28/01/2011

Mattia Biagi – Black Tar

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Mattia Biagi – Black Tar

Officine dell’Immagine, a newborn art space in Milan, opens with the solo show by Mattia Biagi (b. 1974), an Italian artist, who has been living in Los Angeles for the past decade.

For the first time, Mattia Biagi comes back to Milan, the place where he emarked upon his artistic path with the designer Giulio Cappellini, who helps him – together with his wife – to increase his passion for art, fashion, design and architecture.

Visiting that area, Biagi started to use tar as his main medium of expression. The carefully selected objects, covered by black moulded tar, lose their original function and gain a new social value. Biagi, dipping the objects, is able to preserve their shape and recall feelings and events chosen from his private life, crystallising them. In his work, the artist tackles different issues: he gets back to Christian religion, like in Heaven and Hell or Confession; and tells about his memory – from the childhood till the life in USA, as in Den of iniquity and American grinder. Weapons, musical instruments and all the objects selected by Biagi, after the “Rite of Tar”, cease to be what they were made for and transform themselves into symbols, which have the power to recover memories, feelings and thoughts.

The exhibition, “Black Tar”, at Officine dell’Immagine, Via Vannucci, 13 in Milan, will run until March 7.

Monica Lombardi – Images courtesy Mattia Biagi

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26/01/2011

Junk Jet & Occulto 01

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Junk Jet & Occulto 01

Alice Cannava is a friend of the Blogazine and one of the masterminds behind Occulto Magazine.

When I buy a magazine I want something to read. I like it when the texts are long and rich; when I can see there’s an idea and a research behind the editorial project. I like an interdisciplinary approach, mixing up different fields with wit and humour without losing profundity. That’s why I have founded with Irene Lumpa Rossi Occulto Magazine, which explores new possibilities in the popularisation of science in connection to other fields such as the visual arts and parascientific theories.

And that’s why it was great to discover Junk Jet on the occasion of the event organised by Fluctuating Images last Saturday, January 22nd at General Public in Berlin. It was the release party of Junk Jet #4 (which I recommend to order immediately) including a DJ/VJ set by the co-editor-in-chief Asli Serbest, and was for us a chance to present all our previous publications (Occulto Issue #0, Sie Leben, Case da Disabitare) and the splendid Alessio delli Castelli’s collages installation Inventing Differences, already shown at his solo show at AC Galerie.

With the upcoming issue One, Occulto will turn into a book. It will keep its glossy outlook but will be three times as thick and will feature stories about urine tests and work conditions; sea urchins and MRI; oscillations applied to neuroscience and electronic music; delirious theories about how systematic blood transfusions can heal any mortal disease; possible applications of scientific principles to economy and much, much more…

Alice Cannava

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21/01/2011

The Selby’s Gallery Debut

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The Selby’s Gallery Debut

Todd Selby – as in The Selby – is at long last making his gallery debut. Featured alongside the prolific and renowned French-American portrait photographer Elliott Erwitt, the ensemble show is sure to be a landmark look at the evolving practice of portraiture. By capturing subjects – carefully considered and extraordinarily creative subjects – within the natural habitats of their eccentric and particular home or work spaces, Selby manages, fluently and effortlessly, to construct images that leave a 360° impression.

Like a Yosuf Karsh for our age, his ability to play on and pull out his subjects’ sensibilities has lent he and his camera the exceptional ability to create penetrating and sagacious looks into their identities. He’s graced the pages of numerous publications, and continues to create photos that are insightful, brazen and just plain enjoyable to look at.

Opening tonight at Atlanta’s well-curated and ahead-of-the-curve Jackson Fine Art gallery, which has featured the likes of Massimo Vitali, Arthur Leipzig, Sally Mann, and Steve Schapiro, at 6pm, and will run until March 25.


Rockaway Taco, A Selby Film from the selby on Vimeo.

Tag Christof – Images & film courtesy The Selby, special thanks to Malia Schramm at Jackson Fine Art

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17/01/2011

Polidori’s Versailles at Galeria Carla Sozzani

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Polidori’s Versailles at Galleria Carla Sozzani

We met renowned artist Robert Polidori at the vernissage of his new exhibition at Galleria Carla Sozzani this weekend. The French Canadian cum-New York photographer is well known for his imposing architectural reportage work, most recently for his deeply moving series of photographs of the devastation wrought on residential New Orleans immediately following Hurricane Katrina. His past projects also include one of the only looks into the interiors of the abandoned habitations surrounding Chernobyl. In this exhibition, zeroing in specifically on the restoration of Versailles, are a series of photos, taken both in the mid 1980s and subsequently in the latter half of the last decade.



To those who have visited Versailles as tourist in all its punctiliously manicured perfection, Polidori’s images are strangely disorienting. As is common in his work, the sense of still and eternality is fully intact, but the disorder and imperfection in such an iconically untouchable place is an insight into its fragility. From an out of place painting, to a swatch of crumbling paint or conspicuously modern fire equipment hiding behind an open gold-lacquered door, the viewer gets the a sense that the palace is anything but eternal, and rather, is transitory and open to interpretation over time.

This intentionally forgotten layer of history – the focused modification (handily branded as restoration, because it was hardly straight preservation) of a palace originally intended to display unlimited grandeur and a point of pilgrimage today as a temple of an extreme monarch’s colossal (mis)use of wealth – is perhaps a key lesson in understanding the construction of history itself. Polidori summed up brilliantly, saying, “With Versailles, I had the opportunity to witness museum restoration but I realised what was really going on was historical revisionism. What does it mean to restore something? It means to make something old new again… When you choose to restore a certain room as it was in a certain period, the period you chose is based on your contemporary worldview.”

The series is full of gorgeous, rich images that require plenty of time to ponder, and amount to perhaps one of the most honest looks into Versailles you’ll ever come across. Opened at Galleria Carla Sozzani Saturday 15 January, and will run until March 27. 10 Corso Como in Milan.

Tag Christof

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14/01/2011

Chert at Berlin-Paris

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Chert at Berlin-Paris

This year’s Berlin half of the Berlin-Paris gallery extravaganza kicks off tonight in the indefatigably eccentric German city. The feast of surprising exhbitions, which has in its previous incarnations highlighted the polar energies and unique personalities of Paris and Berlin, will encompass icons of classical Modernism as well as emerging artists. With about thirty shows in all, Berlin-Paris 2011 is sure to be a landmark in Berlin’s flourishing art scene.

Chert gallery, together with Gaudel de Stampa and Motto Distribution who are widely known for their self-publishing fair “Unter dem Motto,” are hosting a particularly interesting exhibition titled Token Took. Featuring works by Susanne Bürner, Morten Norbye Halvorsen and Jessica Warboys, Token Took’s opening reception is tonight starting at 6pm, and runs through February 13th at Chert, Skalitzerstrasse 68 in Berlin.

Also not to miss tonight if you’re lucky enough to find yourself in Berlin is Librairie Yvon Lambert at Motto.

Tag Christof

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23/12/2010

Happy Christmas from 2DM /

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Happy Christmas from 2DM /

It’s about that time to gather around a fire, eat a few kilos of sugary treats and wait for Babbo Natale or Santa Claus (or whoever it is that normally drops by your ‘hood) to pay a visit. So Happy Holidays, safe travels, warm wine and fuzzy feelings to all!

From everyone here to our wonderful talents, clients, collaborators, bloggers and friends we wish you an inspired finish to your 2010!

Tag Christof

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10/12/2010

Salvatore Cuschera / Galleria Biffi Arte

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Salvatore Cuschera / Galleria Biffi Arte

From this Saturday, 11 December 2010 to 6 January 2011 Galeria Biffi Arte will present Salvatore Cuschera’s “Shaman Roosters” sculptures. The artist – starting from his idea of modern shamanism – has been modelling clay to create these colourful cocks, which embody the power of the shaman himself.

The zoomorphic figures are the result of the artist’s will to bring some changes to the traditional cucù made in Matera (Basilicata, in the south of Italy). In many cultures the cock is recognised as a sacred animal connected to the sun and characterised by a fighting spirit. It is also seen as a symbol of virility and often used to make offering to the gods.

The sculptures by Cuschera, through their fantastic shapes, reveal all the artist’s spirituality and cultural background – even if they are not explicitly religious and are made with a certain rationality; volumes, lines, colour and, sometimes real bird feathers are mixed together in a way that recall shaman masks. Creating a parallel between the roosters and the shamans, Cuschera’s wish is to express the charisma of these human beings that are recognised as guides and intermediaries without time.

The works by Salvatore Cuschera will be displayed with the Nativity scene by Enrico Pulsoni in the show called “Il sacro e il profano fianco a fianco per il Natale 2010” (The sacred and the profane side by side for Christmas 2010”), where the sacred and the profane are blended. The “profane” animals, through their rugged and colourful surface, reveal their spiritual nature, reflecting, at the same time, the need of contemporary artists to represent their own particular way to perceive spirituality.

Via Chiapponi 39, Piacenza.

Monica Lombardi, images from the bureau.

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17/11/2010

VICE / Jerry Hsu


VICE / Jerry Hsu

Born in San Jose in 1981, a Taiwanese Californian, Jerry Hsu is famous for being a pro skater, and is an up and coming American contemporary photographer known for framing rawness and triviality. It comes as no surprise that after Vice curated his work In New York and Los Angeles, it is now time for Vice Italy and Ransom by adidas originals to present Jerry Hsu’s intriguing images in Milan: Goodbye for good: Photography by Jerry Hsu.


“As far as Vice’s role in photography, I think They developed a stereotypical style of photography, like the shocking photo of your friend throwing up, or a bar fight, or weird titty situations.” -Jerry Hsu

His photographic breakthrough can be traced back to his first feature in Vice in July 2004. Through his lens Jerry Hsu sees the world in ways that not many so-called photographers do, and portrays his surroundings in a rather entertaining and refreshing manner. The irony of simplicity, storytelling that subtly underlines the nowhere and the nobody. Jerry Hsu’s photography is an iconic yet stochastic example of the significance of Vice photography.

Thursday November 18th, 19h00 Vice Gallery di via Giacomo Watt 32, Milano. Open to the public until December 20th Monday – Friday, 15h00-19h00

By Safia Brown, Photo courtesy Vice.

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16/11/2010

Skye Parrott: First Love, Last Rites


Skye Parrott: First Love, Last Rites

In a new New York exhibition, Dossier Journal founder and 2DM photographer Skye Parrott turns her lens on a foggy past to explore the fluid, treacherous reconstruction of memory. With the help of some friends she explores a formidable gap in her photographed life, a turbulent time from which no images of her exist. Through an attempt to reconstruct the spaces and relationships of the time from memory, physical artefacts, and a conflicting interview with a then central figure in her life, she dives deep into a haunting realisation that what is remembered is quite possibly not what is real.

Opening at Brooklyn’s Capricious Space, a self-described sanctuary from the city linked to the emerging fine-art photography publication, Capricious Magazine. Friday, November 19th from 7-9pm, Capricious Space, 103 Broadway in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

By Tag Christof, photo courtesy Skye Parrott.

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15/11/2010

Gavin Watson / 55DSL


Gavin Watson / 55DSL

Last week 55DSL’s London flagship played host to an exhibition called “Neville,” a showcase of the work of 2DM photographer emeritus Gavin Watson. Known in cooler circles the world over for his poignantly punk Skins and Punks and Raving 89 monographs, as well as his world-class portfolio of photos for an insanely long list of publications.

The exhibition centres on Gavin’s muse and the subject of one of his most important series – one he has, in fact, spent a lifetime following – his younger brother Neville. The series follow the indomitable youth, the other Watson, from precocious kid to full-fledged adult and is extraordinary in the particular, direct, trusting relationship it makes obvious between the lens and its subject. Not to mention, Neville is a bad ass.

The “delightfully offensive” limited edition t-shirt of Neville’s most iconic portrait, complete with killer preteen punk scowl, was featured at the exhibition alongside a box of picture postcards by Gavin, and is still up for grabs at 55DSL’s site.

Text and photo by Tag Christof

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