At the initiative of the OstLicht Gallery and Peter Coeln in Vienna, 'Araki Teller, Teller Araki' which took place from the 4th of April until the 25th of May of this year, brought together two of the most important photographers of our times, showing new works conceived for this joint exhibition and entering into an artistic dialogue. The exhibition presented the encounter between two attitudes of extraordinary photographers, who are united in their radical artistic attitude and their almost insatiable hunger for images as reflections of their personal experience of the world. The elementary interest at the core of their work is the spiritual and physical ambivalence of human existence. To coincide with the exhibition Antenna Books in a collaboration with Araki's own eyesencia released Nobuyoshi Araki's and Juergen Teller's first jointly conceived and designed book. The publication assembles more than 300 photographs, including those works shown as part of the exhibition which were previously unpublished. In addition, Araki and Teller have each dedicated a text to the other. [ Continue reading ]

We've been big fans of Australian photographer Akila Berjaoui's sensual photography from the moment whe we discovered her beautiful series 'Lake Como', some years ago. Since then, she has been steadily continuing her worldwide travels with her analogue cameras, showing her beautiful signature in every new series that she produces. Last month, Berjaoui celebrated a new important milestone in her blooming career, when together with Prestel Publishing she officially presented her very first book to the world named 'The last days of Summer'.

The new book proves to be the most elegant platform on printed paper for Berjaoui's work till date, adding a significant new chapter to her ongoing artistic love affair with sandy beaches, sun, water and beautiful woman. In 'The last days of Summer', the spectator is taken to her hometown of Sydney and subsequently to bathing hotspots in Italy, France, and Brazil, amongst other places. Taken over the summers of 2015 to 2016, Berjaoui’s sun-streamed photographs of bathing beauty is brought to life in her familiar lush color palette that reminds of late 70s and early 80s photography. Her photographs have the power to veritably evoke the feeling of an earlier time; every detail is rich in the romance of 20th century travel, right down to the beach umbrellas, miniature but elegant swimwear and hidden Italian coves that are still cherished by the few who are able to keep a secret; in her work Berjaoui paints a sunny dreamworld on film. Beyond the surroundings, through her eye for beautiful framing, the eye-pleasing subjects in front of her camera always seem at total ease, with a hint of sexual tension lingering in the air. Curves are always soft and sandy tan lines both playful and honest — overal the visual narrative (and title) of 'The last days of Summer' transcends an undertone of nostalgia referring to a more heartfelt and colorful (pre-selfie!) era.

With summer all over The Netherlands at the moment, there's no better time than now to order 'The last days of Summer', which finally captures some of our favorite photography in between two book covers to truly reveal its extraordinary beauty in the best possible form. [ Continue reading ]

Three weeks ago it was that time of the year again for a beautiful new issue by our friends of The Travel Almanac from Berlin, who presented already their 11th issue, for the first time featuring an all-female cast. The new issue’s cover stars are Isabelle Huppert, shot at the legendary Les Bains in Paris by Heji Shin, and Kacy Hill, shot in Los Angeles by Jenny Hueston. The actrice extraordinaire recounts French radicalism in the 60s and explains Continental approaches to acting. While the American songwriter and model describes the travel mindset of Middle Americans. In their own words: "in a time when interconnectedness is being disavowed and borders feel more pressing, travel is emerging as an ever more crucial and powerful subject matter. In the last five years The Travel Almanac has explored perspectives, places, and objects that evoke telling atmospheres and feelings" — with its latest issue it continues to do exactly this, forming an elegant and important voice in todays world, which we feel (and hope) will continue to be relevant long after the just presented new issue. [ Continue reading ]

The New York Times recently named him a 'Digital Tastemaker for Young Men', and although we aren't as young as we were when we discovered him through his inspirational blog 'Words for Young Men', the multitalented New York-based creative Chris Black continues to be one of the people out there we hold in the highest regard for his inspirational vision and output. Before starting his blog 'Words for Young Men', the Atlanta-born was part of the early wave of people creating campaigns for social media, leading the way in a field of practice which has slowly devaluated into a metrics-obsessed monster of mediocrity and boredom, worlds apart from the cutting edge creative thinking that dominated it in the early days. Chris himself has been doing so much more than just social media in recent years, working through his creative agency named Done To Death Projects. Next to a focus on strategy and creative direction for clients, he does whatever he feels like: from publishing books and zines with different highly talented young photographers to putting out t-shirts. With Chris being such an inspiration for us, we asked him some questions on what inspires him in life. [ Continue reading ]

The Berlin-based Contemporary Fine Arts gallery recently opened a great pop-up shop named Front Row on the ground floor of its David Chipperfield-designed space on Museum Island. Open until the 26th of April, the store sells: artists’ books, catalogues, DVDs, vinyl, paintings, woodcuts, sculptures, and paraphernalia associated with the gallery for a large range of prices. The basic idea behind Front Row was to create a traditional analog exhibition. Nowadays speed has become a major factor in the work of the gallery, but in the early days of the 20-year-history of the gallery everything was thought out to the last detail; from exhibitions to books, to editions. Over the years these objects moved further and further away, partially because of the dominance of the internet, with them eventually ending up in storage. The idea of CFA-founder Bruno Brunnet was to put these beautiful elements produced by his gallery on display again next to work of his liking of a broad spectrum of artists. [ Continue reading ]

Together with Fontanel, we were invited by the Guggenheim Bilbao to visit the Riotous Baroque exhibition and enjoy a little of Bilbao. While the weather in the Netherlands dipped into some early autumn, it was a good time to escape to this sunnier part of Europe. And flying to Bordeaux, driving myself along the coast to Bilbao wasn't bad at all.
After driving along one of the most beautiful coastlines of Europe, crossing Biarritz and San Sebastian, Bilbao feels like a real hidden gem, with Frank Gehry's Guggenheim as the pearl in the centre of the city. A beautiful place, in the late 20th century transformed from a dirty old port into one of the worlds most iconic art cities and very much not what you'd expect of a Spanish city. The mix of the old and new architecture, in combination with its clean streets, green parks and the fresh breeze from the sea, is beautifully translated in a new exhibition where the 17th-century baroque artists are perfectly mixed with contemporary art. [ Continue reading ]

We really got inspired by the editors introduction on the latest issue of The White Review:  "...we must make, write, argue, dream, paint and act in the faith that creativity is commensurate with progress, and that we are responsible for our own futures. The future is there to be forged... The White Review believes that it is more important now than ever to provide a forum for expression and debate. We are indebted to the support of the many people who are similarly committed to the idea that a healthy and varied culture is integral to a society’s well-being. We hope that you find something in this issue to provoke or inspire you to pick up a pen, a paintbrush, or a placard." [ Continue reading ]

Dapper Dan, a new magazine from Athens, Greece, made by an international team and published twice a year, is featuring men’s fashion and philosophy and comes in its first issue with interviews by Damir Doma, Lucas Ossendrijver and Juergen Teller (amongst others). [ Continue reading ]