Hasta La Ideas

Rinat Voligamsi reimagines found photographs of Russian military life

Drawing on his experience in the Red Army,
Rinat Voligamsi paints from photographs of early Russian military life to reinterpret the bleak conditions in his current show “The Conditions of Winter.” The exhibition opens today at London’s Erarta Gallery, an outpost of the largest non-governmental contemporary art museum in Russia, exploring themes of humanity in the face of power and authority.

Though he paints with nearly mathematical precision, Voligamsi is no photorealist. Deft surrealist alterations range from tiny, exquisite details—burning cigarette embers create the Great Bear constellation—to major transformations, like figures that are cut in half, duplicated or inverted.

By manipulating the photographs while staying true to the look and feel of the originals, the resulting distorted scenes seamlessly merge the documentary reality with the artist’s vision, blending fact and fiction to make powerful statements.

Voligamsi’s altered figures seemingly come to life, suggesting the absurdities of living under tyranny as well as the potential for resistance to spin powerful metaphors about what happens to people under state supression.

The Conditions of Winter runs through 19 November 2011.

Erarta Galleries London
8 Berkeley Street
London W1J 8DN

We check in with one of the U.K. artists tapped by Wagamama to serve its customers some culture

Step into a Wagamama restaurant and you expect friendly service served alongside contemporary Asian dishes. U.K. visitors to the chain will now get a taste of nine emerging English artists too. Working with Moniker Projects, the new program goes by the name Art and Eat.

With Moniker, Wagamama started placing installations in their restaurants last month, also splashing the art on placemats and bookmarks that come with your check. The upshot is an initiative that both supports U.K. artists, while giving customers an engaging cultural moment as part of their meal.

When I sat down with one of the featured artists, British abstractionist Remi/Rough, he explained his position on the extensive history of corporate commissions like Wagamama’s. When brands approach artists, “sometimes there is artistic freedom,” he explains, “but other times they’ll ask you to work around their logo, to which I often say no.”

For his mural in Wagamama’s Royal Theatre Hall restaurant on London’s Southbank, “they didn’t ask to see my design,” he confirmed, pointing out the company’s generous creative license with the artists. “I chose colors that do not appear anywhere in Wagamama—except black—and I played with the idea of making stairs, as though they’re steps into the Hayward gallery on the other side of the wall.”

Pictured here are works from Mark Lykin, Malarky, Matt Sewell and Pam Glew. Other participating artists include Inkie, Patricia Ellis and Holly Thoburn.

Moniker has a short release of about 25 prints for sale and, as in Remi/Rough’s case, hand-painted pieces from each artist (£109 in the U.K., or £119 to ship elsewhere) as well. All proceeds go to the artists.

Wagamama will also give away prizes to people who include the hashtag #artandeat in their tweets during the span of the program, which runs through October 2011.

Photographer Pat Graham takes us on tour with the band in his new book

When you can’t get that riff out of your head, or feel compelled to turn the music up a notch, it’s the instruments at play. Lyrics play second fiddle in any song with a sick drum beat, electrifying guitar solo or melodious piano part. But as the physical extension of a musician, instruments take a beating. Documenting what they endure on the road and off is London-based photographer Pat Graham, who demonstrates how beautiful a worn-out guitar or a blood-covered drum set can be in his aptly-titled book “Instrument.”

Appearing everywhere from Rolling Stone covers to Modest Mouse album jackets, Graham’s photos have been an essential part of music history for the past decade. Having toured with bands several times, Graham illustrates the relationships he’s forged with musicians and their machines in the new book, demonstrating both his skills as a photographer and the adoration he has for his subject. Accompanying the compelling visuals are the captivating stories, including short renditions by each of the 50 featured musicians—from Johnny Marr to Hal Blaine—about how they acquired their instrument, and what it means to them.

We caught up with Graham to tell us more about the documenting process, and how he captures all of the magic that happens on the road. See his interview below, pick up the forthcoming book from Amazon and check out more information about the images after the jump.

Instrument is about relationships. What role do they play in the final product?

It means a lot to me, as the artist trusted me, as an artist, to photograph something very personal to them. While I shot a lot of these photos, I was having conversations with the musicians about what I should photograph and why. I would hope the final product or piece of art is inspiring to the musician and anyone viewing it.

What drew you to narrow your focus to instruments?

I liked the way instruments looked in photos and on stage. I also wanted to photograph something in music that was not really photographed before. I love photography and being able to photograph hidden landscapes in my favorite musicians’ instruments seemed like a good idea.

Can you tell us about the process of compiling all the instruments in the book?

I started it around 1995. The series really took off in 2007 when Johnny Marr kickstarted me into action. The project then gained momentum. Each shoot usually had around 150-200 shots, unless I had a very limited amount of time.

I used as many of my cameras as I had time for. I really wanted to capture as many angles as I could. And I also thought it was important to shoot with film and digital.
I asked friends to be in the book, and those friends asked their friends about contributing. The book was formed out of my love for photography and music, and also the love musicians have for their instruments.

I have toured with many bands as the photographer and while on tour, I would shoot as many instruments that inspired and crossed my path. Modest Mouse was a great inspiration for the book, as well as the band I was on tour with the most. As we traveled from town to town I would ask if anyone knew of any cool musicians/instruments in that town. For example, Isaac Brock said, “when [you] go through Oklahoma, you have to shoot the Flaming Lips stuff—it is amazing.”

Johnny Marr writes a brilliant foreword. What was it like to shoot his Fender Jaguar?

Johnny really liked my pictures of Ian Mackaye‘s SG and I had mentioned wanting to photograph Johnny’s guitars. I was on tour with Johnny and Modest Mouse at the time so we were together 24-7. I wanted to photograph his Black Jaguar at the right time and place. At the end of tour the band was playing the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. This was the place where the Grand Ole Opry had happened, and pretty much all the great country musicians had played on its stage.

Johnny told me how his parents were huge country music fans and were really proud that their son was playing the Ryman. In fact, I believe Johnny called them from the stage. That day I photographed Johnny in and around the Ryman. I felt this was the perfect place to photograph his black Jag. The photos show his guitar on the same stage that so many greats had been on.

Is the instrument a reflection of the artist, the music, or something else entirely?

The Instrument is a reflection of the artist and the music that instrument has played. An instrument is also a representation of a time period.

What do you see when you look at a guitar?

This depends on the guitar. I see lines, landscapes, blood, misshapes, design, etc.

Floppy disks; James Cauty of Space, The KLF, The Orb. “The floppy disks contain the samples for all the KLF records that were ever made.”

Fender American Vintage 1962 Precision bass; Kim Deal of The Pixies, The Breeders. “This bass always sounds good. It sounds good Dl’ed. It sounds good with or without a pick. It just sounds like a good bass guitar.”

Electro-Harmonix Clone pedal; Kurt Cobain of Nirvana. “I thought it was weird that he wanted this lush chorus pedal when none of the music that he had played prior to that had any kind of inflection. Then, ‘Smells like Teen Spirit,’ ‘Come as You Are’ and songs like that came out.” (Rick King)

National Reso-Phonic guitar; Juston Vernon of Bon Iver. “It literally wrote a song for me, a song called ‘Skinny Love,’ which was a really important song for our band and our first record.”

Carl Fischer cornet; Tom Peloso of Modest Mouse. “It doesn’t even work as it should with today’s tuned instruments because at the time i t was made there was no set standard pitch. It is called a ‘low C’ cornet.

1970s Epiphone Thunderbird bass; Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. “She had it inscribed, most of it still intact, by John Brannon, the singer of Laughing Hyenas (and ex-Negative Approach), who toured with Sonic Youth in the late ’80s.”

Ibanez double-neck guitar; Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips. “The Guitar Hero part doesn’t actually work—I have a Kaoss pad hooked up to it that really makes the noise—but it looks cool. I get a lot of mileage out of it; you put a battery in and it lasts for months!”

C&C drum set and various percussion instruments; Jeremiah Green of Modest Mouse. “This is a noisy tree made by Gregg Kepplinger, from Seattle, and a bell with a feather for making it fly. The metal makes a trashy sound.”

A new online shop celebrating the tradition of Moroccan craftsmanship

Famous for colorful souks where artisans peddle handmade goods, Morocco hasn’t been spared the effects of Westernization. To help keep the craftsmanship heritage alive, Aimee Bianca and her Moroccan husband Chafiq Ennaoui came up with Beldi, a country-specific online shop highlighting select housewares and accessories. Explaining they noticed “more and more cheap plastic stuff from China in peoples’ homes” when visiting Morocco, the pair not only expose the country’s finely crafted objects to the world, they also give online shoppers a fresh destination for items that are often difficult to source.

Spanning classic Moroccan rugs to bathwares and leather accessories, Bianca says because Ennaoui grew up in the medina of Marrakech, “almost everything we have is from people Chafiq knows personally, some of the artisans he originally knew through his grandfather or since he was a child.” Future inventory will include items from different areas around the country, tapping each region’s distinct artistry.

Similar to stores such as Kiosk, RS Too and even Opening Ceremony, part of Beldi’s appeal comes from finding artisans who would not otherwise be able to sell beyond their geographical border, bringing their skills into the limelight. But because of the way Moroccans conduct business—”everything’s done by bargaining, and can be a long process of meeting multiple times, drinking tea and finally coming to an agreement”—Bianca and Ennaoui also serve as gateway to a buying process the average tourist wouldn’t always experience.

With aspirations to one day be as all-encompassing as Lisbon’s famed A Vida Portuguesa boutique, Beldi is already starting off as a beautiful celebration of a culture with a long history of handmade goods and artisinal craftsmanship. Keep an eye out for more to come from the many regions around Morocco.

A photographer brings old-world portraiture to San Francisco

From his airy studio in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission district, photographer Michael Shindler is quietly putting a little “soul-stealing” back into the act of picture taking. Asking his subjects to sit still for a one-off tintype portrait, Shindler began Photobooth—a studio, shop and gallery space—in late August 2011 as a way of putting tangible value back into the typically digital medium.

Shindler captures a person’s image directly on a tintype or stainless ferrotype plate, then exposes them in the adjoining darkroom using a mix of chemical solutions. Because there’s no negative, the image on the plate is the only record of the moment captured with each subject. The uniqueness of the image combined with the intimacy of when it was taken elevates the simple portrait into something much more.

Shindler spent several years honing his technique, essentially the culmination of meticulous darkroom experiments, before opening Photobooth. Citing landscape photographer Carleton Watkins as inspiration for a perfectly developed print, Shindler shares an attention to photo processing with the 19th-century photographer, but he assures us it’s people that interest him most. The tintype format allows him to draw out intriguing characteristics of a face with freckles, wrinkles and irises in high contrast.

Fueled by a passion for the hands-on process of developing wet-plate collodion prints, Photobooth adds a human touch to photography, one portrait at a time. Walk-ins are encouraged, and prices span $50-80 a photo, depending on whether you choose a tintype or the stainless steel, mirror-like plate.

See more images in the gallery below.