Rinpa Eshidan

WE'RE SUPPORTING

Japanese artist Ikeda Manabu creates the most detailed, expressive, and awe inspiring artwork which literally rolls across the canvas with subtle colours amidst waterless wave-like formations. Each work is constructed upon a series of intricate miniatures which play out across broader themes of unrest and movement. Read more

WE'RE LISTENING TO

Bay Area duo The Human Quena Orchestra sounds like a skyscraper falling in slow motion with their scraping, crashing, screeching drone pounded out of guitars, samplers, and circuit-bent electronics. Listen to their track Progress below.

WE'RE THINKING

Mercedes Helnwein’s pencil portraits are hyper-realistic and expressive at the same time. She stays apparently faithful to her subjects, but utilizes poses and lighting to obtain dramatic and expressive images. Read more

WE'RE TRAVELLING TO

For some reason it’s rare that you see London in this light. Nightscapes of big cities are usually reserved for New York and Tokyo, for example. Perhaps the comparatively scarce skyscrapers makes the city less photogenic in that respect. So photographer Jason Hawkes’ work is long overdue — he has really brought the city to life, and given it that lick of golden light that a long-exposure is good for.

I ran a series of 80s nights in New York last year — showing cult 80s movies and playing classic cuts from that era of kitsch and spice — purely so I could spin After The Fire’s Der Kommissar over and over. Yessir, this was the future of music in 1983. Pity no one was listening.

WE'RE WEARING

What a wonderfully grown up ethos of punk is to be found in the latest effort by New Zealand’s Stolen Girlfriends Club. I saw sequin, lace, leather, denim, tulle, rhinestone and what appeared to be heshen, breaking all the rules of taste but nevertheless making me very, very happy. Read more

WE'RE READING

I am really into Hong Kong action flicks from the 1980s and 90s. When I first moved to New York, there were a handful of curious friends who were also interested in watching movies such as City on Fire by Ringo Lam, which Reservoir Dogs was based on. How did they find videos like thus? At the legendary Kim’s Video in New York City. These days, City on Fire can be find online, and Kim’s is history. But all the videos that entertained the film geeks of this city for more than twenty years have found a new home in, wait for it, Salemi, Sicily. Yes, the southern island of Italy. Kim has recently relocated there, as this sad but heartwarming story about him in yesterday’s New York Times reveals.