Adam Neate: A New Understanding

The UK’s most promising artist’s work takes a new direction in his latest solo show in the heart of Soho. 31-year-old Adam Neate’s trademark cardboard works have become one of the iconic symbols of the UK street art generation, avidly collected worldwide. A New Understanding marks a significant step in the young artist’s career, setting a new level of artistic growth and witnessing a significant development in Neate’s technique and innate sense of composition, use of colours and movement.


After nearly two years of painstaking preparation, the Ipswich born artist presents his new collection of paintings and three-dimensional sculptural pieces in a museum quality exhibition at the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms. The familiar cardboard, a seminal element of his work from his early beginnings, is now reworked, skilfully sculpted and combined with Perspex, metals, collage and other sourced objects, depicting everyday life and emotions in a uniquely intense and almost cubist interpretation of reality. A collection of 22 new works offers a 360 degrees revolutionary interpretation of a mixed media approach, where 3-dimensional pieces enable the viewers to gain a new perspective and to develop a greater understanding of Neate’s complex aesthetic. These works are a collaboration of all the styles and techniques Neate has evolved over the years.



The artist’s interest is in mixing different styles, referencing the languages of Expressionism and Futurism, Cubism and Fauvism. Layering and juxtaposing different media, Neate conveys a compelling sense of poignancy and movement in his vividly figurative pieces.
“This body of work has changed totally from how I was working on it at the beginning, to how I am working on it now; I have a whole new direction with it. For me it has become a whole new way of thinking and learning. In some ways I feel like I have pushed it so far in the space of a year that people who know my work might now not recognise it, or that it will be unrecognisable to some. There are signs in there, bits of my language that have continued, but ultimately this exhibition demonstrates that I have tried to go one step further” Adam Neate


Neate’s work can be defined, in the words of art historian Ben Jones, as a “clash of materials – gold leaf oncardboard, cheap clothing material draped over a painted figure against a digital photo background blown up onto foam board, spray paint, layered over oil paint, employing materials of impermanence to produce images of Neate’s second solo show at the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms represents the climax of a number of artistic achievements in the past months, from the sell out Adam and Ron Show, in collaboration with the father of Agit Pop Ron English, the epic 'public participation' art installation The London Show, where Adam Neate and teams of helpers distributed, over the course of one night, 1000 multiple works on cardboard in the streets on London, generating a treasure hunt in which an estimated 50,000 people took part.

The exhibition opens on 9th October and continues until 21st November
Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, London

www.elmlesters.co.uk

All images (c) Adam Neate courtsey the gallery.

Vendôme Luxury Paris

Opening on 3rd October and running until 6th October, Vendôme Luxury is the place to be this month. Vendôme Luxury reaffirms its position as the premium Parisian tradeshow by continuing to present the most elegant clothes and accessories from upscale designers. Evening bags in the finest crocodile, python, and glittering crystals have become a staple in our selection of high-end accessories at Park Hyatt Vendôme. This season, the venue with its exotic and refined atmosphere has the added distinction of introducing Marchesa’s first accessories collection.


At a few metres distance, Le Meurice is the setting for our selection of cutting-edge women’s readyto- wear : a bastion of traditional Parisian elegance offering a historical counterpoint to contemporary style. Our side-by-side exhibition of contemporary art not only accentuates this unique juxtaposition but offers visitors a broader perspective of fashion. While signature styles from established houses such as Judith Leiber and Missoma form the core of our selection, Vendôme Luxury continues to honour its reputation as a fashion industry trailblazer by supporting fresh new talent. Mai Lamore, who is presenting her eponymous line of handcrafted shoes, is the latest in a series of designers (such as Ivana Helsinki, Isabel Marant,Christopher Lemaire, Erdem...) launched by Carole de Bona, the event’s founder and co-ordinator.


Through the medium of contemporary art,Vendôme Luxury’s new edition will be shown within a specially-crafted setting that reflect an esoteric and rarefied aesthetic inspired by the theme “Through the Looking Glass.”



Cutting Edge Designers at le meurice - 6, rue de castiglione include:

Afterglow, Catherine Deane, David Fielden, Gaïa Pace, Jade Jager, Marc Bouwer, Megan Park, Nina Skarra, Noir, Ports 1961, and many others.

High-end Accessories at park hyatt - 5, rue de la paix include:

A Cuckoo Moment, Amishi, Assya, Babe, Byzantia Jewelry, Celestina Maynila New York, Cleo B, Coralia Leets, Dassios, Fiona Paxton, and many others

Culinary Design Exhibition

Culinary design is an emerging movement first developed nearly ten years ago by Marc Brétillot, a teacher at the École Supérieure d’Art et de Design in Reims, France. The designers involved in the emancipation of this movement are fairly young and are creating quite a stir in the media. Anything is still possible: parquet made of chocolate, fanciful tarts, gigantic vegetables, or other incongruous creations.

The creation of macro sculptures and sound and video also contribute to exploring new forms of expression within the movement. With culinary design the idea isn’t to make fried eggs look more aesthetic, and the designers are not necessarily top chefs. They are helping to liberate the last deeply rooted taboos associated with food: “We need to sweep away the codes and break the traditional rules” (Marc Brétillot).

Whether or not it can be eaten is perhaps beside the point, as it is the design concept that remains the focus of interest. In Alice in Wonderland we see what lies beyond the looking glass, to see things that are astonishing, original, to discover apparitions that defy expectations and refuse to conform to rules. This then is the ideal subject to provide the framework for the most inclusive exhibition of culinary design this movement has ever seen.

Through the Looking Glass

Why then is all this going to feature in the Vendôme Luxury during the Paris Fashion Week? In an event where fashion seems to be locked into the strict rules of the market, culinary design can play the freedom trump card. Here, in the Vendôme Luxury Trade Show with what it has to offer to professional buyers. There, through the looking glass, Vendôme Luxury Live will allow imagination to soar. Perhaps this will have an impact and therefore open up a new perspective for all visitors .
A mirror only shows the appearance and physical aspect of things. What lies through the looking glass is what we will be looking for on the 3rd to the 6th October 2009 in the Hotel Meurice with Vendôme Luxury Live.



A Shaded View Of Vendôme Luxury
Internationally recognised as a fashion icon, Diane Pernet is the face and brains behind the acclaimed blog AShadedViewOnFashion.com and helped launch Iqons.com, the first social networking site for the fashion community. Although best known for her work in fashion design, Diane originally trained as a filmmaker. Having launched her own label in the 1980s, her avant-garde creations made her one of New York’s “it” designers of the era. She relocated to Paris some 13 years later, reinventing herself as a fashion journalist (Joyce, Elle.com, Vogue.fr, Dutch…) all the while keeping her passion for (and involvement in) her art of origin – film.

Having not only worked for many years as a fashion designer and filmmaker, Diane also had a stint as a costume designer for cinema (an obvious choice for a woman equally impassioned by fashion and film). She is regularly solicited to curate and consult for numerous fashion and photography festivals, and also acts as a talent scout for the Festival de Hyères and the Milan White Club. In 2006, she cofounded the travelling film festival You Wear It Well before independently launching A Shaded View On Fashion Film 2008.

Over the years, Pernet has made many fashion films of her own, and has also been captured on the other side of the camera, through cameo appearances in Robert Altman’s film Pret-a-Porter and Roman Polanski’s The Ninth Gate. Due to the depth and variety of her work in the fields of fashion and the arts in general, Diane Pernet has been named the ambassador for the new edition of Vendôme Luxury Live. She represents a whole generation of benefactors to champion the fashion for art cause, and embodies the spirit of Vendôme Luxury.



Based at luxury hotels around the famed Place Vendôme after which the event takes its name, Vendôme Luxury is now a ‘must-see’ event for professionals attending Paris Fashion Week. In March 2009 alone, the event attracted more than 5000 fashion and trade professionals from 32 countries spanning 3 continents.
Buyers from Japan constituted 25% of the overall attendance - an all-time high - followed by France(16%), Italy (15%), Middle East (13%), USA (11%), UK (10%), Russia (7%), and others (7%). The highest growth in attendance was represented by the Middle East (up 60% from last year) surpassing the USA (down 16%), followed by Russia (up 46%).

Vendôme Luxury is widely recognised by leading French (Printemps, Galeries Lafayette, Le Bon Marché, Montaigne Market…) and international (Neiman Marcus, Takashimaya, Harvey Nichols, Harrods…) department stores as well as by trendsetting boutiques such as Maria Luisa, Colette, Dover Street Market, Corso Como, Podium, Tsum, Boutique1, etc.


Vendome Luxury
October 2009, 3rd-6th
10 am to 10 pm, except 6th October 2009 : 10 am to 7 pm.

ADRESSES
Le Meurice
6, rue de Castiglione
75001 Paris
Park Hyatt Vendôme
5, rue de la Paix
75002 Paris

www.xxb.fr

New Issue Out Today

Aesthetica’s October-November issue examines the prelude to the recession through Tate Modern’s concentration on the business of art in Pop Life: Art in the Material World, and Martin Parr’s irreverent Luxury, while Julian Stallabrass discusses the role of art in our post-consumer culture. Counteracting this socio-political focus, Daniela da Prato argues for de-contextualising works of Middle Eastern artists with Golden Gates, and Alex Box relocates the fashion shoot into the realm of fine art.

Jacques Martineau’s Born in ’68 mythologizes the French student riots as a genesis of a new society and explores the fall out of free love, and Sadler’s Wells remembers the innovation of Sergei Diaghilev 100 years on with provocative collaborations across the worlds of dance, music and design. Looking forward, This CD Doesn’t Sell speculates on the future of live and recorded music and Aesthetica launches a new search for the best short filmmakers.

New work from Attica Locke is published with an excerpt of Black Water Rising while Keith Donohue discusses the role of human hope and heartache in his new novel Angels of Destruction. With all the best exhibitions, productions, music and writing releases of the coming months, Aesthetica reconsiders the consequences of significant events in the cultural memory.

Check it out today from WH Smith, Borders, galleries, newsagents or direct from www.aestheticamagazine.com