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Artists are often stereotyped as brooding misanthropes who equate anti-social behaviour with originality and integrity. And while being an artist can be lonely, art scenes are often perceived as cliquish and closed off to anyone but the initiated. But London-based twenty-six year old artist Matthew Stone is a real-deal artist of the highest order who creates art that is unique, challenging, wondrous and exciting because it is open and inclusive. With his salons and group projects, Stone undertakes the serious task of making playful art.

Continue reading "MATTHEW STONE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Aaron Schuman interviews Broomberg and Chanarin about their photographic project Fig., inspired by the British Victorian mania for collecting. Broomberg and Chanarin will have a solo show in London this September in which they will exhibit the results of a trip to Afghanistan where they were embedded with British Army units on the front line in Helmand Province.

Continue reading "ADAM BROOMBERG AND OLIVER CHANARIN IN CONVERSATION WITH AARON SCHUMAN" »

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Argentinian artist Bruno Dubner first became interest in abstract photography when he started photographing the light penetrating his home at night. The entire place turned into a dark room where light revealed feelings and thoughts as well as creating situations he had never experienced before. He discovered they could only come clear to him when all the lights were turned off and the atmosphere was only punctured by the presence of rays penetrating the scene.

Continue reading "MARIA CAROLINA BAULO INTERVIEWS BRUNO DUBNER ABOUT HIS VIGIL SERIES" »

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Today, the virtues of veracity and creative uses of the truth are heatedly debated. And while many artists apply those concepts to dissecting America's identity, few of them address that subject with the genuine empathy, integrity and awareness of moral ambiguity that Dan Attoe demonstrates in his paintings, drawings and neon sculptures.

Continue reading "DAN ATTOE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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In recent shows at London's Paradise Row and Dubai's The Third Line gallery, London-born and -based artist Shezad Dawood has swung a lasso around legendary Wild West iconography and pulled the image of the cowboy into the present day and our contemporary conflicts. In "If I should fall from grace with God," his first major London solo show, Dawood combined neon signs incorporating the Koran's concept of the "99 Names of God" with tumbleweeds, a symbol of the American Wild West. Around the glowing sculptures were expressionistic paintings of cowboys, slain wild-life and other images of rural American, all painted on black velvet and hung in vintage frames.

Continue reading "SHEZAD DAWOOD IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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For her show at London's Victoria Miro gallery, up through August 2nd, Chantal Joffe presents a body of work painted from life. Invited behind the scenes at Paris Fashion Week, Joffe has updated Degas, who painted ballerinas as they prepped backstage at the Royal Ballet. While Degas was interested in depicting the dancers' stretching and preparing, Joffe captures glimpses of the girls as they are made ready for the runway. The 22 oil on canvas, board or cardboard magazine-sized paintings that Joffe created from snapshots she took backstage demonstrate that the 'girls' behind the stage are lovely and lucky girls, largely unknowable to others, and only sometimes known to themselves.

Continue reading "CHANTAL JOFFE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Iranian-born, London-based Maria Kheirkhah uses performance, photography and video to explore issues of national identity, the media's promulgation of cultural stereotypes and the Western world's historically entrenched prejudices towards 'other'. She talks here about her fascination with Frankenstein which underpins her current exhibition at 198 Gallery in London until 15 August.

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Things being what they are these days (art world, money, cult of youth, Berlin), it's not uncommon to wind up at an opening and to feel surrounded by young adults who have just recently assumed the part of 'Artist' - or Curator or Gallerist or Critic or Whatever - and are playing it, maybe a little too ardently, just hoping not to get caught out. Such was the case with the crowd circulating through Brunnenstrasse's Curators Without Borders at last month's opening of the exhibition 'The Disappearance Gradient' - except they were in fact actors. All of them. The gallerist was played by a study-abroad student from North Carolina, Jerry, alias James Rafferty. One of his artists, erstwhile a fellow student in his acting class at the Freie Universitaet, was bullying him to kick out the riffraff and sell more art, faster. Another was inciting visitors to mess with his installation with the rally: "It's about the Process".

Continue reading "DAVID LEVINE IN CONVERSATION WITH ALIX RULE" »

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In his art, Jay Batlle often references sophisticated New York City urbanite sources such as The New Yorker, the New York Times and the restaurant and foodie culture enjoyed by these publications' high-end readers. He has also created an extensive series of dog tags and surf boards adorned with 24k gold-plated handcuffs and cut-up credit cards to represent the debt incurred by living beyond one's means in a city like New York. But his work is less about the argot of an urban elite than it is an expression of his own knowledge about and admiration for good cooking, as well as his nuanced understanding of food's symbolic significance on all stratas of contemporary society.

Continue reading "JAY BATLLE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Gather round and Tala Madani will paint you a tale. The Iranian-born artist, though she has spent most of her life away from her homeland, carries on a Persian penchant for storytelling. Narratives contained within each of her canvases are solemn, dark and humorous in equal measure. Madani explores the socio-religious based rituals of an imaginary world of Muslim men caught inside comic book panels of their own making. Having recently added painterly animations to her repertoire - violently hilarious films which prance and hiccup before our eyes - the artist continues her explorations of what it means to paint and be painted.

Continue reading "TALA MADANI IN CONVERSATION WITH DOUG McCLEMONT" »

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Loris Gréaud's work is more talked about than seen. His recent show 'Cellar Door', at Paris's Palais de Tokyo, represented the first time that the entire institution was given over to a single exhibition - and Gréaud is still under thirty. The Palais de Tokyo clocked 140,000 visitors to 'Cellar Door', breaking the institution's attendance record for any single previous exhibition. The exhibition, or a version of it, is now on at the ICA in London (until 22 June). Alix Rule asked the artist the following nine questions about his work.

Continue reading "LORIS GREAUD IN CONVERSATION WITH ALIX RULE" »

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Nigel Cooke paints as if Clara Peeters or Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder had devoted themselves to depicting the backs of busted-up buildings. Manchester-born Cooke, who received an MA from the Royal College of Art and a PhD from Goldsmith's, depicts graffiti flowers (along with birds, sunsets and disembodied brains) drinking and smoking like hooligans. Yet while the flowers are not acting pretty, the paintings are gorgeous; and just as the graffiti inject beauty into his imaginary scenes, Cooke's ability as an artist renders ugly spaces and urban trash as poetically as the fruits and fading flowers painted by his Flemish master predecessors.

Continue reading "NIGEL COOKE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Decay, mess and chaos are everywhere in the scenes Anne Hardy presents in her crisp yet uncanny imagery. At first glance, the unoccupied rooms that she photographs appear neglected but normal. In the spaces Hardy shows us, there are usually signs of rough repairs, but the furniture and settings simply appear beaten down and worn out by excessive, careless use. But in actuality, none of those objects have been manhandled or clumsily placed. In fact, no one but Hardy herself is responsible for their appearance and location. Because while her images seem to depict happenstance and irresponsible ownership, the objects were all built in her studio for the sole purpose of being photographed.

Continue reading "ANNE HARDY IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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As the early creations of a pre-eminent critical figure in today's American art scene, the paintings that originally earned Artnet Editor Walter Robinson's place in the Manhattan art world of the 1980s are guaranteed to be of great interest. His "80's paintings" show at Chelsea's Metro Pictures (which also represents Cindy Sherman, Tony Oursler and Mike Kelley) is the first time that his "Romance Paintings" have been on view since the series was shown at Metro Pictures in the 1980s.

Continue reading "WALTER ROBINSON IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Aoife Rosenmeyer met the German artist Gregor Schneider at his new show in Switzerland to discuss his controversial career as an artist, which includes works such as 'Cube' (below), whose display in Venice was called off last year, and his latest plan to create an exhibition in which a real person will be displayed in the process of dying.

Continue reading "GREGOR SCHNEIDER IN CONVERSATION WITHN AOIFE ROSENMEYER" »

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'If you said to me a year ago you would be making a series of female nudes, I probably would have said: "You're having a laugh aren't you?' Martin Maloney discusses how he came to make his new series of work 'Actress Slash Model', which is on view in London until 17 May.

Continue reading "MARTIN MALONEY IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Yearnings to be thin and searches for a "soul mate" fuel countless women's magazine editorials, internet empires and relentless self-loathing inner-monologues of women throughout the West. Yet as artists L.A. Raeven (identical Dutch twins Liesbeth and Angelique Raeven) demonstrate, women who desperately deny themselves food, and binge on self-help books, on-line dating sites and seminars about "compatibility" should be more thoughtful about what they wish for.

Continue reading "LA RAEVEN IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Whether or not the work is commercial in intent or self-consciously counter-culture, part of art's allure emerges from the idea that the artist is a renegade figure whose vision is unique. Yet two of today's most thoughtful and thought-provoking artists produce work which is startlingly original because it calls into question clichés about individual creativity. For the past ten years, Eric Chan and Heather Schatz have been creating work together as ChanSchatz. Husband and wife, the two met in 1990 during a freshman figure drawing class at the University of California, Berkley. They allegedly finished each others' drawings and have been collaborating ever since. Their show at Albion in London is on until 25 April.

Continue reading "ERIC AND HEATHER CHANSCHATZ IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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On a normal day, passers-by can peek into the ground floor windows of Monique Meloche Gallery and find a sparse, modest-sized space with a zealous sampling of contemporary art's most rapidly emerging names. Yet on this particular afternoon in Chicago, as Kendell Carter attended to last minute touch ups before his opening, the front room of the gallery experienced a spirited transformation.

Continue reading "KENDELL CARTER IN CONVERSATION WITH SARAH PEARL" »

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Colin de Land (below), the subject of a new book from Powerhouse, was one of those excessively rare art dealers who didn't merely earn himself a niche in art history but operated with such a distinctive touch that he seemed to exist within the art world as much as an artist - a Conceptual artist in de Land's case - as a gallerist. Anthony Haden-Guest talks here with the filmmaker John Waters who was also one of de Land's artists: 'Collectors loved Colin. He looked dead! But dead and sexy. And so everybody was always a little bit scared of him. And there's nothing better in the art world than to be very appealing and slightly scary.'

Continue reading "JOHN WATERS IN CONVERSATION WITH ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST" »

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In his videos and series of land art explosions the multi-disciplinary French artist Cyprien Gaillard questions a romantic view of vandalism and how we justify the various traces we leave on the landscape. Gaillard discusses his work with Alix Rule, including a new commission for the Berlin Biennale which will be unveiled on 4 April.

Continue reading "CYPRIEN GAILLARD IN CONVERSATION WITH ALIX RULE" »

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Ana Finel Honigman talks to the young 'gallerista', Sara Tecchia (below) who opened her gallery in New York two years ago. She represents an unusually diverse roster of artists and runs the gallery with an openness uncommon amongst most dealers. 'I get artists' submissions every day and I respond to everybody. I always respond. It is my set rule: My office door is always open to artists.'

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In his sumptuously decadent and delightfully witty work on view at the Dicksmith Gallery until March 22nd, Edward Kay alludes to, references and directly appropriates important historical paintings. On an immediate level, his paintings are contemporary answers to important images of the Rococo period and other 18th and 19th century schools. But imitation is not the highest compliment he pays to his predecessors. Kay's real gift to the images he fondly re-formulates is the invigorating injection of humor that he uses to reawaken the pleasure of looking at what he describes as "manky old paintings."

Continue reading "EDWARD KAY IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Lisa Ruyter's paintings may appear to have a distinctive paint-by-number quality. But they are very specific to Ruyter's experiences and offer unique personal observations. Ruyter takes her own snapshots and transcribes them onto canvases, outlining the forms with a bold border and then filling in the shapes with her signature palette of mint green, tangerine, dusty lavender and teal. The idiosyncratic color selection and the succinctness of her imagery create a spell that elf-earred downtown New York critic and character Reverend Jen summed up as, "looking at Lisa's paintings is like being drunk." Her show at the Taka Ishii Gallery in Tokyo is on until 22 March.

Continue reading "LISA RUYTER IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Andy Warhol began the magazine Andy Warhol's INTERVIEW in 1969 and, typically, Warhol claimed that he started it as a way to get invited to movie screenings and opening parties, but it soon developed into a remarkable publication. After Warhol's death in 1987 Interview was acquired by Brant Publications, the publishing house owned by the industrialist and art collector Peter Brant. Brant has now taken over complete control of Brant Publications, Ingrid Sischy, the editor for many years, has departed and Glenn O'Brien has taken over as editor, a position he occupied between 1971 and 1974. He discusses his plans with Anthony Haden-Guest.

Continue reading "ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST INTERVIEWS GLENN O'BRIEN, THE NEW EDITOR OF ANDY WARHOL'S LEGENDARY INTERVIEW MAGAZINE" »

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Corentin Hamel interviews collector Marcel Brient and gallery owner Catherine Thieck on the occasion of the sale of four major works by Zhang Xiaogang and Yue Minjun at Sotheby's Contemporary Evening sale in London on 27 February.

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'Matters of Opinion' is a new series of interviews we're going to be publishing in which Anthony Haden-Guest talks to key figures in the art world about topical issues. To launch the series he talks to Dave Hickey (below), one of the most highly regarded critics in the world, about the extraordinary expansion of art world, the astonishing prices artists are now fetching, and whether the boom is here to stay.

Continue reading "ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST INTERVIEWS THE CRITIC AND CURATOR DAVE HICKEY" »

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The American artist Mark Bradford discusses his work with Eungie Joo, formerly gallery director and curator at REDCAT in Los Angeles and now Director and Curator of Education and Public Programs at The New Museum in New York. Mark Bradford's work is featured in 'Collage', the second part of The New Museum's four-part exhibition, 'Unmonumental'.

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'John Richardson's multi-chambered apartment at the Greenwich Village end of Fifth Avenue is kind of a time machine. One moment you are at the high end of the Ecole de Paris - drawings, print, bits and pieces by Braque, Leger and Picasso, including loads of tauromachia - then you are whooshed right into the louche giddiness of Andy Warhol's Manhattan.' The indefatigable biographer of Picasso discusses the third volume which takes the story up to 1932, some twenty years before Richardson (below), now 84, first met the artist.

Continue reading "JOHN RICHARDSON TALKS TO ANTHONY HADEN-GUEST ABOUT THE THIRD VOLUME OF HIS PICASSO BIOGRAPHY" »

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Gaia is a street artist born in New York City. His distinct black and white linoleum images of the faces of small children and animals, such as roaring bears, can be seen all over Manhattan. He talks here to Eddie Alfaro.

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The embattled collective Artists Anonymous returned to their hometown Berlin this fall, following what looked like either a vacation or an exile depending on your perspective. After messy break-ups with their gallerists (New Yorkers Goff and Rosenthal ended the relationship with a lawsuit) and a successful interlude in London, AA opened their own space in Berlin near the new Haunch of Venison outpost. On the night of the new gallery strip's corporate vernissage, they held an open bar and all night-party - a snide joke on the part of a group of ex-addicts who don't themselves drink. Alix Rule talks to the collective about addiction, the influence of Joseph Beuys, why they feel the need 'to continue threatening the art world' with their existence, and their show 'Virus', which opens today at Haunch of Venison in Zurich.

Continue reading "ARTISTS ANONYMOUS IN CONVERSATION WITH ALIX RULE" »

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Ranking, rating and list-making is as part of the holiday season as goodies and good will. Bright and friendly 'The Best Of' lists are standard fare in fashion magazines and fluffy holiday supplements. But thanks to 'The Rebel', London's newest fledgling art magazine, there is a dash of spice to cut the season's sugary sentimentality - the magazine's first issue takes on the issue of class, with features such as '23 Artists Tell Us About Their Social Class', and comes up with its own end of the year list - 'The Art World's 50 Least Important People.'

Continue reading "REBEL MAGAZINE IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Joshua Powell (below), one half of Dilettante Films, discusses their contribution to "And, who are you? Artists from Saatchi Online," an exhibition of artists from Saatchi Online which is on at the Sara Tecchia Roma New York Gallery in New York until 26 January. "Just Blow", a slick commercial for organic, free-trade cocaine, brilliantly mocks the sophisticate mores and selective ethics of self-styled urbane hedonists. You can view Dilettante Films' 'Saving Yossi' here

Continue reading "JOSH POWELL IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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Alison Jackson's recently released monograph 'Confidential' offers a photograph of Paris Hilton pampered and petted by attentive and adoring, burly prison Mamas in orange uniforms and greasy matted hair. In a short series of shots, Prince Harry wears his infamous SS uniform while getting down (to hardcore ganstra
rap, one imagines) with a blissful minstrel in black face and a figure in full KKK garb, 
and then fondles a girl dressed in garters and a Hitler moustache. The series climaxes as a pretty, polished young lady removes the KKK hood and Prince William's mischievous grin is unveiled.

Continue reading "ALISON JACKSON IN CONVERSATION WITH ANA FINEL HONIGMAN" »

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A native of Missouri, Lisa Sanditz has trawled the American Midwest, painting scenes of bucolic oddities from a chapel made of car parts to spelunking caves. In 2006 she made her first trip to China, an experience that has set her on a new path of work examining the relationship between the Chinese and American commercial landscape.

Continue reading "LISA SANDITZ IN CONVERSATION WITH STEVE PULIMOOD" »

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For the past month, London's arts and culture columnists haven't been able to get enough of the drum set at Hauser and Wirth, on which you can record your attempts to play along to a single by the art world's darling native sons, Glasgow four-piece Franz Ferdinand. Even better, the song hasn't been released yet, and the best of the amateur attempts will be issued on a CD that precedes the album. The artist behind the project, Anri Sala, discusses his latest show, which closes 22 December.

Continue reading "ANRI SALA IN CONVERSATION WITH ALIX RULE" »

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