Softcover with dust jacket, 108 pages
26.5 x 36.5 cm
ISBN: 978-8-897185-06-2
Language: English, Japanese
Comes with a poster and two stickers
Designed by Kasper-Florio
With texts by Alessio Ascari, Venus Lau, Hans Ulrich Obrist
This super book published by KALEIDOSCOPE 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.
We are delighted to announce the release of KALEIDOSCOPE‘s new issue #37 (fall/winter 2020-21), a special edition labeled OUT THERE, entirely dedicated to the ethics and aesthetics of the outdoors.
Aiming to provide a timely take on geography and ecology through the lens of visual culture, our research steps out of the enclosed spaces of the artist’s studio, the museum, and the gallery (which Robert Smithson called “non-sites”) to look at art that's created outdoors and concerns itself with the natural environment, the street, and the outer space. In the age of lockdowns, forest fires, and rising sea levels, we examine the consequences of the Anthropocene through artist portfolios, visual essays, interviews, and trend reports—addressing a variety of topics such as geotechnology, food justice, terraforming, climate grief, land art, techwear, surveillance, war, and survivalism.
Furthering our new graphic identity by Swiss art direction and graphic design studio Kasper-Florio, once again “hacked” by a set of illustrations by Berlin-based studio PWR, the magazine’s launch will be celebrated with a multidisciplinary exhibition taking place at Spazio Maiocchi in the fall.
This issue comes with a set of six covers:
In the footsteps by Paul Virilio’s seminal 1975 book Bunker Archaeology, the decaying WW2 fortifications laying on the French coast (photographed by Thibaut Grevet) provide the backdrop to interrogate the technical challenges of a dystopian future, as imagined by Virgil Abloh in the Louis Vuitton 2054 collection.
Through an essay by Taylore Scarabelli and a visual essay by image bank organiclab.zip and creative agency General_Index, we look at the burgeoning industry of outdoor clothing—suddenly catering to anyone from athletes to minimalist millennials to tech bros—and analyze the phenomenon’s motives, perks, and shortcomings.
Set in the Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho, a site for wolf reintroduction in the early ‘90s, the latest body of work by Matthew Barney addresses the mythology of the American West, ecosystem balance, exile and reparation, and the tradition of land art, as he discusses in conversation with curator Neville Wakefield.
As the seduction of dystopia continues to spiral into apocalyptic narratives, a collection of unique garments by S.R. Studio LA. CA. (photographed by Caroline Tompkins) and an essay by Whitney Mallett paint a picture of nihilistic survivalism, retracing the splurge of cults that have emerged from the ashes of ‘70s counterculture.
Peter Sutherland talks to Katja Horvat about his decision, after twenty years in New York, to leave the city during the lockdown and move back to his native Colorado—resulting in a largely autobiographical body of work brimming with life, family, and nature, punctuated by hikes, camping, bike rides, and goat searching.
In this Gucci exclusive cover, Francesca Gavin outlines the musical legacy, eccentric persona, and visionary art of Jamaican-born, Swiss-based cultural pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry, who invented the genre and methodology of dub—bringing us on a journey through outer and inner space, nature, and the complexities of the Afrodiasporic experience.
Also featured in this issue:
AMO (interview by Alice Bucknell); Mycophilia (words by Francesca Gavin); Gordon Matta-Clark (words by Kitty Scott); Treehugging (words by Patrick McGraw); Trend Report: Notes on Camo (words by Calum Gordon and DEEP, artworks by Chris Glickman and Ada Sokół); Abstract: The Terraforming (edited in partnership with the Strelka Institute in Moscow); Monira Al Qadiri (interview by Myriam Ben Salah); Sean Vegezzi (interview by Theo Kindynis); Sky High Farm (words by Lucas Mascatello); and Tommy Malekoff (interview by James Wines).
And finally, “SEASON,” the magazine’s opening section, accounts for the best of this fall/winter with profiles and interviews:
Jean-Marie Appriou by Harry Burke; Takashi Homma by Olivia Whittick; Kamixlo by John Twells; Tishan Hsu by Lola Kramer; Josh Kline by Adriana Blidaru; Bone Soda by Carlotta Maneschi; Oswalde by Rhea Dillon; Linder Sterling by Francesca Gavin; Dachi Cole by Lucas Mascatello; Austin Lee by Gabriela Acha; The New Normal by Allan Gardner; Alex Becerra by Mitchell Anderson; Collina Strada by Carlotta Maneschi; OJAS by Katja Horvat; Ram Han by Thomas Mouna; Actress by Anna Tehabsim; Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings by Reba Maybury; ize by Katja Horvat; DeForrest Brown, Jr. by Deborah-Joyce Holman; GR10K by Madeleine Holth; Darja Bajagić by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos & Charles Teyssou.