Portrait photography by Joseph Marconi.
Magomed Dovjenko Site Relaunch
Magomed Dovjenko updates his portfolio site with all sorts of new illustration goodness. Keep an eye out for Magomed in the June issue of Beautiful/Decay along with a killer new shirt design by him.
Standard Operating Procedure
Another gripping documentary recently watched care of Netflix.
Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed Americas image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, or were they documenting the aberrant behavior of a few bad apples?
Maurizio Cattelan
Cattelan’s personal art practice has led to him gaining a reputation as an art scene’s joker. One of his best known sculptures, ‘La Nona Ora’ consists of an effigy of Pope John Paul II in full ceremonial dress being crushed by a meteor and is a good example of his typically humorous approach to work. Another of Cattelan’s quirks is his use of a ‘stand-in’ in media interviews equipped with a stock of evasive answers and non-sensical explanations.
Grafuck Book Launch
Juka Araikawa
I first met Juka Araikawa during my stint at UCLA as a teachers assistant for a drawing class. She was a quiet girl who had moved across the world to LA to study art. Even though she didn’t say much her work always stood out as some of my favorite in the class.
Interview: Eddie Martinez
Eddie Martinez details a strange and wonderful world of googly-eyed pots, Cosby sweater wearing owls, recurring characters and colorful, quirky compositions. In a recent interview, Martinez details his no-nonsense, back to basics approach to creating work. Unlike the intense philosophical considerations and conceptualizations inherent in so many artists’ meandering methodologies, Martinez takes an almost blissfully ignorant approach in the laconic tradition to making his works: “Sometimes an idea will work its way into a drawing … I don’t know…I don’t really make plans for [the painting] so much. I usually just start it.“
