Saturday 5 December 2009

OGNIAN ZECOFF



OGNIAN ZECOFF///oil on canvas
Born in Bulgaria in 1964, Zekoff graduated from both that Ilya Petrov Nation College of Fine Arts- and National Academy of Fine Arts in Sofia. He has exposed in numerous galleries Europe and North America. Zekoff, immigrated to Canada in 2007 and shares his time between Montreal, Paris and Sofia. In 2005, he was awarded Special Selection for painting at Pékin's International Biennale. His art is part of numerous private collections and institutions like The Foundation For Interational Art In Paris. (Saint-Dizier)

OGNIAN ZECOFF @ GALERIE SAINT-DIZIER
OGNIAN ZECOFF @ THOMPSON LANDRY GALLERY

Wednesday 2 December 2009

MATHIEU LEFEVRE



MATHIEU LEFEVRE : TO TRIUMPHANTLY DEFEAT THE PURPOSE

MATHIEU LEFEVRE’s work often relies on humour and mockery. As such, one can place Lefevre in a tradition Pierre-Michel Menger has called the ‟mocking and ironic avant-garde,”1 an avant-garde tradition descended from Dada and Marcel Duchamp—Schwitters, Cage, Warhol, Damien Hirst. Thumbing their noses at a classical tradition that conceived art as a privileged means of elevating oneself above the banal, these artists delighted in reducing art to the level of triviality, in exposing it to the worst degradations.

To do justice to artists all too often ignored, one should recall that this ironic, mocking tradition predates Duchamp and the Dadaists. The end of the 19th century in fact saw the emergence of the first avant-garde artists to present themselves as unequivocal iconoclasts. Literary and artistic clubs—the Incoherents, Hydropathes, Hirsutes, Zutists, and sundry other irreverent groups—were dedicated first and foremost to “shocking the bourgeoisie.”2.

Art of the First Degree

Like that of his predecessors, Lefevre’s work plays liberally on language, particularly the language of art, to create its amusing effects. “I like humour that arises from taking things literally,” says the artist. Pretending to understand things in the literal sens, while ignoring the subtleties of language, its metaphors and imagery, is one of the most widespread forms of the comic. The humour arises from the presumed stupidity of an imaginary listener who doesn’t get the figurative meaning. This tomfoolery, like a kind of baseline humour, underscores the popular and generally accessible nature of Lefevre’s works.

It would be wrong, however, to say that Lefevre’s humour is limited to word-play and easy jokes. His witticisms can also have weightier significance and require a more intellectual reading. His Keep it Real, for instance, where Lefevre inscribes the slogan on a Kandinsky, requires a particular aesthetic education to ‟get,” as the humour arises from the oxymoron of applying the popular admonition to the Russian artist’s work, which was diametrically opposed to realism and figuration. The opposition, of course, is absurd, since the ‟real” here refers to completely different realities.

Irony as Method

As with his predecessors, the comical nature of Lefevre’s works isn’t an end in itself, but functions as instrument of enquiry. These works imply an ongoing investigation into the social notion of art and testify to eminently heuristic and sociological preoccupations. Irony, tomfoolery, and satire, Lefevre tells us, are privileged means for testing the fragility of systemic constructs, particularly that of art.

Lyotard liked to recall that satire—a characteristic, he believed, of the postmodern condition and an abiding source for the work of the avant-garde artists mentioned above—is first and foremost a saturation of all genres and cultural values that have functioned as givens. Such a critique disrupts and questions established systems of meaning.

Michel Onfray points out, however, that satire, sarcasm, and irony, even when amusing, have no value if they do not enable one to question the paradigms, that is, question the prevailing and exemplary models in society. Irony must be a method and an instrument of enquiry—the word, after all, comes from the Greek eirôneia, a Socratic interrogation feigning ignorance. (Text by Fabien Loszach)

1 Pierre-Michel Menger, Profession artiste, extension du domaine de la création (Paris: Textuel, 2005).
2 Luc Ferry, Le Sens du beau : Aux origines de la culture contemporaine (Paris: bLGF/Livre de Poche , 2001).


MATHIEU LEFEVRE @ SKOL
MATHIEU LEFEVRE @ ALMOST AS COOL AS FIGHTING

MR. FRIVOLOUS



I MR FRIVOLOUS felt pen drawings...
... And I also his name!

MR. FRIVOLOUS'S BLOG
MR. FRIVOLOUS'S GALLERY
MR. FRIVOLOUS @ WE FIND WILDNESS

MAX ASH



MAX ASH presents two online exhibitions on his site. Echoes pictures enchanting landscapes and Sensuality well, the name says it, no?

MAX ASH
MAX ASH @ FUBIZ

Tuesday 24 November 2009

JEROME ABRANOVITCH



JEROME ABRANOVITCH is a Montreal based photographer.

"For the past 14 years, he has evolved from an underground artist shooting personal & documentary work to a commercial photographer taking on the worlds of entertainment, sports, fashion and advertising.

Jerome’s inherent nature to seek, explore and be that which is different has gained him the kind of recognition and marketable appeal that can only be attained by such an unconventional and driven individual. The stark honesty of his photographs is testament to who he is as an artist, the eccentric characters that surround him and the intimate bonds they share.

His work and his own image are well recognized in Europe, Japan, not to mention the Americas... at least in the right circles. Jerome moves seamlessly between object, subject, voyeur, and documenter.

Jerome’s extreme creativity has been immortalized twice in the Guinness World Book of Records; he has been featured in media worldwide such as Ripley's Believe it or Not, the Learning Channel, the Ricki Lake Show, Pro-Sieben in Germany, Medical Incredible in Australia, on top of countless magazines and internet sites. He is also notoriously known as the cover model for the Modcon Books (North American & Japanese editions) documenting the Modern Primitive 2.0 movement of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Exhibitions include the Quebec City Museum of Civilization and a solo exhibit at Montreal’s legendary underground Foufounes Électriques.

Jerome is currently working on new pieces for his Mannequin Series, as well as traveling the world to shoot his eccentric collection of friends." (JEROME ABRANOVITCH)

Jerome is currently seeking representation.


JEROME ABRANOVITCH
JEROME ABRANOVITCH @ ICON_OLOGY

DOMINIC WILCOX


"DOMINIC WILCOX is an artist who works within the territory of the 'everyday'. Everyday objects, environments, buildings, human interaction, no area of normality is out of reach. His work, which is usually layered with an ultra dry wit, places a spotlight on the banal, always adding a new, alternative perspective on things we take for granted. His work has been published and exhibited extensively around the world and he continues to develop his work in all fields of creativity.

After studying a degree in Visual Communication at Edinburgh College of Art, followed by a period of time living in Japan, Wilcox later undertook an MA at the Royal College of Art on the renowned Design Product course led by Ron Arad. After leaving the RCA in 2002, he started a partnership called Mosley meets Wilcox. One major MMW project was a collaboration with Rock photographer Mick Rock which ended in a collection of objects exhibited in Sept 2004.

Since going solo in 2005 Wilcox has worked on his own projects as well as major art commisions for organisaions such as Nike, Vipp and Esquire. In 2009 he started an ideas site called Variations on normal, where he puts his sketchbook ideas and observations. He is currently developing new work, experiments and ideas." (wilcox)

DOMINIC WILCOX
BORN Sunderland, UK
EDUCATION RCA (MA), Edinburgh College of Art (BA)
LIVES AND WORKS London, UK

THE SHOES + LACES PICTURES ARE PART OF A PROJECT CALLED FILEDS : As part of the London Design Festival, Dominic Wilcox has created a field from 400 eco-friendly shoes. Sponsored by Terra Plana, the ethical shoe company, Wilcox has applied a touch of magic to the shoe laces as they rise up in unison and grow towards the window's light.


DOMINIC WILCOX
DOMINIC WILCOX @ ACIDOLATTE

Sunday 22 November 2009

CHRISTOPHE KUTNER



I love CHRISTOPHE KUTNER's photography. And his style is so eclectic that I couldn't decide which series of pictures to present you here. I am presenting the series HOLIDAY, because I liked the softness, love, joyness and hapiness coming through the pictures, but a visit on his site to see his other works is very worth it!

CHRISTOPHE KUTNER
CHRISTOPHE KUTNER @ ECLECTIC COW

BLU///MUTO

Thursday 19 November 2009

DANIEL MILTON



"DANIEL MILTON's recent work defies any traditional attempt at categorisation. Photograph, collage, or painting, visual diary or surrealistic venture – the work is a fusion of technique and theme.

Combining his own favourite photographs from many thousands taken each year Milton builds up a digital collage which is then printed on canvas and to which he makes selective painted interventions in acrylic. In the resulting work it can be difficult to distinguish photography from painting and this deliberate confusion extends to the meaning of the work; what is “real” and what is “fiction”? A surreal confusion pervades all; the photographic record often appearing more extraordinary than the painted intervention.

Milton says, “A big inspiration for me is the traces of humans in urban environments. The colours and patterns on a wall after hundreds of posters and stickers have been torn away. Or graffiti tags on an old door.” This inspiration is interpreted in Milton 's work into a contemporary world where rapid change and alienation are puzzles, even predicaments. In his use of contrast and collage, headlong perspective and slight visual distortion of the painted image, Milton confronts the viewer with a world which is in overdrive and where nothing is quite as it seems; history is confounded and order is displaced.

However, any attempt to entirely delimit the thematic in this way meets with a resistance; also making a spectacular, as a contrast to the concrete and steel of urban decay, are paradisiacal flashes from the natural world, represented in jewel-like colour; iridescent fish or flocks of black crows fly through the skies, turquoise waves splash against the edges of the canvas and golden harvested fields retreat into infinity. Thus, each layered image contains within itself the fullness and the completeness of life-experience and this sub-imagery, placed in opposition to the representation of urban despair, introduces the idea of hope implicit in the natural world.

Operating in our artificial borderlands between the industrial and the natural Daniel Milton has created a visual world where nothing is quite as it seems, and yet, much is expressed about what it is to be living in the here and now of our contemporary world." (Jo Rose, Gallery Uusitalo)

DANIEL MILTON
BORN 1974
EDUCATION
2003 - 2005 Art school of Öland , Sweden
2002 - 2003 Blekinge art school, Sweden
2000 - 2002 Various courses in graphic design, Sweden


DANIEL MILTON

CHRISTINA WEST



Great post @ ACIDOLATTE about artist CHRISTINA WEST. Love her work... Check it out!

CHRISTINA WEST @ ACIDOLATTE
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