Andy Warhol never learned to drive, but that didn’t stop him from having a lifelong fascination with cars. The “Pope of Pop” drew his first automotive vehicle — his brother’s produce delivery truck surrounded vivacious gals — when he was just 18 years old. His next attraction to automobiles came in the 1950s, while he was making his living as a high-rolling advertisement and editorial illustrator. Turning his commercial success into an artistic career, Warhol went on to incorporate such celebrities and public figures as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Elvis Presley, and Jacqueline Kennedy in his paintings and prints; but he never lost his interest in cars — making giant canvases of cars crashes in the ’60s, prints of Volkswagens and trucks in the ’80s, and even hand-painting an actual BMW race car in 1979 for the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. The traveling show Warhol and Cars: American Icons is currently on view at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. Click through a selection of our favorite images that document the famed artist’s strange obsession.
A street photographer since the mid-’60s, Chip Simone studied at the Rhode Island School of Design with Modernist-master Harry Callahan and shot classic black-and-white pictures for years before jumping on the digital train in 2000. Since turning to faster cameras and color imagery, Simone has built an impressive body of work, which he makes by walking and cycling through cities up and down the East Coast. Collected by major museums, as well as Elton John, who’s a connoisseur of the medium, Simone has an eye for the uncanny and a keen awareness of how photography can magically parallel painting and sculpture. With a decade of work currently on view at New York’s Steven Kasher Gallery and a recent monograph and museum survey under his belt, Simone is definitely one to watch — especially after so many years of pounding the streets. Click through a selection of our favorite images.
Photographer Claiborne Swanson Frank has an eye for feminine beauty, and a knack for spotting it at the upper stratum of American society. The daughter of a Napa Valley vintner and granddaughter of the founder of Swanson Foods (the company that brought us the ubiquitous TV dinner), she formed her vision of modern beauty and style while assisting Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Inspired by the strong, working women who she met in fashion, publishing, and business, the self-taught photographer turned her lens on her enterprising young friends to create a portfolio of sophisticated ladies who are making their mark across America. Her striking portraits of writers, models, singer/song-writers, winemakers, fashion executives, and philanthropists — with family names like Hearst, Bloomberg, Kennedy, Rockefeller, Lauder, and Bush — are currently on view at the Lu Magnus gallery on New York’s Lower East Side and compiled in a colorful, new monograph, published by Assouline. Click through a selection of our favorite photos of her posh pals.
Nick Brandt used to live life in the fast lane. As a music video director, Brandt worked with such talents as Jewel, Moby, and — most famously — Michael Jackson, but nowadays he spends much of his time just waiting, which means waiting for the right moment to snap a picture. While directing the video for Jackson’s “Earth Song” in Tanzania in 1995, the British-born director discovered a new passion: the stunning, wild beasts of Africa. Switching from moving imagery to black-and-white photography, Brandt began a new career as a wildlife photographer in 2000 and by the end of the decade he had published several books and exhibited his amazing photos around the world.
So what makes his pictures different from the work of other photographers deep in the bush? Brandt never uses telephoto lenses. He wants to be as intimate with nature as he was with the stars he once brought to life on MTV. And to keep the focus on the wild creatures he now adores and has on view in a solo show at New York’s Hasted Kraeutler Gallery, the photographer founded the Big Life Foundation in 2010 to protect endangered animals in East Africa, with the sale of his prints helping the cause. Click through to view a few of our favorites.
If Andy Warhol were alive today he would be totally digital. After all, Warhol embraced all forms of media in his day — recording lunchtime conversations and turning them into articles for his Interview magazine; directing avant-garde films, music videos, and SNL shorts; shooting Polaroids of the rich and famous for his portrait paintings; and using point-and-shoot cameras to document even the most mundane moments of his colorful life. Two current New York exhibitions explore Warhol as a man with a camera, that’s nearly always in hand.
Andy Warhol: Photographer at Danziger Gallery offers a slew of color Polaroids of celebrity pals — ranging from Debbie Harry, Liza Minnelli, and Sylvester Stallone to Ted Kennedy and downtown drag queens — along with photo-booth pictures of stylish New Yorkers and black-and-white snapshots of hotel dining carts, naked guys on a Montauk beach, and supermarket shelves full of cat food. Meanwhile, Warhol: Confections & Confessions at Affirmation Arts presents 8 x 10 B+W photographs from the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh of subjects for paintings — including scattered eggs, a hammer and sickle, and various shadows — as well as such offbeat pictures as breast-feeding moms, still lives that feature a bug sprayer, and candid shots of Warhol posing with nuns and getting frisky on roller skates. Click through to view a selection of our favorites.
Arguably the most celebrated woman artists of the 20th century, Frida Kahlo was also the greatest collector of her own memorabilia. Over the course of her relatively short lifetime, Kahlo accumulated some 6500 photographs that captured hers and her soul mate Diego Rivera’s dynamic relationship to friends, family, and one another. From pictures of young Frida taken by her photographer father and candid views of Kahlo with creative pals to snapshots of her painfully enjoying a cigarette after one of the many surgeries to correct a teenage bus accident that left her body crushed or valiantly painting in bed while in traction after one such operation, a recent exhibition at Artisphere in Arlington, Virginia — titled Frida Kahlo: Her Photos — brought a selection of images from the her immense personal archive, which had been sealed for 50 years, to the American public for the first time. Click through to view a few of our favorites.
Seeking a sense of what’s new in photography, we headed up to the Park Avenue Armory for the 32nd edition of the AIPAD Photography Show New York, which runs through April 1. Once inside the fair, we blocked out all of the marvelous vintage prints on view in order to focus on photos from the past few years that are taking the medium to new heights. From Matthew Brandt’s landscapes of lakes that are beautifully altered by the very water from those ponds and Laura Letinsky’s deconstructed still lives made from her previous prints to Michael Wolf’s screen grabs of mishaps from Google Street Views and Jim Campbell’s urban scenes with shadowy figures digitally moving through them, photography is shown to still be an open field with endless possibilities. Click through to view a few of our favorites.
One of the most controversial artists of the past 25 years, Andres Serrano first gained notoriety on the floor of the US Senate back in 1989 when his photograph Piss Christ — a striking image of a crucifix immersed in the artist’s own urine — was publicly denounced by the Republican right. Rather than letting the powers that be censor his work, Serrano went deeper into uncharted territory with several following series that captured members of the Klan in full regalia, dead bodies in a Parisian morgue, homeless nomads on New York City streets, and freaks engaged in outrageous sex acts. Returning to his roots, the artist is once again using figurines — this time toys — to visually convey a sense of anarchy that he sees permeating society today.
Art Basel Miami Beach, the most fabulous art fair in the world, marked its 10th anniversary over the past few days with one of its best presentations of modern and contemporary art ever. More than 260 international galleries packed the Miami Beach Convention Center with every size, shape, and form of art imaginable — from Mike Kelley’s assemblages of found plushy animals and Nick Cave’s surreal Soundsuits to eye-catching displays of Andy Warhol’s commercial work and a life-like sculpture of Prince William ready to fulfill your royal dreams. Flavorpill combed the aisles for days to offer you the best of this year’s fair. Read More »
Museums and galleries in cultural capitals around the world are just starting to roll out an exciting new line-up of fall exhibitions to entice their viewers. From Willem de Kooning’s sensual abstractions at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Diane Arbus’ iconic photographs of nudists and transvestites at the Jeu de Paume in Paris to Pipilotti Rist’s colorful video installations at London’s Hayward Gallery and KAWS’ playful interpretations of cartoon characters at Honor Fraser in Los Angeles, the new art season is a major moment of renewal for artists, both old and new. Click through our top ten show picks worldwide and let us know what you would add to the list.
