On February 8th, The Hole on Bowery hosted a special event in celebration of artist Bob Recine’s new book Alchemy of Beauty. The chic event was curated and produced by Jacqueline Miro for RIPP&co.

Often referred to as a creative punk genius, Recine’s work seamlessly mixes high fashion and contemporary art. Guests at the event mingled with cocktails while getting a glimpse at Recine’s stunning pieces inspired by beauty and were displayed  in collaboration with photographer Mario Sorrenti – as well Robbie Fimmano and Steven Sebring.

Having grown up in New York City during the 1960s, when motorcycle gangs sprayed painted their bikes and sported tattoos, the artist was amazed by the use of renegade urban art to claim cutting-edge identities within the stiff, conservative arena of Cold War society.  As a youth he was also drawn to Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and the gothic monster’s tender heart in the midst of apparent horror.

Image: hyperallergic.com

Described as a “shock-seeking art movie,” the Voina Art Group film “Tomorrow,” directed by Andrey Gryazey, will represent Russia at the Berlinale Film Festival taking place from February 9 through 19, 2012.

A documentary entitled “Tomorrow” about the Voina art group will be representing Russia during the Berlinale Film Festival. The controversial group is known for being artists, vandals and even revolutionaries, but regardless of how you classify them, the political performers love to shock their audiences.

Director Andrey Gryazey made a film about the group who became renowned for their “performances” such as painting a giant phallus on a drawbridge and tipping over an empty police car.

“I saw a man running in front of the Federal Security Service building in Moscow with a bucket on his head and though, that’s interesting,” said Gryazey, adding, “I did not completely understand who these people really are. The main thing about them is that they’re always against everything, this is their fundamental principal.”

The Viona Art Group reluctantly took part in the film project, after making a deal with the director, who was the only investor in the film. In exchange for their cooperation, the group’s video clips, many of which are already on YouTube, will be used in the film to provide them with a “new platform for communication.”

“Tomorrow” cost Gryazey $2,000 to produce and it includes a mix of staged and documentary material, though the director says, “It’s impossible to tell the difference.”

The documentary will be screened at the Berlinale’s Forum program along with 53 other productions during the Berlinale Film Festival in Berlin. The cultural event is one of the most important dates for the international film industry. Approximately 300,000 tickets have already been sold and more than 19,000 professional visitors from 115 countries (including 4,000 journalists) will be in attendance. The festival shows around 400 films per year, mostly international or European premieres. The “Forum” section of the festival screens “unfamiliar cinematography,” avant-garde films, experimental works, essays, long-term observations, political reportage and yet-to-be-discovered cinematic landscapes. The “Forum” is considered the most daring section of the Berlinale.

Source: RT

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Photo: artinfo.com

On February 18^th at 2pm, there will be a special screening of Leonardo Live at the Society of the Four Arts presented by Tim Marlow, U.K. broadcaster and art historian. This exclusive preview is the UK’s National Gallery exhibition entitled “Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan.” Tickets are $10 and for more info on admission, please call 655-7226.

Source: Palm Beach Daily News

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Photo: latimes.com

Another Facebook-related millionaire story has emerged as the social media company announces it is going public. David Choe is a graffiti artist who took shares instead of cash for painting Facebook’s first headquarters seven years ago is set to make $200 million now that Facebook is heading to Wall Street.

David Choe, 35, painted the offices in Palo Alto, California in 2005 and was offered the choice of being paid a few thousand cash or the equivalent in shares by then-president Sean Parker. Choe, who is now a successful artist in his own right, decided to take the shares, and he is on his way to becoming a millionaire thanks to Facebook deciding to go public recently.

Korean-American Choe recently visited the new Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park to spray paint a wall, he did the cover at for Jay-Z and Linkin Park’s 2004 album Collision Course and he has even created a poster of President Barack Obama for the White House, according to the New York Times. It is reported that Choe’s “dirty style” of artwork came about because as a left-handed individual, when he was a child his hand would always smudge his work.

Source: Luxury Launches

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Did you know that many artists used candies or chocolate to made their works? Regression to the past, desire to be in a world out of any preoccupation (like the childhood), volition to point a society corrupted by mass consumption, economic disparities or any kind of problems related to food and malnutrition.

Born in 1981, Vincent Olinet is a French artist who lives and works between Brussels and Singapore. His works of art, mostly photographs or sculptures, make us thinking of a fantasy world: we have in mind the pirates’ boats and treasures, the Sleeping Beauty Castle. He’s obviously inspired by Walt Disney and all the other fairy tales! He said once: “I like to make shiny, colorful art pieces that appeal to our dreams and urges but actually deal with decay or disillusion”. His sculptures are made of real ice sugar and flour, cake decorations and doilies, however the main base of his cakes is polystyrine.

Many conceptual artists also use chocolate as a source material for making pieces of art. Vik Muniz, a Brazilian photographer born in 1961 and best known for his portraits of Marilyn Monroe or Liz Taylor made of diamonds, also produced several pieces which are his “Pictures of Chocolate”! This series reproduces well-know imagery and famous portraits in chocolate syrup painted over a light box. His process is to take picture of his “creation” just before the melting of the chocolate. Works of art made by Chuck Ramirez, an American artist who lives in San Antonio and who is best know for his giants “portraits” of purses, call attention of desire and gluttony and point economic disparities. He makes chocolate boxes made out of chocolate but they are always empty. As if he wanted that we maybe pay attention to emptiness of a certain part of our society.

Some other prefer candies… Felix Gonzales-Torres, a Cuban artist, combines his personal experiences, his reflexions on art history, his views on politic…His work is the reflection of his life in the society. His “Candies Piles” are monumental and very attractive for the viewer. They are also interactive artworks since people are allowed to take some candies from the pile and supposed to eat them. It is never totally stable and constantly refreshed… Born in Bourges (France) in 1965, Laurence Jenkell is fascinated by the alchemy of sugar. Declination and sublimation of candies are the main purpose of her work.

All of those works look appetizing and joyful but they are actually full of social and economic symbols. Olinet’s cake breaks down, Muniz’s photograph is a reproduction of a weel-known image, Ramirez’s chocolate box is empty, Gonzales-Torres’s pile isn’t stable, Jenkell’s sweet refers to sugar which can disappear and change all the time.

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Born and raised in Paris, Delphine decided to move to NY after graduating from the Sorbonne where she got a master degree in social sciences and history of art mention contemporary art. Once in New York she went to the Christies School and she got a certificate degree. She used to work as an intern during all her studies for an auction house, several galleries and art dealers in both Paris and New York. She’s now working on her first book which is dedicated to contemporary art in general

http://delphinedecausans.blogspot.com/

Image: artsz.org

A large Andy Warhol exhibition will head to five Asian cities over the next three years, opening in Singapore in March.

Pittsburgh’s Andy Warhol Museum has announced that an exhibit by one of pop art’s most influential icons will be heading to Asia with 5 stops in major cities over the next three years. Starting in Singapore in March, the exhibit will then travel to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing in 2013 and end in Tokyo in 2014.

The exhibit, “Andy Warhol: 15 Minutes Eternal,” will feature photographs, screen prints, drawings, more than 300 paintings and sculptures by Warhol.

The artist passed away 25 years ago after complications from gall bladder surgery, and the exhibit is planned as a 25th anniversary and remembrance.

Source: Miami Herald

I used to work at The Isabella Stewart Gardner museum in Boston, full of Ancient treasures. Walking through it was like a dream for your senses, and it made you want to immediately go home and adorn your apartment with beautiful things. Coats of armor, enormous hand woven textiles, completely one of a kind hand carved and painted furniture, jewels from the 1500s that still sparkled like new, paintings of chubby cherubs and religious figures adorned almost every inch of this place.  Walking up and down the aisles of the Young Collectors Night at the Winter Antiques show gave me serious deja vu.

Hundreds of people came out to sip champagne, enjoy mini boxes of gourmet stir fry and see what galleries and antique collectors from around the world have been up to these days.  After checking out many of the booths, I couldn’t resist the endless sparkle coming from James Robinson Inc.. Craig Basmajian, who worked at the booth was kind enough to talk me through the pieces, explaining how stones from their specific collection were set beautifully, and were so flexible they felt like silk draped across my wrist. The designer of this piece, Oscar Heyman happens to be the one that invented the invisible setting, which is still used today. Craig also mentioned a growing trend he’s seeing in jewelry collectors and buyers in today’s market “People are getting back to being more eclectic in their taste” he said, pointing out an ornate almost priceless piece he has seen people wearing with t-shirts and jeans. “People are being more experimental.”

Antique pieces and collectors certainly made up the majority of the show. After living in sort of a contemporary art dreamland, I found this to be refreshing. So much craft and care was so obviously put into many of the pieces shown. I walked into a booth that had a beautiful hand painted table with unbelievable realistic sculptures of pheasants perched on top. “Really Good things are selling,” said Matthew Iberman of antique dealer, Kentshire “people are adding value to their collections by purchasing the finer things. That’s what we see driving big sales”

But I kept heading back to the Lost City Arts spot, which had some unique works by Harry Bertoia, best known for his “Diamond chair” design. Ellie Kim, who works at Lost City Arts, was kind enough to show me some of his pieces. “He was a clever, experimental artist,” she said, just before she demonstrated the use for his “Sounding Sculpture.” To my surprise, a piece that looked a little unwelcoming like stiff blades of grass, actually became delightful and full of movement when you touched it, making a sound akin to wind chimes. “Every time someone calls me to show me a Bertoia, it’s very exciting,” said James Elkind of Lost City Arts.

The great thing about this show was that while all of the pieces on show were beautiful and timeless as in a museum, they were not unattainable or un relatable. People came to discover what beautiful pieces they can add to their collections, and by taking pieces home they could add a moment of beauty from another era to their present day digs.

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This past Tuesday at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre, I had the rare opportunity to attend Chinese Cocktail, a re-performance/concert by Robert Wilhite. It was a special treat, part of Pacific Standard Time’s bonanza performance art festival. Chinese Cocktail had only been performed twice before, both times in 1978.

An absurdist take on music, sculpture, and performance, the arranged set of brightly painted geometric and three-dimensional objects called into question their relationships to each other in space, and our symbolic relationships with them. Add layers of instrumental complexity and you have performance rife with curiosities.

Yes, there was a shiny pink ball with handles that acted as a magnetic theremin type instrument. Yes, there’s a guitar that resembles a giant badminton shuttlecock. Yes, (the original composer) Bob’s sole function is to play his triangular air guitar precisely at the moments it is notated in the score. What’s not to love about a tall bow-shaped guitar painted in Memphis furniture colors? And was that a vacuum cleaner enclosed in an ultramarine box rounding up the rear?

Pink Ball Magnet Instrument. Photo: Yanyan Huang

Shuttlecock Guitar. Photo: Yanyan Huang

Stage setting. Photo: Yanyan Huang

At once mesmerizing and beautiful, it is a great pity more performances aren’t anything like this. Musical performances common to high culture are generally confined to reinterpretations of Baroque to Romantic compositions, on lacquered wood instruments that have been virtually unchanged since Medieval times. What is a forward-thinking, contemporary art-minded audience to do? I say: let’s tour this symphony around the country and start up a wave of performance art-music-sculpture-painting following. It would be the genuinely radical thing to do.

Images: Claire Milner

R&B superstar Rihanna commissioned artist Claire Milner to create the largest head portrait of Marilyn Monroe made from 65,000 Swarovski crystals.

The sparkling work of art is 5-feet by 5-feet and has 65,000 hand set crystals attached to Acrylic. The piece took Milner four months to create and it weighs and impressive 80 kilograms. It was created for Rihanna’s new Los Angeles home.

Milner says the portrait was inspired by Marilyn’s own words and various images of the late star.

“In my portrait I tried to capture some of the complicated and contradictory aspects of Marilyn – the glitter and the public façade, the sadness in the eyes,” says Milner. She wanted people to think about the person behind the headlines when they look at the portrait.

The crystals used in the portrait have mirror-like qualities and according to the artist, the image changes mood in different light conditions.

Milner will be exhibiting her artworks in 2012, including dancers, animals and landscapes in mixed media and Swarovski crystals.

August 5, 2012 is the 50th anniversary of the death of Marilyn Monroe.

Source: Luxury Launches

Tonight the Park Avenue Armory will play host to the annual Young Collectors Night at the Winter Antiques Show.

This high-energy night attracts over 650 new collectors, young philanthropists, interior designers, and art and antiques enthusiasts. Sponsored by New York magazine, Benjamin Moore, and Elie Tahari, the evening offers guests a private viewing of one of the world’s most prestigious antiques shows renowned for its unparalleled showcase of American, English, European, and Asian fine and decorative arts dating from antiquity through the 1960s.

Young Collectors night will host an outstanding Interior Design Committee, led by Chairwoman Wendy Goodman, Design Editor of New York magazine. This prestigious group of 77 designers includes some of the country’s most illustrious interior designers, including Nate Berkus, Thom Filicia, Jonathan Adler, Celerie Kemble, Eric Cohler, Jamie Drake, Miles Redd and many more. Please see attached press release for full list.

Proceeds from Young Collectors Night will benefit East Side House Settlement, a leading social services agency that serves young people and families in the South Bronx and surround communities.

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