Dress codes at the International Centre of Photography
The International Centre of Photography of New York has decided 2009 is "The year of fashion" and has already presented several exhibitions and video screenings. “Dress Codes” is its new project and it features 37 artists from very different countries, backgrounds and artistic styles. They all have in common a passion for fashion, which doesn’t mean there is no criticism to the system. The work of Cindy Sherman, Valérie Belin or Jeremy Kost takes fashion to another level.
Dress Code at the ICP until 17 January 2010www.icp.org
Tom Waits: Glitter and Doom live
His 2008 European and American tour sold out and had raving reviews. This two CD set contains 17 songs selected amongst the concerts from Tulsa, Edinburgh, Jacksonville, Paris, Milan and Dublin. The second CD consists on 40 min of Waits’ ruminations about the most improbable and picturesque topics in his whisky-and-cigarettes voice and all his clang-boom-steam music arrangements. Perfect to live the excitement of one night on tour, this album is essential for Waits’ fans.
Glitter and Doom live is available from 23/11 from Rough Trade Records.www.tomwaits.com
Twiggy, a Life in Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery
The face of 1966 is 60, and the National Portrait Gallery is celebrating her birthday with an exhibition that features some of the most representative portraits of the history of fashion in the 20th century. Twiggy has gone from young muse of the swinging London to icon of mature elegance and British eccentricity. She has had the privilege of working with some of the most talented photographers, such as Cecil Beaton, Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky, Ronald Traeger, Bert Stein and Norman Parkinson. The exhibition includes many of these portraits and shows the evolution of fashion photography in the last 50 years.
Twiggy, a Life in Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery until 21 March 2010.Pop Life: art in a material world
Can commercial art be good? Can a mass consumption society deliver true creativity? Can a rich artist be revolutionary?
Pop Art gave surprising answers to all these questions. Andy Warhol once said “good business is the best art”, and now Tate Modern is proving it by bringing together some of the most influential (and more well-to-do) pop artists since the 1980’s, exploring the way they have created not their own just creative universes, but also their own “brands”. Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Damien Hirst… and many more are featured at the exhibition, one of the most notorious of this (and next) year.
www.tate.org.uk
100 girls on Polaroid
Without make up, couture and outrageous attitudes, models turn out to be simply girls, less intimidating and much more intimate. This is what we can see in Alexander Gnädinger’s new book. This is not a flamboyant fashion project, but a project about the world and the beauty of women. “100 Girls of Polaroid” is published at Seltmann + Söhne.
Lou Reed: Romanticism
Who would think the leader of the legendary band The Velvet Underground would end up as a photographer. But the Factory’s superstar rocker has kept the same exotic and mystic sensitivity of songs like “Venus in Furs” and “Sunday Morning” in his pictures. This is his third book, and it reunites images from trips to Scotland, Spain, Denmark, Rome and California. All pictures are in black and white, and as Reed himself puts is, they are “the perfect thing for a film noir fan”. His previous two books are “Lou Reed’s New York” and “Emotion in Action”, and, like “Romanticism”.
They have been published by Edition 7L.http://www.artbook.com
Book Club with Matthew Stone
Who said young and stylish people are not interested in culture? Matthew Stone, responsible for the astonishing music at all of Gareth Pugh’s shows, has started a new and intriguing project in a former home bar in east London with the help of the creative team behind the collective “Queen of Hoxton”. Food, drink and free wi-fi are just the beginning…Workshops, talks and screenings also take place. “The program covers things like death drawing with artist Boo Saville and philosophy for everyone”, says Stone. Looks like the Book Club is the place to be…
The book Club, 100-106 Leonard Street, London.