I know you’ve seen a million pictures of Coachella already, but these ones by photographer Doug Neill remind me that summer is coming, and even if it has been a really mild winter, I’m still really excited. Also, I don’t care what anybody says, I think Katy Perry looks adorable. A$AP Rocky, too.

Josh Slater is an artist known for his trippy, psychedelic line drawings of complex geometric shapes. His references combine science fiction and other futuristic influences with natural wonders of the world ike moss and other stuff like that. His latest thing is taking his graphic skills off of the page and making multi-dimensional videos, sculptures and interactive art, which includes building crazy (big enough to walk through) structures for videos with bands like MGMT. Over here at Dossier, we are super fans. We featured an interview with Josh in Issue #7 and partnered up with him for our SmartCar mural on Spring Street. This is his latest video, called Forever Vision. Sit back, chill out and enjoy.

Tanlines. The word, the name, conjures up not just the literal stain of the sun on your skin, but also that end-of-summer feeling when the traces of those hot nights, and sun-drenched days at the beach fade away and nostalgia for it all kicks in almost as soon as September rears its head. Tanlines, the band, evoke something similar. Already a familiar pair in Brooklyn, Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm who make up the band, have been working together since 2008, in which time they’ve proffered steadfast remixes for the likes of Glasser, Telepathy and Au Revoir Simone, played sold out shows at heavyweight art institutions around New York and toured extensively through Europe and the U.S, often sharing the bill with peers including Yeasayer, Julian Casablancas and Delorean. Their sound is synonymous not with summer, but with that idle feeling of wild abandon that is simply at its most visceral when you walk through New York in August. Go to a steamy, sweaty Tanlines show at Glasslands in mid-winter and you’re instantly transported. Since 2008, they have been on a lean curve of musical deviations, experimentation and collaborations – all of which led them to ‘Mixed Emotions’ – their debut album, released on True Panther Sounds this week. Building on their past two EPs; ‘Volume On’ (2009) and ‘Settings’ (2010), in both length and production value, this album is Tanlines at their most transparent and personal yet, with their past experience translating into a work that is decidedly mature and confident. Still dance-y, yes and still as compulsive as their previous work, but also inflected with something that might one day be called a classic Tanlines sound.

Eric’s songwriting and singing is more prevalent on this record and his baritone voice tempers out Jesse’s enraptured percussion. The two qualities are as distinct in personality as are Jesse and Eric themselves but the harmony between the two is apparent. It can’t be a coincidence that the lead track is called ‘Brothers’.
The clean and open production of the tracks showcase every instrument – guitar, synth, vocal, drums – as though each declared itself the lead role – allowing for compelling melodies that mar the pop, electro and dance tones with precision. Though well versed in production themselves, the man at the helm this time round was legendary producer Jimmy Douglass whose ability to make a hit just that has been showcased by the likes of AC/DC, Timbaland, Aaliyah, Television and Missy Elliot…suffice to say he has a few Grammy’s under his belt too. Not bad company. Half the record was made in New York, and midway through they switched it up, disbanding the city for Miami, which is where Jimmy came in to play. Perhaps it’s these two backdrops that helped spur the duality in sound.

Inviting someone with a unique vision to come on board can be daunting, particularly when that someone is as experienced as Jimmy Douglass. But despite (or maybe because of) their clear vision and willingness to be involved on all fronts, such a collaborative pairing is no anomaly for Jesse and Eric, with their visual output acting as an aesthetic continuation of their musical daring. Having played shows at the Guggenheim, the Whitney as well as MOMA PS1, Tanlines have somehow found themselves in the art world fold, a position they’re able to recognize with a heavy dose of self-deprecation and the objective view that such shows are designed to be mutually beneficial. Nevertheless, the pair show no signs of disingenuity when it comes to the visual talent that surrounds them and have called on the likes of artist Marisa Olsen and funnyman Julian Barratt to inject something unique into their music videos, allowing for a loose and evolving sense of image. As with the music, there is an willingness to experiment with technology. The video for ‘Brothers’ uses a new interactive panning tool – a bit like using Google Street view to navigate your way through a music video. Such attention paid to their visual output is Tanlines’ recognition that being in a band is a whole lot more than just putting out a 12-inch. The Internet music phenomenon, social networking, You Tube and the access to home spun video technology means you can’t afford to sit back and let someone else do the talking. Being actively involved on all fronts means you are, of course, closer to the people who listen to your music or watch your videos – and are therefore more aware of criticism and praise. For their online endeavors, Tanlines racked up a Village Voice Award last year for best Twitter band. I’m not sure what needs to be tweeted to receive such a contemporary accolade but whether it be winning Twitter awards, filming videos, playing museum shows or above all making music and stirring a crowd – Tanlines are clearly doing something right.

Siobhan Bohnacker: ‘Mixed Emotions’ is your first full-length album, but you’ve been together in Tanlines since 2008. This was awhile coming it seems. What sets this record apart from your previous EPs other than the format style? Has it allowed you to veer in a different direction creatively?

Tanlines: This album, for the most part, represents a period of time in our career. I know that it is our first album, but it really feels to us more like a second. A lot of times, a group’s first album is all of the material they had written up to the point that they got signed or decided to record something. It could be 4 years of material. The second album is the one that they have to figure out what they want to do and then sit down and write it. That is how we approached this album, and it was something we had never done before.

Siobhan: You worked on this record alone in NYC before heading to Florida to work with the prolific producer Jimmy Douglass. You’re both well versed in the aspects of production, having acted as producers yourselves, so do you find it hard when someone comes on board midway to hone what you have already worked on so closely together? Was this confounded by the change in location?

Tanlines: Well, we had already spent a year writing, producing and mixing the album ourselves. When Jimmy said he loved the album and wanted to mix it over the course of 10 days in Miami, it was a great opportunity. Mixing is a really subtle art, especially in the digital era, where we are bringing tons of sounds that we produced and mixed already to the session. We wanted to take everything out of our comfort zone and just sort of inject some additional magic into it. Jimmy’s career is absolutely amazing and his ears have heard everything. I think he really helped elevate our sound to a new level. As for Miami, working down there was about as far away from home as possible, which I think was great for us. It was also great to drive around Miami at 3 in the morning listening to new mixes on our car’s CD player.

Siobhan: When you played The Whitney there were a few Upper East Side types peering in from outside who seemed bemused but enraptured by your performance. It’s hard to contain the desire to dance to your songs. How does it feel to play to an audience in a museum environment, and how did this art world association come about?

Tanlines: That show at the Whitney was fantastic. I remember turning around and looking out the window behind us and seeing all kinds of people peering in from the street. It was really fun. The first museum that we played was a benefit at the New Museum, really early on in our career. Then we did the Guggenheim, opening for Yeasayer. At that point, we decided a goal of ours would be to play every museum in New York. I would love to say that we fit in at these places because we really art-y but also fun and interesting, but I believe it probably has just as much to do with the trend of booking parties at museums to bring in younger crowds… Still, I get to say that we’ve “shown our work” at the Guggenheim, Whitney, and PS1. Also, the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, Connecticut was amazing. Definitely the place where were closest to the artwork. My drum sticks were dangerously close to a Max Ernst painting.

Siobhan: I think Ernst might have appreciated the scene. So the art museum shows aren’t necessarily reflective of any desire to be designated art world darlings, but your own visual output certainly has a purposeful sense of aesthetic. Is the visual aspect to being in and promoting your band one that you enjoy being involved with?

Tanlines: Definitely. Music has a life of it’s own, but sometimes you want people to have a sense of who you are and where you are coming from. Your artwork, music videos, Internet presence, etc are ways that you can tell people a little bit more about who you are, what your aesthetic is, and where you are coming from. You can deliver a little bit of your personality that is hard to put into music. I think twitter is the best for this, but we have always tried to use visuals in the same way. For the artwork for the cover of this album, for example, we decided a long time ago that we just wanted a simple photograph of ourselves. Everything else we have always done has had lots of different layers and we wanted something that was as simple and honest and straightforward as possible with our album. I think it was important to us to not try to hide anything behind a layer of irony or anything like that. With the album, we wanted to say “this is who we are” and the artwork reflected that.

Siobhan: Tell me a bit about video for ‘Brothers.’ It uses a 360 degree camera allowing the viewer to move through the video. How did the concept come about?

Tanlines: Well, using the specific 360 degree camera was Dean from True Panther’s idea. When he brought it to us, we thought about how we could use it in a way that was interesting to us and honest and true to our personalities. We decided early on that we wanted something really simple and subtle and nothing too “crazy.” We talked about how unless you are Adele, you can’t really make a video that is just someone singing the song anymore. The whole Internet music video challenge is to make something that people will watch for about a minute or so, sadly. We knew that with the technology, people would watch the video for it’s novelty. We knew they’d hear the song, so we felt like we could make something really simple that we otherwise couldn’t get away with.

Siobhan: Has it set the tone for the next music video?

Tanlines: Actually, we shot a video in London for “All of Me” with Julian Barratt from the Mighty Boosh. It was all his idea and we just trusted that he would make something really unique and weird and funny. I think that’s what he did. I haven’t seen it yet, it’s not done, but I know that just based on our one day shooting with him that he assembled a super talented crew of people and I’m sure it will be really special thing when it is done.

Siobhan: Last year you won a Village Voice award for best NYC Twitter band. What did you tweet that put you above and beyond other bands? It must be nice to know people actually like what you write…

Tanlines: Sometimes, on the Internet, even with commenting and all that, you never really know if people are paying attention to you for more than one second at a time, so that was nice. On twitter, I just try to deliver a bit of my personality.

Siobhan: Jesse, you once said that you want to make music in a way that reflects that way you consume music, Is that something you still stand by?

Tanlines: We mostly listen to music on headphones, or while making breakfast, or out of a laptop, or while watching videos, and occasionally live. I think the music that we make works really well in all of those contexts.

Siobhan: The new record sounds somehow more rooted than your earlier work and I gather it was a true labor of love. Thoughtful, nostalgic and timeless yet still fresh and looking-forward. What do you feel makes a good song?

Tanlines: I think we spent the first two years or so of our career figuring out a palette of sounds that we like, lots of drums, certain snare sounds, synth sounds, guitar sounds, vocals, etc. When we started to write this album, we reached for that palette and didn’t really have to think about what kinds of sounds we like, so we could write whatever kinds of songs we wanted. When we wrote “Green Grass,” which is a fuzzy kind of rock/new wave song, we were like “does this sound like a Tanlines song?” and the answer we decided was always yes. We wrote it, we think it’s really good, so it’s us, and so it sounds like us. I hope people will trust us and listen to us with open ears in that way.

Siobhan: Tell me a little about your relationship with Dean Bein, head of True Panther Sounds. He’s certainly cultivated a very choice community of artists that in a collective sense seems to be gaining momentum. Do you feel at home with this label?

Tanlines: Dean was our first fan. He was at the very first performance we ever gave, which was absolutely horrible, but he loved it. You always want to work with people who are true fans of what you are doing because they “get it” and they can talk convincingly about what they like about what you do. It’s something you really can’t fake. Dean is really successful at what he does because he is a fan of everything he puts out. He also has a really unique style, he’s really smart, and everyone who meets him likes him. I would love to work more people like him, but I don’t think very many exist.

Siobhan: When interviewing a band and/or talking about a particular record, it’s easy to assume that making music is simply what you do, without thinking too much about why you do it, and to focus on the specifics. But to wake up and want to make sounds and record them is not something that comes naturally to everyone and is quite a unique gift. PJ Harvey once told me that making music was like breathing and it was something she had to do every day. In the most abstract sense, what is it you really love about making music and why do you make it?

Tanlines: There are two moments I think that are really amazing when you write music. One is when you are writing and you enter a strange zone where your right brain is super active and things come out of you that are outside of your control. Sometimes that stuff turns out to be not so good, but sometimes it is truly magical. It’s like how you can’t make up a dream that is as good as a real dream that you didn’t even have to try to make up. I think a good goal is to put yourself to be in a position to be in that zone as often as you can. Every day would be amazing, but life does get in the way. The other moment is when you perform a song for people or even when you play a recording for someone and you get to hear it through their ears. It is amazing how different something sounds when you play it for them. When people respond to it positively, when you feel like you have made something that means something to someone else, it is a great feeling.

Siobhan: Other than the release of the record, do you guys have anything else planned for 2012 in terms of musical offerings? Are you interested in writing with other people?

Tanlines: We would love to be writing as much as possible, and we would love to write with other people. We’ve done a little of that, but it’s definitely something we want to do more of in our career.

All photos by Jenny Hueston.

This is a little teaser video provided by Andrew Kuykendall from the shoot he did in Palm Springs with the insanely beautiful Ashely Smith for the new issue of . We are so excited about our new issue, I don’t even know where to start. I think it is our weirdest, most interesting issue ever (really, seriously) and I’m just balls out in love with it. More teasers to come, as I sit on my hands trying to not leak the entire issue to you.

Shot and edited by Andrew Kuykendall and Jean-Pierre Caner. Model, Ashely Smith. Styling by Djuna Bel for Giant Artists. Makeup and Hair, Daniele Pierson. Styling Assistant, Sara Medd. Song: “It’s Your Voodoo Working” by Charles Sheffield

Forget vampires or werewolves, New York-based artist Meryl Smith has created her own world of magical animals called Cryptids. Based on mythological beasts whose existence has been implied throughout history, but never proven, such as the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot, these lesser known cryptids are rendered in meticulous true to life detail, making them feel, well, intensely real. Using fabric remnants, wire, mesh and even chopsticks, Smith creates sculptures akin to Taxidermy and places them standing in landscape settings hand-crafted out of millions of pieces of shredded paper. The results are surreal, but in a way that makes you almost believe that these animals exist. Part scary and part cuddly, these guys look like they co-exist with fairies and live in an enchanted forest where trees talk, or like when you smoked too much pot before you watched the Nature Channel. Either way, the intricacy of the detail is amazing, and Smith, whose range extends from life-size paper dolls to grotesque costumes, manages to find a balance between being sentimental and frightening in her work, a rare feat. The exhibit is presented by Rassa Montaser, who represents a slew of amazing, creative folks including Olympia Scarry and Vanessa Beecroft.

Cryptids is on view at The Brachfeld Gallery, 78 Rue des Archives in Paris. The show is up from March 22nd through May 3rd, with an opening reception on Thursday, March 22 from 6-10 PM.

Each year when The Armory Show comes to town, I feel like more and more things happen surrounding it. This year is particularly interesting as everyone anticipates the Frieze Fair taking over Randall’s Island in May. Will it be bigger, better and more interesting than the Armory? Probably. Will more things happen surrounding it? I’d bet yes, as it is rumored that both NADA and PULSE will coincide with Frieze. How many art fairs do we need? It sure does seems like a lot. Either way, it makes for a fun few days, or literal hell, whichever way you want to look at it.

Obviously, since everything revolves around the big fair, The Armory Show, it seems like that might be a good place to start. Currently the largest art fair in New York, this year there is a special section called, “Armory Focus: The Nordic Countries” curated by Jacob Fabricius, the director of Malmö Konsthal. The exhibit features select galleries from Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. If for whatever reason, you can’t make it to the Armory, or just don’t want to brave the crowds, the entire fair is up at Paddle8, the online auction house where you can buy a piece from the fair without getting out of your pajamas. Or like me, you can just look at the price list for everything and dream a little. I was amazed to see some really interesting things for not completely insane prices.

At The Armory Focus: The Nordic Countries: Jeff Olsson, Foam Party. From Galleri Magnus Karlsson.

Just to confuse you, or at least it confuses me every year, The Art Show actually happens at The Armory. This fair is the longest running art fair in America and includes a bunch of prestigious galleries that do not show at the Armory, including Metro Pictures and The Pace Gallery. It also includes galleries that show at both, like David Zwirner, but since it is a much smaller fair, there is a very tightly curated feeling here, so if you want to see the heavy-hitting galleries but don’t want to get lost in a maze of art and walk until your feet hurt, this is probably the move for you. It is $20 admission, but the proceeds benefit The Henry Street Settlement, a non-profit that provides housing, health care, youth programs, job placement and access to the arts to 50,000 vulnerable New Yorkers each year. I particularly love anything that happens at The Armory. It’s fun to get kind of dressed up and go there and walk around Central Park afterwards.

Another goodie, VOLTA is an official partner of The Armory Show that focuses on solo shows by emerging talent. The artists here are specifically not big names, but the work is phenomenal, making this a successful fair that keeps growing because it showcases both great artists and curators. Also, the idea of solo exhibits at an art fair make you feel less schizophrenic, which is a plus. Some highlights include intricate paper drawings by Belgian artist Manor Grunewald and dense collages made by the artist Deborah Grant about obscure African-American folk-artist William Henry Johnson. You can catch a shuttle from the main fair and get free admission with a pass to the Armory.

At VOLTA: Mark Khaisman, Girl with Earring #1, 2011, Packaging tape on plexiglas in translucent resin light box

Another big fair in town is SCOPE, which has some really interesting projects going on this year, including the large site-specific piece across the street by artist Robert Montgomery, which I love, called: “The City is Wilder Than You Think.” For something a little bit weirder and less romantic, try: The Diamond Den where artist and minister Laine Love Dalby (referred to as The Lady Gaga of Spiritually) treats visitors to an experience filled with “suffering, self-examining and forgiveness.” Who says religion and art and sex don’t mix? Also, check out Burn Before Reading, a collection of small edition and handmade books and text based artworks (with coffee and donuts, mmm..) in conjunction with the reading series Oral Tradition with readings on Friday and Saturday night.

Yet another fair, with some of the best and most interesting smaller galleries, such as Jack Hanley, White Columns and Bortolami is The Independent. Taking place in the old Dia Center for The Arts, architect Christian Wassmann has designed a functional installation on the roof that includes a cafe and a library based around the idea of aligning the true North-South axis of the earth. The layout of this fair looks more like a large group show, which gives it a very nice feeling. These galleries are way to cool to be at a trade show.

At The Independent: Sam Falls, Untitled Roll Fade (chartreuse) 2011

In contrast to the Independent, is the Saturday-only show, The Dependent, which debuted last year in Chelsea and this year moves down to the Lower East Side. With a fleeting sense of mystery, this art fair takes place in hotel rooms in the sense that the beds, walls and every available surface is covered with art, giving it an old-school renegade art vibe. (Apparently hotel art shows go in and out of fashion quite frequently. Keep up.) I will say there is something great about a hotel bed covered in art. I mean, why not? Also, I’m loving that they moved downtown from Chelsea, because this fair (if you can really call it a fair) feels miles away from midtown.

Also downtown, the much talked about newcomer this year is Spring/Break, a “curator-driven” fair that is being held in an old four-story Catholic schoolhouse turning classrooms, bathrooms and hallways into gallery space. Tonight, a personal fave, the performance artist William Powhida will be hosting a discussion between artists and Occupy Wall Streeters. Expect some weird shit to go down.

At Spring/Break: Tom Weinrich curates work by Jesse McLean and Joseph Jagos

Maybe the most fun of all though, is The Contemporary Video Art Fair. The most fun, I think, because it takes place in the legendary Tunnel club, now called The Waterfront Tunnel Event Space. (Yup, that’s right. I digress.) With experimental films from the likes of Ken Jacobs, Alex Prager, Mary Lucie and many more, this looks like an awesome way to spend an afternoon checking out some of the best videos in the art world all in one pretty awesome space.

At The Contemporary Video Art Fair: Kate Gilmore, Half-Sick of Shadows, 2012

Last but not least is the Anti-Art Fair, literally called Art Not Fair which is happening all month, if you can’t get to things on time, don’t have a Goyard bag, or haven’t actually left Williamsburg in a year or two. You’re not a joiner- no judgement- I’m all for not leaving Brooklyn. The way things are going with art fairs popping up everywhere pretty soon there will be tons on the other side of the bridge, I’m sure. Until then, this Roebling Street gallery is offering art as well as pastries by The Starving Artist Bakery such as “The Car Bomb Cake,” based off of the Gunniess-Jameson concoction.

At Art Not Fair: Matthew Craven, Calvary Scars

I guess the point is that you should get out there. I thought about putting some info down here for where exactly you should go, but there is so much going on that basically if you leave your house you are apt to run into some art. Everything is up through Sunday, March 11th and the links are including above. I trust you can figure the rest out.

Top Image: Robert Montgomery, The City is Wilder Than You Think, 2012 At Scope.

I heard this song on the radio the other day and just couldn’t get it out of my head. At first I thought maybe it was an 80′s song that I had forgotten about. Filled with heavy emotional harmonies, it is very much in the vein of duets like Don’t You Want Me Baby and Take Me Home Tonight. When I Googled it, the YouTube video had over 98 million hits. It turns out the song was released by Belgian/Australian artist Goyte (aka. Gautier = French for Walter) in July and has been bopping all around the world rising up to #1 in Australia, England, Poland, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Belgium and Ireland, literally breaking records everywhere. With lyrics like: “You didn’t have to stoop so low/ Have your friends collect your records/And then change your number,” it is about a mutual break-up that goes most awry in the aftermath. Call me European, but I love everything about it. I’m hesitant to say the best part is Kimbra, a 22 year old New Zealand native, but when she melted out of the wall looking like Phoebe Cates, I fell in love.

Goyte and Kimbra are currently on tour together making their way across the US, ending up at Coachella in April. For tour dates click here.

This weekend, The Total Look opened at LA MOCA’s satellite space in West Hollywoood. The show is a celebration of the collaboration between designer Rudi Gernreich, model Peggy Moffitt and photographer William Claxton. The late designer, an LA-based Austrian transplant, was well known for inventing the topless monokini (popular in Europe in the 1960′s) and helping to launch the sixties mod aesthetic with his daring and colorful body conscious designs. Moffitt was Gernreich’s model and muse (as well as the late Claxton’s wife), a darker Twiggy, with similarly huge eyes, short hair and diminutive frame. While both men are no longer around, the exhibits showcases Moffitt’s collection of Gernreich’s highly sought after and extremely rare designs alongside Claxton’s photographs as a tribute to them both, focusing on the trifecta of designer, model and photographer. (Hairdresser Vidal Sassoon, who I imagine was also an integral part for creating that somehow very sexy bowl haircut, showed up to the preview.) The exhibition also features the 1967 short film, Basic Black: William Claxton w/ Peggy Moffitt, which many call the first fashion video ever. What strikes me about this exhibit is how well truly good design can stand the test of time, as (most) of these outfits translate flawlessly to today’s fashion. The bathing suits, in particular, are still absolute works of art with no real competitive answer in today’s market. The other thing that strikes me, of course, is that Peggy Moffitt is stunning at age 73, and although the exhibit focuses on the collaboration, I am glad she is still around to get credit for being a part of such a pivotal moment in fashion history. Looking at this exhibit makes me think we can all use a bit of the swinging sixties in our life.

All photos taken at the VIP preview dinner on Saturday night by Douglass Neill.

The Total Look is on view through May 20th at The MOCA Pacific Design Center, located at 8687 Melrose in Los Angeles, California.

This weekend was all about Hollywood. In addition to the Oscars, which were as always, a bit lagging. (David Letterman: “The oscars are like a JetBlue flight, you wait for four and a half hours and don’t take off.”) This weekend was also the opening of photographer Terry Richardson’s Terrywood. This marks the first solo show for the insanely prolific artist in Los Angeles. Known for his glossy, racy portraits of celebrities, he seems to have found the perfect subject in the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. The show deals with Hollywood culture through the eyes of Terry himself, cropping the Hollywood sign into simply “Ho” or creating the Oscar statue in his own likeness. This being Hollywood, there were even more celebrities than he draws in New York, including James Franco, Pamela Anderson, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Lindsey Lohan and of course, Ron Jeremy. Make sure to check out all the badass photos after the jump. All images courtesy of Douglass Neill.

Terrywood is up through March 31 at the OHWOW Gallery, 937 N. La Cienega Boulevard, Los Angeles, California.

The artist Yinka Shonibare describes himself as a “post-colonial hybrid,” having grown up in both Nigeria and London’s East End. His work deals mainly with these themes of colonial expansion, imperial history and shifting cultural power. I know that sounds heady, but bear with me. Having recently been given a prestigious public art commission in Trafalgar Square, displaying Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle, his next exhibit, in New York, takes Lord Nelson’s legacy even further. I’m going to be honest here- I didn’t know who Lord Nelson was but it seems he is one of the most famous British Naval officers, who fought hard enough that he lost one eye and one arm in different battles and kept going. Eventually he was killed in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Shonibare focuses on Lord Nelson because he believes that we can learn lessons from history as we tend to repeat patterns. The parallel here is that Nelson’s death was the signifier for the fall of the British Empire as we are now in the midst of the decline of the Imperial West. It’s real cheery British stuff, basically. Known for his multi-media work, Shonibrae re-created five photos of traditional death scenes, (which was at one point a popular medium in oil paintings) as well as carefully constructed period costumes that will be on display, made out of the fabric we associate with African prints and textiles, which is actually of Dutch origin; a film where a character of Lord Nelson’s estranged wife, sings the eponymous aria from the last act of Verdi’s opera La Traviata; as well as replicated out-of-existence fetish and sex toys from the time, including the masturbator-preventing device seen below. What I love about this is the way he is gently tweaking history to claim it for the present, which allows us to not only learn from it but to understand both the past and the future in a different way.

Anti-Masturbation Device, 2011. Sterling silver, leather, Dutch wax printed cotton textile, Victorian lock and velvet cushion.


Nelson’s Jacket, 2011. Dutch wax printed cotton textile

Fake Death Picture (The Death of Chatterton – Henry Wallis) 2011

Top Image: Addio del Passato Film Still 3, 2011. Digital Chromogenic Print.

Addio Del Passato opens on Thursday, February 16th and is up until March 24th at James Cohan Gallery, 533 West 26th Street, New York, New York.