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Wednesday, November 14, 2012

CHAN-HYO BAE: Punishment Project

Since graduating from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2007, Chan-Hyo Bae (born 1975, Busan, South Korea) has expressed in his work the feelings of cultural and emotional estrangement he experienced when his first came to study in England. His 'Existing in Costume' series saw him posing in a variety of female historical western costumes. Researched in meticulous detail, he created elaborate scenes of himself as a noblewoman from Elizabethan to Regency periods.

The main project of Punishment Project is 'power' and 'will to power'. At the outset, it was 'punishment' that I focused on in the process of approaching these topics. However, my interest reached the matter of power, in that punishment is ultimately related to exercising power.

In other words, I intend to express that desire for power in the human nature can be shown as a strong prejudice against the difference from other culture. Furthermore, through this work, I want to explore the process that I can deliberate on my existence.

This will be progressed in three steps. Firstly, I choose some power holders in English history. Secondly, as the background of my works, I highlight how these historical power holders made the political conflicts with their rivals and how they prosecuted punishments in order to show their political power and authority. Finally, I describe the opposite emotions between the political power holder and his or her rivals, and maximizing reflecting my point of view in this conflict background. By doing this, I intend to visualize my feeling and sense of isolation and prejudice in the process expressing five political power holders in English history.
~~~ Chan-Hyo Bae

Chan-Hyo Bae lives and works in London, UK.

Chan-Hyo Bae

Punishment Project

Anne Boleyn, 2012

Charles I, 2012

Guy Fawkes, 2012

Henry VIII, 2012

Mary Stuart, 2012

Robert Devereux, 2012

Thomas Cranmer, 2012
© Chan-Hyo Bae

From the series Existing in Costume
Sleeping Beauty, 2009

Courtesy of the artist

Punishment Project was on exhibit at Trunk Gallery, Korea

October 25th, 2012

Upcoming solo exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London

February 26th, 2013

This post is also featured on the Huffington Post

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

REED + RADER; 'Cretaceous Returns', a land before time...

Cretaceous Returns is a peek into the prehistoric underbelly of dino-daddies Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader, the digital art pioneers best known for their spellbinding fashion stories. The wonders of modern digital technology have made possible the chance to enter prehistoric environments to adventure with dinosaurs.

Reed + Rader are launching Cretaceous Returns, their first UK solo show at 18 Hewett Street, London on November 8th, 2012. The Brooklyn-based duo is now set to transform the gallery's clean white space into a land before time. Paper glass foliage with hidden, small colorful dinosaurs amongst the green will line the walls, with large scale projections setting the scene for Reed + Rader's free standing dinosaur.

" We want you to take an adventure back to the dinosaur times and enter a tropical jungle filled with tall grass and foliage - GIF animations showing different characters, a video of colorful dinosaurs dancing to dubstep, a side-scrolling video game-like adventure to explore and meet new friends...."
~~Pamela Reed + Matthew Rader

Reed + Rader

Cretaceous Returns

Courtesy of Pamela Reed + Matthew Rader

Cretaceous Returns

18 Hewett Street, London

November 8th, 2012 to November 20th, 2012

This post is also featured on the Huffington Post

Saturday, October 27, 2012

NOSTALGIA: The color photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (born in 1863 in Murom) was a pioneer of photography in Russia and a pioneer of color photography. Very little has been written about his life history. Like so many of the artists and architects of pre-revolutionary Russia, he has been forgotten, leaving a blank space in the history of photography that remains to this day.

Prokudin-Gorskii was given the task of capturing the old Russia in images, on behalf of the czar Nicolas II in 1909. This made him a witness to change. With his color photographs, he created extensive documentation, a remembrance of a space and a time that were about to vanish forever.

The period during which Prokudin-Gorskii worked - the late nineteenth century and the first two decades of the twentieth century - was a period of social, political, and technological upheavals. Some of these changes were slow to establish themselves, and their future consequences could therefore barely be guesses at; others, however, could not be ignored. The old Russia of Tolstoi and Chekhov was gradually passing away.

Nostalgia is currently on exhibit at Gestalten, Berlin.

NOSTALGIA
The Russian Empire of Czar Nicholas II

S.M. Prokudin-Gorskii

Peasant girls, 1909

Emir of Bukhara, 1911

At harvest time, 1909

Pinkhus Karlinskii, 1909

Group of workers harvesting tea, year between 1905-1915

Settler's family in the Settlement of Grafovka in Mugan Steppe, year bet. 1905-1915

Dinner during haying, year 1909

At the Saliuktin mines on the outskirts of Samarkand, year bet. 1905-1915

Courtesy of Gestalten, Berlin

Nostalgia; The color photographs of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii

October 19 - November 25, 2012

Monday, October 15, 2012

The Whimsical World of Tim Walker

I am thrilled to write a post on Tim Walker's major new exhibition Story Teller, one of the most visually exciting and influential fashion photographers working today.

With an imagination that knows no bounds, Tim Walker turns fashion shoots into fairytales or, in his own words, 'daydreams into photographs'. He constructs flamboyant worlds that unfold, page after page, like a series of stills from unrealized films. The photo shoot begins to resemble the film set: hair and make-up artists, fashion stylists and costume fitters, model makers, set designers, builders, producers and painters, prop suppliers and a cast of models playing out imagined roles. At the centre is Walker harnessing creative and technical talents to conjure up the harmonious whole in a singular picture.

Tim Walker: Story Teller is on view at Somerset House, London. To coincide with this highly anticipated exhibition, Thames & Hudson will publish Story Teller. The book features over 175 inspirational images, collages and snapshots from Walker's personal archives, many on display in this exciting exhibition.

"Sometimes when you're taking a picture an extraordinary sense of luck and chance takes over and propels you to make pictures that you could't in your wildest dreams have imagined. This is the magic of photography". Tim Walker, Story Teller.Pg 112

Tim Walker

Story Teller

Courtesy of the artist and Somerset House, London

Tim Walker: Story Teller

Somerset House, London

October 17th, 2012 - January 27th, 2013