Soho Journal Launch

A new quarterly magazine hits the streets of London and I’m very happy to announce my involvement in the inaugural issue that launched earlier this week in the capital. Soho Journal is a well curated lifestyle publication that will feature people, business and editorial articles focused in and around the area of Soho.

Issue 1 covers a range of character profiles and destination reviews in the famed hedonistic quarter and includes my business profile on the Photographers’ Gallery, devoted to its namesake medium for over four decades. From its founding in 1971 in Covent Garden to embedding itself in the ‘world’s most creative square mile’, according to the gallery’s Director, Brett Rogers, OBE, with its ambitious relocation in 2012 on Ramillies Street, I also investigate the art world’s return to the West End with a host of native and international commercial galleries favouring an address in the area over one in the now-gentrified East End.

Read an online preview of my article here or grab a copy of Soho Journal - featuring bespoke tailor and cover boy Mark Powell - for free in a number of hotels, galleries, coffee shops, eateries and retail locations in the W1 area.

For more on Art, Culture & Lifestyle 

visit jonathanvelardi.com

Image courtesy of Kirk Truman 

Arcana: Books on the Arts

For the avid art explorer no visit to Los Angeles is complete without a few hours page-turning in arguably one of the world’s finest bookstores. Arcana: Books on the Arts has been the go-to purveyors for specialist, out of print and collectible publications on twentieth-century visual art, architecture, design, photography, film and fashion since 1984.

In 2012, Arcana founder Lee Kaplan relocated from Santa Monica to Culver City’s landmark Art Deco complex at Helms Bakery - a former bread bakery from the 1930s, now transformed into LA’s interior design district.

There is no hint of the Deco on entering the 5000 sq ft space. Bright, white lines welcome visitors into this extensive emporium of over 100,000 items collected by Kaplan himself. A kaleidoscope of covers and spines colour the minimal, monochrome space from floor to ceiling on banks of custom metal shelving. Curated by theme and alphabetised, lowfi subject dividers on upcycled cardboard slot between catalogue raisonnés and monographs of international artists and designers as well as statement tomes on iconic aesthetics, architecture or actors. Elusive publications are designated cabinet space akin to artworks in miniature white cube displays.

If book shops are for bookworms, Arcana is for butterflies. The atmosphere is elegant and serene yet electric with every book unleashed from its plastic sleeve, revealing high-quality imagery produced by the world's leading publishing houses. From little and large to minimal and extravagant, Arcana’s vast range of visual page candy is unparalleled to the bookshelves of even the grandest of museum gift shops and is a testament to its strong client base from the creative worlds of entertainment, design and fashion who visit the shop for inspiration, guided by Kaplan’s comprehensive expertise on the old, the new and the beautiful.

Arcana: Books on the Arts is open Tuesday-Sunday 11am – 7pm

The Historic Helms Bakery


8675 Washington Boulevard


Culver City, Los Angeles CA 

90232

Look out for more for future posts reporting on my visit to LA earlier this year where I explored the alternative art and design scenes across the city here on the blog, my Twitter and Instagram. 

I Am Packed

The conceptually pragmatic blog for travellers and OCD-ers alike, I Am Packed recently featured the contents of my luggage before I headed to Los Angeles earlier this month. The site features an array of global travellers represented by their effortless compositions of belongings. From the monochrome to the multicoloured, I Am Packed is more methodical beauty rather than last-minute packing madness. Not to mention a little shameless display of one's wares - yes, that is a Jeff Koons beach towel. 

Find out what’s inside my luggage between LHR and LAX at I Am Packed and look out for future posts reporting on my visit to LA where I explored the alternative art and design scenes across the city here on the blog, my Twitter and Instagram . 

 

Lates Through A Lens

London’s Science Museum is officially on the art map. After the launch of its highly anticipated Media Space last week, the permanent gallery created by Ben Kelly Design will host a changing programme of art and technology to reflect on-the-pulse dialogue in an every-changing media age. Releasing its art and photographic collection to the public for the very first time, Media Space was conceived between the London museum and the National Media Museum in Bradford, home of the National Photography Collection. 

Photographers Tony Ray-Jones and Martin Parr inaugurate the new gallery with the exhibition Only In England, which explores the relationship and fascination with English custom and identity. Parr has selected a collection of the late artist’s work from 2,700 negatives and contact sheets that are held at the Ray-Jones archive at the National Media Museum – they will be displayed alongside Parr’s very own critical social-scapes of modern English culture.

Digital collaborators Universal Everything take residence in the neighbouring Virgin Media Studio with a user-generated 360° video installation Universal Everything & You, under the creative direction of Matt Pyke. 

Kicking of the Science Museum’s first Lates since the opening of the Media Space will be my very talented friends The Ladies of the Press* who will be performing their popular Magic Moments Photo Booth for one night only. Ana and Renée will attract visitors with their low-fi photo booth, rooted in a Surrealist and Dadaist mashup, topped off with sprinkles of English seaside stereotype, in reference to Only In England. They will work their technological magic from their makeshift press station to produce simulated and printed creations for participants to discover and enjoy.

The Ladies of the Press* - Ana Cavic & Renée O'Drobinak

Other lens-centric highlights scheduled for this coming Wednesday’s Lates include a rare opportunity to hold some of the world’s oldest photographs from the Victorian era; workshops on how to make the most of your smartphone and the actress and campaigner Lily Cole will talk about her new digital platform Impossible.com.

Science Museum Lates - every last Wednesday of the month

Wednesday 24th September 2013

Exhibition Road

London

SW7 2DD

Only In England and Universal Everything & You runs to 16th March and 7th February 2014 respectively - visit the Science Museum for further details.

David Bowie Is... Timeless

After double digit visits, I only wish I had the time to write double digit reviews on the gloriously resonant retrospective in both image and sound, that is The Victoria & Albert Museum’s David Bowie Is exhibition. Curated by Geoffrey March and Victoria Broackes and designed by 59 Productions, the sensory journey of the life and times of Mr David Robert Jones through the bounteous items of memorabilia from the David Bowie Archive can only be described as a privilege, exemplified by the daily queues that have wrapped around the museum every morning in South Kensington since its opening in March of this year. 

Unfortunately time has not crawled, and the curtains will draw on David Bowie Is this weekend. It was impossible not to obsess over a new item after every visit – the detail in both object and curation was a seductive match that undoubtedly fed Bowie die-hards and culture vultures old and new alike. A pioneer across multiple mediums and over many decades in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the exhibition does justice to its iconic subject and amongst the sketches, the art, the bodysuits, the euphoric visual space projecting music videos and concert highlights – I could go on and on – I wanted to share a possibly unnoticed and rare item on display. 

An original roll of wallpaper produced by Laura Ashley incorporating Bowie’s portrait of Lucien Freud was a surprise discovery. The limited edition boxed item of 500 was in aid of the War Child fashion event Pagan Fun Wear and featured in conjunction with the occasional series project Antennae #1, held at London’s Saatchi Gallery in St John’s Wood in 1995. The product is a brazen clashing of quintessential English country chintz from the house of Ashley with the equally brazen character that was Freud, which Bowie portrays in conceptually decorative unison within a Damien Hirst-esque formaldehyde tank in repeat. 

Buyers were provided with a conceptual instruction manual whereby they could recreate the excitement of the fashion event in the comfort of their own home, with various suggestions listed such as ‘Push several tables together to form your own catwalk’ and then ‘Dress up in the clothes you bought from the auction and walk up and down the catwalk’. The art-meets-product wallpaper later features in a photo shoot by Lord Snowdon from 2005 of Bowie striking a pose between two decorative columns that are plastered with the motif. While it may not be the most daring of expressions from Bowie's repertoire, the artwork is just as contemporary today as it was in its conception. The wallpaper and its creator are a timeless embodiment of gifted talent - we can all but hope there are more Golden Years to come.

David Bowie Is unmissable and it's not too late to experience this phenomenal exhibition. David Bowie Is closes this Sunday 11th August 2013 - visitors are advised to arrive early for limited ticket sales on the day. For further information visit V&A. 

Images courtesy of David Bowie and Lord Snowdon

Bowie's Back

2013 is set to be yet another year of British accolade. Drum roll please, or should that be synthesizer, for breaking news about a certain Mr David Robert Jones - or David Bowie for non-Ziggy-super fans - who has released a new single today, on his sixty-sixth birthday. 
Where We Are Now? is the first track ahead of a brand new album, The Next Day, scheduled for release in March. It has been ten long years since the Starman's last album and his reclusive nature, away from both public glare and stage, only fuels the anticipation and suspense of a pending new body of work and hopeful tour dates. Having turned down an invitation to perform in person at the London 2012 Olympic ceremonies, with only a few audio tracks to be contented with amidst the best of British fanfare (The Finish Line, 2012),  glam-rockers can look forward to a celebration of the iconic artist's contribution to art, fashion, film and music at the exhibition, David Bowie is at The Victoria and Albert Museum which will open in March and coincide with the album launch. The first international retrospective of its kind with unprecedented access to the David Bowie Archive will incorporate over three-hundred objects - from handwritten lyrics to original costumes and set designs to his very own instruments - charting Bowie's sustained reinvention across five decades.
Collaboration will be one of the themes explored in the exhibition and if today's music video is anything to go by, we can expect Bowie will be back with a bang and on the money with continued interest in contemporary art association and the prospect of a digital renaissance across social media for twenty-first century digital addicts. The Where We Are Now? music video is directed by international multimedia artist, Tony Oursler and features his trademark animated projections onto handmade sculptural figures.

The artist's official website davidbowie.com has been relaunched with new content as well as the official twitter page. 

So here's to a new year and the return of the original new. 

Happy Birthday Mr Bowie!

Find out more about the forthcoming exhibition David Bowie is 23rd March - 28th July at The Victoria and Albert Museum, London here.  

Image courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum

The Art Of Packing

This week I'm in Europe with Studio Velardi and before leaving for my first pit stop in Geneva, Switzerland I've been featured on the lifestyle blog I Am Packed. Founded earlier this year and sponsored by Air New Zealand, the site features a selection of items, packed and ready to go for any eventuality by travellers from around the world. 

I Am Packed provides the necessary association of contemporary-cool that brands, such as Air New Zealand, look for within social media. The unexpected submissions that resemble more art, than casual throw-in-a-suitcase snapshot, give both blog and airline the curatorial credentials that will have everyone admiring the art of packing. 

Check out what's inside my luggage between LHR and GVA here - more from Geneva on my return so until then, à bientôt tout le monde!

Studio Velardi Joins Tumblr

Studio Velardi has officially joined the visual realm of Tumblr! As many of my readers will know I launched Studio Velardi - the commercial arm of my practice - earlier this year to offer a digital, traditional and bespoke creative design service (Introducing… March 2012). To mark my first leap into commercial product design, I created an exclusive collection of environmentally friendly stationery that explored British stereotype and illustrative paraphernalia that has been well received in Windsor, where the enterprise is based, in the heart of Royal Berkshire.

Complementing the enterprise’s online activity in both word and image, studiovelardi.tumblr.com will present a visual archive of product, projects and events as well as a comprehensive online portfolio of both identity and inspiration of an emerging brand; focusing on accessible, high quality design production that employs local manufacturers in the Royal county wherever possible and is resolutely made in England.

This weekend Studio Velardi returns to the Windsor Emporium on Sunday 7th October at The Guildhall, Windsor.

Visit studiovelardi.tumblr.com and follow @studiovelardi on Twitter for the latest news and updates on my whereabouts over the coming festive season. 

Wrap Party

With a little over a week to go to the celebrations of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee that will kick off next weekend in what is being called The Central Weekend, the countdown to quintessential 'made in Britain', that is pomp and circumstance, has officially begun. 

With a plethora of exhibitions, events, interactive sites and digital apps, this Diamond Jubilee is a very twenty-first century affair where past and present shall be beamed across the globe in high gilded resolution. More on the nation's best Jubilee-to-dos next week, but for now, in the run up to the festivities in London and the extraordinary sight that will be the Thames Diamond Jubilee River Pageant, Sea Containers House on the South Bank has been given a right-royal-British-billboard this morning in the shape of a 100 x 70 metre wrap depicting the Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace during the Silver Jubilee in 1977 and is the largest image of its kind to ever be erected (from left, HRH Prince of Wales, HRH Prince Edward, HRH Prince Andrew, Lord Mountbatten, HM The Queen, HRH Duke of Edinburgh, Captain Mark Phillips and HRH Princess Anne) 

Visit the official Diamond Jubilee website for more information about events near you and across the country.

Pulp Fiction

Daily #17, 2011

Seek refuge from the recent deluge that is British Spring time in Sprüth Magers London outpost this month and be amazed at the new series of work by German artist, Thomas Demand. Using the simple materials of paper and card, Demand reproduces familiar environments and settings in extraordinary detail and depth - in The Dailies these everyday scenarios are photographed, recording their deliberate flaws where a corner edge has not been glued down flat or a join is not abutted as it would normally be. The minimal arrangements scrutinise and magnify the beauty of both the artist’s practice as well as that of the everyday – authenticity and artifice are challenged and the rare technique of dye transfer printing, which Demand employs in this series giving a thick and saturated print surface, only affirms these themes to produce an image almost suspended in time and isolated in the world that it was inspired by.

 Daily #7, 2008

The Dailies is simultaneously being exhibited at the 25th Kaldor Public Art Project, Sydney Australia.

The Dailies

14th April – 19th May 2012

Sprüth Magers

7A Grafton Street

London W1S 4EJ

Images courtesy of Sprüth Magers Berlin London