In Anja Niemi’s new series Starlets, the Norwegian photographer combines the self-portrait with the idea of the staged narrative. The images are like film stills or movie posters, with herself cast as all the characters. Niemi calls herself a ‘one-man band’, as she always works alone.

–Evelyne Politanoff, Huffingtonpost.com

Starlets from June 4 - 29 at the Little Black Gallery, London

Rosea Lake as featured in this month’s Adbusters

Excellent piece on Paris Review about artist Jay DeFeo and and her 8-year in the making work, The Rose:

At first, it was called Deathrose. DeFeo began working on the painting in 1958 and did not stop until eight years later. The name change might be taken as suggestion that The Rose came alive, ceased, in the course of its development, to speak to death, or, more precisely, to death alone. At least some of the interest of the work—of DeFeo’s oeuvre as a whole—lies in the way it excavates the territory between Eros and Thanatos. The rose is, in Greek mythology, associated with Aphrodite, who is often shown with roses garlanding her hair. It is the flower that most readily stands in for the female body, for female sexuality. But DeFeo’s Rose is not the bloom of purity, not the blush of first desire. It is more vagina dentata, an alluring but dangerous trap, a pleasure and a menace.

Gorgeous Comic-Book Collage Portraits of Women 

By Emily Temple, Flavorpill

The portrayal of women (and non-gender normative characters in general) in mainstream comic books has long been a subject of discussion and controversy — not least because of their ludicrously unrealistic physical portrayals. It’s easy to see echoes of this in the work of Montreal-based artist Sandra Chevrier…Chevrier covers the faces of her subjects in the pages of comic books, leaving only their mouths or eyes to assert their femininity. The result is beautiful and more than a little thought-provoking. 

flavorpill:

Watch 2 Clips from Jim Jarmusch’s Tilda Swinton-Starring Vampire Romance

We’ve had a feeling that she’s not entirely human all along. 

Using pastel-hued rooms filled with tacky decorations and edible props, London-born photographer Juno Calypso has created a bizarre world for her alter-ego Joyce: a woman of indefinable age seemingly teetering on the brink of either a nervous breakdown, or death by indifference. Surrounded by cream cakes, fluffy fabrics and unearthed 80s beauty products, Joyce stares emptily back from behind her office desk, her deadpan mien and glazed-over eyes reflecting a deeper exhaustion with unrealistic ideals of femininity and beauty. Juno brilliantly balances comedy and melancholy, capturing herself as Joyce using both analogue photography and digital video, always with a glossy finish that works as an ironic contrast to her character’s expressionless face and ultimately mundane environments.

From Dazed Digital Artifical Sweetners

Loving the nude shades.

losed:

Min Jeong Seo - cinderella story, 2005

(via lookerlooker)

nycartscene:

Opens Tomorrow, Thurs, Apr 4, 6-8p:

Marisa Merz

Gladstone Gallery, 514 W24th St., NYC

an exhibition of new and early works by Marisa Merz. Known for her unusual use of materials, such as copper wire, clay, and wax, Merz makes sculptures and drawings that reflect a poetic sensibility, which delicately entwines her vision of art and life. The exhibition will feature painting, sculpture, and works on paper, and will highlight Merz’s pioneering role as a central figure and the only female artist in the Arte Povera movement. - thru May 18

selectism:

Visit MoMA New York – Watch Tilda Swinton Sleeping in a Box.

Very Snow White.