Lei è laureato in letteratura tedesca. Come e quando ha iniziato a interessarsi alla fotografia e qual è stato il suo percorso formativo?
Ho iniziato a smanettare con la macchina fotografica a 15 anni; da allora, spero di aver affinato un po’ le mie capacità. Studiare letteratura mi ha insegnato a fare ricerca e a costruire argomentazioni, abilità che risultano basilari per il mio lavoro.

Le sue opere sono caratterizzate da una forte attenzione ai dettagli e alle sfumature emotive, che si traducono in un’intensa rappresentazione della realtà in cui qualcosa, tuttavia, non quadra. Da dove nasce la sua passione per queste storie?
Il tedesco ha influenzato profondamente la mia pratica. Mi ha insegnato che i libri e le opere d’arte non sono qui per fornire risposte, ma piuttosto per porre delle domande. Una grammatica rigida fa da griglia alla lingua, costruendo una struttura che può supportare livelli straordinari di umorismo, sottigliezza e sfumature. Mi sforzo di raggiungere questo obiettivo nel mio lavoro.

Può parlarci di come ha tradotto in fotografia il problema logico «The Muddy Children Puzzle»?
Nella teoria economica dei giochi, «The Muddy Children Puzzle» dimostra che tutti i membri di un gruppo possono sapere che qualcosa è vero senza che tale affermazione sia di dominio comune. Gli studiosi utilizzano l’immagine di bambini con la fronte sporca di fango per illustrare questo fenomeno. Il fango sulla fronte mi ha ricordato «Salad Bowl», un gioco di società in cui i giocatori hanno dei post-it con personaggi famosi scritti sulla fronte. I compagni di squadra cercano di farvi indovinare chi siete, ma hanno il divieto di dire certe parole che sarebbero troppo rivelatrici. Questo divieto, e l’idea che tutti i membri possano conoscere un fatto senza che sia di dominio pubblico, racchiudono perfettamente tutto ciò che volevo esplorare sui gruppi, sul silenzio e sul linguaggio.

Leggere l’intervista completa qui.

Artist Kohshin Finley Is Known for His Intimate Portraits. Now, He’s Turning to Clay.

Kohshin Finley’s portraiture offers a pinhole glimpse into his world. Family members and friends rendered in shadowy, stirring greyscale hold the viewer’s gaze. These monumental yet intimate close-ups of loved ones have earned Finley considerable acclaim: his work has appeared in group shows at Jeffrey Deitch and the California African American Museum and one of his portraits was acquired last year by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. “It’s wonderful to have a place nearby that you can traverse through history in such a way,” the Los Angeles native says of his childhood pilgrimages to LACMA. “To have a portrait of my friends be added to that chain of history is a beautiful thing.”

Now, the 34-year-old artist is making his international debut with a solo show at Barbati in Venice, which opened on Sept. 9. “Hummingbird” features an array of new portraits and doubles as a chance for Finley to publicly display a rediscovered passion: ceramics. The artist’s pottery, lathered in layers of paint, celebrates the rawness of material, maintaining the intimacy that Finley strives for in his paintings. To mark the opening of “Hummingbird,” Finley sat down with CULTURED for a conversation about process, branching into new mediums, and going “full sponge.”

Read the full article here.

Jurrell Lewis—What drew you to portraiture as a way of making? 

Buck Ellison—I switched from making still lifes to portraiture in my graduate thesis show at Städelschule, in Frankfurt. I showed one work, and it was a portrait of one of the students. I remember the difference in the way that portrait was received and the way that a still life was received. It hadn’t occurred to me that people really like to see themselves in other people. The engagement that allowed excited me because it felt like I could bring in a viewer on many different levels. That was a real turning point for me.

I moved to Los Angeles shortly after, and that’s when I began making the work that I think is more familiar as my work now—I’m not shying away from the power of reproducing another person. The discomfort in that is that I’m shy, I don’t like approaching people, and I’m sensitive toward the labor of the sitter and what my gaze does, all of those dynamics. But anytime I’m uncomfortable, I think, Okay, I’m doing something right.

I started working with actors and models, and that felt more interesting. There was this whole group of people who were open to coming over for four hours in the middle of the day for a project, while before it was difficult to find people to shoot. Anytime we see a face, we want to look again. Moving here allowed me to use portraiture, to use that engagement from the audience. I could start to use that to be able to do other things, to look at behaviors and patterns and to reveal little things. I don’t see them as dissimilar to the still lifes, they just have people in them.

Read the full interview here.

An artist book was made by Buck Ellison alongside his first solo exhibition in Italy and will be for sale at the gallery. Please contact us at info@barbatigallery.com for more information

Artist Tara Walters Paints Her Psychic Visions. Then They Come True

Tara Walters’s ethereal painting practice is informed by a fine blend of psychic retreats, seawater, and spiritualists. This fall, the artist will travel to London for a solo presentation at Frieze.

Read the full article by Kat Herriman here.

Frieze Projects: Against the Edge brings together three recent sculptures by the Los Angeles-based multidisciplinary artist Kelly Akashi in the historic setting of Villa Aurora. Located in the garden, salon, and courtyard of the storied residence, the trio of works speaks to many of Akashi’s sculptural and conceptual concerns—how materials encode presence and absence, flowers as a marker of ephemerality, and cycles of life, death, and rebirth.

Curated by Jay Ezra Nayssan & Del Vaz Projects, the installation also evokes an historical parallelism between Akashi’s family story and the journey of Lion and Marta Feuchtwanger, Villa Aurora’s earlier owners.

To read the complete text for Kelly Akashi Heirloom at Villa Aurora, click here.

Villa Aurora, 520 Paseo Miramar, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Congratulations to Kelly Akashi whose work Vesica Piscis has been acquired by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Featuring gold rimmed flame-worked borosilicate glass sitting atop a partial marble carving of Akashi’s face, Vesica Piscis blends the geologic, the human, and the botanical, suggesting growth amid ruin.