At the edge of the world map, deep in the South Pacific, is an island nation known for adventure. A remote technicolor paradise of volcano and glaciation, New Zealand is a mythical and moving place. The deep and patient culture of the Polynesian Maoris dance harmoniously with the wild hearts of Kiwis eager to play throughout the island nation’s wild, rugged, and unimaginably beautiful playground. In Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world, every cute barista and elderly bus driver has bungy-ed, canyoned, an skydived through infinite instances of adventure, all with the sparkling eyes of an adrenaline junkie. Here, the culture of the town is run on meat pies, cold brews, and thrill. Here, it seems that all conversation about what is good and fun in life in condensed into, “Did you jump? How high?”.
For longer than the western world can remember, there have been Maharajas and Maharanis ruling India in splendid celebration and ceremonial furor. Age after age of vast kingdoms ruled from colorful palaces, developing their own science, medicine and philosophy, and warring for Gods, for love, and for land. The history of India is so rich and immense, visualizing it is much like watching a Bollywood movie; a dizzying display of passion, pride, and colorful celebration. Five hundred years after the golden age of Indian royalty, Josh and I have arrived at the steps of the Neemrana Fort Palace, and the sun is rising.
In Greek mythology Dionysus is a goddess of wine, ritual madness, and ecstasy, and she never misses a summer in Mykonos. A playground for gods and mortals alike, when the Grecian sun sets in Mykonos the wind stays warm and music turns up. Laughter and the clinks of glass are swept off to sea with the night winds, and are brought right back in the mist drifting off the shore break. Even the Aegean sea yearns to be closer, and knows that the ritual madness of Mykonos really is not to be missed.
Directly across the caldera’s sapphire waters from Oia, resides a most curious and technicolor paradise. Near the Akrotiri ruins, hides a cove fit for the sirens of Homer’s Odyssey. Striking Blood red cliffs dip sharply to the shore, where pebbles of black and garnet join a teal sea, and coalesce into an almost violet shorebreak. I was speechless before such strangeness, such color. Did we quad to the edge of the sea, or of space?
Plato’s Atlantis, Homer’s Odyssey, nor Lena’s summer with the traveling pants could have properly prepared me for the deeply breathtaking serenity of the volcanic caldera of Santorini. Greece’s deep and mystical history seem to anchor heaven (or Olympus) right to the sapphire waters of this island, creating an ethereal energy almost overwhelming in its peace. Under the Grecian sun, deep in the reverie, it's as if a cool breeze could come and fill your ear with a siren’s promise of secrets from the future, and you’d still turn them down for this blissful present.
Thousands of years ago, great minds strolled the agora under the shade of olive trees, and conversated into existence democracy, philosophy, theater, and the academy. Under Apollo’s merciless sun, we hiked up the Acropolis of Athens like honored disciples, kicking up the same earth that once stuck to Plato’s sandals. Athens is a mythical and historic place, brimming with a stoic and knowing energy that only comes with thousands of years of experience, and many gods on your side. The Pantheon temple itself has been copied around the world, from French Parliament to the U.S. Supreme Court, and yet still remains a true and constant symbol of the incredible glories of the Greek legacy and all of its marvelous contributions to modern society. The country that created democracy, drama, and tzatziki? Let Hades have me before I leave Greece!
At CSM’s second MA of Material Futures degree show, designers Elissa Brunato and Clemence Rigaux untangle socio-political issues embedded in materials and reimagine the future of these materials as tangible as vehicles of change. The designers consider daily material engagement, and how this is reflected in the macrocosm of humanity’s place in global ecosystems, generating practices that are poetic and shockingly accessible. Their projects take to the depths of natural world and inject familiar structures with dreamy innovations, proving the unsustainability of that conventional systems and presenting imaginative solutions from designers who see our future in the tangible materials of the present.
In a world where artificiality rules, the news is fake, surveillance is rampant and we must hide behind a “Finsta”, we have to ask ourselves is being real a sickness? If we embrace individuality over assimilation of mass culture, are we doomed to suffer? Reflecting on the words of the great Kanye West who sang “Doctors say I’m the illest, because I suffer from realness”, this exhibition contemplates our own fate in the constructed society that is puppeteered by authority we can no longer trust.
Further than Xue’s aesthetics, her work is layered in historical, social, and psychological references. These many possibilities for association, for those familiar with the Chinese cultural context or not, make the work, intimate, alluring, and uncanny. Her work is also romantic and intense, filled with the repressed energy of desire. Her artistic practice is critically engaging, and this essay will analyze these contextual layers and why they are significant to the legacy of Chinese contemporary art.
With a meditative assurance, Liu Wei prompts a calm consideration of the hectic architectural zone. Density, 2013 a thoughtful work that presents an example of an abstract, yet meaningful, solution to the urban condition.
The array of emotions through the human experience and the depth of those feelings can take a lifetime to process and another to make sense of. Even more ironically, for many of the most profound human emotions, from the unbridled love of youth to the mourning of an untimely death, our words fall flat. In Western society, the phrase “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all” reigns oppressively true, and inhibits conversation around unattractively serious human emotions. Modern society is designed to consider anything not regulated and properly idealized to be surreal and in opposition of an efficient society. However, denial of real life atrocities and human rights violations is no longer acceptable in a globalized world, and contemporary art provides an arena for action, a platform for relational art to emerge indiscriminately through political tension and catalyze change, providing new rethorics, and new ways of thinking about socio-political issues.
There is a psychosomatic, sensual effect of the glossy, smooth, and sumptuous sculptures, they beg to be touched. The spacious showroom allows for intimate observation and a private connection with each work. The space given to each work lends itself to time, as the longer you look at each work, the more familiar it seems, warmer. After moments, the works feel surreally human, and reminiscent of human innards, imposing the idea of something we are deeply intimate with, yet will never get to touch, to hold.
“This is not a magazine about fashion, lifestyle, or celebrity. Indigenous Woman is an independent art publication dedicated to the celebration of Mayan Indian heritage, the navigation of contemporary indigeneity, and the ever-evolving self-image. It is a vision, an overture, a provocation.”
Deep in the pale grandeur of the Somerset House, a kaleidoscopic paradise of color unravels in the fantastical realm of Azania. Athi Patra Ruga’s Azania is a surreal utopia, containing a collection of extraordinary characters, heroes of a alternate reality, each as vibrant as the last.
not even the departed stay grounded, Kemang Wa Lehulere’s first solo exhibition at the Marian Goodman Gallery, has the air full and heavy with knowing. The room is quiet and serene, save for the sound of ceremonial chanting trickling down from upstairs. The shattered fragments of plaster dogs next to the residual dust of freshly used chalk on the floor hint to a recent action, movement without account. The works have been made just this year, but they seem to whisper endless histories, narratives forgotten or ignored, desperate to be released, heard and known. In this exhibition, Lehulere has collapsed time by juxtaposing past lives and untold narratives with the tangible post apartheid unrest still prevalent in his current social, political, and familial relationships.
Contemporary culture is flying at light speed, away from all that’s familiar, barreling towards the unknown. Danish-Palestinian artist Larissa Sonsour seizes this uncertainty and illustrates a radical post-apocalyptic future. Sonsour’s In Vitro, 2019 is a fearless yet polished portrait of the planet in the throes of the deeply affecting uncertainty of looming catastrophe under humanity’s self-destruction. Sonsour constructs the entirety of a new world; cement, underground, monochrome. Further, Sonsour’s work questions the difference in priorities between generations and demonstrates the tension that arises when creation is no longer interested in its creator.