Contemporary art news

Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody’s Fool is the first major New York exhibition of the Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara (born 1959), and features more than one hundred works ranging from his early career in the 1980s to his most recent paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics, and large-scale installations. There is a lot going on in this massive exhibit, so here we help you break it all down.

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If you won’t be in the Big Apple this Sunday, September 12, then you’re in luck because we have a huge preview of Ron English’s upcoming pop-up exhibit, Status Factory opening that same day. Looking through these works is like thumbing through a catalog of candy coated social ills, which is just the artist’s intention.

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We have just finished our third photo fanzine and have uploaded it to our Issuu account. Following on from our first two photozines both covering Berlin, this newest upload features images from our trip to Reykjavik in Iceland at the end of 2009.

In case you missed the Berlin photo fanzines you can view issue 01 here and issue two here.There is a full screen option if you want to view the images full size, just click the image above.

A couple big things happen in our September 2010 issue. Retna nabbed the newsstand cover as MOCA Director Jeffrey Deitch introduces his interview (calling Retna’s work “some of the freshest work I had seen all year”) and Editor in Chief M. Revelli goes on to interview him and discovers where the artist is now in his great ‘sprint.’

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This Thursday 9 September will see the opening of Matt Small’s latest exhibition ‘That I May See’ at The Black Rat Gallery. The title of the show refers to the motto of the Robert Shitima School in Zambia.

Back in March of this year Matt Small travelled to Lusaka along with NY artist Swoon and Black Rat where they spent a week giving art workshops to young people from the Robert Shitima School. Matt's new body of work is based on his experience there. The show consists of portraits of the children from the school and 40% of the proceeds from the sale of works will be sent back to support the great work being done at the school.

The Robert Shitima school is a school for street children and aids orphans which feeds, clothes, educates and provides a place to live for 250 children. ‘That I May See’ will runs for three weeks  at the gallery.

Black Rat Press Gallery | 83 Rivington Street | London | EC2A 3AY

Miss Mindy is one half of a duo dubbed The Art Sisters, the other being her sister (duh), CJ Metzger. A full-loving pair, we sit down Mindy for some Back Talk (and learn about her backyard 'mushroom house') in anticipation of their long-awaited new show, Pie in the Sky.

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Expect more than Mickey and SpongeBob at this year’s 84th annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. Organizers have invited Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai and Kiki characters along for the ride.

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Japanese photographer Li Wei takes typical scenes, from cityscapes to landscapes to basketball courts, and adds a touch of the impossible. Like flying through the air.

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panoptICONS Utrecht 2010 from Helden on Vimeo.

"panoptICONS addresses the fact that we are constantly being watched by surveillance cameras in city centres. The surveillance camera seems to have become a real pest that feeds on our privacy. To represent this, camera birds - city birds with cameras instead of heads - were placed throughout the city centre of Utrecht where they feed on the presence of people. In addition, a camera bird in captivity was displayed to show the feeding process and to make the everyday breach of our privacy more personal and tangible."

Artist Statement:

Logo Touris mixes iconic landmarks and commercial logos. It features logos from the hundred most valuable brands.

The spectacle of advertising and popular culture creates secondary realities which we can share with others. Common literacy creates common identity. Rules of communication are determined by commercial media.

Iconic landmarks are symbols of local identity. How does this conflict with commercial brands appearing cloned around the globe? Post-Fordistic theory of all things starting to remind one another unpersonally and unhistorically, doesn't strictly speaking apply to monumental architecture, which symbolizes values that are not generally considered as merchandise. For tourists these are nevertheless consumable commodities, available to outsiders as well. Stereotypes of cities, such as Paris, can be transferred and consumed everywhere. Identity is comprised of consuming. Resembling worm hole theory, consumption spectacle creates portals between collateral realities.