Head of a Lover, Waist of Traitor, and Legs of a Friend

Caris Reid is one of the most creative people around. She creates, curates, writes, dances, sings, sends coded messages and does all sorts of cool things (including contribute to Dossier.) When we put on an week-long party during fashion week and asked everyone to host an event, Caris was one of the first to respond by offering up a guided Reiki session with Randi Ditman-Ibrahim. Oh, and she also curated an art show based on hypnosis. So it came as no surprise to me to find out that Caris is now teaching a collage class, or two collage classes; one for children and one for adults. This week, participants will cut, paste, and pass in the tradition of the surrealist parlor game, Exquisite Corpse. Expect wine, scissors, and stacks of vivid imagery. You are welcome and encouraged to bring some of your own inspirations, but it’s not necessary. To add to the fun, all of this takes place at The Oracle Club, a members-only throwback to surrealist literary salons, which got a nice write-up in the Times. The room the class takes place in has beautiful lighting, tall ceilings, huge plants, and is the perfect backdrop for creativity. And if you are feeling like you have no creativity, don’t worry. I am sure Caris will let you borrow some of hers.

The class for adults is every Tuesday at 7:30 pm. The classes for children is every Saturday from 9:30am-10:30am for ages 6-8, and 11am-12pm for ages 9-10. All classes are $20 per person, and are located at The Oracle Club, 10-41 47th Ave in Long Island City. To reserve a spot, email: theoracleclub@gmail.com

Image: Collage made by students in Caris Reid’s class

By Katherine Krause | Posted in Art | Tagged , | Comments (0)

In Conversation with Katja Rahlwes

Photographer Katja Rahlwes describes her images as “Cool Women, or better: Femme Intense.” She re-phrases the perception of the female gaze, with her own unfaltering approach to shooting women who are in command of every shot. Her glamazonian subjects often subvert the idea of the classic pinup. Katja has contributed to independent publications such as Self Service, i-D, Dutch, Butt and Made in USA. She has also created works for the fashion houses Celine, Chloe, Miu Miu, A.P.C, Maison Martin Margiela and Gucci. Katja’s closest relationship to date has been with Purple. Her most recent collaboration was the Full Moon supplement for issue #16, comprised of childhood pictures, Polaroid snapshots and a number of her own collection of vintage postcards. The zine is rendered with a combination of black and white images next to a neon orange colourwash. With her numerous editorials, intimate still-life pieces and self-portraits, Katja’s images make for a rich portfolio.

Natasha Arnold: How did you acquire a taste for fashion photography?

Katja Rahlwes: From an early age I was drawn to imagery through magazines. I’d cut out everything that triggered an emotion in me, made me dream, escape or move. I still have a huge collection of bits and pieces, photo cut-outs, postcards, entrance tickets.

Natasha: How did you develop your attachment to still-life photography?

Katja: It’s a very personal process for me to work on stills, I really love that moment when I start setting up a scenario, it’s quiet, there is suspense. My aim was to inject some new sense to it. It all started when I took more and more pictures of my personal environment. I did that to remind me of ideas or situations or set ups I liked. It was a sort of diary memo work. I then discovered the magic of mini photo sets, the way you would set up a situation inspired by the items you photograph. Great design has a lot of soul, so a fabulous pair of shoes can lead you in quite a storyboard.

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By Natasha Arnold | Posted in Art, Fashion, Features, Photography | Tagged , | Comments (0)

Obama Sings Al Green

Obama made an appearance at the Apollo last night for a fundraiser, also attended by Al Green. Channeling the Reverend, the President sang a few lines of Let’s Stay Together. It reminded me why I liked Obama so much four years ago.

By Skye Parrott | Posted in Music, Politics | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

In Conversation with Phoebe Collings-James

Born and bred in London, Phoebe Collings-James creates multidisciplinary works in sculpture, illustration, photography and video. Her art is thought-provoking, provocative and demands a reaction from the viewer. The twenty-something artist has exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Beirut, Mexico, New York and most recently at the Miami Art Basel RiffRaff show. Phoebe was recently featured on Purple Television, alongside her friend Karley Sciortino AKA Slutever, with their film Tit Prints, an homage to Warhol star Brigid Berlin. Up next, she will come to New York to hold a residency at The Still House Group’s Red Hook Gallery in March 2012.

Natasha Arnold: Is there a tangible chain of events which led you to art – or do you feel it is engendered?

Phoebe Collings-James: For as long as I can remember it is the only thing I have been compelled to do. I always enjoyed escaping in to other worlds and making things when I was younger. My house was full of music and dancing all the time which might explain why I like using sound so much, my dad had a ridiculous subwoofer in the living room that would make the whole house shake. He also had a darkroom upstairs, where I spent a lot of time in watching him work. I went to art school when I was 18, first to Byam Shaw then Goldsmiths. They were both eye-opening experiences but I am definitely happier outside of that system, it can be quite claustrophobic. It feels like a lifetime ago now.

Natasha: I read a tutor at Goldsmiths deemed your ink drawings of bestiality to be pornographic and highly offensive, I’d assert that just because someone is offended it does not make them right. Would you say attempts to teach art within an academic framework are futile?

Phoebe: I was livid when I first found out! Institutions are such funny things, some people seem to get fossilised in them and progress just passes them by. It was sad because I had really respected the work of that tutor and those drawings were quite clearly far from pornographic, most definitely not offensive. I don’t think education is ever futile. But I did have such a polarized experience of art school. On the one hand I had experiences like you have described, with old-fashioned ideas that ran all the way from what I was making to what I was wearing and the color of my hair. But then I also had some of the most stimulating conversations about art that really challenged and encouraged me.


Choke on Your Tongue, 2010 Read More »

By Natasha Arnold | Posted in Art, Features | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Tailgates and Substitutes

Sexily titled Tailgates and Substitutes after a Bob Dylan song, the group show at Thierry Goldberg includes the work of twelve artists ranging from sculpture, to painting, to photography. Many of the artists in the show are working with abstracted forms in various mediums. The idea of substitution aptly has a connection to abstraction; many of the artists are exploring the space between when meaning is emptied out of something and when our minds fill it back up.

The work of Joyce Kim and Ellie Krakow play with the perception of viewing in the split second void that occurs during substitution. Kim has two pieces in the show that combine minimalist sculptural and painting gestures with pieces of framed text that are heavily narrative. On first approach, Traces of Gold XII is a piece of loose leather hung above a rectangular canvas that has been treated with iron, and a piece of wire that connects from the top of one to the bottom of the other- creating a beautiful negative shape on the wall. Squatting down to read the text piece that is propped on the ground, a specific but yet paradoxically vague snippet of a story emerges. Immediately following reading the text you start to evaluate the objects, painting, and pieces that are making the installation in a new representational way, the imagination starts to fire to make connections. The balance Kim has struck in making minimalist installation transform through text into objects that seem like evidence of the story, but open enough that not every viewer is finding the same story, is compelling. Krakow photographs ancient bust sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum, showing them side-by-side; one-figure remains, while the other is erased. The closeness of the silhouette from one to the next at first seems like the same statue but subtly you find they are different bust. By showing us a full bust and then vacating the next one, Krakow is able to evoke history and its relationship to time and representation by focusing on these past relics. There is a sobering moment when it is possible to find yourself in the voided space, one day knowing that you and your life will be the relics.

By naming the show Tailgates and Substitutes there is a possible recognition and understanding of how artist and viewers make work, all through a process of alliances and having one thing take the place of another. The landscape photographs of Hannah Whitaker rub close to abstraction. By de-contextualizing a close view of land and reduced elements, she seemingly winks as it becomes figurative and extremely sexy. White snow runs diagonally down a dark mountain or minimal mounds of snow appear to be sucked into the rolling land.

Tailgates and Substitutes is on view through January 22 at Thierry Goldberg, 103 Norfolk St, New York.

By Amanda Valdez | Posted in Art, Exhibits | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

American Realness

Starting today, the Abrons Art Center is hosting a ten-day long festival of contemporary performance called American Realness. Combining many different aspects of experimental performance art including dance, traditional theater, drag shows and concerts, the festival has over 46 performances of 20 productions. There is also a bookstore and a pop-up cafe to provide respite for those hunkering down for the daily marathon of performance art.

Although all of the artists look like they will prove to be amazing, especially on my radar is The Heather Lang Show by Eleanor Bauer and Vice Versa, which is being billed as a “double one-woman show,” that somehow incorporates QVC, spirituality and drag. Did I mention there is voguing? I am imagining stand up comedy meets Paris is Burning meets Jerry Springer. Let me explain, Heather Lang, by trade is a professional dancer working in tons of the top Broadway shows, who also happens to be one of funniest people I have ever met. She is super pretty but isn’t afraid to get ugly and pour milk on her face to make you laugh. I’ve seen her do this. The press release says to expect talk shows, critiques on cultural identity and of course, drag. I’d put my money on this being a pretty awesome and entertaining show.

Performances are January 5 at 10pm, January 8 at 6pm, January 11 at 11pm and January 15 at 9pm at The Abrons Arts Center, Underground Theater, 466 Grand Street, NYC. Tickets are available here.

By Katherine Krause | Posted in Performing Arts, Theatre | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Parasimpatico

Parasimpatico, a multimedia exhibition that recently concluded, is the first major solo exhibition in Italy by Pipilotti Rist, a boundary-breaking Swiss artist. Her installations, which transform the medium of film by reinventing language and employing expositive procedures, have been exhibited worldwide at musuems including MOMA in New York and Centre Pompidou in Paris. By tapping into her audience’s emotions, Pipilotti creates a nebulous space between dreams and reality that connects basic human instincts with spirituality.

Photographs by Paola Foresti Read More »

By Paola Foresti | Posted in Art, Exhibits, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Hergé: The Man Who Created Tintin

Tintin is a god to me.

Surely this imaginary globetrotter seems real to most of us. He is also the most beloved of all comic-book heros worldwide – except in America, where he is inevitably confused with the dog, Rin Tin Tin - as well as the first literary boho “backpacker.”

Too, Tintin’s second book, Tintin Au Congo, proved misaligned with Yankee tastes with its racist-seeming stereotypes of large-lipped “negroes.” I’m afraid they’re much worse than Al Jolson in blackface singing My Little Mammie or Little Black Sambo turning tigers into ghee, although the amusingly obsolete and offensive tome is still wildly popular in Africa.

Indeed, the cowlicked androgynous-looking (but supposedly not gay, even considering the dearth of dames in the series) boy reporter represents wanderlust in the first degree, inhabiting an extreme alt universe grounded in graphic colorized geography, both real and imagined.

Tintin, a native son beloved by the weepy Walloons of Belgium (but known in Germany with typical Teutonic efficiency as “Tim”), has stumbled upon the Incas in Peru, smoked cigars with the Pharoahs in Egypt, played cowboy in America, and even rocketed to the moon. Also, he uncovers a smuggling ring in The Crab with the Golden Claws, goes hunting for “booty” in Red Rackham’s Treasure, and wows us in the imaginary kingdom of Syldavia (loosely based upon any Balkan country).

No doubt, there is nothing that this young millionaire adventurer, once he departs the luxurious safety of his beloved mansion Marlinspike Hall, that is, can’t do — especially with the help of his loyal cronies Snowy (known as “Minou” in France), Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, and the Thom(p)son Twins.

In fact, so big a fan am I, one of my proudest possessions is a carved wooden Tintin statue with a fey smile I acquired in Grand Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire, which I deemed perfect for smuggling diamonds or heroin. Hence, I was keenly interested on getting the skinny on his somewhat sketchy creator, the Belgian artist Georges Remi (a.k.a, Hergé). Despite his success as a cartoonist – the Tintin series comprises twenty-four books and has sold millions of copies in dozens of languages – Hergé was often criticized during World War Two for being a “collaborator” with the Nazis only after Belgium was occupied, though in fact the false accusation is assuredly apocryphal. Read More »

By John Edwards | Posted in Books, Film, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

In Conversation with Twin Sister

Although the Long Island-based quintet Twin Sister just released their first full-length album, In Heaven, this fall, the band has previously released two EPs (Color Your Life in 2010 and Vampires With Dreaming Kids in 2008), and they have enough unofficial material online to create at least two additional albums. The band’s five members—singer Andrea Estella, keyboardist Dev Gupta, bassist Gabel D’Amico, guitarist-singer Eric Cardona and drummer Bryan Ujueta—first met on the Long Island band circuit, where they grew up in adjacent towns. They officially formed a band in the summer of 2008, layering Andrea’s breathy vocals, which range from a suffused whisper to kittenish purring to a ghoulish rasp, with the band’s hypnotic dreamscape sounds. Since then, they have gained worldwide renown and a cult-like following.

As Twin Sister’s European tour was winding down, Andrea sat down before her Parisian show to speak with us about the band’s homegrown approach to making music videos, old versus new songs, her obsession with zany hairstyles and how Nickelodeon led her to her first rock experience.

Sarah Moroz: You played a cover from Italo-disco maestros La Bionda when you played your Paris concert last year. I can’t think of anything more different than your sound, and yet it was one of the most fun and electrifying covers I’ve heard. How did you decide to do that song?

Andrea Estella: I don’t know how we chose that song, actually. I think I or one of us found the video on YouTube. We really liked [it] and were like, “Oh, we could do this!”

Sarah: Are there any other covers you’d be interested in performing?

Andrea: We haven’t really been working on any in a long time. We’ve been playing longer sets now than we used to; we have more music now. We might work on another cover; I don’t know what yet, though.

Sarah: So can you talk a bit more about the new stuff?

Andrea: We’re playing songs from the album In Heaven. So, it’s kind of pushing some of the older ones out of the way, but we’re still keeping a couple—even bringing back one or two that are really old, and then trying to work out the new songs. We’ll practice them when we get home so they’ll be better developed. We started the tour playing “Kimmi in a Ricefield” and then we stopped because we felt it wasn’t ready yet, even though it’s probably fine. We’re just crazy.

Sarah: On your blog, you have work that references both Kimmi and Lady Daydream in the titles. Can you tell me more about your work as a visual artist? What is the relationship between the art you make and the songs—–do the two bleed into each other?

Andrea: They bleed. Originally with Kimmi, I made a story—a short story. It changed a little bit for the lyrics, shortened the story even more. I just made up characters. And then we made it into a video, which is another version of Kimmi. But that original was a very innocent little…like an anime character.

Sarah: Can you talk a bit more about the child-like tropes? I feel like that’s a bit of a theme. In the video for “Bad Street,” there’s a piñata and chalk drawings—there’s a playfulness. Read More »

By Sarah Moroz | Posted in Features, Interviews, Music, Performing Arts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Music and Murals

Jess Rotter is an illustrator who lives in Brooklyn. Not only does she run a successful t-shirt line, producing shirts with her own illustrations based on vintage record covers, but she is also the head of publicity at the music label Mexican Summer. Through her job, she travels to shows and music festivals around the world, and it’s on the road where she frequently finds inspiration for her personal work. She has contributed to Dossier, and worked on projects with brands such as The Gap, and Pamela Love, among others. But her biggest contribution yet – in scale and meaning – may be the mural in room 1122 of The Ace Hotel in New York. One in a series of artist collaborations commissioned by the hotel, it combines her love for music, illustration, and travel, housing it under one roof. I was lucky to be invited to watch part of the process and ask Jess a few questions.

Stephanie Tran: How long did the mural take you, from start to finish and what did you listen to while painting?

Jess Rotter: The total time was 10 hours, evening to morning. I listened to a lot of mixes from friends during the ride (Turquoise Wisdom, Dublab, and Doodcast!). There was definitely a rad 2 am champagned Thin Lizzy moment, which is always the best.

Stephanie: How did you choose the image for the mural?

Jess: I based the painting on an image I shot in Marfa, Texas a couple of years ago. The landscape was originally made to be included in a comic book I am currently working on called Paradise, which is about trying to experience true moments as a whole, whether nasty or gorgeous – a feat not easy in the age of our lives being filtered by emails, phones, and Campbell soup cans. It’s kind of fun to have all this heavy plain trippin’ taking place in a little New York City hotel room.

Stephanie:You mentioned listening to a certain song a lot while traveling, which must have a special meaning here, as a soundtrack to your mural, in a hotel room where your work will be seen by many others in a similar state of transience.

Jess: The country-folk-blues song Never Make a Dollar That Way by David Wiffen, from 1971, is a really special personal totem, as it’s been a go-to reflective jam for years throughout my travels. One of the finest times I’ve had with the tune was solo escape of a crazy party in the desert, and being truly dazed staring at cartoon stars within completely pitch-black air. There were tears, there were smiles- it was awesome, it was… paradise. The song can be found here.

Marfa, Texas in New York City? Paradise indeed.

Photographs by Jeaneen Lund

By Stephanie Tran | Posted in Art, Illustration | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)