"Jacklighting"

January 27, 2020

French artist Anne-Charlotte Finel presents Jacklighting at The Chimney for her first solo show in the US. Referring to the nocturnal hunting practice of shining bright lights throughout dark fields in order to momentarily stun animals, Jacklighting proves itself both weird and wonderful. Finel's work, focused on spaces affected by unnatural lighting systems, is composed of four reels. And with each video being manipulated both digitally and physically, the story from viewer to viewer may be rather ambiguous.

In Triste Champignonniste (Sad Mushroom Farmer), 2017, Finel films a mushroom farm in a former underground gypsum quarry—although it may look more like the ground for a nuclear bomb shelter as bursting shapes and foggy landscapes are cast upon a pink velvet backdrop. Only upon closer inspection may one gradually discern the actual rotting of elements played upon the deteriorating pixels of the film for a versatile look on decomposition.

As is the case with all of the show’s remaining components, nothing is quite as it seems in Jacklighting. The rhythm of the subjects and the landscapes of the environment speak to the title’s permanent state through the relationship between man and nature, attesting to Finel’s expertise in observing the unordinary and inclination to search for truth in the otherwise vastly unseen.

Text by Caroline Brown
Photos courtesy of The Chimney and the artist; Photography by Reggie Shiobara

Jacklighting is on view at The Chimney until February 23, 2020.

Art

Book of Love

November 21, 2018

This is not a drill.

Gucci has blessed the SoHo neighborhood with a newly opened bookstore inside their Wooster Street shop. A chic destination for print with over 2,000 titles hand-selected by former Magnum Photography curator and Dashwood Books founder David Strettell, including office, of course, the Gucci Wooster Bookstore opened its doors yesterday, and will tap into downtown NYC's nonconformist history by offering a range of contemporary and rare publications focusing on youth, fashion, photography, culture, architecture, fine art and design.

The location will also feature a selection of magazines like yours truly.

With its own dedicated entrance at 375 West Broadway, the bookstore will allow visitors to bypass the main store and walk straight into the mecca of printted matter. Your coffee table will never be the same.

Text by Charles Caesar

Stampa per sempre!

The Gucci Wooster Bookstore is open now at 375 West Broadway in Manhattan.

Photos courtesy of Gucci.

Art

Summer in Winter

November 20, 2018

An alchemist, a landscape designer and a humanist walk into a bar—the joke? They’re all the same person. Using the medium of plant life in an attempt to reconnect people with the beauty of the natural world, Visionaire tapped landscape designer Lily Kwong to create Summer In Winter, a new installation at Cadillac House in Manhattan—and this isn’t your average botanical garden.

Featuring 100 different species of plants, including rare specimens from 37 different countries across seven continents ranging from Mexico to Madagascar, Kwong’s garden offers a refreshingly wholesome take on the merging of botany, architecture and visual arts within an urban environment.

In this day in age, when the default desktop backgrounds of wet leaves and misty mountaintops on your MacBook are the only natural specimens you’re used to seeing, it’s important to have tangible spaces like Summer in Winter to interact with nature and remind us of the glory of Mama Earth every once in a while.

Text by Kennedy Fairfax

On view through January 16 (and open to the public), Visionaire and Kwong have created the perfect hideout for this winter. So, be sure to catch the magic while you still can.

And in the meantime, see some photos of the installation, below.

'Summer in Winter' is open now through Janunary 16 at Cadillac House in Manhattan.

Photos by Plamen Petkov; courtesy of Visionaire.

Art

Extinction

November 20, 2018

In an urban environment like NYC or Paris, where staring out of the window and seeing a sky of high-rises is the norm, it’s not hard to feel out of touch with nature—but don’t worry, you’re not alone.

That’s the overwhelming sentiment in Extinction, a new exhibition at the Artemis Fontana Gallery in Paris, on view now through December 2. With work from a wide array of artists, including Edgars Gluhovs, Katarzyna Przezwanska and Gaia Vincensini, the various interactions between humans, their surrounding nature and the inevitable impending doom resulting from the long term relationship between the two, are examined and displayed through every imaginable medium, from embossed leather and painting to digital engraving and video, to name just a few.

Text by Caroline Brown

“Everything is artificial, everything is artifice. Nature no longer exists,” reads the gallery’s press release about the show. “We always start from the contemplation of artifice. That’s why everything’s so chaotic. So false. So desperately confused.”

And while we can’t argue with that, we can use it as a rock bottom realization to begin conversations about a much needed sustainable future—or else, we will be extinct.

View some pieces from the exhibit, below.