Steichen: Art for the Masses
March 2 2008
Musee Olympique, Lausanne, Switzerland
Colloquium guest speaker Charlie Scheips more information
Boys on film
by Charlie Scheips published at NEWSTATEMAN
David Hockney has taken a break from painting to select a show of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. He talks to Charlie Scheips about his old friend and their shared interest
David Hockney, one of the most popular and influential living artists, takes a keen interest in how his own work has been presented in the hundreds of exhibitions and dozens of books that have documented his 45-year career. And now he has put on a new hat - that of curator - in an exhibition of photographs by the late Robert Mapplethorpe at the Alison Jacques Gallery in London.
Jacques invited Hockney to curate the show after the artists Cindy Sherman and Catherine Opie curated Mapplethorpe exhibitions for galleries in New York and Los Angeles in 2003 and 2004. “I read an interview Hockney did on Andy Warhol’s stitched photographs and thought to myself how brilliant it would be to have David’s eye on Mapplethorpe,” says Jacques. Sherman and Opie never knew Mapplethorpe, but Hockney did. They were introduced by a mutual friend in New York in 1970. Back then, Mapplethorpe was living with the rock artist Patti Smith, and he was making sculpture. Hockney recalls: “I made a drawing of Robert and he gave me a Polaroid of a male nude.” They were never very close, but saw each other from time to time until Mapplethorpe’s death from Aids in 1989. “I lost an entire group of my friends to Aids - it was an incredible loss,” says Hockney. “New York would be a different place today if all the talented artists like Robert hadn’t been taken from us.” read more
Guy Bourdin: Extreme Fashion Photography
The work of one of fashion’s most notorious, controversial photographers - Guy Bourdin - is exhibited in a one-off collection of over 40 works at London’s Bloomsbury Square until November 24 2007. Having shot campaigns for Chanel, Ungaro, Loewe and Charles Jourdan, Bourdin made a name for himself with the erotic, sometimes morbid images he projected onto the pages of British and French Vogue. Watch as Bourdin expert Charlie Scheips guides us around the photographer’s most iconic images and hear Bourdin’s son, Samuel, talk about his all-time favourite photo in a rare interview.
The Day the Factory Died
Opening New York:
This gallery opening and book launch by photographer Christophe von Hohenberg and Charlie Scheips attracted continental art lovers of all ages who came to pay tribute.
