KALEIDOSCOPE’s new issue 42 (Spring/Summer 2023) launches with a set of six covers. 

A decade after his howling debut album—released at only 18, preciously young and totally timeless—we captureArchy Marshall aka King Krule through the lens of Mark Kean. About to release his fourth record, he sits down with Cyrus Goberville to talk about becoming a father, his move from London to Liverpool, writing on commuter trains between the two cities, and lingering in the “space between.”

Shot in Tokyo by Joshua Gordon, Japanese director Takashi Miike has gained a cult following, both in his homeland and internationally, as a filmmaker of the extremes of brutality, sex, and gore. Through a transoceanic cultural reading by Tetsuya Suzuki, we get acquainted with the cinematic icon, who, despite over 30 years work in film, retains the ethos of the permanent outsider.

Inaugurating a new carte blanche format “outsourcing” an editorial segment to like-minded global creatives,“Upstate” features original photography by Richard Kern and an essay by Olivia Kan-Sperling, within a special insert (cum foldedtwo-sided poster) produced and designed by game-changing New York-based modelling agency,No Agency.

A photographic portfolio by Bolade Banjo captures Popcaan, Jamaica’s biggest dancehall star, in London’s Savile Row—with an accompanying conversation between Jamaican academic Carolyn Cooper and Anglo-Jamaican curator Carol Tulloch, discussing dancehall style and culture across the two countries, in its homegrown and diasporic evolutions.

Throughout an artistic career dedicated to examining America‘s iconographies, religions, and utopias, Jim Shaw has experimented with almost every art form. Shot by Max Farago in his L.A. studio, he talks with Hans Ulrich Obrist about drawing, painting, playing in punk bands, working in the movies, collecting ephemera, and chronicling his dreams.

If you can’t buy the painting, why not get the T-shirt? Featuring an essay by Patrick McGraw and a special insert by Procell, the trend repot ART <3 MERCH investigates the unstoppable rise of museum and art gallery merchandise over the past decade—the cumulative point of an economic and creative process that started with Pop Art.

In the magazine’s front-of-the-book section, through the lens of Chris Lensz, we trawl Paris’ arrondissements with a new class of multi-hyphenate Situationists who are making and unmaking the city. Featuring DJ and visual artist Crystallmess, book dealer and curator Rare Books Paris, artist and musician Erwan Sene, and chef Mathieu Canet.

Presenting a new A.I. generated body of work, Jon Rafman builds virtual worlds for the viewer to get lost within. In conversation with Jak Ritger, he reflects on the profound ways technology has affected human society, while also exploring the sublime, the uncanny, the ingenuity of human creativity, and the changing role of the artist. 

Reenergising the classical forms of the institution with what they’ve termed “post-internet dance,“ Marseille-based collective(LA)HORDE departs from the exclusionary rigidity of the ballet with poetic, punk, and politically engagedworks. Words by Isabelle Bucklow and photography by Winter Vandenbrink encapsulate the power of real bodies moving. 

Also featured in this issue: American novelist Emma Cline (photography by Caroline Tompkins and interview by Lola Kramer), a new series of drawings by Aurel Schmidt (words by Sophie Kemp), Japanese photographer Hiroh Kikai(words by Jeppe Ugelvig), Italian punk band CCCP (words by Achille Filipponi), and “Five NYC Painters”(paintings by Brook Hsu, Francesca Facciola, Michelle Uckotter, Olivia Van Kuiken, and Justine Neuberger, and words by Reilly Davidson).

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This book accompanies a two-artist exhibition co-curated by Alessio Ascari and Shinji Nanzuka, bringing together for the very first time the work of Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama and Swiss artist HR Giger. Touring from PARCO Museum in Tokyo to PARCO Event Hall in Osaka between December 2020 and February 2021, the exhibition coincides with the 80th anniversary of Giger’s birth and features over 50 works ranging from the late 1960s to the present day.

The catalogue, designed by Swiss-based art direction firm Kasper-Florio with Samuel Bänziger, features a foreword by co-curator Alessio Ascari, a critical essay by Venus Lau, an interview with the late HR Giger by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Patrick Frey, and a recent interview with Sorayama by Ascari. It comes with a 50x70cm two-sided poster, and two 20cm die-cut stickers.

Born and trained at opposite ends of the world, Sorayama and Giger are apparently at odds—one’s bright colors are swallowed by the other’s dark chiaroscuro; one’s enthusiastic outlook on technology borders with the other’s nightmarish dystopia; one’s “super-realism” challenges the other’s surrealism—yet they share more than meets the eye. Both emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming acknowledged masters of airbrush painting and influential creators beyond the boundaries of the traditional art world, blurring the relationship between commercial and personal work. But more importantly, at the very core of their practice lies a similar concern: an obsessive investigation of AI, eternal life, and the fusion of organic and apparatus. Gynoids (female androids) are predominant subjects, conjuring the post-human and the apotheosis of the woman to reveal an underlying tension between life, death, power and desire.

Hajime Sorayama (b. 1947 in Imabari, Ehime prefecture) has established his position as a legendary artist, both within Japan and internationally, for his extensive oeuvre that centers upon an ongoing pursuit for beauty in the human body and the machine. Best known for his precisely detailed, hand-painted portrayals of voluptuous women, obtained through an astoundingly artful use of a wide array of realistic expressional techniques, most prominently airbrush painting, the artist’s international recognition is inextricably tied to his signature series titled “Sexy Robot” (1978-) featuring erotic android figures clad in shiny chrome metal, and to AIBO, the award-winning robotic pet he designed for SONY in 1999.

Hans Ruedi Giger (1940–2014) was a Swiss surrealist painter, sculptor, and set designer known for his biomechanical creatures, extraterrestrial landscapes, and disturbing sexual machines. In a career that spanned more than five decades, he employed a staggering variety of media, including furniture, movie props, prints, paintings and sculptures, often creating exhibition displays and total environments with the immersive quality of a wunderkammer—including, most notably, the HR Giger Museum in Gruyères. In 1979, his concept design for Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) won an Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects and catapulted to fame his daunting vision of death and futurism.

Designed by Kasper-Florio
With texts by Alessio Ascari, Venus Lau, Hans Ulrich Obrist

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KALEIDOSCOPE‘s new issue #38 (spring/summer 2021), coming with a set of six covers:

Designer Grace Wales Bonner talks to Rhea Dillon about elevating Blackness within fashion, looking back to her Caribbean heritage in search for beauty, nature, and spirituality. The inspirations behind her latest collections, a trilogy exploring Britain and the Caribbean as a diasporic journey, resonate beautifully in an extensive photo story shot by Marc Asekhame.

An extensive trend report titled Office Goals addresses the office intended both as a physical space and a powerful symbol of organized labor, providing an opportunity to question contemporary methodologies of working—from automation, neoliberal dystopias and the all-you-can-work freelance economy, to elevated ideas of “everywhere studio.” Within this frame, Alessio Ascari interviews Hans Ulrich Obrist, the epitome of the globetrotting curator, about how the pandemic affected his workflow, driving him to prioritize research and a decentralized approach. The report also comprises an essay by Alessandro Bava, a visual timeline by Jonathan Olivares, and a roundtable of architects and designers with ANY, Paul Cournet, Fredi Fischli & Niels Olsen, Josh Itiola, and Oana Stănescu.

Celebrated artist duo Gilbert & George, famously challenging taboos and moralism in the art world and society alike, are pictured by Chris Rhodes in the company of pro skater and multi-hyphenate Blondey McCoy—with whom they engage in an unapologetic chat about Britishness, religion, the monarchy, happiness, drugs, gentrification, and how to stay normal and weird.

In conversation with Isabel Flower, skateboarder, multimedia artist, videographer and photographer Adam Zhu discusses his commitment to safeguard his community’s powerful cultural alchemy, capturing a new generation of artists coming of age on Downtown Manhattan’s East Side.

Associated with Gulf Futurism, art collective DIS, fashion brand Telfar, and filmmaker Mati Diop, composer Fatima Al Qadiri (photographed by Charlie Engman) meets with Courtney Malick on the occasion of her newly-released solo album, which stems from an adolescent fantasy and chooses melancholy as a space for spiritual growth.

A special, limited-edition cover introduces a series of new drawings by LA artist Paul McCarthy (photographed by Daniel Regan, interview by Massimiliano Gioni), in which the scrapes the bottom of the barrel, conjuring up cheap psychology, mind-altering drugs, Trump, Hitler, and Hollywood populism, to expose the American pathology.

ABSTRACT, our text-only editorial segment dedicated to urgent research questions of our time, critically embraces the notion of counterculture, looking at it from different angles: the phenomenon of protests and the role of pleasure; the disintegration of civilized society and psycho-deflation; Detroit techno as a liberation technology. Through three essays by Michelle Lhooq, Franco “Bifo” Berardi, and DeForrest Brown, Jr., the magazine becomes a Temporary Autonomous Zone in its own right—one in which “the only possible truth is change” (Timothy Leary).

Akeem Smith: No Gyal Can Test, a special supplement created in partnership with Red Bull Arts, traverses the slippages between memory, the archive, and history, excavating the personal photographs and videos entrusted to the artist over the past decade by various family members, friends, and pivotal figures of Kingston’s dancehall community.

Also featured in this issue: Ray Johnson (words by Lucas Mascatello); Nan Goldin (words by Nan Goldin); Valerio Olgiati (interview by Martti Kalliala); Michel Majerus (words by Sarah Johanna Theurer); Rachel Kushner (words by Whitney Mallett); Joshua Citarella (interview by New Models); and Slam Jam Archive (words by Katja Horvat).

And finally, “SEASON,” the magazine’s opening section, accounts for the best of this spring/summer with profiles and interviews: Tabboo! by Allan Gardner; Aria Dean by Hanna Girma; Memphis by Luis Ortega Govela; Pol Taburet by Rhea Dillon; Art Club2000 by Lola Kramer; Grant Levy-Lucero by Jesse Seegers; Priscavera by Irina Baconsky; Nancy Holt by Cat Kron; Klára Hosnedlová by Kate Brown; The Opioid Crisis Lookbook by Patrick McGraw; Ryūichi Sakamoto by Tom Mouna; Online Ceramics by Katja Horvat; Oko Ebombo by Conor McTernan; Issy Wood by Harry Burke; Public Access by Isabel Flower; D’heygere by Madeleine Holth.

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Kaleidoscope #15. “A” Is For Africa.

HIGHLIGHTS
Santu Mofokeng by Philippe Pirotte; Hassan Khan and Wael Shawky by Shahira Issa; Sci-Fi Narratives by Nav Haq and Al Cameron; Athi-Patra Ruga by Linda Stupart; Cinémathèque de Tanger by Omar Berrada.

MAIN THEME – The Future of The Continent, Continent of the Future.
Part A) Art by Nana Oforiatta-Ayim; Part B) Cinema by Olufemi Terry and Frances Bodomo; Part C) Music by Benjamin Lebrave; Part D) Urban Planning by Antoni Folkers.

MONO – Nicholas Hlobo
Interview by Sean O’Toole; Essay by Tracy Murinik; Focus by Liese van der Watt.

REGULARS
Futura: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye by Hans Ulrich Obrist; Panorama: From Nigeria to Ethiopia by Emmanuel Iduma; On Exhibitions: “African Negro Art” by Paola Nicolin; Souvenir d’Italie: Massimo Grimaldi by Luca Cerizza; Producers: Elvira Dyangani Ose by Carson Chan.

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Kaleidoscope #12 – Fall 2011

Kaleidoscope is an international quarterly of contemporary art and culture. Distributed worldwide on a seasonal basis, it offers a timely guide to the present (but also to the past and possible futures) with an interdisciplinary and unconventional approach.

HIGHLIGHTS: Public Movement interview by Alhena Katsof; RON NAGLE INTERVIEW BY STERLING RUBY; Lucie Stahl by Joanna Fiduccia; The Suburbs by Michele D’Aurizio; Uri Aran by Bartholomew Ryan.

MAIN THEME: STATE OF THE ART BOOK: EXPERIMENTAL COLLECTIBLE LIONEL BOVIER AND AA BRONSON IN CONVERSATION; Why the Book? by Chris Sharp; Special Project by Nina Beier; Secondary into Primary
‘c5bäke and Gavin Wade in conversation; Archive Fever Chris Decon interviewed by Florencia Serrot.

MONO: BERNADETTE CORPORATION: I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On words by Chris Wiley; Matter Expands Away by Vincenzo Latronico; IF EVERYTHING WORKS INTERVIEW BY ANNIE OCHMANEK; Special Project by Bernadette Corporation.

COLUMNS: PIONEERS: Hannah Wilke by Simone Menegoi; FUTURA: David Hominal interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist; MAPPING THE STUDIO: Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet by Luca Cerizza; ON EXHIBITION: “Carlo Mollino. Maniera Moderna” by Paola Nicolin; LAST QUESTION: What Is Going on out in the Street? answer by Ari Marcopoulos.

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