Amelia’s Magazine | Tatty Devine launch new central London store in style

The ExtInked project dreamt up by the Ultimate Holding Company to mark Charles Darwin’s bicentennial birthday is no doubt one of the most unique and amazing projects I’ve heard about in a long time. Along with an exhibition illustrating 100 of the most endangered animals in the British Isles, viagra 40mg sick the event came to an astounding conclusion with the tattooing of 100 volunteers who then became ambassadors for their animal. So as the exhibition closed yesterday, pilule what is to become of the ambassadors, now back in their natural habitats?

A friend of mine was lucky to be involved in the project and here he shares his experiences with me.

So why did you take part in the ExtInked Project?

Since getting involved with UHC sometime last winter, I’ve been a part of a number of really interesting projects with them. ExtInked was something they have been talking about for a long time and the idea always really appealed to me. I think it’s a really great thing to be a part of, people have learned so much about which animals are endangered and hopefully will think about why that is, and what can be done about it. For me, I try to make a lot of environmental decisions in my life and feel extremely passionate about the use of animals and our finite natural resources for human gain.

Wildlife conservation and the environment are extremely important, in our relatively short time on this earth we have managed to destroy so much. Positive and big things are happening from the ground up. There is a fast growing environmental movement, but the important decisions need to be made from the top, which, unfortunately is not happening nearly enough.

It seems easier for leaders of governments and corporations to pretend they are doing something, rather than making an important change, that could make a really big difference.

Ext Inked was a great way to be involved in one of the most creative bottom-up environmental actions I know of, I now have a species permanently on my body, which throughout my life no doubt, hundreds of people will ask about, and I will be able to tell them the information I learned about that particular species, the project, the movement, and, in my case, the RSPB and other organisations helping to protect birds in the UK.

Which animal did you get? Tell me about the tattoo!

I went for the Black Grouse; I love birds, so for me it had to be a bird. The black grouse is found in the north of England, much of Wales and Scotland. I think to me, it was important to get something that I would be likely to come into contact with, I love golden eagles and leatherback turtles, but I’ve never seen either unfortunately! I don’t think it really matters too much which species I had tattooed though, as it’s more about the project and the issues as a whole than one particular species.

Tell me about the experience! What happened when you went to Manchester?

We went along on the last day around lunch time, which was bit quieter than when I visited on the Thursday night. I was quite pleased about that as all the tattooing happened much like a tattoo convention. There were barriers up at the front, and a stage with the three tattooists from Ink vs. Steel in Leeds, tattooing live in front of whoever was there to watch. As it was my first tattoo, and I didn’t know how much it would hurt, I was a bit nervous about being watched!

I thought I was being tattooed at 1 o clock, but somebody was running late, and I was early, so they switched our places, I didn’t really have any time to feel too nervous, before I knew it I was laid face down, being tattooed. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt, because it did, but the mix of the atmosphere, and the rush of adrenaline you get puts you in a really strange place. I just laid their trying to work out how much it hurt and which bit he was doing, it was actually a pretty good feeling! Having had the tattoo a couple of days now, the pain seems totally insignificant.

Your girlfriend was part of the project too wasn’t she?

My girlfriend Sally got involved too; she got the Rampion Bellflower on her inner arm. She has a lot of tattoos already, so I think she probably had a different experience to me, although she was still a bit nervous. She was really excited to be a part of the project and has already done some good work telling people about the project and spreading the word! Sally is a very creative person, but isn’t able to be too involved in art, so I think it’s great that she really connected with this project and was really receptive to the ideas artists had on conservation.

What about the future? How do you think you’ll feel about the tattoo in 20 years time?

In twenty years time I have no idea how I will feel about the tattoo, but the more I live, the more I learn, and the more I learn, the more passionate I become.

Climate change and human activity is affecting our wildlife, and that’s only going to get worse unless we act quickly and dramatically. If we act now, while we still have a bit of a chance, I will be able to look at my tattoo and think, I’m glad we did something, and If not, I don’t think anybody will see it because my leg will probably be under water!

DSC_0608All imagery throughout courtesy of Natalia Kneen.

The recent grand opening of Tatty Devine’s new Covent Garden boutique was an affair to remember. A mini marching band led an excited crowd from Tatty Devine’s Soho shop to the new boutique in Covent Garden’s Seven Dials. Wearing giant Tatty Devine jewellery pieces and holding banners, web balloons and streamers the crowd ascended on to the brand’s new central London home on Monmouth Street. Guests enjoyed mulled cider and cupcakes as they celebrated the momentous occasion for the ‘plastic fantastic’, rx cult jewellery brand. Everyone who attended was treated to a lovely gift bag containing, among other treats, a beautiful pendant necklace from the ‘Button Up’ range.

DSC_0676Tatty Devine founders Rosie and Harriet pictured in the new store.

Tatty Devine founders, Rosie Wolfenden and Harriet Vine will, next year, celebrate the 10th birthday of the company they started together way back in 2000. Since their humble beginning the brand has released well over 20 Collections and has collaborated with a wealth of creatives such as Rob Ryan, Ashish, Peter Jensen, Gilbert and George, Peaches, Bernstock Speirs and the V+A to name but a few. In addition to their stand alone stores Tatty Devine now have over 100 stockists worldwide including MOMA, Selfridges, Tate and Urban Outfitters. With such an established position within London’s fashion scene makes the brand an ideal addition to the exclusive Seven Dials location.  “Monmouth Street has a tradition of independent British fashion boutiques, which suits us perfectly. We’re bringing the spirit of our Soho shop to a new space where we can celebrate our 10th birthday next year in style!”

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The boutique will sell all the current collections, the Best of Tatty Devine range featuring the 50 most popular pieces, and of course their famous name necklaces. Also in stock will be; knitwear by KIND, sunglasses by Jeremy Scott and Alexander Wong, bags by Mimi, and excitingly they will be the exclusive UK stockist of Eley Kishimoto’s flash print purses.

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The Autumn/Winter 2009 ‘Button Up’ collection, inspired by the classic iconography of London’s Pearly Kings and Queens brings out a sense of London pride (and when you buy the Pearly King Brooch or Necklace, £1 from every sale will be donated to charity through the Pearly Kings and Queens Association). For the Tatty Devine aficionados out there you can also see Tatty Devine at Bust’s Craftacular event on December 12th, from 12-7pm, at York Hall in Bethnal Green.  Tatty Devine, 44 Monmouth Street, London WC2H 9EP.

Categories ,Alexander Wong, ,Ashish, ,Bernstock Speirs, ,Bust Magazine, ,Covent Garden, ,Crafacular, ,Eley Kishimoto, ,Ester Kneen, ,Gilbert and George, ,Harriet Vine, ,Jeremy Scott, ,KIND, ,London’s Pearly Kings and Queens, ,Mimi, ,MOMA, ,Peaches, ,Peter Jensen, ,rob ryan, ,Rosie Wolfenden, ,Selfridges, ,Seven Dials, ,Tate, ,Tatty Devine, ,Urban Outfitters, ,va

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Amelia’s Magazine | Fash Off! Closing LFW Party

The Israli born Inbar Spector‘s gothic collection certainly raised eye brows and expectations in an explosion of delicate laces, ask buy more about zipped corsetry and mass of tulle. Her pieces consisted of futuristic and OTT couture-like constructivism with an edgy twist which made her designs captivating.

Taking the nomadic immigrant as her muse for autumn/winter 09-09, there was a mix of energetic movement created by the twisted chiffon, zips and pvc trousers, but there was also a sense of structure. Tight corsets, belted waists and armoured tops, ensured an empowered woman emerged.

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one of my favourites from the collection

The last two pieces twisted tulle ballgowns was greeted by whoops of applause. This was a perfect finish for a collection that bursted with intelligently conceived modern gothic pieces.

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i want this dress!

After a whole week of hot footing it to fashion shows and cocktail swigging after parties, help we wanted to celebrate the last day in style. Cue an invite to ‘Fash Off‘- a Closing LFW Party at the fancy Beach Blanket Babylon in association with Stimuli magazine.

When we first got there we were excited but we were soon confused at the long queue at the door. After much waiting around we were eventually let in. However I must note that there was a rather annoying PR lady who kept disappearing, information pills then reappearing only to haphazardly look at a chart and exclaim ‘only guess list!’ brushing people aside like flies. I like to think of her as dragon lady.

However when we were eventually in we went downstairs for a much needed drink. It wasn’t until 11ish that things hotted up with Skin spinning some tunes and people dancing along. Amongst those at the party were Daisy Lowe, the model Lara Stone and plenty of Stimuli magazine people. Although I was much more excited about the music and a big fan they had in a corner (perhaps you had to be there!)

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sarah and mel lookin’ beauuutiful

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sarah’s sexy fan pose

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…and it’s mel’s turn

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this girl even gets in on the act-gettin’ down and dirty on the floor

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what look is that guy trying to go for?! well at least he’s having fun!

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skin getting the party started

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and the crowd goes wild…well comparatively..

After toasting to this years LFW Sarah, Mel and I parted ways, with fond memories of all things fashion.

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Amelia’s Magazine | Bauhaus: Art as Life at the Barbican Art Gallery


T. Lux Feininger’s Sport at the Bauhaus by Scott Nellis

A retrospective of a German modernist design movement seems like a slightly curveball choice whilst London is busy boasting about everything British. Even Tate, notorious for shunning British artists at its Modern site, celebrates Damien Hirst this summer. In Hirst fashion it’s rumoured that he kicked up a fuss at the thought of exhibiting at Tate Britain, and even paid for the floors of Tate Modern to be reinforced to accommodate his dead animals in tanks, leaving Tate Britain tenuously linking Picasso to British artists (and, hilariously, dealers) in its Picasso in Britain major exhibition. Even so, the theme of London’s galleries seems to be how great Great Britain is. Except, it seems, for the Barbican.


Bauhaus by Sam Parr

Nevertheless, I was excited to see what this new retrospective would offer. A visit to the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin is a must for any design perv. I’d clocked that this Barbican showcase was in association with said archives so my feelings were mixed – would it be pieces I’d already seen, rehung in a different fashion?


The Barbican from above, by Morgane Parma

Unusually (I think) this exhibition begins on the upper floor of the gallery, which had punters looking a bit bemused at the bottom of the stairs, most of them deciding to begin on the ground floor and bottle-necking one of the lower exhibition rooms. I stifled giggles as I crept upstairs where it was relatively quiet. I couldn’t help thinking that Gropius, Mies Van Der Rohe, Moholy-Nagy and pals would be pretty happy that their work and influence were being celebrated in the Brutalist concrete alcoves of the Barbican Art Gallery. The first room charts the opening of Bauhaus at Weimar and Walter Gropius‘ educational approach, particularly the Programme of the State Bauhaus in Weimar, a hefty text which has since become known as the Bauhaus manifesto. There are a few interesting pieces in these early rooms – particularly Lyonel Feininger‘s woodcut for the manifesto cover, on loan from MoMA.


Walter Gropius by Scott Nellis

The rest of the upstairs takes us on a tour of the early years of Bauhaus the ‘return to crafts’, showcasing the school’s impressive roster of teachers including Klee and Kandinsky; ‘salute to the square’, discussing the turning point in 1923 where Bauhaus progressed from emphasis on craft to its more rational aesthetic with which we associate the school today. One room, ‘instruments of communication’ got me particularly hot under the collar, showcasing some of Bauhaus‘ incredible typographic and editorial design work and many examples of Bauhausbücher produced between 1925 and 1930. The eclectic style of early Bauhaus print had by this point been replaced with a slick, efficient design aesthetic – geometric shapes, simplified information and even printers’ marks. In my humble/honest opinion, it’s some of the sexiest graphic design ever created.


All photography by Jane Hobson courtesy of the Barbican Art Gallery

It’s downstairs where the exhibition really comes alive, though, through tangible design, photography and costume, charting the move to Dessau, Bauhaus’ final home. Vibrant photographs document life at the school – sport, recreation, teaching, socialising. Dramatic photographs of the building itself show what a marvel it must have been, from Gropius‘ futuristic design to Marcel Breuer‘s tubular-steel furniture. The exhibition opens up here and it feels slightly overwhelming at first, particularly as you’ve been guided so carefully around the upstairs rooms.


Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadisches Ballett by Niki Groom

It was a challenge not to go wild as I surveyed the space, with costumes from Oskar Schlemmer‘s Triadisches Ballett that I hadn’t seen in Berlin, Josef Albers‘ nest of tables and club chair, Marcel Breuer‘s Wassily chair… it was a feast for any design fancier. Pig in proverbial shit, you might say.


Bauhaus (with Marcel Bruer chair) by Gilly Rochester

I could talk more about the pieces but any of the Bauhaus publications do it much better, so I’d recommend, if you can, to just go and bloody see it for yourself. You won’t be disappointed.


Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe by Sandra Contreras

In 1933, after only 14 years, the Bauhaus dissolved under Mies Van Der Rohe‘s leadership. The Nazis grew ever anxious about what the school represented. Hannes Meyer was dismissed due to Communist leanings; Kandinsky‘s work had to be hidden because of his Russian background and funding was withdrawn. A poignant letter hangs as the last exhibit, written by Mies Van Der Rohe to the final students of Bauhaus, detailing its closure. It’s a poignant end to an exhibition that celebrates the enduring legacy and worldwide impact of the school.


All photography by Jane Hobson courtesy of the Barbican Art Gallery

Categories ,1920s, ,1930s, ,Archiv, ,Archives, ,Art Deco, ,art gallery, ,bauhaus, ,berlin, ,Damien Hirst, ,design, ,Dessau, ,editorial, ,Germany, ,Kandinsky, ,Klee, ,László Moholy-Nagy, ,london, ,Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, ,Lyonel Feininger, ,Marcel Breuer, ,Modernism, ,MOMA, ,Nazis, ,picasso, ,publishing, ,Tate, ,typography, ,Walter Gropius, ,Weimar

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Amelia’s Magazine | Black Dog Books Haunt Black Rat’s latest Projects

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© Takeshi Katami photograohy from Kanye West website

Pop Life: Art in a Material World proves that good business is the best art. Spanning across 17 rooms, story Pop Life celebrates artists renowned for challenging the media and public with their extravagant, more about provocative and controversial attitudes towards their craft; often praised but when criticised, they are shown no mercy. Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst love / hate affair with the media and public are perfect examples, both of whom are featured in Pop life.

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© Photo: Rod Tidnam, Tate Michael Jackson on the front cover of Interview Magazine in October 1982.

As soon as you enter the exhibition you are greeted by the now legendary sight of a Jeff Koons’ stainless steal Bunny, a sculpture more impressive in person than on TV or in a magazine. Jeff Koons has a whole room to himself entitled ‘Made in Heaven’, which can only be described as an ‘orgy of erotic portraits’, featuring his then wife, former porn star and politician La Cicciolina and Koons himself. It is worth a look- as the centerpiece it is quite a remarkable piece of craftsmanship (I won’t ruin it for you).

Pop5© Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin – The Shop

Young British Artists (YBA) alumni are represented well with Tracy Emin; the signature careless, warrior like attitude of her work are featured as well as the inexhaustible and controversial Damien Hirst, both keeping true to their reputations. Hirst keeps things interesting with his live installation featuring identical twins (if you are a set of identical twins the Tate are looking for people to participate in this installation). Both Emin and Hirst sit side by side like brother and sister representing British art proudly.

Pop6 copy© Damien Hirst’s Aurothioglucose 2008

Amongst the wonders on display is Japan’s own Warhol in the shape of Takashi Murakami who is showcasing his collaborations with artists such as Kanye West and Pharrell Williams as well as the fashion house Louis Vuitton. Murakami also collaborates with director McG for a Pop Life exclusive video installation featuring Hollywood starlet Kristen Dunst that delves into Japan’s obsession – Manga. It is an attention-grabbing watch and The Vapours ‘I Think I’m Turning Japanese’ as sung by Dunst will have your head bobbing and singing along. Keith Harrings’ infamous pop up store is in the centre of the exhibition and is worth mentioning; the selection of t-shirts, badges and posters is a good one, the perfect place to stock up on Keith Harring memorabilia.

Pop7Petshop © Estate of Keith Haring. Photo by Charles Dolfi-Michels

Andy Warhol’s words ‘good business is the best art’ fittingly describe what this exhibition is about; the man himself, the man behind the reason why the Hirsts, Emins and Koons grace us with their presence today – is I feel the main focus of the exhibition and deservingly so. He made art sexy and created a new demand in the art world that changed it forever. Warhol changed the definition of Pop Life.

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© Anton Perich, 1979, Jerry Hall, Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry, Truman Capote and Paloma Picasso at the tenth anniversary of

Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibits at the Tate Modern till 17th January. How many more times will you get the chance to experience such influential and celebrated artists of a golden era under one roof? Get to the Tate before the 17th January. Tickets cost £12.50.

TeethLoaded © Sweet Tooth

The invite for Black Dog Books was intriguing and slightly misleading… a number of nice surprises beckon when I arrive at the venue to meet with the people involved in Black Rat Project. Finding the venue is a puzzle in itself and I find my way through the back of Cargo into this character full venue, visit an old railways arch dating back from the industrial revolution.

bookshop1Photographs © Black Rat Projects

A tin man sitting in front of a bookshop greets visitors to the show. He doesn’t have a name individually and is one of three robots called “The Drunkards” by artist Giles Walker. Walker must have a great sense of humour; he came up with the idea after being annoyed with city boys with a lot of money being able to buy into the art world. His robots now happen to be on display a stone throw from Liverpool Street and are the ideal anti-establishment statement. The robot I am looking at shouts at you and has a good rant about ‘them city rats’, information pills a good laugh in a time of recession like ours. And then it’s onto the bookshop itself, pills with quite an extensive array of books by people Black Rat Gallery represents.

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Black Rat Projects is the new name for young East End gallery, The Black Rat Press. They specialise in installations and exhibitions by some of the world’s most exciting contemporary artists. In the last two years Black Rat Projects have put on over 20 projects that have gained widespread media attention including features in The Guardian, CNN news, CBS news, BBC London, The Sunday Times and The Telegraph amongst others. The gallery’s focus is on representing artists who undertake ambitious projects that other more traditional galleries might not facilitate. Works by artists represented by BRP – such as Nick Walker, d*face and Blek le Ratcan be found in many public collections including the Brooklyn Museum and the V&A.

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The idea of creating the bookshop came when the Black Rat owners slept in the gallery one evening many years ago and were woken by the toilet flushing and books falling from the office bookshelves. Thinking they were being burgled, they turned the lights on only to find the gallery empty. Asking around, a local landlord mentioned that the gallery had been used to store the stock of legendary Victorian book dealer F. J. Williams who disappeared in 1903 and is rumored to haunt various pubs and houses around the East End.

ShepardRevolutionary Woman © Shepard Fairey

The bookshop feels like the creation of an eccentric and well-read individual; all the books in the bookshop are on sale and a few of the selection come from Black Rat owner Mike; second-hand books, fanzines by Swoon, Burning Candy and Brian Adam Douglas. The bookshop is fully functional and complete with customer assistant, working antique till and books available to buy. It has been designed by Will Randall and Giles Walker and can accommodate up to 10 people at a time. And then a plant shakes in the corner and it’s Poltergeist all of a sudden…

SwoonIrena © Swoon

Two original collages by Shepard Fairey (he of the Obama campaign fame) dominate the wall. “Hand Painted Multiples” is a limited edition of 20 prints but each one is slightly different. Swoon is on the wall opposite; from Brooklyn, she is the only one of a generation of street artists to have been embraced by the traditional art world and she is already in the Tate and MOMA.  Swoon uses interesting techniques such as screen-print pasted onto wood and life-size woodcuts, which she makes in the street. Other artists taking part are Cyclops (Lucas Price) who is part of London’s most prolific graffiti collective Burning Candy and über-talented cross-dresser extraordinaire Grayson Perry.

Matt-SmallTimms © Matt Small

A striking triptych of what appears to be a young tormented black face stares intensely at me. Matt Small’s work is breathtaking. Trained at The Royal College of Art and winner of a BP Portrait award, he uses a mixture of oils and water-based paints to create random thick textures. Small works a lot with found objects and builds up his canvases with pieces of metals bolt together to create interesting shapes and symmetry. Painting transcends the 2D flat image to become wood art and sculpture object. The frenzied strokes of paint are pulled from the center of the face and converge outwards in a heady sense of movement. Matt Small is an incredibly brave painter. This is a picture that the viewer could regard as aggressive but I thought I saw sadness in the Somalian model’s eyes. Small tries to give a platform through his painting to anonymous faces that are rarely portrayed in the art world. Young people are constantly undervalued and looked down upon. Everyone has got something valuable to give.

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Photographs © Black Rat Projects

This gallery tries to explore all sorts of artistic voices from painting to graphic work and art with substance; but it’s all pulled together in a thrilling and successful way. Consumer culture has no place here. The displays are a throwback to conventional ideas with a human interactive connection. But traditions can be modernised; the old materials, the subject matters, everything is given a modern makeover. A must see!

Exhibition runs from Monday – Saturday 10am – 6pm, through Cargo Garden, Arch 461, Kingsland Viaduct, 83 Rivington Street, London. EC2A 3AY. Nearest tube– Liverpool St / Old St. Entry is free. Information: 020 7613 7200.

Categories ,art, ,Art Space Draw Exhibition Sculpture Drawing Artists Anthony Gormley HEather Deedman Peter Randell Neville Gabie Alison Gil PAul McDevitt Michael Shaw Paintings Photography Applied Art 3D Pencil Galler, ,Black rat projects, ,books, ,bookshop, ,BP Portrait award, ,contemporary art, ,Exhibition Review, ,Exhibtion, ,Gallery, ,MOMA, ,Obama, ,painting, ,review, ,seventeengallery, ,Shepard Fairey

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Amelia’s Magazine | A Serious Woman? Late-style, Sexuality and the Female Artist

Louisa8Alina Szapocznikow, viagra “Great Bellies”, case 1968, photo: Roger Gain, © Piotr Stanis?awski and Alina Szapocznikow, “Krocz?ce usta”, 1966, photo: © Piotr Stanis?awski

Very occasionally and normally with a good dose of tongue-in-cheek irony and predatorial bad-taste, is an older woman considered as an object of sexual-desire. In the Coen brothers’ latest, ‘A Serious Man’, the ‘sexy-neighbour’ is a scary super-woman with too much make-up and too little decorum. The older woman and sex is a topic of taboo and avoidance. As Charlie Brooker recently pointed out, Susan Boyle is an average looking woman but in comparison to today’s airbrushed army, she is more than the wrong side of beautiful.

Louisa1Joel and Ethan Coen, ‘A Serious Man’, 2009, © Photograph by Wilson Webb

When Louise Bourgeois grins widely wearing a coat of monkey fur with a two foot-long latex phallus wielded under her right arm she is disarming and confrontational. Old women aren’t meant to make sexual jokes, are they? This is 1982 and the artist is in her early seventies. The photograph, taken by Robert Mapplethorpe the same year as her retrospective at MoMA, is subsequently cropped so all we see is the image of her wrinkled, smiling face. The erotic humour is therefore stripped from the image leaving the question; can erotic art and old age go hand-in-hand?

Louisa2Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, 1982 © The Estate of Robert Mapplethorpe

‘The glint in the eye refers to the thing I’m carrying. But they cut it. They cut it because the museum was so prudish’.

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Louise Bourgeois, Janus Fleuri, 1968, © Cheim & Reid, New York

Bourgeois suggests that the image is a joke on MoMA itself; having famously excluded females largely in it’s history of twentieth-century art, Bourgeois proudly grappling a crumbling, latex phallus pokes fun at this.

Louisa4 Installation view, ‘After Awkward Objects’, 2009, © Alina Szapocznikov

Hauser and Wirths’ latest all-female line-up of Bourgeois, Lynda Benglis and Alina Szapocznikows’ brought together three artists who address the taboo of eroticism and late-style or even death. Is this show an indication that the contemporary art world has come a long way since the Guerrilla Girlsprotests of the eighties?

Louisa3Lynda Benglis, ‘Alpha 1’, 1973-74, © Cheim & Reid, New York

Lynda Benglis’ most enduring image is of her posturing, greased, powerful and amazon-like with a giant dildo held between her legs. She is sexy yet terrifying with a perfectly formed body and ‘dyke-cut’. Originally created for Artforum in 1974, this work has had the most enduring impact and potentially effects the way we view everything she has created since. In the show her works are sensual, erotic and mirror the female/male emphasis of Bourgeois’ works. Similarly, Szapocznikow casts the female body and presents us with breasts, phalli-type objects and the idea of the female-body traumatised by the holocaust, dying early as a results of breast-cancer. Although Szapocznikow does not specifically address the idea of sexuality, she makes the viewer confront a body which is not aesthetically beautiful, desirable or even fully-finished.

Louisa7Louise Bourgeois, Sleep II, © Tate Modern

These artists demonstrate a way in which the ageing female artist depicts eroticism or the female body without really depicting it. By making parts of the body, cast, crumbling or partially-shown, they create ‘acceptable’ versions of their own sexuality, while also subtly disrupting the idea of the complete, ‘perfect’ form in modernist sculpture. It is only when we are confronted with the photo, the ‘reality’ of late-eroticism in the form of Louise Bourgeois and her crumbling phallus that this question is truly addressed. You can be old and erotic, you can even be old, ugly and erotic so long as you don’t take a photo of it.

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Headless Torso 1968, © Alina Szapocznikow

Joel and Ethan Coen ‘s ‘A Serious Man’ was released on 20 Nov 2009 and is showing at: The Soho Curzon, Vue Islington, Notting Hill Coronet, Odeon Covent Garden, Odeon Camden Town, Cineworld Chelsea and Holloway Odeon.

Categories ,20th century art, ,Alina Szapocznikow, ,Artforum, ,Charlie Brooker, ,Cineworld Chelsea, ,Erotic art, ,eroticism, ,Guerilla girls, ,Hauser and Wirth, ,Holloway Odeon, ,Joel and Ethan Coen, ,Louise Bourgeois, ,Lynda Benglis, ,modern art, ,modernist sculpture, ,MOMA, ,Notting Hill Coronet, ,Odeon Covent Garden, ,Robert Mapplethorpe, ,Susan Boyle, ,Tate Modern, ,Tewntieth century art, ,The Curzon Soho, ,Vue Islington

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