Author Archives: julian

NUMBERSTREAM at LUMEN FESTIVAL 2015 | Staten Island New York

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Lumen Festival Staten Island 2015NUMBERSTREAM tunnel audio diffusion at the LUMEN festival | Saturday 20 June 2015 | 7 pm – midnight

Venue : Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, NY 10301 United States.

Staten Island Arts is proud to present the 6th Annual International LUMEN Festival. The June 20, 2015 event will take place at the historic Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden from 7:00 PM – midnight. LUMEN Festival is an authentic contemporary art experience in New York City featuring emerging and established artists. LUMEN’s goal is connecting artists with the community all while exposed in a nomadic alternative space. This 6th annual event will bring original visual, performance and installation art to new audiences, under the artistic vision and curator, Will Corwin.

LUMEN webpage : Staten Island Arts

TICKETS / SOLD OUT

 

WALLPAPER PRINTS | canvas-backed on lightweight stretcher 2.4 x 3.3m

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REALIDAD Art-BaselThe Wallpaper Series of limited edition large-scale prints are now being mounted on canvas and stretched onto lightweight aluminium frames.

Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, is first to offer these massive black & white prints mounted using this method, as an alternative to wall pasting.  The choice: the image either directly mounted flat onto your wall – for a continuous image-wall surface in your room, or onto a stretcher for the option to rehang the work in alternative spaces.

Showing at ART BASEL, Switzerland.  18–21 June, 2015.  Contemporary Fine Arts stand.  Print availability / Order enquiries, contact CFA.

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I SCREAM DADDIO | publication + film | SARAH LUCAS Venice Biennale 2015

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The book: documenting Sarah Lucas in the making and installation of the exhibition I SCREAM DADDIO at the British Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2015.  Photography, design & layout, Julian Simmons.

PUBLICATION now available, see more : I SCREAM DADDIO

 

The film: Sarah Lucas talking about her latest works and having a SPAM picnic, in and around the British Pavilion, Giardini, Venice.  Camera and editing, Julian Simmons.

FILM, British Pavilion, Venice : Sarah Lucas talking to Don Brown

Sarah Lucas - I SCREAM DADDIO p 10-11 Sarah Lucas - I SCREAM DADDIO p130-131

I SCREAM DADDIO

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I SCREAM DADDIO book cover

24 central yellow pages provide what is a precise egg or cheese sandwich! very Caffè Florian.

SARAH LUCAS at the BRITISH PAVILION, VENICE, 9 May – 22 November 2015.  56TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION, LA BIENNALE DI VENEZIA.

The exhibition of 18 sculptures, 2 photographs and an 11 x 5 spot painting, is accompanied by a 152 page publication, I SCREAM DADDIO.  Story-book and catalogue, with extensive texts by Sarah Lucas, poems by D.H.Lawrence and profusely illustrated with photographs by Julian Simmons, the book charts a period of 750 eggs – throwing / dancing / massaging / arranging into a nob and bollocks, and making new plaster sculptures in Britain – to their installation in the British Pavilion, Venice.

Concept, Design & Layout : Julian Simmons
Text, 22 chapters : Sarah Lucas  |  9 poems : D.H.Lawrence
Photographs : Julian Simmons
Publisher : The British Council  |  Printer : The Five Castles Press, Ipswich, UK

Softback OTA bound | 152 pages | 162 photographs, 80 full-colour | 20,000 words | 28 x 21.2 x 1.6cm | ISBN 978-0-86355-770-5 | £25 excl. shipping

‘The off-white plaster bodies remind Lucas of meringues in a dessert, with Fergus Henderson providing a recipe for iles flottantes in the catalogue. Lucas’s catalogue, rather than providing explanation (though it does, by devious default) continues her work by other means. Part sculptor’s notebook, part autobiography, part diary of her life in London and Suffolk, it is filled with disarming delights’, Adrian Searle, The Guardian, 5 May 2015.

‘In the excellent catalogue that accompanies the show, Sarah writes that she never works “to a plan. I don’t know what I’m going to do next. If I had a plan I’d most probably spend my days avoiding it.”  Reading further in a section of the book titled “MUM,” Sarah describes, beautifully, some women she knew growing up—including a mum who cleaned toilets in a public lavatory’, Hilton Als, The New Yorker, 26 August 2015.

‘I Scream Daddio is beautiful, touching, erotic, authentic and funny. More so I enjoyed reading the accompanied text which for once, wasn’t filled by an overly ambitious curator’s conceptual writing but like a diary – by the artist herself’, Michal Cole, ArtLyst.com, 17 May 2015.

ORDER  / BUY NOW ! . . .

Mail-order from Sarah Lucas’s UK gallery : Sadie Coles HQ, or buy your copy in person, visit : 62 Kingly Street, London W1, or AMAZON SCHQ / Amazon.

Other sellers : UK : Foyles (+ stores), Cornerhouse Publications | International : Koenig (+ stores, inc London : Charing Cross Rd, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery) | Mexico : kurimanzutto.

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SARAH LUCAS – I SCREAM DADDIO | Film – British Pavilion Venice

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Sarah Lucas talks to friend and artist Don Brown about her new works, installed in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2015; with subjects ranging between toilets as a human portrait, palpable casting techniques, toplessness – top-off and top-on, a bum or a vagina is a face, the subliminal use of eggs – including the dessert floating-islands, nude sculptures are close friends; and she has a few slices of SPAM with a glass of Aspall Premier-Cru cider.

Filmed at the British Pavilion, Giardini Di Castello, Venice, April 2015.
Director / Camera / Editor : Julian Simmons
Sound : Julian Simmons [in case you hadn’t noticed the microphone is clipped to Sarah’s left nipple, if a microphone (i.e. basically a nob) is required, why hide it?]
Commissioned by : the Visual Arts Department, British Council
Produced by : Julian Simmons 2015
56th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale Di Venezia, 9 May – 22 November 2015

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I SCREAM DADDIO – SARAH LUCAS | the Kvadrat bag

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Designed to stylishly carry the I SCREAM DADDIO exhibition catalogue, premium textile manufacturer Kvadrat sponsored SARAH LUCAS at the Venice Biennale with the production of a limited-edition, bespoke bag in their luxurious Kvadrat ‘Waterborn’ material.  This synthetic suede does not fray, it has no need to be hemmed: just cut it to shape. The design is composed of just two pieces of material, that folded for the bag, and that for the strap.

The single strap is slender, no-hem – single thickness, and supremely strong; ingeniously threaded through two openings in the flap, the strap is attached to the front of the bag ensuring the bag is kept flat and closed.  Like the strap, the flap is single thickness, no hem, no stitching.  The sides of the front and back of the bag have their cut edges exposed on the outside (the sides of the bag stitched from the outside rather than stitched inside out), with no possibility of fraying the visible clean-cut edge defines the precise look of this unique lay-flat design; technological, elegant and super-sexy.

I SCREAM DADDIO Sarah Lucas - Kvadrat bag1 I SCREAM DADDIO Sarah Lucas - Kvadrat bag2 I SCREAM DADDIO Sarah Lucas - Kvadrat bag3

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I SCREAM DADDIO – SARAH LUCAS | the British Council bag

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Available in Venice from the British Pavilion, Giardini Di Castello, Venice | 9 May – 22 November 2015 | €10 / Euros

The brief was to design a bag to contain the I SCREAM DADDIO exhibition catalogue – a book in a bag.  We had some fun with this: ‘a bag’ is a certain kind of woman, and well ‘a book in a bag’ has a good measure of sexual innuendo.  In fact if you purchase a book and a bag together, I believe you get a discount, like the great old British tradition of a soup and a sandwich (of which if you’ve seen it, the book is a sandwich, either cheese or egg).

The bag can be worn over the shoulder normally or diagonally across the body – courier style.  The generous strap is attached to the sides of the bag – it’s why the bag needs structured sides – which also provide more room inside and add a distinctive satchel look.  I’ve always been an advocate of the usefulness of small canvas English fishing-bags, so while we’re at it, why not a generous flap? – to keep the weather out and the bag neatly closed.

When the flap is opened, ‘I SCREAM’ is revealed!  Otherwise it’s simply the DADDIO bag.

I SCREAM DADDIO British Council bag4 I SCREAM DADDIO British Council bag3

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I SCREAM DADDIO – SARAH LUCAS | 100,000 leaflets

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10 page concertina : bilingual English and Italian.  Available in Venice, 9 May – 22 November 2015 from the British Pavilion, Giardini Di Castello, Venice.

I SCREAM DADDIO Sarah Lucas leaflet edge I SCREAM DADDIO Sarah Lucas leaflet stack

 

Plan of the British Pavilion, inc. position and titles of works.

Sculptures : Sarah Lucas
Text 750 words : Sarah Lucas
Photographs : Julian Simmons
Design, Layout : Julian Simmons
Size overall : 21 x 60cm  |  Size folded : 21  x 12cm  |  150gsm Olin uncoated  |  Yellow spot-colour : Pantone 108U
Publisher : The British Council |  Printer : The Five Castles Press

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FINANCIAL TIMES | Weekend Magazine Q&A | Getting Plastered

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financial-times-sarah-lucas-julian-simmons-p22

‘Hi James, two of the images are of Sarah doing the plastering, the other two are of Sarah getting plastered! …not suggesting final titles but ‘Getting Plastered’ would be a rather nice inclusion. Very best, Julian!’

 

 

‘The artist Julian Simmons, talks about photographing Sarah Lucas as she works on a new piece for the Venice Biennale, casting 10 human figures – including herself’, Financial Times, 25 April 2015, FT Weekend Magazine; pages 22-23 & 24-25 centrefold.

Photographs from the book I SCREAM DADDIO.

 

 

Questions for Julian Simmons from Liz Jobey at the FT.
Liz edited my slightly unpredictable answers into a more lucid read, but here are the unedited Q&A’s!…

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THE ART NEWSPAPER | this week’s must see shows

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Hoolian OAXACA NUD Julian Simmons 2015Until 7 February 2015: Julian Simmons at Paul Stolper, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

‘Sarah Lucas describes her partner and frequent collaborator Julian Simmons as “a Star-man with a pair of binoculars”, but this show also confirms that he is a highly skilled print-maker and significant artist in his own right.

For while the evident subject of these arresting and exquisitely produced prints is a series of Lucas’s soft, fleshy “Nud” sculptures made for a 2012 exhibition at the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli in Mexico City, they also go way beyond mere depiction to take on an independent existence as autonomous works of art.

Like all good portraits, they animate and bring new insight to their sitters; and so powerful is their physical presence that you can’t help wondering what they all get up to once the gallery is shut up for the night.’   Louisa Buck, THE ART NEWSPAPER: The Buck stopped here—this week’s must see shows.

SEE THE SHOW…

HOOLIAN | London

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TITTIPUSSIDAD-BFK-LUPETITTIPUSSIDAD prints of texts, portraits and Sarah Lucas sculptures. Photographs and printing by Julian Simmons. Each in an edition of 6. Giclee inkjet, archival full-strength carbon-black pigment.

Order Enquiries & Availability: PAUL STOLPER, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

15 framed prints, on Velin BFK Rives fine-art printmaking paper, mould-made, 100% cotton rag, no optical brighteners, 280gsm, signed and numbered on verso. Sheet size: 112.5 x 76.5 cm, framed size: 119 x 83 cm.

SHEELA-NA-GIG II 1
OAXACA NUD 1
OAXACA NUD 2
OAXACA NUD 3
DAD LIST
TITTIPUSSIDAD TREE
LUPE
XOCHIPILLI
SARAH SMOKING
STARMEN (ARMATURE)
STARMAN SEE THROUGH THEIR NIPPLES
PRINCE OF FLOWERS
REALIDAD 2
HOOLIAN
REALIDAD 1

+ large-scale wallpaper print, on 6 vertical strips of 55cm wide roll-paper, for direct pasting onto a wall, or framed backed with canvas;
total size: 231 x 326 cm.

SHEELA-NA-GIG II

Exhibition:

16 January – 7 February 2015, Paul Stolper, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH / press release

4 – 7 December 2014, Art Basel – Miami Beach. Paul Stolper, Stand B22.
26 – 29 May 2016, Art-Athina 2016, Greece. Paul Stolper, Stand B2.

‘I’m in your show now, standing before your work and it looks AWESOME! ..and, yes, that is undoubtedly how Star-Men see!

Amazing quality printing, unbelievable. Lovely work, keep going ! Avanti !’, Gregor Muir, Executive Director of the ICA.

“They’re very desirable and sexy”, Norman Rosenthal
“…so just like your good self !”, Hoolian Simmons
“…and you – you’re desirable and sexy aren’t you?…”, Norman Rosenthal
“…I’d say !”, Sarah Lucas.

Installation Photographs & Individual Works . . .

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the HOOLIAN series | press release

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Hoolian Paul Stolper 2015

Exhibition: 16 January – 7 February 2015, Paul Stolper, 31 Museum Street, London WC1A 1LH.

15 prints each in an edition of 6, signed and numbered on verso. Sheet size: 112.5 x 76.5 cm. Giclee inkjet, archival full-strength carbon-black pigment on Velin BFK Rives, traditional fine-art printmaking paper, mould-made, uncoated, buffered, no optical brighteners, 100% cotton rag, 280gsm. Photographs and printing by Julian Simmons.

“The thing about Julian is that he sees things in greater detail than anyone else I know.  Good for us that he’s also on a mission to show us how he does see it.  How to see.  For me especially, as we’re working so closely together.  These pictures are from our project in Mexico, TITTIPUSSIDAD.
  The muse of HOOLIAN is Julian.  He’s a Star-man with a pair of binoculars.”  
- Sarah Lucas

Paul Stolper is proud to present the HOOLIAN series of prints by Julian Simmons, each in an edition of 6, together with a large wallpaper piece.  All of the prints are illustrated in TITTIPUSSIDAD, the book designed by Simmons which documents his and Lucas’ seminal trip to Mexico in 2012, and which culminated in her exhibition at the Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli.

Beautiful in their own right, Simmons’ prints are also rich ‘portraits’ of Lucas’ sculptures, charting their genesis to the finished work, and as such act as the photographic counterpoint to Lucas’ practice.  Following in the tradition of Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith, the prints inform the sculpture as much as the sculptures inform the prints.

For artwork enquiries and to RSVP to the private view, please contact alexandra@paulstolper.com

Check the gallery install photos…

TITTIPUSSIDAD | Art Basel – Miami Beach

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LUPE 2014 Julian Simmons4 – 7 December 2014, Miami Beach. Paul Stolper Gallery, Stand B22.

Four TITTIPUSSIDAD prints on Velin BFK Rives, a traditional fine-art printmaking paper, mould-made, 100% cotton rag, 280gsm. Giclee inkjet, archival full-strength carbon-black pigment.

Sheet size: 112.5 x 76.5 cm.

Photographs & printing by Julian Simmons. Edition of 6, signed and numbered on verso.

LUPE
SARAH SMOKING
OBSIDIAN
OAXACA NUD (1)

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ROCK AND ROLL THATCHING | part 1

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“Wet sacks, misfit carrots, mis-shaped potatoes, crafty otters, bastard magpies, and yellowhammer chicks shouting for grub…”

“I might go and grab an oil drum…”

Blustering wind and railing sun, the flatlands, a spring day, 23 April 2014. Carting-in 480 bundles of water-reed on the Norfolk Broads – one of the mad and beautiful preliminary stages of the thatching process.

A film by :
Julian Simmons – camera / editing / incidental music.

Featuring :
Wally Mason – traditional Norfolk reed cutter.
Dominic Meek – thatcher and chairman of the East Anglia Master Thatchers Association.

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NUZ | JET LAG

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Set yourself up with a glass, or a tube, of your joy, press play – enter full-screen, and do the whole trip!  Yep, it’ll explode… …effulgently.

I built the Pure-Data instruments there and then, on New Zealand’s south island, corresponding to the overriding sounds : the undulating whistle of bellbirds and from first light until last, the hissing of cicadas [3:00].

 

‘The rumbles and tweetie/noises made me think of David Lynch’s Eraserhead!’  Rob Gold, Music for Films.

‘Wonderfully beautiful. I would like to see and hear it just before I pass away.’

‘I did the full show, brilliant! apocalyptic ending!’

“Arh, you’ve gone all acid!”, Russell Haswell.

 

Download the track > NUZ on Bandcamp

 

 

From the long gravel roads that vein out to the sea-periphery of New Zealand, to here at the head of a precariously steep, bushy track, half-way up a mountain, a corrugated-iron shack – home/studio for the next few weeks.  The hired car packed with toilets and concrete blocks, scraping up, disturbed an eagle – one of the merino sheep it’s victim – eating it’s eye out while the sheep lay alive but exhausted from intense heat [6.28 – 6:58].  Apparently it wasn’t uncommon to find one-eyed sheep – the intact eye saved by the sheep lying on it’s side. There were merinos in various stages of decomposition, littered around the shack.  It had a biblical air about it.

A paradise of sorts, though not a land of vast diversity, actually only a handful of bird species, one or two raptors, and that was it. Everything had just arrived – including us …the air over-brilliant with sparseness …everything familiar but the parameters twisted

…the data of creation was another way.

For a detailed description of the Pure-Data instruments check NUMBERSTREAM AUDIO

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TITTIPUSSIDAD | Kunstmarkt

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KUNSTMARKT1‘Wall-filling black-and-white photos of archaic masks and commercial toilets, densely covered with layers of cigarettes.

The photographs and sculptures are in fact not an exhibition, but the protagonist from a encyclopaedic giant book with the very fresh title “Tittipussidad”, which describes the journey through Mexico a year ago – published and designed by Julian Simmons.

A travel diary with recordings of spontaneous thoughts that accompanied the way from arrival, to the Anahuacalli exhibition.  A book like a theme of life.’   Gesine Borcherdt, from DIE WELT.

TITTIPUSSIDAD | Wallpaper Prints | Berlin

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS GALERIE GMBH, Am Kupfergraben 10, 10117 Berlin.

13 June – 31 July 2014, opening 12 June 2014 / invite card

New series of 12 limited-edition prints by Julian Simmons from the book TITTIPUSSIDAD, 252 x 161 cm (vertical images), 231 x 330 cm (horizontal images), 520 x 110 cm (the ‘DAD’ list).

REALIDAD  p.110-111
REALIDAD  p.121
REALIDAD  p.120
SHEELA-NA-GIG-I  p.307
SHEELA-NA-GIG-II  p.191
SHEELA-NA-GIG-II  p.4-5
BRICK FACTORY  p.58-59
CIGARETTE CHRIST  p.433
BENITO  p.517
DAD-LIST  p.13
COMMUNISTA  p.225
OBSIDIAN  p.201

Edition of 6. Printed by myself on off-white heavyweight paper, dead-matt finish, with full-strength carbon-black pigment. Supplied as rolled wallpaper in multiple vertical strips for direct pasting onto a wall, or framed backed with canvas.

Order Enquiries / Availability: CONTEMPORARY FINE ARTS, Am Kupfergraben 10, 10117 Berlin.

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