Bourdin, born in Paris in 1928, was one of the most radical and influential fashion photographers of the twentieth century. His unique blend of surreal and erotic imagery filled the pages of international magazines such as French Vogue during the 1970s and also became synonymous with the revolutionary advertising campaigns for Charles Jourdan. Rejecting the typical ‘product’ shot in favour of staging unsettling scenarios that hint at consumption, sex and desire, his photographs sought to shock and play on viewer’s curiosities.

This exhibition introduces rarely-seen before, limited edition work of some of his most captivating images - including a selection from his renowned series for the Pentax Calendar of 1980. Michael Hoppen Gallery is the exclusive representative of the Estate of Guy Bourdin.

Through March 10, 2012

michaelhoppengallery.com

David Shrigley is best known for his humorous drawings that make witty, wry and sometimes dark observations on everyday life. His deliberately crude graphic style has an immediate and accessible appeal, while simultaneously offering insightful commentary on the absurdities of human relationships.

Brain Activity is Shrigley’s first major survey exhibition in the UK and covers the full range of his work, extending beyond his drawings to include photography, taxidermy, sculpture, animation, painting, and music. In addition, Shrigley presents a number of new works created especially for Hayward Gallery, all of which are characterised by their varied use of humour and his abiding impulse to ‘communicate as simply and directly as possible’.

Through May 13, 2012

Visit the exhibition website

Samsøn is pleased to announce the 1st solo exhibition by New York-based artist Summer Wheat.

Hi – Lo, on view from February 3rd to March 17th, is a comical, yet crucial comparison of upper and lower classes. This body of work encourages broader understanding of these extreme classes. Caricatures of aristocrats and peasants are “perfect deformities” of the timeless and incredibly real issues regarding class structure. The paintings suggest similarities between these seemingly different people. This sameness is apparent in Wheat’s smart, confident use of color. There is equilibrium between horror, vulgarity, bastardization and sophistication, eloquence and retainment.

Wheat explores a varied range of textures and patterns from observing southern antebellum quilts, transforming the grotesque into elegant passages of ornamentation and amplified color. The few verse the many conspiring to comment and corporatize all demeanors—high, low, and the mud in between. Rilke described the disinherited as “ones to whom neither the past nor the future belongs.” Wheat, a humorist and slight satirist, combines what humans find innately funny with the thrill and disturbing nature of horror to create a full-bodied commentary on class in our society. Disharmony, is there anywhere where there is none? These works are not divorced from the capacity of people to act.

samsonprojects.com

Accept no substitutes: Wolfgang Tillmans could well be the coolest photographer on the planet. Always imitated, never bettered, he’s the lens-meister of the zeitgeist, the photo-journo who went artside, a man in constant demand, moving effortlessly from magazine to fashion shoot to gallery retrospective. He creates identities, he’s the brand name of hip. From Ray Gun to i-D, his images feel iconic before they’re out of the fluid. I’ll be your mirror, he whispers, and the Gen X-kids find themselves reflected in his always open pictures.

From the portraits that made him famous, through the still lives and landscapes (undermining the genres with every shot), Tillmans’s work is high color, dirty realist heaven. Finding the still point in the information overload, the sexuality in the machine, and the image in the image saturation, Tillmans gives us the brief epiphanies we might just remember as our own.

TASCHEN’s 3 Wolfgang Tillmans books packaged together as a special set: Tillmans, Tillmans Burg, and Truth Study Centre.

Available here

Featuring:
Wai Lin Tse, Hibakusha Mon Amour, Piet Oudolf and Peter Veenstra, Hivernacle, Rosa Codina, Enrique Giner de los Ríos and Nacho Alegre, The Hajimeten Bunch, Daniel Riera, Macramé Plant Hangers, Ceci N’est Pas un Jardin: Mon Oncle Tati, Suzanna Zak, Chris Kabel, Herbs and Reverbs, Ángeles Peña, The Whole World is a Cactus, Elein Fleiss.

theplantjournal.info

As part of the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980 regional initiative, Backyard Oasis examines swimming pools in photographs from 1945 to 1982 as visual analogs of the ideals and expectations associated with Southern California.

Backyard Oasis will contain approximately 135 framed works of archival photography and significant exhibition prints along with selected ephemera and film clips presented through DVDs on flat-screen monitors.

Through May 27, 2012

psmuseum.org

Luhring Augustine is pleased to present First Pictures by Joel Sternfeld. This exhibition is comprised of four distinct bodies of work made between 1971 and 1980, the majority of which have never before been published or exhibited. In these bodies of work, Sternfeld develops conceptual and formal strategies that are fundamental to his practice over the past four decades. Such strategies include the building of narrative, elements of humor and irony, a politicized view of America, as well as a concern for community, social conditions, and the environment. In making this early work Sternfeld began to experiment with the Bauhaus-based idea of building a work of art out of two or three dominant hues of relatively equal density; this approach became the central chromatic organizing principle of American Prospects (1978-1986).

Through February 04, 2012

luhringaugustine.com

Featuring:
James Franco, Peter Saville,Barbara Kruger, Erwin Wurm,Miranda July, PFFR, William Hundley, ROLU, Julia and a Cartoon.

Text:
Bruce LaBruce, Adam Jackson,Sheila Heti, Cathérine Hug,Juliana Moore, Glenn O’Brien,Adam O’Reilly, and Patrick Parrish.

Images:
Ben Aqua, Bruce Thierry Cheung,Haw-lin Services, Jeff Henrikson,Elsa König, Samuel Nyholm,Amber Rowlands, RJ Shaughnessy, Chadwick Tyler, and Cameron Wittig.

baddaymagazine.com

Kaleidoscope is an international quarterly of contemporary art and culture. It offers a timely guide to the present (but also to the past and possible futures) with an interdisciplinary and unconventional approach. This Italian magazine has just been released in its 13th edition redesigned by OK-RM, London.

Highlights:
Robert Heinecken by Kavior Moon; Ming Wong by Hu Fang; Kuehn Malvezzi by Hila Peleg; New Jerseyy by Quinn Latimer; Patrick Staff by Catherine Wood.

Main theme:
How Does Fashion Look at Art?
Prada by Nicholas Cullinan and Francesco Vezzoli; Adam Kimmel by Angelo Flaccavento; Comme des Garçons by Maria Luisa Frisa; Proenza Schouler by Michele D’Aurizio.

kaleidoscope-press.com

The Most Beautiful Swiss Books competition was established to promote and reward top-quality book design in Switzerland. It was established at the behest of the famous typographer and designer Jan Tschichold in 1943. The competition is open to graphic designers, publishers and printers. An internationally staffed jury, currently chaired by Cornel Windlin, selects the most beautiful Swiss books each year.

The awarded books become part of an exhibition which travels to various cities around the world. When the books stop off in London this December, they will be the subject of discussion at ‘Thoughts on a Book’, an evening of talks at the St Bride Foundation.

Each speaker has chosen a book to present. They will hold a 10 minute presentation about their experience of reading that particular book. We will finish the event with a Q&A chaired by David Crowley.

Exhibition talk: 7pm
December 14, 2011

St Bride Library
Bride Lane, Fleet Street
London EC4Y 8EE

thoughtsonabook.com