I re-discover parts of my cultural heritage, portraying the different facets of the life of mountain villages in between the Italian and Slovenian borders. What I found was a community of survivors. (more…)
Chantal Joffe brings a combination of insight and integrity, as well as psychological and emotional force, to the genre of figurative art. Hers is a deceptively casual brushstroke. Whether in images a few inches square or ten feet high, fluidity combined with a pragmatic approach to representation seduces and disarms. Almost always depicting women or girls, sometimes in groups but recently in iconic portraits, Joffe’s paintings only waveringly adhere to their source – be it a photograph, magazine page or even a reflection in the mirror – instead reminding us that distortions of scale and form can often make a subject seem more real.
Joffe’s paintings always alert us to how appearances are carefully constructed and codified, whether in a fashion magazine or the family album, and to the choreography of display. There’s witty neutrality in a career-spanning line-up that has given equal billing to catwalk models, porn actresses, mothers and children, loved ones and literary heroines. Joffe questions assumptions about what makes a noble subject for art and challenges what our expectations of a feminist art might be. Appropriation of existing imagery has been a cornerstone, particularly in the works for which she first became known. Joffe ennobles the people she paints by rehabilitating the photographic image but, crucially, recognizes that it is paint itself – its spatio-temporal complexities rather than attendant theories or sociopolitical ideas surrounding subject matter – that keeps us engaged.
Born in 1969, Chantal Joffe lives and works in London. She holds an MA from the Royal College of Art and was awarded the Royal Academy Wollaston Prize in 2006. Joffe has exhibited nationally and internationally at venues including the National Museum of Iceland, Reykjavík, 2016; National Portrait Gallery, London, 2015; Jewish Museum, New York, 2015; Jerwood Gallery, Hastings, 2015; Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2014 – 2015; Saatchi Gallery, London, 2013 – 2014; MODEM, Hungary, 2012; Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow, 2012; Il Capricorno, Venice, 2011; Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2011; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York, 2009; University of the Arts, London, 2007; MIMA Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, 2007; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2005; Galleri KB, Oslo, 2005 and Bloomberg Space, London, 2004.
I re-discover parts of my cultural heritage, portraying the different facets of the life of mountain villages in between the Italian and Slovenian borders. What I found was a community of survivors. (more…)
Mouse on Mars is one of Germany’s most eccentric and remarkable electronic music projects. With an anarchic hybrid sound swinging between uncontrolled chaos and meticulously arranged structures, Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner have created a unique musical idiom that nonetheless never settles into definite form (more…)
22:22 tells the story of Tom Sietas, who in 2012 set a world record at that time of twenty-two minutes and twenty-two seconds in Static Apnea, the ability to hold one’s breath underwater. (more…)
First gaining attention in the 1960s with his exuberant portraits and landscapes, David Hockney remains one of the most celebrated British artists of his generation. He is also a key contributor to the development of art in Los Angeles, one of his adopted homes. (more…)
Once again we arrive at the end of another year. 2021 was a year replete with contradictions and conflict, tension and turmoil. Two years since the start of the pandemic, a return to normal eludes us.
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This comprehensive exhibition brings together rarely seen works from two of Robert Rauschenberg’s most innovative series. For a period of 15 years, Rauschenberg made several trips to Japan where he created ceramic artworks using a newly developed technique (more…)
Born in 1958 in Oran, Algeria Lise Sarfati lives and works between Paris and Los Angeles and is represented by Yossi Milo Gallery, NY, Rose Gallery, LA, La Galerie Particulière, Paris.
Angela Davis Johnson creates paintings, public art installations, and ritual performances to examine the technologies of black people, in particular black women/femme. (more…)