I will forever be a little bit cross with whoever invented the concept of multiple magazine covers – each issue should be definitive dammit – and Port don’t help matters much by making all of theirs bloody gorgeous. They’ve made it a bit easier with the new issue, as one of them is graced by this Jai Odell portrait of Taika Waititi, enrobed by some wonderfully scrappy hand-lettering. Perfect.
There’s some stunning work in this year’s Taylor Wessing Photo Portrait Prize. Impossible to pick a favourite, but this one from Zoja Kalinovskis’ Unseen series is quite beautiful. The exhibition is on at the shiny and new National Portrait Gallery until the end of February. Probably my favourite London gallery, I can’t wait to get down there and check out what they’ve done to the place.
I suspect the anodyne glassy display of a computer doesn’t do justice to Korean artist Jungjin Lee’s photographs of the American West. Currently on show at the Howard Greenberg Gallery in New York, Lee’s images get their distinctive look and texture by being printed on traditional hand-made hanji paper. In short, I wants to touch them.
It always comes around so quickly; it’s Aesthetica Short Film Festival time here in York. Part of this year’s event is poster exhibition held at Streetlife on Coney Street. I’ll be making y way down there this weekend, mostly to appreciate this terrific Matt Needle design for Natalie Cubides-Brady’s The Veiled City.
Talking of movie posters, I’m compiling my annual review of the year’s best for Creative Review. Although I’ve already got a heaving shortlist, every time I do this there’s always something obscure that comes out of the woodwork that blows me away – last year, Derek Gabryszak’s design for Tramps! completely stole my heart. So if you’ve seen any particularly splendid posters this year, let me know.
It probably says more about me than her, but I did a double take at the picture of Jenny Holzer from 1984 – “oh she’s looking up from her phone and … wait a second.” From Jeannette Montgomery Barron’s fabulous series of black and white portraits of artists in Downtown New York in the 1980s, including the likes of Warhol, Haring, Sherman, Basquiat, Mapplethorpe, the whole gang.
This was originally posted on Meanwhile, a Substack dedicated to inspiration, fascination, and procrastination from the desk of designer Daniel Benneworth-Gray.
Banner: screenshot from The Veiled City by Natalie Cubides-Brady.