Frustration. Anger. Resentment. Confusion. These are just some of the emotions that suffuse Karen Parker’s World. In his new exhibit, Douglas Kolk creates a personalized narrative of a young person’s struggle to come to terms with her sense of selfhood. Long concerned with the questions of identity, Kolk’s mixed media collages and paintings have attempted to portray the modern individual’s confusion with finding his or her own place within the world.

At Arndt und Partner gallery in Berlin, Kolk was given a freedom to experiment with new media. His single brushstroke wall portraits of young women, such as Rapunzel, function as a reflection of a young woman’s hauntingly hollow perception of self. However, it is really only with a series of sculptures, the artist’s first, that one really gets a sense of Karen Parker’s confusion. Simply entitled Karen Parker, one sculpture is of a young woman wearing a mask, in a state of undress. Perpetuating the sense of a non-existent sense of identity, the sculpture seems like an accurate depiction of a depressed woman.

Venturing through the gallery rooms will take you to the extremes of your emotional landscape and will leave you questioning your sense of self and the social constructs that have allowed the development of an entire generation of confusion.

Check it out here.

Primarily focused on blurring the traditional and contemporary representations of class boundaries, Kehinde Wiley’s subjects have primarily tended to be young African-American men, straight from the streets of Harlem. But World Stage: Africa, Lagos - Dakar at Studio Museum Harlem is moving beyond the boundaries of the urban New York landscape. Taking Wiley’s well-known style and transplanting it to a global spectrum, the new series of 10 paintings were conceived in temporary studios set up along his travels through Nigeria and Senegal. Consequently, traces of regional architecture and textiles have found their way into his new works.

Although his stylistic signature has always been juxtaposing the elements of traditional renaissance portraiture with that of urban African–American culture, this new exhibit gave Wiley the freedom to represent the historical dynamics between power and privilege in an entirely new setting. Suffusing his works with a hint of the post-colonial, Wiley paints his subjects in poses replicated straight from independence–era statues scattered around Lagos and Dakar.

Whilst these new paintings retain a powerful vibrancy, there is arguably a loss of the familiar garnered in Wiley’s earlier works. The instant identification garnered by the Harlem-based settings of his earlier portraits is somehow lost when transferred to the African landscape. But this new dimension in Wiley’s artistic realm is producing iconic results that are sure to resonate with a bigger crowd than ever.

A whimsical fantasyland of wooden beams and hanging glass canopies, Frank Gehry’s first project in the UK is about to become reality. Having been selected by the Serpentine Gallery to participate in an innovative architectural program, Gehry was given 6 months to design, construct and erect a temporary summer Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park. Following in the footsteps of Rem Koolhaas and Oscar Niemeyer, Gehry’s Pavilion is ninth in the Serpentine’s series as well as being his first UK project.

To describe the structure as conceptual is somewhat of an understatement. Held up by 4 steel columns, the pavilion is a scintillating labyrinth of overlapping glass panes and protruding wooden beams. But despite the convoluted aesthetic of the Pavilion, there is an undeniable functionality embedded in Gehry’s concoction. Described as an “urban street”, the pavilion will serve as a promenade linking the park to the Serpentine Gallery itself.

And whilst the placement of timber catapults and steel planks may seem to some absurd, wooden benches are scattered around the pavilion making it an attractive space for aimless wandering and self-reflection.

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If you’re a big enough fan of Quincy Jones, you’d know that his middle name is ‘Delight’. You’d also know that the maverick is getting ready to celebrate his 75th birthday. But leave it to Uncle Q to celebrate in musical style: supported by the Swiss Army Big Band, over 20 artists will be gathered on stage at the 42nd Montreux Jazz festival, to perform a fitting tribute to the great man himself.

Billed as the highlight of this year’s festival, the tribute concert will feature a variety of artists from the legendary Chaka Khan and Herbie Hancock to relative newcomers James Morrison and Paolo Nutini. The performer’s list reads like a who’s who of musical talent. But this should hardly come as a surprise, considering the expanse of Jones’ influence in the musical realm.

Having co-produced the Festival from 1991 – 1993, Jones oversaw a sizeable portion of its expansion and had a considerable stake in evolving the festival from a purely jazz-centric festival into a world music extravaganza.
All proceeds from ticket sales go to the Quincy Jones Listen Ip foundation

SaLon at WHITEBOX is a testament to the diversity of the UK’s freshest emerging talent. Eight recent graduates of British art schools like the Royal Academy of Art or Goldsmiths were selected to represent what SaLon considers the new wave of British art.

From spraypaint to embroidery, each artist creates a solid impression on the audience despite the collective nature of the exhibit. Although hailed as a the new generation of British art, the artists make it clear that they are more than just a unit, breaking the need for cohesion in the exhibit and favoring screaming voices of independence and change. The ways in which they voraciously attack modern British life only serves to emphasize the frustrations with the lack of societal progression.

Among the illustrious eight is explosive new talent Sarah Maple. Hailed as the new Tracey Emin by The Independent on Sunday, she was recently awarded the “4 Sensations Award” for her controversial work. Maple addresses questions of Islamic identity by placing stereotyped versions of veiled women within a Westernized fashion photography context. Various references to Kate Moss are explicitly made, if only to contrast the liberalism of the Westernized woman with that of the modesty of the Islamic woman. Her artwork is suffused with questions on religious and national identity because of her mixed religious and cultural upbringing.

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Attempting to blur the lines between fashion, art and architecture, Mobile Art is jumping head first into the avant-garde. The brainchild of Chanel’s creative director Karl Lagerfeld and architect wunderkind Zaha Hadid, the concept of a traveling gallery is a means of subverting the traditional ways in which people visit galleries, transporting the art to the people, and not the other way around. The gallery, which inhabited Hong Kong from February to April, is now closing it’s Tokyo run. Soon, it will reopen in New York, then continuing through London, Moscow and Paris.

A physical synonym of ultra-modern, the gallery itself (pictured above) is a white, streamlined loop-shaped structure, with industrial undertones. Visitors exit from the starting point of their journey, replicating the cyclical, and oftentimes fickle, nature of fashion.

The exhibit is a showcase of individual installations, all the work of twenty handpicked international artists. And whilst the gallery itself is arguably the most striking piece on display, the inspiration of the Chanel quilted handbag stirred in the artists’ some strikingly conceptual pieces, most notably “At the Bottom” by Japanese artist Tabaimo, an elevated structure in which visitors peer down into a well filled with the floating dreams of Chanel customers.

Perfectly capturing the international aesthetic of the Chanel brand, Mobile Art will be touring the world’s major cities, starting off in futuristic Tokyo and culminating in the capital of Haute Couture, Paris.

More mobility here.