Mood Board

Inspiring us right now: the angelic, luminous face of Marilyn Monroe captured by Willy Rizzo in 1962, one of 100 portraits on view in an exhibition of the Italian photographer's work at MuBE (Brazilian Museum of Sculpture) in Sao Paulo. Sponsored by haute retailer IGUATEMI, the show opens August 10 and soon travels to Los Angeles, fittingly. Now 84, Rizzo lensed celebrities for magazines ranging from Vogue to Playboy to Life, and was the last photographer to shoot the icon of icons before her death exactly fifty years ago, almost to the day.

Fifty years of Bond, James Bond

Shaken, not stirred

"Bond, James Bond." Since Sean Connery uttered those immortal words in 1962, the most dashing secret agent in the history of cinema has been charming and thrilling audiences worldwide. This impeccably British character created by author Ian Fleming has starred in 23 EON-produced films, played by 6 different actors over five decades.

To celebrate 50 years of this innovative franchise, EON Productions opened their archives of photos, designs, storyboards, and production materials to editor Paul Duncan, who spent two years researching over one million images and 100 filing cabinets of documentation. The result is the most complete account of the making of the series, covering every James Bond film ever made, beginning with Dr. No (1962) and ending with Skyfall (2012), including the spoof Casino Royale (1967) and Never Say Never Again (1983).

The stunning imagery is accompanied by an oral history recounted by over 150 cast and crew members, relating the true inside story of how the Bond films were made. Containing previously unpublished photography and artwork, as well as production memos from filming, this book is a comprehensive tribute to the legend of James Bond.

• Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the most successful and longest-running film franchise in cinema history!
• Made with unrestricted access to the Bond archives, this XL tome recounts the entire history of James Bond in words and pictures
• Among the 1,100 images are many previously unseen stills, on-set photos, memos, documents, storyboards, posters, and designs, plus unused concepts, and alternative designs
• Behind-the-scenes stories from the people who were there: producers, directors, actors, screenwriters, production designers, special effects technicians, stuntmen, and other crew members
• Includes every Bond film ever made, from Dr. No (1962) to Skyfall (2012)
  

David LaChapelle Waxes Photographic

David LaChapelle knows his way around a plastic face. While the photographer has been transitioning from fashion to fine art of late, he still finds himself shooting the once-relevant, almost-famous, forever-iconic—and all combinations thereof.
In Still Life, an exhibition of new works at both Paul Kasmin locations in New York, LaChapelle has photographed the assembled broken body parts from a break-in of a wax museum in Dublin, as well as other wax museums in California and Nevada. The resulting waxy build-up of the likes of Ronald Reagan, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Michael Jackson addresses notions of humanity, fame, celebrity and power.
Still Life, November 26 - January 19, 293 Tenth Ave & 515 W. 27th St

Antonio Lopez at The Suzanne Geiss Company

Antonio Lopez was many things: illustrator, photographer, lover of nightlife, discoverer of models and muses (Jerry Hall, Grace Jones), friend of Karl Lagerfeld (designer for Chloé at the time). But above all, he was an always-on recorder of the fashions and social swirls of the 1970s and 1980s, stamping publications from Vogue to the New York Times—not to mention campaigns for YSL and Valentino—with his exuberant, expressive strokes of form and lashes of color. By the time of his death nearly 25 years ago of AIDS complications, he had become (nearly) as famous and (definitely) as sought-after as those he rendered in ink, watercolor and Polaroids.
Along with a Rizzoli monograph due out in two weeks, Lopez is the subject of an exhibition at The Suzanne Geiss Company. Opening September 7, Antonio’s World will examine and celebrate three decades of his creative output, including unpublished drawings and photos, as well as various items culled from the Estate of Antonio Lopez and Juan Ramos, his partner and collaborator. Designers routinely cite Lopez, now a cultural touchstone of the era, as an inspiration for their collections; this show might shed light on why they keep coming back for more.
The Suzanne Geiss Company, 76 Grand Street, NYC

“Rehearsal for a Poem by Saba Hasan

Installation/Sound Scape

 

 

Saba Hasan, a prominent contemporary artist, has been making significant contributions in the realm of abstract art both in technique and concepts in over15 years of practice. She has been awarded the National Raza Award for painting and international fellowships in art and culture from Syracuse University, Ecole D’Arts Visuels, Lausanne, the French Cultural Ministry, the George Keyt Art Foundation, the Florence Biennale and the Oscar Kokoschka Academy in Austria.

 

As an artist and anthropologist, Saba is acutely aware of the interplay of cultural and political factors in contemporary art. She has successfully developed her own visual alphabet using non-traditional materials like, plaster, sand, leaves, nails and text/sound to create works which are imbued with restrained undertones and multiple meanings. These mixed media works often contain written references based in personal history and literature and range from relief paintings to photographs and installations.

 

Saba’s current work is looking for space more and more in the conceptual realm, predicated on philosophical and metaphysical questions. She continues to work with organic elements, sound and text creating conceptual site-specific installations using her own carefully constructed alphabet of signs and techniques within a natural setting. For this outdoor installation, Saba has added the dimension of sound recorded in her voice to act as the necessary subtext.


She is now taking the sound installation which is a poem written by me to present in public spaces in new york city. the project is called the rehearsal goes on. She will be at Central Park,outside MOMA,outside the Meropolitan,in Columbia University, Greenwich Village and at the Bob Dylan concert outside area. It will be awesome fun...She insists!

 

For more on the artist www.sabahasan.com

KOUSTAV NAG>Me & My JAPANESE

NET WORK
Me & My Japanese:

The concept of this work is me and my Japanese.  The intention is to interact with my Japanese friends.  I want to represent the entire character as an accumulation of broken small cells.  The shadow is a mirror image which will interact with its other opposite half. 

  

NEON LIGHT
Integrate:

The neon light represents the glow and glitter of Japan.  The blue colour is because it is surrounded by the oceans.  In spite of Japan’s history and its struggle with natural disasters it still remains to be one of the most inspiring countries.

- Koustav Nag






The Exhibition with Two Artist's Koustav Nag ( Research Base Artist )Kolkata (Masters Of Fine Art) & Ronny Sen (Journalist with photographer )Kolkata (B.A,Mass Communication and Journalism)


Recently finished the JENESYS Research Residency, funded by Japan Foundation. Two emerging Indian artists, Koustav Nag and Ronny Sen, visited Japan under the Jenesys Creators' Invitation Programme 2012 and undertook a residency programme to produce creative works and develop network with their peers in Japan. During their 3-month stay, they met various people, visited several places, and presented their works to the locals. See them portray their experiences in this show.


"Creative Platform is a series of exhibitions, performances and other creative activities that embody the experiences of international exchange between Japan and India."

They had a residence program in Tokyo and Sapporo for 3 months this year, and they will show their experiences through new works.



Koustav Nag residency in Tokyo Wonder Site Japan & Ronny Sen Residency in Saporo in Japan.(for 3 months) is an extension of the Jenesys program, giving a chance to showcase there work in New Delhi,India .

This is also a first program of Creative Platform Series, sharing with all Indian artists and professionals through any kinds of cultural activities on this platform.



Exhibition: On Going At:

JENESYS Creators Exhibition – Young Indians Artists at The Japan Foundation, 5A Ring Road, Lajpat Nagar IV > 11am-7pm on 31st October-24th November 2012








Artists

Ronny Sen is an independent photographer based in Calcutta, India. He graduated in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University of North Bengal. His works have been published and exhibited in many countries. Since 2006 he has been awarded by the Sony World Photography Awards, National Geographic Magazine, Shoot Nations by the UN, Powerhouse, The Forward Thinking Museum, Canon Emerging Photographers and The Lonely Planet Magazine.

In the year 2012, he is nominated for the Magnum Emergency Fund and also nominated for the fourth edition of Prix Pictet. He was selected by the Indian Foundation of Arts to represent Indian at the World Young Artists Event in Nottingham, England and JENESYS Creators' Program in Sapporo, Japan by The Japan Foundation.


Koustav Nag is an experimental research based artist from India. He has started his career from working toward his undergraduate and graduate degrees in fine arts from art school. He has completed MFA at Kala Bhavana, Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan 2007.

After completing his graduate degree, he has started working as an independent artist. He started to work with inter disciplinary medium from The Study Time, while it was still a new and unexplored genre in India. Since 2006 he has been selected by International Exhibition in Japan, Denmark and US, and received awards and scholarships by several art institutions and exhibitions. During the JENESYS Creators' Program at Tokyo Wonder Site, he responded to his immediate environment and an unfamiliar visual culture through innovations in his art practice.



Sharing the Wonder of Japanese Culture with the World


The Japan Foundation (Kokusai Koryu Kikin),founded in 1972 as a non-profit, special legal entity by special legislation in the Japanese Diet, has become an Independent Administrative Institution on October 1, 2003 under the "Independent Administrative Institution Japan Foundation Law". The purpose of the Japan Foundation as stipulated in that law is to contribute to the improvement of a good international environment, as well as the maintenance and development of the harmonious foreign relationships of Japan, through deepening other nations, understanding of Japan, promoting better mutual understanding among nation's encouraging friendship and goodwill among the peoples of the world, and contributing to the world in culture and other fields through the efficient and comprehensive implementation of activities for international cultural exchange.

Apart from its own activities, the Foundation is also authorised to extend financial assistance and support to organisations in the private sector involved in cultural and intellectual exchange or educational programs through undertaking joint sponsorship program or by providing grants.

The Japan Foundation New Delhi was officially established in January 1994 and since then has been carrying out the Foundation's programs successfully.




NPO S-AIR was set in 1999 as an organisation which runs artist in residence programmes in Hokkaido. The Agency for Cultural Affairs was initially the primary funder for the organisation. In 2004, S-AIR was registered as a NPO (Non Profit Organisation) and since then, the programmes have been run by S-AIR and Inter Cross Creative Centre, ICC (run by Sapporo Electronics and Industries Cultural Foundation). S-AIR has built various links between artists, arts centres and organisations both nationally and internationally. In the past ten years S-AIR has invited 57 international artists from 27 countries to take part. In addition to the residency programme, S-AIR has developed a series of other art projects such as 'Art Akebono 04-05' and 'Artist in School'. These community art related projects have taken place in local communities and primary schools. S-AIR initiated the S-AIR Award in 2006. Since then the annual award has provided opportunities for two local artists or creators to carry out residencies abroad. Along with the residency and community projects, S-AIR runs other cultural programmes such as Arts NPO Forum 2004, as well as, concerts, talks and workshops. S-AIR is committed to developing its established links internationally whilst promoting and supporting the local arts infrastructure in Sapporo and appropriately, S-AIR has currently in development plans to set up an Arts Centre in Sapporo.



Tokyo Wonder Site is an art center dedicated to the generation and promotion of new art and culture from the heart of Tokyo. While TWS Hongo supports and nurtures young talent in all fields in programs related to the government-hosted "Tokyo Wonder Wall" exhibition of works chosen from among entries from the general public, TWS Shibuya is a hub in a global cultural network of affiliated cultural facilities in Japan and abroad, and at once a platform for both new talents and internationally active creators to exchange and showcase their works. In addition, TWS Aoyama:Creator-in-Residence opened in 2006 as a venue for creative individuals from all genres and nationalities to pursue their respective work in a shared process. Through various joint programs, the three venues will continue their broad array of artistic activities in order to provide creators with a stage for creative work.  

EXHIBITION>NEERAJJ MITTRA-TüKöR

Art Exhbition and music video launch by Neerajj Mittra

Look in to the mirror,set thine eye unto thy I,peer and peak in to your relationships.

A collection of colour,cloth and metal that will implore you to introspect.


EXHIBITION>NEERAJJ MITTRA:TüKöR>A TRIBUTE TO RELATIONSHIPS
November 1ST – 30th, 2012


Opening:Thursday 1st November 2012, 6:30 p.m.Balassi Institute - Hungarian Information and Cultural Centre in cooperation with 'Delhi International Arts Festival – I C C R'

TüKöR - A TRIBUTE TO RELATIONSHIPS, a solo exhibition of paintings and sculptures  by NEERAJJ MITTRA. Pleased to announce the presence of,. Prof. O.P. Sharma, Eminent Artist, former principal college of art, New Delhi, Guest of Honour will be Mr. Lakshmi Shankar Bajpai,Station Director,All India Radio,New Delhi

In the exhibition, Neerajj Mittra presents a series of painting and sculptures that trace the artist’s perspective on relationships.

TüKöR is the Hungarian word for Mirror. The artist holds that everything is a mirror. Everyone is a mirror. Every moment is a mirror. Human being is the ultimate being of introspection. By venturing outwards we venture inwards discovering and unfolding layers of our being. How we relate to others in essence defines how we relate to our own self. Relationship is one such mirror. This is the subject of art for this exhibition.

The creations denote reflection of I unto I passing through various beings, verbs and occasions.
Neerajj Mittra's collection comprises thirty-two oil paintings & bronze sculptures that will be hung at the gallery with individualised ephemera containing 'art narration'. The narration comprises individual titles for each painting and a few essential of the thousand words they are worth. The idea of the narration is to convey how every tribute to relationship must begin and end with the prime ingredient of any relationship and its reflection – 'I'.
 Neerajj Mittra is a Karnal born, New Delhi-based celebrated multidisciplinary visual artist who has exhibited painting, sculptures and installations in galleries across India and abroad. He has successfully concluded 13 solo shows and a plethora of Group shows, Two Men Shows, Camps and workshops. He was awarded with JENESYS - Scholarship to Japan as an Educator in 2008. He is an alumnus of College of Art, New Delhi.

The winged odyssey - an Artist's Biopic

Tükör has come at a personally critically important juncture for Neeraj. And what better way to commemorate it than a look back at the road that led him here. The Winged Odyssey is the short biopic  on Neeraj Mittra. It is about the mirror through which he chose to look at the world and what he offered to the world to know him.


Debut as a singer-BIRHA

Birha is loneliness induced by love to the lover who is away from his loved one. It is an inevitable and trying moment in every lover's life. Neeraj Mittra's Tükör would have been left incomplete without the echo of music - the reflection of our soul. He presents the music video of his first ever venture into singing. And like his other works of art, this too, is in his own voice, in his own unique way.


i remain
neerajj mittra
visual artist
www.neerajmittra.net

Inspiring-Foot-Averse Wool Rugs

Mood Board
Inspiring us right now: these hand-knotted, foot-averse wool rugs by M/M (Paris). To celebrate 20 years, the graphic-design duo and fashion collaborators (think Balenciaga, Givenchy, Hermès) sought out the loom guru Abhishek Poddar to create, in India, the four large-scale masterpieces of carpeting that will never see the filthy sole of a shoe. On view through December 15 at Libby Sellers gallery, 41-42 Berners Street, London, W1T 3NB.

Pigeons>Something Different

 

As long as pigeons are going to deface the priceless structures and statues of Venice, they might as well be beautified as they do it during the Venice Architecture Biennale. That seems to be the thinking behind Julius von Bismarck and Julian Charriere's latest art project. Around 60 birds were lured into a contraption that spray-painted their drab-gray feathers various tropical colors, in effect making them over into much less objectionable parakeets and parrots. They were then photographed for an exhibition of photos, Pigeon Safari, and released back into the urban jungle. The harmless food dye lasts around six weeks, the biennale until November 25.

Work.Place

Work.Place

Work.Place is a great new project detailing the work spaces of artists and craftspeople in the Pacific Northwest by Portland photographer Carlie Armstrong. Be careful though, this site will suck you into its vortex of goodness and before you know it, you've spent an hour and forgotten that you have work of your own to be doing.

The Fauvist>Henri Matisse

Brilliant color, simple forms, and purity of expression are the hallmarks of Matisse's work

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is known not only as one of the most important French painters of the 20th century but also as co-founder and leading exponent of Fauvism. His work reflects an ongoing quest for the expressive power of pure, brilliant colors and simple forms; as a result, the realistic presentation of nature often retires to a secondary position.

For Matisse, color did not serve as a tool for the expression of subjective feelings, but rather became the equivalent of light itself: it functioned as a pure medium in the creation of an autonomous pictorial space: "Out of my fruitful work with discovered tones there must emerge a vital color harmony, a harmony that is analogous to a musical composition."

As a creative artist, Matisse was not only a painter, but also experimented with other materials: he produced glass windows and theater designs and created significant sculptures in bronze, ceramic and clay. In old age, confined to a wheelchair, he created collages with colored paper, glue, and scissors: his famed gouache cut-outs.

The Man from La Mancha

An in-depth exploration of Almodóvar’s complete œuvre

Un film de Almodóvar: whether appearing in his stylish opening credits or on the suggestive poster that invariably accompanies each of his films, this announcement triggers a range of expectations. Sexy and subversive, colorful and controversial, passionate and provocative, Pedro Almodóvar’s world is unlike any other director's. Thanks to his remarkably cohesive and consistent œuvre, the Manchegan maverick has become a reliable brand, his name a byword for the visual opulence, experimentation and eroticism of post-Franco Spanish cinema.
Almodóvar found fame with self-penned, gender-bending plots depicting the often comic misfortunes of junkies, nuns, housewives, whores, transvestites and transsexuals. Praised by critics, championed by fellow film-makers, adored by actors and adorned with international awards, he is the most successful Spanish film-maker since Luis Buñuel, with films such as Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, All About My Mother, Talk to Her, and Volver.

A self-taught auteur, Almodóvar draws on influences as diverse as Douglas Sirk, Frank Tashlin, Andy Warhol and John Waters. His feature films borrow liberally from, and frequently invert, traditional genres of classic American cinema—including film noir, melodrama and screwball comedy. Yet they remain unmistakably Iberian, rooted predominantly in the director's beloved Madrid, exploring Spanish myths and modernity to the rhythms of bolero-laden soundtracks. Most recently, the enfant terrible of the 1980s arthouse scene has matured into the Academy Award-winning director of All About My Mother, a film universally acknowledged for its emotional resonance, sophistication and craftsmanship. Almodóvar’s distinctive, once marginalized world has finally entered the mainstream.

For this unprecedented monograph, Pedro Almodóvar has given TASCHEN complete access to his archives, including never-before-published images, such as personal photos he took during filming. In addition to writing captions for the photos, Almodóvar invited prominent Spanish authors to write introductions to each of his films, and selected many of his own texts to accompany this visual odyssey through his complete works.

• Over 600 images, including many previously unpublished.
• Includes images from his new film, The Skin I Live In (2011), which will be released worldwide at the same time as the book.
• Book includes a film strip from Volver (2006), taken from Almodóvar’s archive.

The editors:
Paul Duncan has edited 50 film books for TASCHEN, including the award-winning The Ingmar Bergman Archives, and authored Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick in the Film Series.

Bárbara Peiró has been working with Pedro Almodóvar for 11 years that have included five films, lots of promotional trips, an exhibition at the French Cinémathèque, a stage adaptation of All About My Mother and a Broadway musical of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.