Tag Archives: Magda Danysz

Artist Focus: Icy & Sot (IR)

April 9, 2020 butterfly

During this period of lockdown, we look through the artistic journey of Iranian brothers Icy & Sot and their recent show ‘Fences Faces’ at Magda Gallery in Paris.

Iranian refugees now living in New York, they started their practice using stencils to highlight political and social messages. We first met them in Norway in 2014 for Nuart (covered) and again in 2015 in Berlin for Urban Nation (covered here).

For the past four years the brothers have detached themselves from stencils and moved on to experimenting with new materials which helped them sharpen and strengthen their political and social messages.

They created sculptures like the refugee boat in Dresden (Magic City 2017) or in-situ installations made of iron and barbed wire in Berlin (Urban Nation 2017), Ostend (Crystal Ship 2018), or London (Watch this space 2019) which we were fortunate to witness.

While exploring new techniques and tools, they have continued questioning and reflect on immigration, borders, refugees, social issues, women rights, freedom and capitalism.

The result is a new body of work presented earlier this year at ‘Fences Faces’ , their first solo in Paris at Magda Gallery.

The show features sculptural installations using raw material like barbed wire, iron wire, old rusty shovels or oil cans, new paintings created with a self- made cut-out steel tool, as well as photographs of previous ephemeral installations they built in different countries.

Through their unique visual language, they are delivering powerful, moving universal statements on the human condition, with poetry and fragility, while letting the door open to hope and dreams.

View the full set of pics here

Icy & Sot – Fences Faces
Magda Gallery
Paris

Paris

Paris: André x Futura – Chez Nous

January 21, 2019 butterfly

André & Futura have joined forces for a unique collaborative show at Danysz Gallery in Paris with their signature pictorial characters. Aptly entitled André x Futura – Chez Nous, the show presents a series of unseen works where they answer each other and merge their energetic painterly gestures. Futura (whose real name is Lenny McGurr) otherworldly characters, such as the Pointman, echo Saraiva’s Mr A. whimsical dancing figures, as if their pictorial alter ego were enjoying themselves as much as both artists did in this adventure.

View the full set of pics here

André x Futura – Chez Nous
Until 9 February 2019
Magda Danysz Gallery, 78 rue Amelot, Paris

Paris, Shows

Paris: Felipe Pantone – Dynamic Phenomena

May 6, 2018 butterfly

Chromatic and cynetic master Felipe Pantone is currently presenting his first solo exhibition ‘Dynamic Phenomena‘ in Paris at Magda Danysz Gallery.

Born in Buenos Aires, Pantone is an Argentinian-Spanish artist based in Valencia, Spain. Internationally prolific, Pantone enchants with his majestic murals, sculptures or monumental installations. Invited to the 2016 edition of the Maus Festival in Malaga (covered), the artist completely repainted a bridge overlooking the river Guadalmedina.

Felipe Pantone’s approach is to question the current era and its propensity to place new technologies at the center of our daily lives, making us dependent on a superabundance of images and symbols. He himself is passionate about the advent of the internet that gives instant access to the entire history of mankind. The problems he addresses are contemporary and universal: movement, the notion of time, saturation, alienation and destruction

With his exhibition “Dynamic phenomena”, Pantone imagines geometric subjects on modeling software, taking up the aesthetics of 3D creation, which he then reproduces in XXL size or on canvases. He brings them to life by superimposing his installations into disturbing optical illusions reminding of an explosion or an electric shock.

In a powerful dynamic, Pantone adds abstract and stroboscopic touches to articulate black and white geometric shapes creating a futuristic style with psychedelic accents and metallic colours.

View the full set of pics here

Felipe Pantone ‘Dynamic Phenomena’
Until 12 May 2018
Magda Danysz Gallery
Paris

Paris, Shows

Paris: Jean Charles de Castelbajac – I Want

March 1, 2018 butterfly

Multidisciplinary artist and internationally successful fashion designer Jean-Charles de Castelbajac (also known as JC/DC) is currently presenting a solo exhibition titled ‘I Want’ at Magda Danysz Gallery in Paris.

Since the 70’s and 80’s Jean Charles de Castelbajac has been creating clothes integrating popular iconography from cartoon characters by Walt Disney to the iconic Snoopy, and collaborating with multiple brands, allowing him to mix tradition with modernity.
During his visionary exhibition in 2009 “The Triumph of the Signs” in London, he combined brand logos with iconic canvases of art history and has been pursuing this incursion by creating a new hybrid aesthetic, chaotic and iconoclastic.

By bridging the gap between art and fashion for over decades, Jean-Charles de Castelbajac has explored all sides of this universe of collaborations both as a fashion designer and as artist.

Through this new exhibition “I Want – The Empire of collaborations”, the artist closes the last chapter of this artistic path started in 2009 by exploring on the one hand the hegemony of this new collaborative empire and its contradictions, and on the other hand, arises as a curator of desynchronized collaborations provoked by the meeting of artists, different eras and styles: André Courrèges meets street artist Andre, while Picasso secretely meets with Keith Haring. Fashion designer Virgil Abloh (covered) of Brand OFF WHITE lost his ‘Virgility’ …

JC/DC presents a portrait of the ‘Apotres Modernes’ / ‘Modern Apostles and dresses the Genealogy of Fashion with all the links between Brands and Designers.

A Mickey Mouse shaped canvas titled Kazimir, Walt & Raymond contains references to Russian painter Kazimir Malevich, Walt Disney and Raymond Pettibon

On the first floor, a series of portraits illustrate brand collaborations and ironically plays on words: Le Coq40 / CAC40 , French Kiss/Kith, Lacaste (the cast) / Lacoste, L’or & Elle (Gold and her) / L’oreal), Hell/ Shell, L’EGO / UNIQLO…

Next to the portraits gallery, a Wall / Mall showcases branded shopping bags painted with portraits or poetic statements.

In parallel, the 68 years old artist never ceases to be a street art poet, and describes himself as a ‘Craieateur (playing on the words craie =chalks and createur = creator) leaving chalk drawings and quotes on the streets.

View the full set of pics here

Jean Charles de Castelbajac – I Want
Until 17 March 2018
Magda Danysz
Rue Amelot, Paris

Paris, Shows, Street

Paris: Ludo ‘I’ve been missing you’ Solo Show

June 30, 2017 butterfly

French artist Ludo is returning to Paris after five years with a new solo show namely titled ‘I’ve been missing you’ at Magda Danysz Gallery.

After extensive travelling, creating installations in New York, monumental walls throughout the world and institutional projects, like at the Power Station of Art Museum in Shanghai, Ludo invites us for a journey through his multi-faceted works, whether photographs, paintings, drawings or sculptures.

In this exhibition LUDO also presents an installation made up of an army of fireflies whose phosphorescent light dazzles and envelops while letting emerge a certain question about the relation of man to technology. Hybrid creatures emerge from the artist’s imagination with botanical precision using a colour palette ranging from grey to his signature green.

The images of LUDO explore the environment, the future, the space, the human. His biotechnological creations come to colonize the three levels of the gallery and plunge us into a chimerical universe where we find the passions and multiple inspirations of the artist.

In parallel to the show, wandering through the streets of Paris in the 20th and 11th district, visitors can discover some of the artist’s latest creations, from a snake to a ‘BeeLice’ and a Grim Reaper.