Getting spiritual in the Bentley
An interview with Kinfolk Japan's Flying B Mag, an SF update and magic prints
A new interview in print - Kinfolk Japan’s Flying B Magazine “The Only Serious Choice”. How fitting. If you want to read beyond this screenshot, you might have to buy a copy ;)
Per usual, I made a playlist for myself as if I were cruising in the Bentley. Take a listen here.
Veronika Kellndorfer’s exhibition at the Neutra VDL House “Metabolism of Architecture” is on view until July 30. Hard to miss! Read about the show at www.neutra-vdl.org
Went on a food & wine tour around San Francisco with Fyrn to make images of their new Cafe Table. Read co-founder Ros Broughton’s interview with AN Interior Magazine about it.
Photographed Claudy Jonstra’s tapestries at The Future Perfect SF alongside In Common With lighting and Ian Collins works.
For Carpenters Workshop Gallery: Director Louise Torron and Alexander May from Sized at their exhibition CHAOS.
Late spring, Brian Ware reached out to me to photograph his newly finished home in Yucca Valley. The house is quite immaculate with artistic detailing from his time spent at Calvin Klein and sourcing vintage furniture to sit next to soft linens or a Raf Simons tapestry. Thank you for the opportunity to spend time with La Vina. And a PSA, it’s for sale.
For Jane Yang-D’Haene at the prettiest home there ever was, The Future Perfect, now on view until 4 August.
WHAT I’M LISTENING TO
United in Flames with Malibu, an hour mix / NTS.live
Ian Pooley mix - HÖR Berlin
8. 1/2 by Susumu Yokota / Spotify
Forever the focus playlist / Spotify
View From Two Perspectives by Nick Malkin / Spotify
PHOTOGRAPHIC SYNTAX
A few weeks ago my friend Doug hosted a talk at his gallery in Santa Monica with artists Albarrán Cabrera to accompany the opening of their show Photographic Syntax, aptly named after their most recent publication. I’m sitting next to this publication now and as I look at it I notice so much more than just the image on the page. Artist duo Albarrán Cabrera are alchemists. Practitioners of photography with such a high degree of precision and chemistry, literally, in a way I could only describe as magic. I’ve met them once before, have read their books and texts multiple times each, and despite being familiar I still sense that edge that gives me goosebumps. Their prints are immaculate objects. Gold leaf shining through the mids and highlights of their compositions revealing a sheen both subtle and striking. The tactility of the work is just as considered as their imagery. I remember standing in the back of room listening to them as they explained their philosophies romantically, as you can imagine, and feeling something I only really feel when I visit their work. It’s like an uncovered faith in something. A faith that photography can be an extension of your most inner-self. So much deeper than a surface image. This is so hard to explain with words… maybe that’s why their publication is titled “Photographic Syntax”. The very nature of the medium says some things are better left not to be said with words, but with pure visuals.
I often think about syntax in a weird way when I discuss how much music means to me. How sharing music with my friends is a love language of mine. Sometimes the loss of words is the most beautiful thing when you can substitute that exchange with something else that will vibrate in their eyes, ears, brain or heart. That’s how I feel about Albarrán Cabrera’s photography. For however mystical, surreal, heartbreaklingly beautiful it is, it speaks to something past what the confines of the print gives us. I believe that is the power of photography. I just think we’ve reduced it, like anything that is democratized, to hitting dopamine receptors and selling things. Technology around photography is designed to be that way on purpose. But like a faith or a spiritual inclination, it is completely rooted in the irrational. How does a powerful image move you to tears? Why does that happen?
There is a gap between reality and what we understand as real. And photography, as the Japanese playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon once said when referring to art in general, lies at the frontier between the real and the unreal, what is true and what is false, thereby helping us to discover what is hidden from us.
I feel pure excitement when I think about making images for myself again. I spend time with their work when I feel like I need a push towards it. So I am grateful for them both being such open, bleeding hearts for me to see that there’s power in that. I hope you can sense the same.
Albarrán Cabrera’s exhibition is up at Marshall Gallery until 8 July. <3
To infinity and beyond,
Liz