Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera.

"Exposed offers a fascinating look at pictures made on the sly, without the explicit permission of the people depicted."
London's Tate Modern currently has an intriguing exhibition on display which I would very much like to visit. From 28th May to 3rd October the general public can catch a glimpse of all the pictures we were never meant to see. I am expecting the ultimate in privacy invasion, with lots of sex and drugs and policemen. The sections of the exhibition are 'The Unseen Photographer', 'Celebrity and the Public Gaze', 'Voyeurism and Desire', 'Witnessing Violence', and 'Surveillance'. The Tate's latest taboo show appears to be crafting an uncomfortable relationship between the audience and the unsuspecting subject - our hunger for the secretive is obviously going to be overfed to the point where some onlookers will become just as much in the wrong as the photographers and CCTV cameras.

Work is on show from war photographerAlexander Gardner, early 20th century celebrity snapper Weegee, contemporary photographer Alison Jackson, fashion imagery icons Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton, and plennnty more.

Dear Everybody.

You are invited to

NEW MANCHESTER
A poster exhibtion and open studio.

Brought to you by TBA magazine and one69A collective.
Forgetting the past of manchester and celebrating the new city and the talent it hosts.

Friday 14th May. Isllington Mill, Salford
7p.m - 11p.m
Free refreshments and Dj's

Obsessed By You.

Mario Testino is older than both my parents and has been in intimate contact with Kate Moss, Lady Diana and Gisele Bundchen. And I don't mean to say he's a sordid older gentleman, I actually mean that he's a rather popular fashion photographer.Born in Peru and currently in the likes of Vogue and Vanity Fair, Testino has seen it all. Call me fashionably uneducated but I've only recently discovered him, and it seems he's somewhat in the league of an 'icon'. His exhibition posters and book covers are divinely risqué, with lavish and implicated scenarios - for example, his cover for 'Let Me In' displays Demi Moore seductively applying lipstick to the lips of her toy-boy lover Ashton Kutcher. Hell, he even managed to defrost Vogue editor and renowned ice queen Anna Wintour into a remotely bemused semi-grin, simply with a click of his camera. It seems I have cultivated a newly acquired penchant for this chic Super Mario.




I can't quite put my finger on it, but this man provides the human eye with something akin to ecstasy; his images draw you into a world you always wanted to see but never knew how to. His photographs tell a thorough story without actually showing much context, his subjects look as comfortable naked as if they were in pyjamas, I don't even know what his face looks like. There is the oxymoronic idea of a lavish carnival teamed with slick simplicity at work here.








And if that doesn't convince you of his talents, I'm sure you've seen the classy recent ad campaign for D&G fragrance, featuring Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell proving that they still got it...

Effortless.

Jenny Holzer: Projections.

Anything you think you can say with profanity or wit, forget it, Jenny Holzer can do it better.
I remember seeing her project 'Truisms' in London (it has also been displayed on an LED billboard in Times Square, 1982), and it's the one piece of art I can remember from that day, which is unusual for me. I tend to forget names. And now she's back with grander scenery, splashing images across the night in various cities. Here are some of her newer pieces of work, in 'Projections'.







Furthermore, she's currently running an exhibition at the Beyeler Fondation in Riehen, Switzerland until 24th January 2010. It will include all sorts of arty-type events, and the best part is that she's throwing a couple more projections in there too. Itinerary is as follows:

Additional projections:
11th-22nd November 2009, 7:30pm-11pm: Zurich Lindenhof projection over the Limmat.
Second week of January 2010: Margarethenhügel, Binningen near Basel.

Programmes:
2nd January 2010, 7:00pm: Jenny Holzer in Conversation with Jacques Herzog,Herzog & de Meuron Architects.
22nd January 2010, 6:00pm-2:00am: Poetry Night, 10^th Basel Museum Night.
Poetry slam show, short guided tours, readings, workshops, etc.

Jenny Holzer Soirées:
13th November 2009, 11th December 2009, 8th January 2010, 6:00pm-9:00pm: Curator’s tour, 6.30 – 8.00pm, with Philippe Büttner, exhibition curator.
Artm& Dinner: 7.00 – 10.00pm.
Literally Art – Speaking Pictures: 6.00am – 9.00pm.


It's a shame I'm nowhere near Switzerland.

Francis Alÿs in London.

The Tate Modern is displaying an retrospective exibition of work by Francis Alÿs from 15th June to 5th September 2010. View details here.
Alÿs is a Belgian-born mixed media artist who lives in Mexico City, experimenting with anything from paint to video. A man pushed a block of ice through Mexico City until it had melted; Alÿs documents these puzzling projects as explorations of himself and his subjects. It's art and poetry amongst politics. I want to go look.