Cy Twombly : Cycles and Seasons

19 June - 14 September 2008

Coinciding with Cy Twombly's 80th year, this will be the first retrospective in the UK for twenty years of the work of this artist. It will present a unique opportunity to examine his paintings, drawings and sculpture across his long and distinguished career. Born in 1928 in Lexington Virginia, Twombly studied in Boston, New York and Black Mountain College, Carolina. In the mid 1950s, following travels in Europe and Africa, he emerged as a prominent figure among a generation of artists working in New York that included Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The exhibition will focus on key cycles of related works, multi-part works and some of Twombly's monumental series of paintings interspersed with more intimate rooms devoted to drawings and sculpture.

The Tate Modern : Bankside, London SE1 9TG

020 7887 8888

Open Sunday to Thursday 10.00 - 18.00

Open Friday to Saturday 10.00 - 22.00 

[this is taken directly from the Tate Modern website, to book tickets in advance for this exhibtion CLICK HERE]

WOFL

This is an image from the animation 'WOFL' by David O'Reilly. He made it when he was working for the company Fabrica, who are part of Benetton's Communication and Research Centre.  It tells the tale of a young wolf who comes across a dead friend and drags the body to a point high on a hill before settling down into the 'oroborus' position for his hibernation... over the course of his hibernation his comrades body is decomposed and becomes part of the earth and they meet in spirit with the birth of spring. Apparently Fabrica were not very impressed by his work, but I think it is one of the most beautiful pieces of short film I have seen in a long time. He is currently working on a piece entitled 'Serial Entoptics' which features the music of The Knife.

I found the piece while researching the image of the 'oroborus' which is represented by the two circles in our logo. I will be doing something in the near future based around this image using old alchemical carvings and illustrations.

HOT CHRISTMAS by Tim & Barry

I think that in this case, actions do indeed speak louder then words. Rather than try and explain what Tim and Barry have done for us it's best if you just take a look; click this link and hover over the letter 't' in 'twosee'. Click on it when it changes to the word 'trends' and follow the links to get the full size images with animation... Genius. It seems to capture the essence of christmas itself, with it's over the top tack and it's lack of tact. 

We have worked with Tim and Barry several times in the past, most notably on the 'Gollierock' exhibition that was held in the basement of the store from May until July. This exhibition was basically a retrospective of their work from the last five years born out of a series they made for the designer Jean Charles de Castelbajac...

Jean Charles chose Tim and Barry to photograph a series for his exhibition during the summer at the Musee Galliera. This was to be a huge retrospective of his work entitled 'Gallierock'. They were asked to photograph a series of portraits of people from London wearing his archive material which was sent over to the store. There were some astounding pieces sent over, including a life size teddy bear head! As they began to photograph people wearing these 'creations' they called on us to help them chose some London faces for it. Jean Charles was very eager to have a selection of creative people that would understand his 'art' and where he was coming form... We helped them by getting together a number of personalities, including; Matthew Stone, Bishi, James (Boombox), MIA, and our buyer Anthony Stephinson (all of these images are on Jean Charles' website under a section called 'Tim & Barry). These portraits were placed in a corridor-like room with a giant throne at the end. The idea being that you could walk down this 'rogue's gallery' and then sit in the throne for your own fifteen minutes of fame. It seemed fitting that at some point these photographs should be brought back to the people in them, and therefore, to London. We formulated the idea for 'Gollierock' at twosee with this in mind. 

Alongside the photographs from Paris, we exhibited their documentary work of the london 'Grime' music scene. The exhibition was sponsored by New Era Caps, who made limited edition caps for us that were sent to the first 200 respondants to the exhibition. The flyer (pictured) for the exhibition featured Jean Charles himself, cementing the close relationship that we have with him.

It seems that the story we have entered with Tim and Barry is far from over, as the HOT CHRISTMAS shoot proves... We tread common ground.

High Praise for Abstraction

This is an image of the artist Gerhard Richter installing his latest work at Cologne Cathedral in Germany. It is made up of 11,000 squares of coloured glass and looks like a giant pixelated computer screen. Although he was originally approached by the church's head architect to construct a martyr scene, he instead chose to use his painting '4096 Colours' (1974) as the starting point. The result was not merely haphazard, as the 72 colours that were chosen for the work were taken directly from the other works of stained glass in the cathedral. The result is stunningly framed by the gothic tracery of the windows and creates a high tension between the gothic architecture and what is essentially a piece of abstract art. It caused a stir in the church's circles, but the reactions from both the art world and churchgoers have been resolutely positive. The head architect who approached Richter has said it creates; "... a beguiling light which incorporates everything that has been said about spirituality, light and colour." High praise indeed.

The use of the digital image as a symbol in fashion is all to evident these days. It seems as if we weren't too far wrong in the 50's when we thought the digital age would be upon us by now. This season Basso and Brooke have oversize pixelated prints in muted autumnal colours, that distort the body shape with their construction; going forwards into next season Raf Simons and Walter von Bierendonck had two very different views of the future through computer. Raf, the staunch futurist, declared that the 'myspace generation' was dead and looked towards the diasporic traveller as his start point. Of course his product was high future, with shoes closing with high-tech elastics, and the tops made from ruched nylons, the least manmade of fabrications. The result was akin to his computer generated characters running from the game, taking to the hills with their useless equipment, that wouldn't help against the elements. Walter, on the other hand, created his 'characters' literally with computer generation. They were all made in the program Second Life and then the clothes seemed to be forced to fit in with this twisted body image. There were corsets by Mr. Pearl and hats by Stephen Jones that looked like nothing either of them would have created without the help of CG rendering programs... His characters left the computer game and showed their true colours to the world, out of context, but ready for any pixelated fireball that might be thrown at them... And in the future, it doesn't seem so unimaginable.

                                  

Basso & Brooke AW07  : Raf Simons SS08  : Walter von Bierendonck SS08

For me, noone has married this digital with the actual as well as Gerhard Richter and his Cologne Cathedral. I would love to see Walter's Sex Clowns taking communion from a priest in a nylon robe... But none of it would be possible without Richter's light illuminating them.

"For Him...

What men really want. By the fashion designer Gareth Pugh [Independent New Review today]

2. Jeremy Scott's Burger Bar T-shirt, £185.00

This has a graphic of a burger-bar-shaped spaceship with the name "Jeremy" on it; it's classic tongue-in-cheek from someone whose work I always enjoy.

To See, 17 Monmouth Street, London WC2, tel: 0207240 7692, www.twoseelife.com"

It's a shame they spelt the name of the store wrong, and strange as it is part of the web address, but nice to see such an interesting piece in the Independent as a gift idea of What men really want... If you'd like to take a look at it on the online store then CLICK THIS LINK. 

Also, to see the article properly click on the image and it will appear in a more readable size.