Curiosity Shop #8

Orchids & Peonies

'Orchids are like perfectly evolved little sculptures in themselves, they're full of colour, interesting shapes and beauty. Even though they are a plant's reproductive organs, they pun on human ones too. They make you realise it is colour, life and sexuality that keeps the world turning'.

Well thank god for Marc Quinn. He creates art to remind us that the world keeps turning through colour and sex.  Sometimes in the hum drum of everyday life, bogged down and tired we need a little reminder that life’s pleasures keep our worlds moving.

As winter sets in for us here in London, I am already beginning to feel the encroaching gloom that the cold brings. The leaves fall, the days get shorter, our footsteps heavier and our once colourful lives fade into monotone.

Compelled to brighten my days, I indulged in a spot of curiosity shop shopping at last weeks Multiplied Art Fair at Christie's.

Bright and sexy, one of Marc Quinn’s orchids has found a special place on my wall and given my days added sparkle and light.




Meteor IV, Marc Quinn, 2012

10 x 10 cm

Meteor IV, a digital archival print, is one in a series of eight brightly hued beauties. With this one in my possession, my plan is to collect the whole series one winter at a time! Now, when I slowly drag myself into the day, I awake to a smiling orchid reminding me that life – one of sex and beauty - goes on.

Thank god for Marc Quinn.

Meteor VI, Marc Quinn, 2012

10 x 10 cm

Under the Volcano, Bus-Obu Mongolia, Marc Quinn, 2011

Under the Volcano, (Digitial print with silkscreen glaze), edition of 150, Marc Quinn

Burning Desire, Marc Quinn, 2011

Exhibited at Sotheby's annual selling exhibition at Chatsworth House in 2011.

Images copyright of http://www.marcquinn.com/

Let's Little Black Book it!

Curiosity Shop #7

Spotted!
 

I’ve just spotted Mat Collishaw prints at the Multiplied Art Fair at Christie's, South Kensington! I'm so excited as I just love Mat Collishaw's work. Multiplied, which opens to the public tomorrow, is a great way to view a number of International galleries in one space for free.The cheaper alternative to Frieze, it exhibits only editions and multiples including prints, photographs, digital, artists' books and 3-D multiples. Rumour has it that Pixie Geldof’s band Violet are playing at tomorrow’s Art Wednesday event! One of the 'Nice to Meet You' event series, it is strictly ticketed or invites only so get in quick!

 

Matt Collishaw, Insecticide 13, 2010 

Glittery, sparkly moths: so soft, so delicate. With powdery wings so vulnerable they could disintegrate into tiny crumbles of dust.

Matt Collishaw, Insecticide 14, 2010 

I would hang this above a large fireplace and watch the flames lick and fizzle. Dust and dreams.

Matt Collishaw, Insecticide 13, 2009

The perfect specimen for my Curiosity Cabinet.

Curiosity Shop #6

Serpents

In Genesis 3:1-5 it is the serpent’s power that leads Eve to disobey God’s command and consequently cause the downfall of man and thus expulsion from the garden of Eden. The original tempter of Eve the temptress, the serpent has come to represent desire, lust and ultimately evil. Regardless of ones position on women’s rights and religion, the serpent is one of the oldest mythological symbols in a variety of historical contexts. ‘More wise than any beast of the field’, as the bible describes, the serpents strength and consequently power over human kind provides this cold-blooded creature a position of greatness and respect. They can kill with just one venomous bite: the serpent has come to represent the dual nature of good and evil, life and death.

 

Guido Mocafico captures this dual nature in his photographs of snakes. They are as deathly and dangerous as they are beautiful and divine. Truly the sublime, natures brilliance is accentuated in the squirming, entangled wreath of serpents. His images are brilliant, sleek, sharp and evocative. The colours become surreal, blinding even - too perfect, to be true.

Using a large-format analogue camera with colour transparencies, he develops long term photographic series with a hint of darkness including skulls, medusa, snakes, arachnea and venenum. He also meticulously recreates still lives and has researched and shot the movement of fine watches’s to precision.

Aside from large bodies of work for books and exhibitions, he has also produced an impressive array of commercial and editorial shoots. Most recently, he has produced work for major fashion brands including Gucci, Chanel, Clarins, Shiseido, YSL, Clinique, Dior, Bvlgari, Armani and Hermès and published in magazines such as Numéro, Numéro Homme, Paradis, V Mag, Vogue US, Vogue France, Men’s Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, The Face, Wallpaper.

Some of my favourite Mocafico serpents are below. Poisonously beautiful!

Where can you get one for yourself? Let’s Little Black Book it!

Curiosity Shop #5

Yayoi A-hoy!

If visiting imaginary lands is where you’re bound, then I’m sure Yayoi Kusama is on your radar. Kusama’s art takes you to places above and beyond your known experience. Her ability to transgress the everyday, find an alternative dimension and reside there, is awe inspiring.

Kusama creates art and exists as art simultaneousely. She lives it.  Reminiscent of Andy Warhol, her persona and life generate as much interest as the art itself. Her self-admission to a psychiatric hospital in 1977 has created much intrigue about the reality of her spot obsession. To what extent are her spotted visions real or imaginary? She is famously known to have said in interviews that she sees the world in dots yet there has always remained much doubt and speculation. 

 In her autobiography Infinity Net, published to coincide with the Tate exhibition this year, Kusama reveals that her art grew from hallucinations. In order to relieve her hallucinatory episodes she came to record them before they vanished: 'I was in a separate world, and I was drawing in order to document the sights I saw there... Recording them helped to ease the shock and fear of the episodes. That is the origin of my pictures.' She literally resides in a spotted world.

Yayoi Kusama, Accumulation No. 2, 1968

When walking through her exhibit at the Tate Modern in May this year it was as if she were present. You were in her room and she was under your skin. Immersed in spots you became a part of her art.

Yayoi Kusama, I'm here but nothing, 2000

I’d love to have her deck out my lounge in spots - all polka dotty! If you can’t afford a Kusama installation at home (imagine that!) her paintings actually come up at auction in Post-war & Contemporary sales at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s fairly regularly. Better still, she has just collaborated with Louis Vuitton so a little piece of Kusama could be yours for a fraction of the price of one of her art works. This incredible collection was launched at Selfridges and one of my favourite fashion bloggers Bip Ling collaborated on a cool video to mark the occasion. Bip, looking super cute like a little Kusama doll, replicates in movement the verses of a poem by Kusama, Love Forever.

Click here to play spot the difference with Bip!

The store has created a concept boutique full of a kooky ready-to-wear collection in her bold, primary colour palette and signature polka dot design.

Multiple spots and multiple Kusama's line the window at Selfridges. 

Spots have literally taken over Oxford St as all twenty four Selfridges windows are Kusama/ Vuitton displays. Inside the store the concept boutique is based on one of her pumpkin structures.  Life size wax models of Kusama herself accost you on your way around Selfridges and... surprise, surprise, dots are everywhere! Oxford St has gone dotty!

These shoes are incredible. A walking piece of art.

Maybe I'll see everyone in polka-dots when wearing these shades. I wanna get me these sunnies!

Kusama bangles?! Now this is too much! In a seriously too much too good way. An armful of these and I’d be in heaven. Jingle, jangle Kusama style.

Kusama’s galaxy of spots is endless. What a brilliant and intelligent partnership with Marc Jacobs. Jacobs has proven himself a visionary in this collaboration and it's exciting to imagine where he might take Louis Vuitton next. Kusama's energy and creativity are infinite. 'Stars, the earth, I and you. We are but one polka dot.'

Stars, the earth, I and you
We are but one polka dot
To a shining future
Budding love
All about my great happiness
Let's go and see our boyfriends in high heels
I'm in high heels
Love Forever

Let's Little Black Book it!