FASHION Diaries

FASHION Diaries

All posts under ‘Art’


Culture

Vancouver: Need an Olympics break? How about a bit of da Vinci?

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With Robson Street completely pedestrianized between Bute and Beatty streets and Georgia Street now home to one of the city’s largest public squares, it’s inevitable that visitors will come across the Vancouver Art Gallery (vanartgallery.bc.ca). I love artist Michael Lin’s enormous mural of colourful Taiwanese fabric covering the entire Georgia Street façade, but with all the world’s attention on athletes and their bodies, two exhibitions inside are also worth a visit. Visceral Bodies is a collection of multi-media art inspired by advances in science and medicine, while Leonardo da Vinci: The Mechanics of Man features 16th century drawings of the genius’ discoveries about the human body, hundreds of years before they were confirmed by, well, scientists. I took my two interns to their first press conference ever, where we got a preview and tour of the latter by its British curator, Martin Clayton of the Royal Collection. Our conclusion? If you’re in need of a mid-Olympics break (or perhaps just some well-deserved quiet time), we suggest checking out these exhibitions.


Culture

Spread the love at the Heartbeats for Africa art auction

Photo by Alex Jowett up for auction at Heartbeats for Africa 2010

Photo by Alex Jowett up for auction at Heartbeats for Africa 2010

Affairs of the heart are top-of-mind this month, but on the eve of Valentine’s Day, you’ll have a chance to spread the love around a little at the second edition of Heartbeats for Africa, a fundraiser to help women and children in Africa who are living with HIV/AIDS. The art auction is the brainchild of sisters Alison and Kate Lawler-Dean, who work in public relations and art consulting, respectively, and were inspired to create the event after reading Stephanie Nolan’s 28: Stories of AIDS in Africa. (The first Heartbeats was held in 2008.) Read the rest of this entry »


Daily Steal

The daily steal: Cool photography, from $27

Adam Kuehl's

Adam Kuehl's

Read the rest of this entry »


Culture

Shelf life: The Magenta Foundation’s Flash Forward 2009

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Not everyone with a brush can paint a picture, and certainly not everyone with a camera can take a photo. As Charlotte mused in Lost in Translation: “I tried taking pictures, but they were so mediocre. I guess every girl goes through a photography phase. You know, horses… taking dumb pictures of your feet.”

The Magenta Foundation (magentafoundation.org) has been encouraging emerging photographic talent for the past five years, publishing a compendium of winners each year to bring attention to their talents. The 288-page, leather-bound fifth volume, Flash Forward 2009 (Consortium, $40), features the new and also revisits the past—checking in on how the program impacted the careers of previous winners. Images range from the spontaneous and photojournalistic in feel to more staged looks at society and culture, and yes, there are even a few horses, though their translation here is far from mediocre.

Select winners will also have their works on display at the Lennox Contemporary gallery (12 Ossington Ave., Toronto) from October 8 to 25.

Click on the images below to view a gallery of photos from the book.


Culture

An ode to the shredded tee

Photography by Adam Levett

Photography by Adam Levett

Our fashion department has interns so bang-on stylish, they make Whitney Port look like an American Eagle greeter. One of these is my lovely friend Sarah Kosloff, who’s spent the last four months toiling behind the magic of editorial shoots. Though her days here are numbered, her talents are not. So, on Sarah Kosloff’s final day as a FASHION intern, I’d like to reveal one of her recent creative endeavours—a series of images she created for Show|OFF at UPC Boutique (128 1/2 Cumberland St., 416-929-9209, upcboutique.com). Read the rest of this entry »


Culture

An Absolutly fabulous pop-up

Photography by Alana Kakia

Photography by Alana Kakia

“In an Absolut world,” Justin Broadbent jokes, “all the vodka would be beer.”

For an artist, Broadbent can be such a dude.  He creates almost hyper-actively—photographing, graphic designing, directing music videos (hotdoggarbage.com), mashing up mediums in big-scale works—and now,  he’s been commissioned by Absolut to create a one-day-only art exhibit. But honestly? On the sunny day of our interview, he’d rather be hanging out in the park with pretty girls. And the longer we chat, the clearer I see: this guy is 40 ounces of distilled positivity and not a drop of pretense. Read the rest of this entry »


Culture

The Hills, in pastels

Courtesy

Courtesy of Karin Bubaš

There is something of the Mona Lisa in Lauren Conrad’s signature half-smile, hovering between certain boredom and smug knowingness. We’d just never realized it until last week, when we heard that The Hills are alive again, and in portraiture? No kidding: Karin Bubaš (karinbubas.ca), a Vancouver artist known for photographic work, has created a whole series of drawings of TV’s favourite California girls—mascara running, collagen lips trembling, looks killing from across da club. Read the rest of this entry »


FASHION Reporters

Vancouver: Fuse party plays with fashion’s past

The Ought Salon at Fuse. Photography by Julia Dewhurst

The Ought Salon at Fuse. Photography by Julia Dewhurst

A few Fridays a year art enthusiasts from across the city gather at the Vancouver Art Gallery for a cultural gathering known as Fuse—an evening that celebrates music, performance, fine art, and all around entertainment. The most recent incarnation of Fuse, which took place just last week, coincided with the opening of some of the Vancouver Art Gallery’s summer exhibitions, including the works of Anthony Hernandez, Andreas Gursky and Stan Douglas. Read the rest of this entry »


Fashion » Parties and Celebrities

Boy/girl party at the Textile Museum

Illustration by Danielle Meder, Courtesy of The Textile Museum of Canada.

Illustration by Danielle Meder, Courtesy of The Textile Museum of Canada.

The Textile Museum of Canada (55 Centre Ave., Toronto, 416-599-5321) is a gem of a museum tucked away on a side street near University and Dundas and if you haven’t been there, you really should remedy that tout de suite. Not only is it a trove of fabrics from all over the world, there’s also a regularly rotating line-up of contemporary art exhibitions.

This Thursday, June 4, the museum is hosting the first of its new Texstyle event series, Androgyny ($45, textilemuseum.ca). (It’s an institution that’s near and dear to me—I’m on the organizing committee.) The night includes a discussion on androgyny in art and style between fashion scribe David Livingstone, author Derek McCormack and designer Mikhael Kale, followed by drinks, nibblies from Queen West’s Nyood and tunes spun by DJ Jordan Bimm.  Sephora will also be there doing androgyne glam and you can even squeeze in a museum tour—including the can’t miss fashion exhibit, The Cutting Edge.


Parties and Celebrities » The Fashionable Life

Power play

All photos by Sarah Nicole Prickett

All photos by Sarah Nicole Prickett

This past Thursday, FASHION went Powerballin’ at the Power Plant’s 11th annual “original contemporary art party,” the Power Ball. Co-chaired by Cleophee Eaton, Michael Cooper and Queen West gallery guy Clint Roenisch, the trailer-trash bash was as much about raising hell as raising funds. Design duo du jour Castor hauled in their high-kitsch Winnebago and–what swine flu?–a real, live-looking pig roast. Next door, art (and bar) star Dean Baldwin slung vodka and Kool-Aid to the likes of Drake Hotel-ier Jeff Stober. In the “video outhouse,” scandalous “private parties” became less so, as they were broadcast to the big screen inside; other projections included “Mad Max” and a “Conceptual Art soft porn peep show.” Read the rest of this entry »


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