“The Embassy is dead. Long live The Embassy!”

Produced by Alex Dellal’s 20 Hoxton Square Projects, in collaboration with Zoom Art Projects, The Embassy is a multi-disciplinary group show being held during Frieze Art Fair. Curated by Dellal and Xerxes Cook, the exhibition is a parody of outmoded cultural diplomacy in the form of an anonymous country’s embassy, a dystopia whose tyrannical government has tested the patience of its people and brought them to tipping point.



Participating artists include: Marco Brambilla, Terence Koh, Rosey Chan, Tom Gallant, Alastair Mackie, Oliver Clegg, Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, Bruce French, Henry Hudson, Michael Lisle-Taylor, Laurence Owen, Karim Rabik and Hugo Wilson.

A mixture of painting, sculpture and installation, works featured in The Embassy include a national anthem by the pianist Rosey Chan, a presidential palace built from mud by Alastair Mackie, a flag by Tom Gallant, and former service man, Michael Lisle-Taylor will present his Tournament of the Dirty Nurse, an ornately embroidered boxing ring still covered in the blood, sweat and tears from bouts that have taken place within it. Other works include paintings on old school desks by Oliver Clegg, lungs in three stages of the pulmonary cycle - shock, agitation and panic by Hugo
Wilson and caricature regal portraits by Henry Hudson in his distinctive plasticine style.



Less than 100 metres from Regents Park, the BBC headquarters and opposite the Chinese Embassy, The Embassy will take place at the former residence of the Sierra Leonean ambassador to Britain, 33 Portland Place. As the Internet allows the art, culture and news reportage of countries to become ever more accessible to each other, what were once bastions of this exchange – the embassies of countries wishing to create a dialogue with their host nation – now retreat behind metres of concrete, becoming fortresses of espionage. Globalisation has rendered the sometime patronising kind of cultural exchange once conducted by embassies dated. Yet, occupying a privileged position apart from their host nation – indeed, retaining their sovereignty in a foreign land – these buildings and their interiors provide a revealing glimpse of how a country chooses to represent itself abroad.

The Embassy tells the story of a deposed diplomat representing a government that has just been overthrown at home. A pastiche of the manner in which embassies promote their country’s culture abroad and set across the two floors of 33 Portland Place, works from over 15 artists will speak of themes relevant to the mismanagement of a country – greed, egotism, repression, theocracy, malnutrition, gluttony, tyranny, currency, geography and sex – because the dictator always gets the best lines.


Without wishing to recreate the mise-en-scene of an explicit narrative, the site-specific exhibition engages with the extraordinary history of its location, a 6-floor Georgian townhouse on London’s Portland Place. Between 1954 and 1998, 33 Portland Place was occupied and used as the embassy for the government of Sierra Leone. The Embassy seeks to engage with some of the factors that led to demise of successive Sierra Leonean governments – corruption, diamonds, personal gain, ethnic conflict, pride, drugs, jealousy – but without being specific to the Western African country or indeed, any other. The Embassy is that of an anonymous country, a very badly managed one at that. It is, in short, how not to run a country.

An interesting project, rife with critique. Well worth the visit if you're in London for the Fairs.

The Embassy is a collaborative project between 20 Hoxton Square Projects and Zoom Art Projects, curated by Alex Dellal and Xerxes Cook.

The Embassy
October 15 – 19th 2009
33 Portland Place, London

www.20hoxtonsquare.com

All images (c) the artist.
Wolf von Lenkiewicz, Lincoln Eagle, 2009, Courtesy of All Visual Arts.
Alastair Mackie, Mudhut, 2005, Courtesy of All Visual Arts
Michael Lisle Taylor - Black Knight Squared Away 2008, courtesy of the artist.

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