Aesthetica Magazine Issue 44

December / January 2012

This issue offers a diverse range of features starting with The Way We Live Now, which is on at the Design Museum and explores Sir Terence Conran’s impact on contemporary life in Britain. Sharon Lockhart: Lunch Break runs at SFMOMA and reflects on the position of the individual in the framework of industrial labour. Anselm Kiefer opens Shevirat Ha-Kelim: The Breaking of the Vessels at Tel Aviv Museum of Art to inaugurate their new building. Zarina Bhimji’s retrospective of 30 years and the premiere of her new film Yellow Patch open at Whitechapel. There’s a visual survey of this year’s winner and shortlisted photographers for the National Portrait Gallery’s photography prize, and we look back at this year’s cover artists with an overview of their works, as well as introduce two new series of works.

In film, highly acclaimed and award-winning director, Pablo Giorgelli, talks about his subtle and beautiful new film, Las Acacias. There is also a round-up of ASFF 2011. In music, we examine the niche genre of musical comedy and chat with American four-piece Wild Flag about their new album. In performance, we look at Danser Sa Vie at Pompidou Centre, which examines the place dance holds in art history. Finally, Christoph Benjamin Schulz discusses Alice in Wonderland, Tate Liverpool’s latest show.

Musical Comedy

Musical comedy is a hard genre to crack, and even the brightest stars are often sidelined. Here’s how a so-called niche genre is getting its groove back.

Vitamin P2

Vitamin P2 is a compendium for new international painting, acting as a guide to the styles, themes and subjects in today’s most recognisable works.

Groundwaters: A Century of Art by Self-Taught and Outsider Artists

Artists who sit outside the traditional cultural framework of the art world often go unnoted; the concept of outsider art still provokes uncertainty, questioning the legitimacy of art and artistic behaviour.

Wild Flag

Wild Flag’s credentials are undeniable. The band has just released their first album to critical acclaim. We caught up with Janet Weiss to talk about the band.

Elmgreen & Dragset: Trilogy

This text demonstrates how Elmgreen & Dragset’s sculptures and installations reconfigure the familiar with characteristic wit and subversive humour.

Spectral Images of a Dark City

Eckersley’s vision of nocturnal London dissembles the conventional imagery of built environments where abandoned estates and neon-lit corner shops reign.

Pacific Standard Time

This impressive collection coincides with an ambitious exhibition programme that tells the story of the birth of the L.A. art scene, with particular focus on Judy Chicago, Hammons, Hockney and Ruscha.

Gerhard Richter: Atlas

This book provides insight into Richter’s method and process; giving readers a glimpse into the artist’s working practice.

Edward Hopper’s Maine

This beautifully illustrated volume charts the relationship between Edward Hopper and his beloved Maine; its lighthouses, harbours and coastlines.

fDeluxe

Remember The Family, formed by Prince? A funk and soul unit put together to be the thunderclouds behind the Purple Rain, the Family has reformed as fDeluxe.

Liz Green

The old and evocative nature of Green’s voice conjures up images of dancers whirling round smoky dancefloors.