Eliana Willis

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    in Exhibitions

    Artist H. R. Giger Felt He Never Got the Credit He Deserved for His Role in the ‘Alien’ Franchise. A New Show Gives Him His Due

    “You still don’t understand what you’re dealing with, do you?”
    That’s the famous question posed by Ash (Ian Holm) in one of the many tense scenes of Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. Ash goes on: “Perfect organism. Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility… Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.”
    Holms’s character is describing the dark creature at the center of Scott’s masterpiece, an extraterrestrial dubbed the xenomorph. This unforgettably terrifying alien set a new bar for cinematic angst about deep space and existential dream—one that, some argue, has not been matched in the more than 40 years since the film’s release.
    The otherworldly creation has an origin story that stems back to a niche in the late 1970s art world. It was dreamed up by a then relatively little-known surrealist artist from Switzerland, H. R. Giger, who created what became the on-film xenomorph years earlier, in a 1976 painting titled Necronom IV.
    The detailed work, plus many others that comprehensively chart his practice, is on view in “H. R. Giger and Mire Lee,” an unlikely show at Schinkel Pavillon in Berlin (until January 16, 2022).
    H. R. Giger’s Necronom IV (1976). Photo: Frank Sperling.
    The exhibition, organized by Agnes Gryczkowska, has been so well attended that the institution decided to extend it until January 16. It pairs the cult favorite artist alongside Mire Lee, who was shortlisted for the Pinchuk Foundation’s Future Generation Art Prize this December.
    Lee’s hypersexual, oozing bio-mechanical sculptures draw out the erotic themes in Giger’s gender-bending works and illustrations, and allow for a new, Feminist reading of his early prototypes. The octagonally shaped venue and its early 20th-century decadence gives a lively juxtaposition to these two artists’s harsh but sleek futuristic visions.
    Giger fought for recognition in both the film and art worlds while fitting neatly into neither. Despite having been the inception for Alien‘s antagonist (he designed the creature through all its phases, from egg to super-predator) and the spacecraft and environmental settings of the film, he felt shunned by Hollywood.
    “Fox started to dread me,” Giger wrote in a notebook on view in the show, referring to the production studio. “Fox does not want to give me any credit at all.”
    His legacy also still has room for growth in the art world. In an era of mass production and AI- and VR-generated images, Giger’s meticulously craftsmanlike works, which were time-intensive and material-oriented, are the dark shot to the heart that we need.
    See images from the exhibition below.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
    H. R. Giger and Mire Lee at Schinkel Pavillon. Photo: Frank Sperling.
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    in Street Art

    Coverage: “Higher Than The Sun” Group Exhibition at Volery Gallery, Dubai, UAE

    Last December 15th, Volery Gallery, Dubai and Stems Gallery, Brussels opened Higher Than the Sun, group exhibition. The exhibition presents a selection of contemporary artists with a prosperous history with the Stems Gallery.The lineup features the works of artists that are not well known to the art audience in the Middle East. Including Julien Boudet; Marcela Florido; Hiroya Kurata; Léo Luccioni; Tristram Lansdowne; Liz Markus; Clément Poplineau; Samantha Rosenwald and Tony Toscani. The collaboration realises Volery’s aims for a more comprehensive presentation of contemporary happenings in the international art scene.Inspired by the song Higher Than the Sun by Primal Scream. The exhibited artworks capture moments of solemn peace whether it is in the stillness of time over the hill with two figures dancing under blue skies; the ecstasy of a warm meal fulfilling our cravings; a caveman returning with his victories; or it is the contentment of a lavish green background, water running and childhood memories playing. The exhibition drifts in inner peace, free of time; it is a reminder to stop and appreciate the moment, live in today and leave tomorrow’s worries for when they come.The exhibition will run until January 11, 2022 at Volery Gallery, DIFC, Dubai, UAE. Gallery hours: 1:00 PM – 7:00 PM.Schedule your visit here.Scroll down below for more photos of the exhibition and its opening night! More

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    in Exhibitions

    See the Cat Art of Louis Wain, the Outsider Artist Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, at the Psychiatric Hospital Where He Lived

    A forthcoming film starring Benedict Cumberbatch, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, is reviving the reputation of a popular illustrator known for depictions of cats that captivated Victorian England—and the psychiatric hospital in southeast England where he spent his later days has mounted an exhibition of his work to coincide with the film’s release.
    The eccentric artist’s feline fascinations are on view in “Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain” at Bethlem Museum of the Mind, which is housed within Bethlem Royal Hospital, the world’s oldest psychiatric hospital, in southeast England. The institution was a pioneer in recognizing the potential of animal therapy for its patients’ well-being.
    Wain’s drawings were immensely popular a century ago, appearing in newspapers and children’s books as well as on greeting cards. When his mental health declined in old age, he was admitted to Springfield Hospital; so loyal was his following that when the public learned about his situation, he was moved to the “more salubrious” surroundings of Bethlem (as the hospital describes them), where he continued to draw and paint. The exhibition draws works from the museum’s holdings, as well as loans from a private collector.
    “Animals have always been known for their affinity to man,” said Kate McCormack, the hospital’s senior dramatherapist, in the press release (which, uncharacteristic of announcements of museum shows, pronounces it “a gleeful new exhibition”). “At the Bethlem Royal Hospital, the Pets as Therapy program has helped forge relationships between service-users and dogs, notably a Siberian husky named Tess. From offering unconditional affection to aiding in confronting fears and phobias, pets can be a big part of a person’s recovery and journey to improved mental health. Animals can offer a very pure and unconditional relationship without demands or expectations.”

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    The film treatment of the artist’s life, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, directed by Will Sharpe, co-starring Claire Foy as Wain’s wife, Emily Richardson, and with voiceover by Olivia Colman, opens on New Year’s Day. The New York Times dubs the film “the cat’s meow,” describing Cumberbatch as “irresistible” and the script as “garrulous [and] lightly funny,” concluding that the film draws “a deeply human self-portrait.”
    See Wain’s work and a film still here.
    Louis Wain, Cats’ Christmas (ca. 1935). Courtesy Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
    Louis Wain, Carol Singing Cats (ca. 1930). Courtesy Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
    Louis Wain, I Am Happy Because Everybody Loves Me (ca. 1928). Courtesy Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
    Louis Wain, Sweetness Coyed Love Into its Smile (ca. 1935). Courtesy Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
    Louis Wain, Kaleidoscope Cats VI (undated). Courtesy Bethlem Museum of the Mind.
    Still from The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. Courtesy Studio Canal.
    “Animal Therapy: The Cats of Louis Wain” is on view at Bethlem Museum of the Mind through April 13, 2022.
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    in Street Art

    Artist Retrospective: Phlegm

    Phlegm is a British muralist and artist who draws his environment into the narrative. He first developed his illustrations in self-published comics, and he still creates books of ink drawings.One can say that the only difference between his comics and his murals is the working space; the size and surface where he places his artwork. His art style is highly unique and recognizable making him the most adored street artist. The artist’s work is striking and it will not leave anyone ambiguous. His works are mostly featured in the urban landscape, and run-down spaces. His surreal illustrations tell a story untold, as his imaginative creatures explore the visual narrative.Mural in Isle of Wight, United Kingdom, 2018Besides his outstanding mural artwork on buildings, old factories, urban spaces and art festivals he has painted on various objects like airplanes, boats, and vehicles. What makes him so unique is the way he sees street art. He believes his murals become part of the cities’ architecture being influenced by the surrounding, which is a wonderful way on how to see art.“Time To Scream And Shout” in Reykjavik, Iceland, 2016“Time To Scream And Shout” – Phlegm painted a myriad of his iconic characters undertaking various actions using a bunch of different objects. As usual with Phlegm, his world is populated with fantasy-like stories and artifacts.Mural in Toronto, Canada, 2016Elegant and complex in shape of a human form, the mural is a metaphor for the living, breathing nature of the city and emergence of soon-to-be-revived Yonge and St. Clair. Set to undergo an explosion of rapid change, the transformed area will see unified public realm improvements, architectural facelifts of the intersection’s buildings, new retail and engaging public signage. Inspired by the communities that make up the neighbourhood, the design was informed by a series of community consultations.Mural in Cozumel, Mexico for SeaWalls 2015Mural in Cardiff, Wales for Empty Walls Festival 2014Mural in Melbourne, Australia, 2017This mural was commissioned by the Chapel Street Precinct Association as part of the PROVOCARÉ Festival Of The Arts. John Lotton from CSPA spent two and half years planning this project, choosing the right artist, and locating the right wall for a large mural with a vision to become a landmark piece of public art for the area and add to the social fabric of the precinct.Mural in Manchester, United Kingdom for Cities of Hope Festival 2016“The Forest” Project in Epping Forest, United Kingdom, 2015Mural in Ostend, Belgium for The Crystal Ship Festival 2017“Giant Moa” in Dunedin, New Zealand, 2016Mural in San Diego, California for PangeaSeed 2014With the focus of their activity being raising public awareness and education about the conservation and preservation of sharks and other marine species, Sheffield born artist created a mural that covers the subject. In his signature, illustrative style, using minimalist black and white palette, he created this mechanic shark with his iconic characters powering the weird creation. The image can be seen as a warning of what could our future look like if we don’t stop the shark fin market and start taking better care about marine life in general.Mural in Moss, Norway, 2014For more updates on the British muralist, check out our #Phlegm page! More

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    in Street Art

    “It Takes A Flower” by Etsom in Ascoli Piceno, Italy

    Italian artist Etsom recently worked on a new mural entitled “It Takes A Flower” as part of the “Arte Pubblica” project of the Associazione Culturale Defloyd event from 27 September to 1 October in Ascoli Piceno.In addition to being an art form, urban art can be used as a powerful means to convey a message. Starting from this assumption, the ANFFAS Onlus Association of Ascoli Piceno, as part of the “It takes a flower” project, created in collaboration with the Carisap Foundation, has decided to create a mural on the theme of nature.The mural is located at the entrance walls of the former Sanatorium, in Via delle Zeppelle, 84 in Ascoli Piceno, Marche, Italy.The composition on the left, within which the muzzle of a dog is depicted, not only refers to the knowledge of nature interacting together with animals, but also represents the creativity and imagination that, if stimulated, will allow you to look at things from a different perspective.On the right side, the mural shows a sprout that is born between the hands that symbolizes the birth of something new – where the seed of inclusion and participation has been planted.Check out below for more photos of Etsom’s “It Takes A Flower”. More

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: How French Rococo Design Shaped Some of Disney’s Most Beloved Films, From ‘Cinderella’ to ‘Sleeping Beauty’

    In the 1991 animated film Beauty and the Beast, a young woman, Belle, dances and sings inside a magical castle where inanimate objects come to life. The cast of characters includes a French-accented candelabra and a flirtatious feather duster; a matronly teapot and her son, a teacup; a pendulum clock; and a loud-mouthed wardrobe.
    These may seem like figments of animators’ imaginations, but in fact their genesis comes directly from the French Rococo, the decorative and indulgent 18th-century style that sought to bring levity and liveliness to the dark seriousness of the Baroque.
    The parallel desires of 18th-century Rococo artisans and 20th-century Disney animators—to inspire, delight, and awe their audiences—are the crux of the exhibition “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts,” on view now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
    In all, dozens of Rococo art objects from the Met’s own treasure trove are on view alongside 150 original artworks from the Disney Studio from three animated films: Cinderella (1950), Sleeping Beauty (1959), and Beauty and the Beast (1991).
    Although the term “Disneyfication” tends to be used negatively, Max Hollein, the museum’s director, writes that Walt Disney exerted an influence like few others.
    “It is hard to think of any other American who has had as far-reaching and long-lasting an impact on the visual arts,” he writes.
    Below, see images from the exhibition.
    Eyvind Earle, Sleeping Beauty (1959). Walt Disney Animation Research Library. © Disney.
    Anonymous, Portrait of Magdalena Gonzales (1580). Schloss Ambras, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna © KHM-Museumsverband.
    Mary Blair, Cinderella (1950). Walt Disney Animation Research Library © Disney.
    Meissen Manufactory, Johann Joachim Kändler, Faustina Bordoni and Fox (ca. 1743). Courtesy of the Met.
    Frank Armitage, Le Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant, Disneyland Paris, (1988). Walt Disney Imagineering Collection© Disney
    Walt Disney Studios, The Vultures (ca. 1937). Courtesy of the Met.
    Installation view, “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Photo: Paul Lachenauer, Courtesy of The Met. © Disney
    Installation view, “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Photo: Paul Lachenauer, Courtesy of The Met. © Disney
    Installation view, “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Photo: Paul Lachenauer, Courtesy of The Met. © Disney
    Installation view, “Inspiring Walt Disney: The Animation of French Decorative Arts at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.” Photo: Paul Lachenauer, Courtesy of The Met. © Disney
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    in Exhibitions

    Crowds Swarming a New Show at Galerie König Suggest NFTs Are Infiltrating the Art World Faster Than Ever

    The line snaked down the block when I strolled up to Galerie König on Tuesday night to see Refik Anadol’s new show at the gallery, which is causing a small sensation among a cross-section of the public that does not normally show up at art exhibitions. In the queue was a pair from the finance industry who were trying to get in for the third time. Up ahead, some Albanian tourists from the tech industry were also waiting, having heard about it online. In front of them, one girl said she was too stoned to talk.
    At least she had something to trip on while waiting between one and three hours to get in: projected onto König’s brutalist bell tower was an NFT by Anadol called Winds of Berlin, a giant, data-driven projection that warped constantly into vibrant cascades of color informed by real-time data collected from the city’s landscape and environment.
    Refik Anadol Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams at Galerie König, Berlin. Photo: Roman Maerz.
    Inside was another massive NFT work occupying an entire wall of the main upstairs gallery, the work’s light washing over the space. People lay around, basking in its glow. The 20-minute algorithmic data visualizations writhed inside what looked like a white box extending from the wall.
    Downstairs, a series of abstract digital paintings shifted through strangely bright colors that were indiscernibly culled from images of perennials, forests, and flowers. They pulsated on high-definition screens as crowds of people milled around. The other half of that floor, where traditional artworks are on view, was quietly cordoned off by a velvet rope.
    Christian Marclay debuted The Clock, an ambitious 24-hour film project that spliced thousands chronicling every single minute in a day, at White Cube’s London gallery in 2010. It had lines down the street too. David Zwirner’s show of Yayoi Kusama, “Every Day I Pray for Love,” clocked around 2,000 visitors a day in New York when it was on view. So maybe it shouldn’t be surprising that Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams, which similarly warps time and space, has caused a bit of a scene on an otherwise quiet residential street, especially given that it’s coupled with buzzy crypto keywords. 
    Refik Anadol, Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams at Galerie König, Berlin. Photo: Roman Maerz.
    König seemed pleasantly stunned at the crowds, though he was also focused on his gallery’s and Anadol’s current auction through OpenSea, which ends this week. So far, the price of Anadol’s piece is at nearly 5 ETH (about $19,000)—a far cry from the $800,000 transaction König organized for a similar work by the artist at Art Basel Miami Beach this month.
    “Maybe we should have sold the work as a DAO so that more members of the public could collect the piece,” he ruminated. “We knew this would be risky.”
    DAO (decentralized autonomous organizations) are leaderless bands of internet users who are known to make collective decisions on the blockchain. That’s a whole other story, but the art industry began taking them seriously when one called ConstitutionDAO nearly nabbed the winning bid for a first edition of the US constitution at Sotheby’s this fall. Ironically, the crypto-buying conglomerate was scandalously beat by Kenneth Griffin, a hedge-fund billionaire who has been the subject of Reddit and retail investor rage since the whole GameStop saga earlier this year.
    The Anadol work shown in the U.S. went to a Miami collector in the usual way of an art deal, with handshakes and fiat money, not on a peer-to-peer NFT sales platform. Bridging these two worlds has been complicated for art dealers thus far, especially in Europe where know-your-customer laws, which are intended to minimize money laundering, are in place. 
    König’s own web platform, MISA, which will sell NFT editions via proof-of-stake (a consensus mechanism on blockchain), is figuring out those last kinks, but it can’t carry a titanic art piece like Machine Hallucinations, which is minted via proof-of-work, a method that takes a large amount of computational power. The difference? To use the metaphor of trad artworks, think of it like this: “Proof-of-work you would put into a climate-controlled crate and deliver by hand, the other, you ship with Fedex,” said the dealer.
    The two NFT sales Anadol made through König this month were not his first. He had his own direct NFT sale through Sotheby’s Hong Kong this fall, where he set a record by selling an immersive NFT for 18,325,000 HKD ($2.4 million). He also recently collaborated with MoMA in New York on another project. The Istanbul-born artist, who is based in Los Angeles, has also been working on his “Data” paintings for nearly a decade.
    Refik Anadol Machine Hallucinations: Nature Dreams at Galerie König, Berlin.
    Digital artists, of course, bring their own sets of rules, and their language is just as jargon-y as the artspeak of old. The rapid emergence of DAOs, NFTs, and the crypto art scene have been predictably confusing to traditional art-world gatekeepers—a cohort that König, who launched an NFT auction in Decentraland in March before setting up his own NFT marketplace this fall—seems keen to distance himself from. Nor is he the only Berlin dealer moving into the space: Galerie Nagel Draxler is opening a second space that will be called Crypto Cabinet next year, selling and showing all things crypto- and blockchain-related.
    The emergence of not one, but two, Berlin galleries keen on crypto is not surprising, given that the city is a new tech capital, soon to have its own Tesla factory on the outskirts of town and already filled with tech coworking spaces on seemingly every corner. Dealers have complained that it’s been hard to attract tech collectors who like money but tend not to cherish culture in the ways people expect. NFTs were the missing ingredient: Unlike a painting, “they are super liquid, so it’s easy to go into a market if you can exit again,” König said.
    The more I think about it, the more tired I become of the rapid dismissal of this nouveau riche who want to spend their wealth buying and trading art. And had König created a DAO, those collectors, and anyone else with some crypto, could have participated not just by visiting the show, but also by potentially owning a piece of it. While the aesthetic language may not please everyone, every art era has its conceptual artists, its sell-outs, and its blockbusters. König said some have compared Anadol to Monet, which even he finds a bit “heavy-handed” (I do too), but the Impressionists were also outsiders to the 19th-century art canon at first.
    Something really is happening, and it’s not only speculative market fluff either. Just take a look at the scores of people shivering outside König’s gallery. This is art that seems to matter in a more public way, and we should celebrate that.
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    in Exhibitions

    A New Survey of Contemporary Midwestern Artists Doesn’t Try to Pinpoint What Makes the Region Special—But It Does So All the Same

    The Midwest, like all geographic regions, is both a place and an idea. The phrase might conjure a set of symbols as much as it does a description of physical boundaries: a casserole, a cornfield, a chicken coop. 
    In organizing “The Regional,” the first multi-museum survey of contemporary Midwestern artists now on view through March 20, 2022, at the Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) in Cincinnati, curators Amara Antilla and Jade Powers avoided all these and any other preconceived notions about the region or its artists. “We made a point not to go into this with a curatorial thesis or an overarching idea or set of themes in mind,” said Antilla, a senior curator at the CAC. 
    Instead, they decided, the shape of the show would rest entirely in the hands of its 23 artists, including Matthew Angelo Harrison, Devan Shimoyama, and Nikki Woods, among others. (Altogether, 14 different cities and 10 states are represented.)
    Hellen Ascoli, Touch Over Fear (2020). Courtesy of the artist and Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala City.
    Early on in the process, the artists, along with the curators, all got together over Zoom for a group discussion. “It was an opportunity to talk about your practice, to think through how your work is related to someone else’s work who might be several states over,” said Powers, assistant curator at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City, where the exhibition will travel in June of next year. She called the conversations “potent and generative.”
    Sure enough, it was there that the identity of “The Regional” really took hold, as the artists, who were initially bound together only by location, identified myriad common concerns. 
    Margo Wolowiec, Breaking News (2018). Courtesy of the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco.
    Land use, geographical borders, and the environment are major interests among the group, particularly for artists like Detroit’s Margo Wolowiec, who here turns both original and found photographs of contaminated waters into woven collages both dense and fragile; and Hellen Ascoli, a Guatemalan artist previously based in Madison, Wis., whose own patchwork textiles refer to the immigration crisis. 
    Ascoli’s efforts speak to another key theme as well: the immigrant experience. It’s overt in the work of Minnesota-based photographer Pao Houa Her, for instance, whose series Coming Off the Metal Bird (2006–09) comprises pictures of her Hmong community adjusting to life in America. “Instead of a narrative, [the project] was more about my own opinions and answering questions about life in America and what America is,” the artist explains in the exhibition’s digital catalogue.
    Meanwhile, for his part, the ceramist Jonathan Christensen Caballero, based in Lawrence, Kan., offers up an allegorical sculpture. Spanning more than 13 feet, it depicts two relatives on either side of a river sailing small boats toward one another, as if communicating across borders of both time and place.
    Pao Houa Her, Aunty Mai’s 3 daughters (2006–09). Courtesy of the artist and Bockley Gallery, Minneapolis.
    Antilla and Powers may have approached “The Regional” without a thematic conceit, but they weren’t without goals. In their joint essay for the catalogue, their aims were framed in the form of questions: “How might we support a regional conversation and prop up local artists?” they wrote. “How might we foster conversations between our cities and the many other vibrant hubs throughout the Midwest? What are the values of living and working outside of conventional ‘art hubs,’ financial and otherwise?” 
    In each case, the answers came back to a sense of community—something in which artists throughout the Midwest are particularly invested, the curators explained.
    “It was exciting to hear how interested these artists were in making those connections and getting to know other artists throughout the region,” said Antilla. 
    “Even though they are not on either coast, there is still a strong sense of community and artistic conversation,” Powers added. “There’s a real vibrancy in the Midwest art scene that maybe isn’t always recognized.”
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