IF DOLCE & GABBANA DID SKELETONS...

 

Happy Hallowed Eve. St Albertus photographed in his catacomb by Paul Koudounaris (image co @saatchi_gallery)

NUNS

I have a love/hate relationship with Halloween and the idea of dressing up (doesn't everyone), but these Nun+* images have been accumulating on my desktop...

I hadn't realised quite how pervasive the fetishisation of nuns was until I started looking for them, tip of the iceberg:

RUDE

CHAIR CHAIR CHAIR CHER CHAIR SHARE

Above: One and Three Chairs, Joseph Kosuth, 1965
Below: Cher / Chair / Share, Ole Ukena, 2011

No doubt I'm late to the party but Ole Ukena's update of Kosuth's seminal work is pretty funny. I'm definitely not going to get started on whether it's art or not.

FOR DOG PEOPLE

CLEAR AIR FORCE 1s

Are these real?

RUBBISH

Pink and grey rubbish.

OVERDRESSING

Reliquary cross pendant c. 1450-75 V&A Collection

The idea that you openly display your fortune has almost completely disappeared from European culture. For centuries you could calculate wealth (if not nobility) through the cost of materials and labour on your back: raw silk, shorn velvet, golden thread, seams lined with seed pearls and valuable stones reset into rings, bracelets, seals and pendants by each new owner. It must be the current rehash of 90s minimalism that is making me nostalgic for an opulence I have never experienced, being able to identify a real Celine phantom or Cartier bracelet digging in to a chubby wrist just isn't the same.

Alexander McQueen AW13  /  Anne Boleyn, Artist unknown c.1533-36. National Portrait Gallery

THIS LOOK

Half dead yucca + fish scales

DIGITAL NATIVE ISSUES

POLAR BEARS

THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

POSTURE POSTURE POSTURE One of my dad's oft repeated phrases and infinitely preferable to the showbiz stalwart TITS AND TEETH! (Babs Windsor I'm looking at you). The Alexander Technique is a great basis for shoot because it puts in mind how clothes are being worn while providing a fresh contrast to the pigeon-toed slouch of tumblr. 

Once again, the brilliant Katie Shillingford at the helm.    

ROSE PINK AND DOVE GREY

I love the combination of pink and grey. This passage in the book I'm currently reading made me think about the combination in a whole new way, not entirely pleasant.

'Anne was wearing, that day, rose pink and dove grey. The colours should have had a fresh maidenly charm; but all he could think of were stretched innards, umbles and tripes, grey-pink intestines looped out of a living body... The pearls around her long neck looked to him like little beads of fat, and as she argued she would reach up and tug them; he kept his eyes on her fingertips, nails flashing like tiny knives.' (Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel)

SILVA SUMMA

STYLIST / ARTIST /...

I came across the work of Stylist/Artist Gracie Wales Bonner recently. Highly recommended if, like me, you have a soft spot for collage/cords/colour.

MORE YUCCA

I'm seeing yuccas everywhere - this time in Craig's home town.

CURATE vs. EDIT

... Plants on shelves or a curated group of botanical objects?

It is interesting how the word 'curate' has escaped the confines of the museum/gallery world into blogs, shops and beyond.

In my mind the word 'curate' bestows a certain gravitas; something that has been 'curated' should be distinguishable from a collection, selection or visual list. In order for objects to be truly curated there should be something that links them, independent of the self-styled curator's personal taste. What is the difference between a curate and an edit? According to this article (2009) the debate is already a moot point and I should get with the times.

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PAINT CUBE

Cube of Paint 70x70x70mm. I love this work from designer Klemens Schillinger, so much so that I already blogged it on behalf of work here.

MMMM HMMM

The Beauty Contest, 2012 Dick Jewell 

I like them brown, yellow Puerto Rican and Haitian
LOOK at these  ladies working their Contrappostos. More from the artist here.

THIERRY MUGLER

Apparently Messrs. Mugler said of his Parisian apartment 'I don't want real possession. What I need and what I wanted in this apartment was its space - and to keep it as empty as possible.'


This attitude surprises me from the creator of  Angel perfume - a scent so subtle I can smell wearers within a 5 mile radius. 

2

 AW12, Glenn Martin 

Octopus at Mandalay Bay Aquarium Las Vegas

INSTAGALLERIES

Exhibitions I haven't been to but feel I've visited because of instagram:

 Light Show at the Hayward Gallery
 The Rain Room at Barbican
 Juergen Teller at the ICA
 Lichtenstein at Tate Modern

NOT SO YUCCA

The plant beloved of waiting rooms worldwide is having a moment:

Yucca in POP 28 SS13 p174-5

 Yucca's starring role in an earlier post:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY WEDNESDAY

SPRING

Bearded dragons 

Shoot by Tyrone Lebon styled by Max Pearmain

Robe à la française, ca. 1765 from the Met collection

HAPPY ST. GEORGE'S DAY

I'm wearing my favourite new T-shirt to celebrate:

GIF c/o T-SHIRT PARTY

FUR TEA CUP

Ahh Phoebe Philo you're so great.



Meret Oppenheim
Object
Paris, 1936












Céline S/S13

BODEN

Boden, is that you? I did not expect this campaign from a brand I usually associate with women who love their dogs more than their kids. Great styling and not a postbox or stately home in sight. 

GREY SPRING

Editorial from Marie Claire Australia 0812 (left)

This images have been lingering on my desktop for a long time and suit this non-Spring we're having.

LUFTBOBLER

A few weeks ago I went the launch of Dinos Chapman's* album Luftbobler. My initial scepticism about the transferable skills between painting swastikas on toy soldiers and making music was rapidly dispelled: the album is good. You can hear more from DC and listen to his music here.















*Dinos (with glasses) is the older of the Chapman Brothers - artistic duo of Goya-defacing, Hitler-exhibiting, YBA fame.

RICHARD BURTON

I mean to post this on Valentine's day but forgot. A letter from Richard Burton to Elizabeth Taylor I hastily scribbled (hence the many mistakes). I love that he, like many great people, seems to have a stationery fetish.

SISTERS FROM ANOTHER MISTER?

Did anyone else see Kate Moss' hair at Louis Vuitton and immediately think Liza Minnelli? Because I did and I really don't think that's what Marc was going for.

AW11 wow, SS12 wow.