS DI GENOVA

–

NICHOLAS DI GENOVA is an artist that I spotted in June during Scope Basel. Few months later, it’s definitively time to feature his incredible drawings on WFW.

NICHOLAS DI GENOVA is a Canadian artist who works mainly with ink and animation paints to create a vast and intense encyclopedic range of constructed interconnected species, families and rival clans that find themselves projecting their habits, relations and environments to their viewers.

“When I was a kid growing up I was obsessed with animals and monsters… I’d draw them everyday, and when I grew up I either wanted to be a zoologist or a monster hunter… When I got a bit older I realized that being a zoologist was less exciting than I had imagined, and that ‘monster hunter’ isn’t even a real job, so I just kept drawing. I pretty much do the exact same thing at 29 years old that I did when I was 9 years old.”

This is Art, with a capital “A”: very good, important and innovative!

GUAPA 1. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

GUAPA 3. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

GUAPA 5. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

GUAPA 9. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

GUAPA 10. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

GUAPA 8. 1995
Black and white photograph on chromogenic paper
33.5 x 43in (85 × 108.5cm). edition of 20

–

Australian filmmaker and photographer TRACEY MOFFATT approaches all her photographic and video work as a film director. Whether she is shooting 35mm features, shorts or documentary films; color or black and white photos; or music videos for MTV, her role is directorial. Basically her work is about role-playing, and its effects on identity and autobiography. Deriving from personal experiences and memories, its scope is universal: we all play roles most of our lives.

GUAPA (Good Looking) has been produced during her residency in San Antonio. The series of ten photographs is inspired by the American phenomenon of roller derby. To emulate roller derby’s tough female competitors, MOFFATT hired models with thick, muscular bodies, and clothed them in costumes produced by a local seamstress. The artifice of the costumes, conveyed by the hand stitching on kneepads and numbers, and the locationless landscape of the stark white studio in which the models were photographed mediate the convincing violence of the skaters’ belligerent encounters. The filmy, magenta-tinged photographs, printed from black and white negatives on color photographic paper, describe a nostalgic scenario of gladiatorial dimensions. 

And good news; a retrospective exhibition is currently taking place at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York (on view until Jan. 2, 2011). And in January 2011, she will present a solo exhibition at Tyler Rollins Fine Art, featuring her recent photographic series, Plantation, as well as Other, the final work in her Montages video series inspired by Hollywood films.

all pictures © MARTHA BOXLEY

–

There’s such beauty in MARTHA BOXLEY‘s photographs, no matter if she’s shooting backstage at a runway show, or her friends who make her world go round. MARTHA BOXLEY is an English fashion photographer living in Berlin.