Art

Japanese artist En Iwamura has worked with The-Art-Form on a new limited edition print. As the first two-dimensional work that he's has created, Knots features one of Iwamura's signature totemic busts intricately laid on paper with gold foil emboss and a clear foil deboss. The philosophy of Ma, which emphasizes emptiness and the space between places, people and objects, serves as the foundation to Iwamura's minimalist practice. Over the past decade, the Kyoto-born, Montana-based artist has created playful sculptures of heads, drawing from Japanese folklore and tradition, such as zen gardens and ceramics, to create contemplative settings that inspire introspection. "I hope to make a sculpture the same scale as Knots one day," Iwamura said in a statement. "An unfamiliar object that suddenl...

For his third exhibition at Everyday Mooonday Gallery, moonassi takes a step into the unknown. The array of large-scale works is characterized by a return to ambiguous expressions and atmospheric landscapes. As the artist builds a cross-hatched cosmos, the simplicity of 찰랑 (Smooth) Our mind rippled and sparkled makes room for introspection.The exhibition tells the story of two characters who must search for balance amidst the tensions growing between them. The contrasting strokes of black ink on white hanji paper portray the distance of the figures’ inner worlds in spite of their physical intimacy.The title borrows from the phrase “찰랑 찰랑 (challangchallang)”, often used to describe the smooth surface of rippling water. Vast lakes add to the surreal scenery and internal worlds echo in gentle...

New York-based creative Neal Santos is paying tribute to the big city he calls home, releasing a new photography book honoring New York City's cultural history. Titled La Ultimate Bodega En Soho, the book takes a closer look at the lost communities of NYC, capturing moments lost in time. La Ultimate Bodega En Soho sees Santos photograph the diverse immigrant communities that have embraced him since childhood, from young kids strolling to bodegas to local workmen and streetside coffee drinkers. "We are all photographers as we live with phones in hand, what seems like every moment. I am no different. Nokia, blackberry, and numerous iPhones were used to capture these photos. That they survived till now amazes me, I don't collect sh*t, not even Jpgs. They were taken in the moment, which was as...

The creatures of L'or mord l'os (gold bites bone) stand on the border between beautiful and grotesque. Staged at cadet capela in Paris, the duet exhibition spotlights the works of Christian Rex van Minnen and Ken Sortais, bound by their interests in the unsightly. Through their respective practices, the artists reintroduce classical techniques into the arc of contemporary art in a magnetic display of (in)human bodies.Inspired by techniques of the Dutch Golden Age, van Minnen’s paintings render its characters with “disturbingly plastic precision." Through glossy sheens and swollen bulbs of flesh, the American artist pushes past boundaries of bodily transformation. The photographic clarity of his work embraces the uncanny, provoking full-body shivers.Meanwhile, Sortais marries flesh with the...

André Heller's 36-year dream is set to come true as Luna Luna begins its multi-city tour. This November, New Yorkers will get the chance to witness a ferris wheel designed by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a carousel by Keith Haring and more. What could have easily been the basis of a Netflix documentary, Heller, an artist himself, had the grand vision to bring together the creative masters of his time in what transpired as the first and only Luna Luna art carnival back Hamburg in the summer of 1987. Due to various legal and financial hurdles, the project folded in on itself and the artworks created were stored in a shed thousands of miles away, until Drake emerged as an unlikely patron to resurrect the the carnival for a new generation. Housed at The Shed in Manhattan and opening on November 20, ...

Marcel Duchamp once likened chess players to artists. David Hockney famously echoed the French artist's sentiment, equating drawing as running parallel to the act of playing chess, saying that "your mind races ahead of the moves that you eventually make.” Today, the 1,500-year-old board game has shown a rise in popularity in previously unseen corners of culture, from celebrity players to downtown club nights.World Chess and FIDE has published a new book chronicling the relationship between chess and culture over the past 130 years. Entitled Chess Players: From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan, the coffee table books presents a rare assortment of tidbits on chess maestros, such as Marlon Brando versus James Dean, Beatles superstar John Lennon to savants of the game as they ascended up the ra...

Last Thursday, Blade Study Gallery lifted the veil on a new solo exhibition by interdisciplinary sculptor Brian Oakes. SEED follows a commodity’s journey through the supply chain. Traveling through terrains of conception to display, the show envisions its viewers as agents of productions. In a braid of organic and mechanical materials, the artist explores new rhythms of life in an era of individualism.The exhibition disrupts traditional ideas of labor with consumerist tendencies. For example, “Display Case 2 (A Garden)” presents a collection of homemade rubies beside copper-sulfate seeds. Naturally occurring and handcrafted, this alchemical display challenges the concept of inherent value as the stones’ rich red and blues sparkle back at the audience. Other standout works, such as “ASRS 1”...

Los Angeles's Good Mother Gallery has worked with rising artist Sean Hamilton on a new limited edition print entitled Tire with Chains. Born in Idaho and now based in Seattle, Hamilton's practice revolves around the nuances of rural Midwestern life, drawing on his experience in advertising to cull disparate visual pairings to force an immediacy on topics that range various socio-political topics. Many of Hamilton's graphic compositions feature a subject on negative space, followed by a divide that signals a difference in worldviews — from racecar drivers fighting on the track to a white flag ushering in surrender. “Absurd as it is, I think there’s something to be learned by bringing these raw themes to contemporary art,” Hamilton previously said in an interview. “Over these few years thoug...

Who gets to write history? Adeshola Makinde often ponders on this question each time he enters his studio. Raised within Chicago's Northside, the Nigerian-American artist recalls gaps within his education pertaining Black history, so he sought to retrace the dots in his multi-media practice, splicing together fragments from politics, sports and entertainment, to form new dialogues on his personal journey towards Black consciousness. Makinde is showcasing a new solo exhibition that continues on this thread at Anthony Gallery. I SHOOK UP THE WORLD takes its title from a post-match interview, in which a triumphant Muhammad Ali utters his dominance after knocking out Sonny Liston. Makinde reframes Black excellence through a series of new collage compositions, piecing together snippets from Ebo...

KAWS and Andy Warhol are separated by generations, but a new exhibition draws parallels to the impact each artist had on the world of fine art and pop culture. On view at The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, the show surveys what the institution calls "dark themes" that run concurrent throughout each artist's respective practices, from skulls to car crashes, as well as a series of new paintings, sculptures and installations KAWS created in response to Warhol's embrace of commercialization.For those unable to attend, Phaidon will publish a book that chronicles the experience, featuring a foreword by Patrick Moore, an interview by Laurie Simmons and essays by Thomas Crow and Marianne Dobner. From poppy silkscreen portraits, cross-bone Mickey Mouse-inspired characters to subverting common ic...

For Titus Kaphar, painting is a language. In his upcoming exhibition at Gagosian, the artist reflects on his past to forge a path to forgiveness, taking the shape of a series of portraits and large-scale neighborhood scenes. Alongside the debut of his first narrative feature, the show advances Kaphar’s compositional approaches toward a home of family, memory, and community.Exhibiting Forgiveness captures life in working-class America. Kaphar channels grief and nostalgia at once, in a display of sunset-lit houses and figures excised by knife-cuts. In pieces like “For your prayer closet”, the artist conjures bittersweet beauty; layering gold leaf and tar, the piece makes space for both “divine transcendence” and feeling trapped.Other paintings call on Kaphar’s previous work with familiar tec...