Postcards from Vegas

These images are from Rob and Nick Carter's new exhibition at The Fine Art Society, London. Taking 60s and 70s postcards and overlaying them with neon signs, they have created a collection that is evocative. Giving nostalgia a tawdry glow and yet making it all look so appealing...

A Curse On Your Walls

Because it is art time in London, here is a post celebrating Dawn Mellor, one of the most interesting artists working in London/the world at the moment. Her paintings recast famous stars as grotesque zombies, turning them into personifications of contemporary culture's rabid curiosity with the cult of celebrity...for more go here

Taryn Simon

American photographer Taryn Simon has a new exhibition opening in a couple of weeks so this seems to be the perfect time to look back at her 2007 show, “An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

This exhibition contained photographs taken over a five year period in the USA, which documented private and ‘secret’ places across the country within the realms of government, science, security and nature. Sites include the Forensic Anthropology Research Facility (where 60 decaying bodies are laid out to recreate crime scenes) and the Research Marijuana Crop Grow Room in Mississippi, the only place in the USA licensed to cultivate cannabis for scientific research. The images were exhibited and the collection printed as a book. See images below with Taryn’s captions, and for more info see www.tarynsimon.com

They just don't make life like this anymore...

Proof that life has always been better poolside. Images by Slim Aarons/Getty.

HATE PLATE

Second hand plate series (2005 - 2010) by British Artist Karen Ryan. Buying the plates from charity shops and car boot sales, Ryan then removes the patterned glaze leaving only the outlines of her letters and vague hints at the original designs on the plates. Ugly words made beautiful, harsh words made fragile. See more of her work here, it is great.

Alex Prager

Just keeps getting better...

See more here and buy from here.

Fuyoko Matsui is...

Japanese artist Fuyoko Matsui opens in Paris this week at Galerie DA-END - her first big show out of Japan. With a Phd in classic Japanese Nihonga painting methods, she constructs violent visions using inks on silk but the rage is refined through the painstaking traditional techniques. As such her often shocking and visceral subject matter is neutralised, creating beautiful and subtle pieces. They are wonderful. She will be big.

http://matsuifuyuko.com/

www.da-end.com