Rebirth of Danish art and design
If you want to keep track of modern Danish art and design, Forårsudstillingen at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen is a pivotal point of departure. Yesterday was the final day of the annual censored exhibition, where artists like Per Kirkeby and Olafur Eliasson once had their debut, and I went there to catch a last glimpse of the exhibition’s proposition as to what the Scandinavian art scene will look like in the years to come. In its 151 year-history, Forårsudstillingen obviously draws on a number of traditions and codes of practice; however, a new and substantial initiative has been introduced this year, triggering critics to designate it a rebirth and a mall-like ornamentation. The 2008 exhibition has been curated much in line with the direction of the art scene in general, where hierarchies between different art directions are loosened, juxtaposed, and discussed.
Chief curator is the internationally acclaimed, New York-based designer Karim Rashid, who is responsible for the overall design and title of the exhibition, 21. With this title, Rashid lets the exhibition leap into the twenty-first century, where the boundaries between art and design become increasingly vague. Therefore, this year’s exhibition offers fashion, graphic design, and sound art aside from the more traditional genres of architecture and visual arts—all indicating renewal and a relation to our current social, political, spiritual, and technological development. Karim Rashid’s own aesthetic expression is present throughout the exhibition, not only in the selection and composition of the works, but also in the separate works that have been placed on walls covered with his colorful, digitally designed wallpapers, manifesting the unity of the exhibition as a whole.
Whitney Biennial Model Tees
The Whitney Museum has collaborated with the Gap on a series of t-shirts designed by past Whitney Biennial artists, including Art21 artists Cai Guo-Qiang, Barbara Kruger (her design is pictured above), Kerry James Marshall, and Kiki Smith. There are thirteen in all, and the prominent remainder includes Ashley Bickerton, Chuck Close, Jeff Koons, Hanna Liden, Glenn Ligon, Marilyn Minter, Kenny Scharf, Sarah Sze, and Rirkrit Tiravanija.
The t-shirts will be available at select Gap stores and online beginning May 15. In the meantime, with the opening of the 2008 Whitney Biennial last week, they can also be found in advance at the museum gift store.
Juergen Teller at Lehmann Maupin
The Lehmann Maupin gallery in New York City is currently presenting an exhibition by photographer Juergen Teller. The exhibition follows the installation Reflection by Season 2 Art21 artist Do-Ho Suh, which was on view into the start of this month. Teller’s work is exhibited in the gallery’s 540 West 26th Street space and includes the his recent body of work, Ukraine. The work was commissioned, along with four other artists, by the PinchukArtCentre for the Venice Biennale 2007.
The works included investigate modern Ukraine through the lens of the fashion and luxury industries. The artist used the country as a setting for a W Magazine fashion photo shoot, depicting inviting young girls and excessive wealth. The works divert viewers from the economic reality of the land and places that attention on the artist’s perception of a country obsessed with capitalism and new growth.
Teller was born in Germany, and has lived and worked in London for the past 20 years.
Hiroshi Sugimoto in New York Times’ T Magazine
“Isn’t It Iconic?”‚Äîphotographs by Season 3 featured artist Hiroshi Sugimoto are published in the Holiday 2007 issue of the New York Times‘ T Magazine. “In his latest passion, Hiroshi Sugimoto is training his celebrated lens on fashion, documenting the history of modernism as he once did with architecture,” writes T.
View these images online here and watch the related short documentary video (also produced by T) here.
Click on the image of Sugimoto to access the film. Reference his Art21 webpage for a portrait, additional biographical information, interviews, and clips from his Art:21 segment.
[via New York Times]
“Liberation through Limitation” - Andrea Zittel’s Smockshop
Saturday, Season 1 artist Andrea Zittel opens her inaugural “smockshop” at Susan Inglett Gallery, coinciding with Fashion Week in New York.
Having spent years gaining international recognition and developing a variety of concepts for living, from furniture manufacturing, A-Z Administrative Services to the design and construction of an island off the coast of Denmark, A-Z Pocket Property, Zittel returns to the gallery as fashion arena with smockshop. With the collection that consists of a series of smocks sewn and designed in cooperation with various artists, Zittel challenges the connection between fashion and function, design and life, and commerce and art, and makes these links explicit by selling her one-of-a-kind smocks at ready-to-wear prices.
Zittel’s designs are more about everyday use and less about rarified statement. “Our current state of consumerism is pretty out of whack right now,” Zittel says. “Wear what you work” The artist hopes her project will inspire a more frugal approach to design, but under all circumstances, the smockshop is bound to tempt the eyes as well as the purse strings.
Smockshop will be on view at Susan Inglett Gallery until October 13. Visit the smockshop Web site at http://www.smockshop.org/
