Photography

Suzanne Saroff’s Playful Bubblegum Photos Capture Delicate Forms on the Brink of Bursting

“You know how when you smell a fragrance that brings you to a specific time—like if you wore a certain scent for a year in college or if your grandmother always smelled like Channel No. 5—each time you smell that fragrance it brings you right back,” says Suzanne Saroff. “The process of chewing the gum for this series did that in a jarring way.”

Saroff is referring to a new body of work highlighting tiny bubblegum sculptures on the brink of deflating or popping. Conjuring memories of childhood competitions and absent-minded chomping, the photos zoom in on chewed wads of pink, blue, and green that appear almost corporeal, their pudgy folds and pockets evoking the beauty and repulsion of the human body.

The series started instinctively when Saroff spotted a pack of gum in her studio. Having previously photographed ephemeral subject matter like flowers, fish, and milk bubbles, the stretchy material was a welcome direction even though it popped within seconds of blowing. She made several trips to the nearest bodega for different flavors and colors and eventually, assembled dozens of combinations. “With the milk bubbles, I was interested in capturing something a bit mischievous and visceral that pops within seconds. The bubble gum is a continuation of that,” she adds.

Find information about available prints and more of Saroff’s work, including a recent short film about transformation, on her site and Instagram

 

Art Nature

Children and Animals Merge with the Natural World in Willy Verginer’s Whimsical ‘Lost Garden’

Whether deep in slumber or perched on ornamental pedestals, Willy Verginer’s bold, whimsical sculptures (previously) invite us into a surreal dream world. His latest series, The Lost Garden, draws on the paradisiacal notion of Eden and the alpine landscape and animals of the Dolomite Mountains near the artist’s home in northern Italy.

Verginer uses linden, or basswood, to chisel life-size sculptures of birds, bears, and human figures who merge with their natural surroundings. For example, in “Il fiume e la notte,” or “the river and the night,” a child sleeps atop a thicket of branches, simultaneously calm yet balancing precariously on thin supports. And in “Fiore del giardino,” or “garden flower,” a child’s head and shoulders are tightly enveloped with magenta flowers like a cloak.

Like much of Verginer’s work, The Lost Garden draws correlations and contrasts between society’s quickly advancing technologies and the way our reliance on phones or cars further separates us from nature. The artist’s sculptures stand like totems or nostalgic emblems, calling on a desire for a more interconnected world.

Verginer is working toward a solo exhibition at Studio d’Arte Raffaelli in Trento, Italy, this autumn. Find more on his website and Instagram.

 

Books Design Photography

Jamie McGregor Smith Illuminates Europe’s Most Striking Brutalist Churches in ‘Sacred Modernity’

In the mid-20th century, a bold, angular architectural style emerged as a celebration of post-war renewal, innovation, and symbolic strength. Brutalism, known for its bare, monochrome, industrial materials like concrete, brick, and steel, became a way for centers of influence like municipal hubs, government buildings, and cultural institutions to convey magnificent resilience and contemporaneity. Religious architecture was no exception.

There is hardly a more symbolic building than a church or cathedral, from the pilgrimage-like progression down the nave toward the altar to the lofty height and sweeping arches that draw the eye upward as a metaphorical connection to Heaven. And starting the 1960s, architects began designing cavernous brutalist buildings to house congregations around Europe, taking ecclesiastical structures in remarkable new directions.

In his new book Sacred Modernity, photographer Jamie McGregor Smith explores Europe’s most stunning brutalist churches, capturing cavernous meeting halls, remarkable geometry, and characteristic concrete and brick textures. Published by Hatje Cantz, the volume traces the dramatic, modernizing shift, marked by the Vatican’s search for an appropriate stylistic language to show that the Catholic Church was still relevant in contemporary society.

 

Smith has long been captivated by industrial and urban design. Inspired by the New Topographics documentary photography movement in the U.S., he began focusing on the defunct pottery industry in the British Midlands and iron ore processing plants in Middlesbrough. When he moved from London to Vienna in the summer of 2018, he was immediately struck by a seeming paradox when he visited an impressively blocky, asymmetrical church in the district of Liesing. He says:

The concept for the church began life as a sculpture, the artist believing its design had been delivered to him by God in a dream. I was bewildered that this piece of progressive art, consisting of 152 irregular concrete blocks, had been commissioned by such a conservative institution. It redefined my idea of what a church could be: at once beautiful yet brutal.

Smith broadened his search and quickly became enthralled by the forward-thinking movement in sacred design, spurring a series that aims to collate the religious architecture of mid-century high modernity. At more than 200 pages with well over 100 photographs, the new volume catalogues locations across the continent, highlighting the distinctive use of cast concrete, light-catching facets, and monumental proportions.

Sacred Modernity is scheduled for release in the U.S. on May 14, and you can preorder a copy now on Bookshop. Find more on the artist’s website and Instagram.

 

 

Art

Lauren Fensterstock’s Cosmic Mosaics Map Out the Unknown in Crystal and Gems

When a massive star dies, it collapses with an enormous explosion that produces a supernova. In some cases, the remains become a black hole, the enigmatic phenomenon that traps everything it comes into contact with—even light itself.

The life cycle of stars informs the most recent works by artist Lauren Fensterstock, who applies the principles of such stellar transformations to human interaction and connection. From her studio in Portland, Maine, she creates dense mosaics of fragmented crystals and stones including quartz, obsidian, and tourmaline that glimmer when hit by light and form shadowy areas of intrigue when not.

Cloaking sculptures and large-scale installations, Fensterstock’s dazzling compositions evoke natural forms like flowers, stars, and clouds and speak to cosmic and terrestrial entanglement. “I have to admit that I agonize over the placement of every single (piece),” the artist shares. “There are days where it flows together like a magical puzzle and other days where I place, rip out, and redo a square inch of surface again and again for hours. Even amidst a huge mass of material, every moment has to have that feeling of effortless perfection.”

 

The gems are sometimes firmly embedded within the surface and at others, appear to explode outward in an energetic eruption. Celestial implosions are apt metaphors for transformation, the artist says, and “pairs of stars speak to the complexities of personal connections… In the newest work—which explores vast sky maps filled with multiple constellations—I attempt to move beyond a single star or an isolated self to show the entanglement of the cosmic whole.”

While beautiful on their own, the precious materials explore broader themes in aggregate.  Just as astrology uses constellations and cosmic machinations to offer insight and meaning into the unknown, Fensterstock’s jeweled sculptures chart relationships between the individual and the universe to draw closer to the divine.

The artist is currently working toward a solo show opening this fall at Claire Oliver Gallery in Harlem. Inspired by her daily meditation practice, she’ll present elaborately mapped creations of lotuses, black holes, fallen stars, and a bow and arrow that appear as offerings to the universe. In addition to that exhibition, the artist is showing in May at the Shelburne Museum and will attend a residency in Italy this September, to work on a book about entanglement and artist muses. Find more about those projects and her multi-faceted practice on her website and Instagram.

 

Art

Yuko Nishikawa’s Sprawling Sculptures Mimic the Rambling Growth of Moss and Plants

For the last two years, Yuko Nishikawa (previously) has prioritized traveling. Chasing the unbridled inspiration that new environments bring to her practice, the Brooklyn-based artist has found herself in Japan, participating in residency programs and appreciating time on her own. Using local materials, crossing paths with people, and immersing herself in different landscapes has become the starting point for much of her recent work.

Nishikawa’s previous body of work incorporates more bulbous vessels, whereas the artist’s newest solo exhibition, Mossy Mossy, returns to the classic paper pod mobiles she’s known for and evokes a physical reflection of her musings from Hokuto-shi. Located in Yamanashi Prefecture, the city is replete with moss sprawling atop rocks, alongside waterfalls, and covering buildings. This simple plant “spreads from the center to the periphery and grows and increases,” she says. Methodically balanced by weight and connected by wire, Nishikawa suspends a plethora of green pods uniquely shaped from paper pulp.

Composed of more than 30 sculptures, all works in Mossy Mossy represent a system of growth that evokes the plants’ rambling qualities and always stem from a single, fixed line hanging from the ceiling. Delicate, dangling elements invite each mobile to respond to the movement of viewers and airflow. “Rather than looking at it from one point, the shape changes when you move your body to see and experience it from all directions,” she explains.

Mossy Mossy is on view now at Gasbon Metabolism until May 27, and Nishikawa is also preparing for an exhibition and lecture in October 2024 at Pollock Gallery. Follow on Instagram for updates, and see her website for more work.

 

Photography

Dudi Ben Simon’s Playful Photos Draw on Visual Puns and Humourous Happenstance

When Dudi Ben Simon observes the world around her, visual puns and parallels are everywhere: a cinnamon bun stands in for a hair bun; the crinkled top of a lemon is cinched like a handbag; or yellow rubber glove stretches like melted cheese. “I see it as a type of readymade, a trend in art created by using objects or daily life items disconnected to their original context, changing their meanings and creating a new story from them,” the artist says. “I attempt to preserve the regular appearance of the items, but with a switch.”

Ben Simon also takes inspiration from the directness of advertising, focusing on a finely tuned, deceptively simple message that can both be read quickly and provoke humor or curiosity. “I truly believe in minimalism,” she says. “What is not required to tell the story does not exist.”

See more playful takes on everyday objects on Ben Simon’s Instagram. You might also enjoy Eric Kogan’s serendiptous street photography around New York City.