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Frank Ocean’s Homer Publishes ‘Mutations,’ a 48-Page Booklet of His Photography

By in Photography

Frank Ocean’s Homer Publishes ‘Mutations,’ a 48-Page Booklet of His Photography

The latest product to come out of Frank Ocean’s independent luxury brand Homer isn’t a piece of jewelry but rather, a collection of the artist’s photography.

Mutations is a 48-page booklet of images captured by Ocean last year between October 19 and December 22. Printed in the U.S. on tissue-weight paper, the book was published in-house by Homer and serves as a retrospective of his winter, featuring images of his friends wearing the jewelry.

A quick flip through the booklet online offers a glimpse at Ocean’s buddies modeling the green Sphere Legs Pendant, blue Sphere Cross Pendant and more.

Mutations retails for $75 USD and is available for purchase online and in-store at Homer’s New York flagship.

Homer at The New York Jewelers Exchange
70-74 Bowery
New York, NY, 10013

Elsewhere in art, a gallerist accused of $1.6 million USD in art fraud is set to strike a deal with authorities.


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Cincinnati native working to become beauty business mogul

By in Native

Cincinnati native working to become beauty business mogul

CINCINNATI (WXIX) – A Cincinnati native is working on becoming a beauty business mogul specializing in permanent makeup.

Amber Harrison is the owner of Brow Envy, which currently has three locations in Ohio.

Her business all started when she was looking to get her eyebrows done. When she couldn’t find anyone in the area, she decided to create her own business.

The permanent makeup artist says making each person she works with feel beautiful is what made her fall in love with the trade.

She left her corporate job and capitalized on her tattooing skills.

“One of the things I was really craving was seeing that like instant transformation and I love a before and an after,” explains Harrison. “So, being able to be creative. It started with that. And then going above and beyond that, I realized I just like giving people confidence.”

It took her a while to find her own confidence as she transitioned into the beauty industry after working for an insurance company for several years.

“I was doing insurance claims litigation, and I just woke up one day and realized I don’t love this,” Harrison recalls. “I just woke up one day and realized I wanted to do something more creative.”

While on the journey of discovering what to do next, Harrison says she learned about microblading.

“First, I wanted my brows done, and I couldn’t find anyone near Cincinnati doing it back then, so that led me to finding a class and realizing, ‘Oh, I can maybe learn to do it myself,’” says Harrison. “I thought maybe I could stay home with my three kids and do it as a side hustle.”

It turned into much more than that after her calendar booked up and her phone continued to ring off the hook.

“Within a couple of months, I quit my day job and started doing this full time, and then slowly but surely, I started growing and hiring team members,” Harrison explains.

Harrison expanded Brow Envy from Cincinnati to Columbus and Liberty Township.

She even opened an academy where she teaches the art of microblading to bring in another generation of permanent makeup artists.

However, she says her journey to success didn’t come without some snags along the way.

“I didn’t have a fancy business plan or investors,” Harrison recalls. “It’s just kind of a matter of starting and figuring it out as you go. It’s going to be way harder than you think, so lean into that. If you kind of accept that when the bumps come, it’s less scary and jolting, you can just kind of roll with it.”

Rolling her into a space that she says brings her and her team joy every single day.

“Seeing people live out their dream and putting themselves first again because most of our clients are women,” says Harrison. “I find that in our community, we’re always taking care of everybody else, so it’s really exciting to see women coming in here and being this is something I want to do for me and I’m going to invest in myself, and the same for my team members. Just seeing them get up every day and doing something that they love. That’s definitely my bright spot.”

Harrison says when she was younger, she thought about being a teacher, so in a way, it has all come full circle.

While she’s enjoying the space she’s in right now, Harrison says there could be another new Brow Envy location in her future.

This story is part of a weekly segment called Breaking Through.

FOX19 NOW will be highlighting those who are stepping forward to pave the way for a better future.

If you know a woman making a difference in the community, whether it’s a business, teaching, or volunteering, we want to hear from you.

Send an email to desk@fox19now.com with “Breaking Through” in the subject line.

See a spelling or grammar error in our story? Please click here to report it and include the headline of the story in your email.

Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.

Copyright 2023 WXIX. All rights reserved.

A Message Every Photographer Should Hear

By in Photography

A Message Every Photographer Should Hear

Have you questioned your own work or struggled with constantly feeling like you aren’t finding success as an artist? Hearing this might help remind you that we all experience similar struggles and many times, we are our own worst enemies.

This past winter, I took a trip to northern Norway to try to capture the northern lights. This video showcases just how hard it can be to show up to a beautiful location and walk away feeling like we got nothing at all. It leaves me questioning myself: “how on earth can I be somewhere this beautiful and not capture anything?” Most importantly, I speak vulnerably about how the experience left me feeling, and it’s something I think every photographer needs to hear, no matter what genre you shoot.

As artists, we tend to put heavy, many times unnecessary, weight on our shoulders to create new work, to stand out in a sea of millions or, at the very least, find satisfaction in ourselves. We create expectations based on all of those around us, and many times, there is no upside to these feelings. Satisfaction with our work is completely defined within ourselves. If you stick around for this entire video, it will hopefully connect to your own experiences. 

I wish more people got to see what struggles we can go through to capture an image rather than just the final result. We all consume the end product and never quite know what it took to get there. 

Trailing Michel Houellebecq From the Bedroom to the Courtroom

By in Art World News

Trailing Michel Houellebecq From the Bedroom to the Courtroom
image

The art collective KIRAC was embroiled in court battles over a film about the author’s sex life. Is the dispute a performance? A marketing stunt? Or a genuine cultural feud?

On Saturday night, an eclectic art crowd was gathering outside an industrial garage in Amsterdam East, where Michel Houellebecq, the celebrated French author, was set to speak.

Houellebecq had on May 24 released “A Few Months of My Life,” a new book describing a tumultuous period from October 2022 to March 2023 when he collaborated with a Dutch art collective called KIRAC. Together, they worked on a film, shooting scenes that show the married 67-year-old author making out with young women.

Although Houellebecq had consented to making the film, he later changed his mind and tried to back out. Beginning in February, he brought court cases in France and the Netherlands to stop the movie from being shown. Last month, an Amsterdam judge upheld Houellebecq’s complaint and granted him the right to see a final cut of any re-edited film four weeks before release, giving him a chance to file another action if he doesn’t like what he sees.

In “A Few Months of My Life,” a 94-page autobiographical work, Houellebecq digs deep into his hatred for KIRAC. He names the group’s leader, Stefan Ruitenbeek, only once, describing him as a “pseudo-artist” and “a cockroach with a human face.” Female KIRAC members are referred to as “the sow” and “the turkey.”

According to the organizer of Saturday’s event, Tarik Sadouma, Houellebecq had not come to Amsterdam to promote his new book, but to talk about his work generally. As a condition of his participation, Houellebecq asked Sadouma to bar Ruitenbeek and his cohorts from the event.

Yet just as the audience took its seats inside, Ruitenbeek burst through the door, dressed as a giant brown cockroach, with bobbing antennae and a furry cape. He was trailed by KIRAC members, one wearing a false pig snout, another filming the whole thing.

“I’m here!” cried Ruitenbeek, taking the stage, to a mixture of jeering and cheers. “I’m the cockroach!”

A woman taking tickets tried to wrangle the camera from the cameraman and Sadouma shouted for the intruders to leave. Eventually, Ruitenbeek — pleading, “No violence!” — left with his entourage.

Michel Houellebecq released a 94-page autobiographical book, “A Few Months of My Life,” about his experiences with KIRAC.Philippe Matsas/Flammarion

This was the latest episode in an ongoing, surrealistic conflict between KIRAC, a fringe art group that posts its films on YouTube, and Houellebecq, one of the world’s most famous authors.

Was it a performance? A marketing stunt? Or part of a genuine cultural feud? Who could really tell?

KIRAC, an acronym for Keeping It Real Art Critics, is often described as an art collective, but its creative center is Ruitenbeek and Kate Sinha, a writer who is also Ruitenbeek’s life partner. They make films that at first appear to be documentaries, or possibly mockumentaries, typically set in the art world. In them, the boundaries between reality and fiction are often blurred, narratives sometimes conflict and onscreen characters can appear to be playing a game with the truth.

It is also often difficult to discern KIRAC’s political views. In one of its films, the Dutch architect and curator Rem Koolhaas is criticized as “macho” and “patriarchal.” In another, KIRAC seems to decry diversity efforts, arguing that the artist Zanele Muholi was given a retrospective at the Stedelijk Museum, in Amsterdam, “only because she is from South Africa, Black and lesbian.” (Muholi now uses they/them pronouns and identifies as nonbinary.)

Seen as provocateurs or pranksters, and sometimes art world trolls, KIRAC’s members often deliver critical monologues directly to the camera, usually in the form of articulate academic analysis from Sinha, or mocking insults from Ruitenbeek.

“In the broadest sense, we’re just trying to make great films, intellectual entertainment,” Sinha said. “I think we are primarily artists, interested in the object we make, which is always the film.”

Sinha in “Time’s Up, Old Man,” a KIRAC film in which she criticizes the Dutch curator and architect Rem Koolhaas.KIRAC

In a joint interview, Ruitenbeek and Sinha said they developed the concept for the Houellebecq film with the author and shot 600 hours of footage of him, with his contractual consent. Houellebecq only objected when they put together a two-minute trailer for the work in progress, according to Ruitenbeek and Sinha.

In that clip, Ruitenbeek explains that a “honey trip,” or sex holiday, that Houellebecq had planned in Morocco had been canceled because the author feared being kidnapped by Muslim extremists. (Houellebecq has a long history of making critical statements about Islam, and some readers have found Islamophobic sentiments in his books.)

“His wife had spent an entire month arranging prostitutes from Paris, and now everything was falling apart,” Ruitenbeek says in the trailer, in voice-over. He then suggests that there are plenty of young Dutch women in Amsterdam who would have “sex with a famous writer out of curiosity,” and invites the author to visit.

In a French court, Houellebecq argued that the trailer violated his privacy and damaged his image. He asked the court to make KIRAC pull the trailer from all online platforms, remove any mention of his wife arranging prostitutes and pay her damages. The court rejected Houellebecq’s case.

Later, in the Dutch court, Houellebecq argued that KIRAC had violated contract law, and misled him so that he ended up “in a different film than the one originally intended,” according to his Dutch lawyer, Jacqueline Schaap. An appeal judge in that case found for Houellebecq.

The film is still unfinished and continues to evolve, Ruitenbeek said. After Houellebecq left the project, KIRAC filmed in and around the court proceedings, as well as shooting other moments, such as Saturday night’s cockroach show.

Ruitenbeek said he was now rethinking the material, and a final cut may not come for months.

“We started off this project in an open-minded attitude toward each other; we took each other as artists,” Sinha said of the collaboration with Houellebecq. “It feels like he backpedaled and put on a different coat.”

Houellebecq last week agreed to an interview for this article, but pulled out after learning that he would not be shown his quotes before publication. (At the event in Amsterdam, he again declined to comment, claiming that he did not speak English, although he speaks it in the KIRAC film.)

Ruitenbeek’s over-the-top voice-overs and willingness to play a goofball suggest that KIRAC is going for humor. But, often, the subjects of its films don’t find them funny.

“They point fingers at others, but carve out a safe space for themselves’,” said the artist Renzo Martens, who was the focus of an unflattering movie. “From this safe space they are brave enough to cut into other people’s flesh.”

Three Dutch institutions that KIRAC has lambasted — the Stedelijk Museum, the Van Abbe Museum and the Kunstmuseum, in The Hague — declined to comment for this article.

Salima El Musalima in KIRAC’s film “Honeypot.” More than 1,000 people signed a petition calling the film “a glorification of sexual violence.”KIRAC

Thijs Lijster, a senior lecturer on the philosophy of art and culture at the University of Groningen, said that there is “something threatening in their ways of going about their work. They have a style of filming, and approaching and talking to people, which is, in a way, rather hostile.”

It is not just KIRAC’s targeting of artists and institutions that has been controversial. Over time, its films have evolved to enter the realm of social commentary, drawing ire from across the political spectrum.

Some viewers saw the group’s 19-minute film “Who’s Afraid of Harvey Weinstein?,” in which Sinha speaks about sexual power dynamics between the American film producer and his rape victims, as dismissive of the #MeToo movement.

A leading art school in Amsterdam, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, canceled a KIRAC screening after dozens of complaints from students, former students and teachers about statements in the group’s films that they found sexist and racist. The Weinstein movie was championed on a right-wing populist Dutch blog, Geen Stijl. Suddenly, KIRAC became a magnet for conservative followers.

Although Ruitenbeek and Sinha said their personal politics are progressive, KIRAC didn’t disavow the attention, and instead produced a film called “Honeypot.” For that, the group convinced a conservative Dutch philosopher and activist, Sid Lukkassen, to have sex on camera with a left-wing student. The idea was to see if the intimate act would somehow bridge a political gap.

More backlash ensued. When an Amsterdam arts center called De Balie screened “Honeypot,” a feminist collective submitted a petition with more than 1,000 signatures that called the film “a glorification of sexual violence.” The petition’s signers also included the right-wing Dutch politician Paul Cliteur and some of his followers.

Ruitenbeek and Sinha both said their clash with Houellebecq was no stunt. They maintained that they don’t want to be in court with the author, whom they both described as “a genius.”Ilvy Njiokiktjien for The New York Times

“It was interesting that these two sides teamed up against the film for opposite reasons,” said Yoeri Albrecht, De Balie’s director, who did not cancel the event. “I’ve never seen that happen in the more than a decade that I’ve been organizing events here.”

The ambiguity around the group’s motivations only feeds the interest in KIRAC’s work. Many who have been following the Houellebecq affair are unsure whether it’s real or a postmodern KIRAC fiction.

“Everyone is wondering, are they playing a game together?” said Simon Delobel, a curator who teaches at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, in Ghent, Belgium, where he was introduced to the group’s work by his students. KIRAC and Houellebecq were surely “well aware that it can be interpreted as a stunt,” he added.

Yet Ruitenbeek and Sinha both said their clash with the author was no stunt. They don’t want to be in court with Houellebecq, whom they both described as “a genius.” They just want to be in conversation with him, Sinha said.

Ruitenbeek added that when he showed up at Houellebecq’s talk on Saturday, he thought there was a small chance that everyone would laugh and give each other hugs. He was “very happy the day he went to get the cockroach suit,” Sinha said. “After all these intimidating court cases,” she added, “we were back on our own territory again: making art.”

Léontine Gallois contributed reporting from Paris.

Q&A: TIDAL Execs Talk New Artists Home Program And Supporting Young Artists

By in Art World News

Q&A: TIDAL Execs Talk New Artists Home Program And Supporting Young Artists

The music streaming world remains an insanely competitive place, one where it is constantly necessary to stand out. But how do companies do that? TIDAL is hoping to do so with their new Artists Home program, launched yesterday (May 31).

The idea behind the program, I found talking to Jesse Dorogusker, TIDAL CEO, and Agustina Sacerdote, TIDAL’s Head of Product, is to make it easier for artists to manage their online presence on TIDAL in one place.

As Dorogusker and Sacerdote explained, they understand an artists’ time is very previous. “To do so in a way that actually saves the artist’s time, saves the artist’s energy, because those are the two things that they need to create music. So again we just always want to default and gravitate towards helping the artist afford to make music and afford to live off of their art,” Sacerdote says of the program.

We spoke to them about TIDAL’s commitment to new artists, their excitement behind the Artists Home program and much more.

Steve Baltin: For me, I still get off more than anything on the sense of music discovery. It’s finding those new artists that you get excited about the same way you did when you were 15 years old. So Danielle Ponder had that.

Agustina Sacerdote: It’s funny that you mentioned this because this is something that I talk to my team a lot all the time. We spend so much time figuring out how to encourage and enable really exciting discovery like that, like you just talked about, within the app. I still think that live festivals are probably the most exciting way and the most effective way to get to that feeling. And so we’re thinking a lot about like how do we get you 24 hours after you went to a festival or went to a show, to have a similar experience or like leverage that experience in the app. And so obviously we have to know that you went to a show and stuff like that. But like that feeling, it happened to me with Tank And The Bangas recently. I went to a show and 24 hours later I had to spent $200 on records and stuff. Short answer is yes, we’re thinking about that for long.

Baltin: Let’s talk about Artists Home and obviously that ties in with the music discovery. What it is that you want people to be able to do with that?

Sacerdote: Artists Home, for us, is very important and very symbolic, obviously, of the direction that we want to go. It is effectively the first important and visible milestone towards this journey of, working directly with the artists in the spirit of helping them to make music. And if you look at it today, and if you look at Artists Home, in its initial stages , it’ll enable artists to manage their presence on TIDAL. And instead of getting lost in the shuffle between the distributors or their managers and us we try to make sure that their content is accurate and that their profile image supports their latest release, we’re now automating a lot of that. But most importantly, I think this provides a home. We were very intentional with the name where an artist can effectively manage and explore and learn about different ways to grow their business. And so we’re very really focused on the economic empowerment side of that, on the income side of that. And this is why also we’re focused a lot on the fan side. Because we know, and you probably know better than I do, that, streaming isn’t necessarily the best way for the vast majority of artists to make money. But having an active engaged fan base is. So, for us, it’s almost like we’re looking at the artists and we’re building tools and experiences directly, to solve their needs. But the fan side is the huge side of the equation as well. And, I think playing on both sides of the same coin is why we’re all here and why we think we can do something really meaningful in that regard.

Sage Bava: I’m an emerging artist. I’m releasing some music soon, and I am really intrigued to hear more about title and your recommendations for artists that are just putting music out now and how it differentiates from other streaming platforms.

Jesse Dorogusker: I can take that. Thrilled to have you on the call and congratulations. TIDAL has always been artist focused, artists first. It’s probably our biggest differentiator among the other streaming services. And the way Jay-Z and his co-founders started it in 2015 was very focused on artists. And the tools they had to do that was in their language, focusing on audio quality, really trying to present music in the way that artists intended it, and not diminishing it with compression and dismissing that as something that was unimportant or that not everyone could hear. And amazing editorial work focusing on artist, artist journeys, artist stories, celebrating the history and the present and the future of musicianship and contribution to a dialogue in a catalog of music. So we carry all that forward and now are turning that into tech enabled direct relationships with artists with Artist Home. So in releasing new music, first presenting it in the best audio quality possible is a great idea. I know it’s not what all people need in all circumstances. If you’re on a mobile phone and a tight data plan, listening to an MP3 is okay. But not giving artists and fans and opportunity to listen to CD quality or better, I think that’s a mistake. And I’m really proud that we’ve always supported that. So that’s number one. We’ve refocused our, marketing and artist marketing efforts in a new program called Rising, which has had many journeys through TIDAL’s history, but we re-launched it as a way to just directly support rising artists. So we launched with a showcase of 20 artists who are focusing on, we’ll extend that to a couple hundred throughout the year where we’re providing education and spotlighting artists. We just did a showcase in Nashville around the Music Biz Conference with some rising artists. And, we did similar in Atlanta last fall. And we’re able to do simple things like put together a concert, buy a few billboards, spotlight the material on TIDAL, and help artists tell their own stories in their own way, and just get access to audiences and some tools that they’ve never had before. So Rising is a really great way for us to focus, not just supporting artists directly, but really our marketing efforts. TIDAL’s marketing has been an array of brand and superstars and concert tour launches and live streams. And now we’re focusing it a lot more on the artist’s journey and making sure that our dollars and our voice and our editorializing and our play listing is focusing on rising artists especially.

Baltin: What are the criteria you’re using in selecting TIDAL Rising artists?

Dorogusker: We’ve made sure that all of our showcases have been a diversity of music styles and genres, a diversity of ages. Geographically we’re trying to get all over the U.S. and do some of these spotlights globally as well. Rising artistry isn’t one thing. We do have strong credibility, history, and amazing editorial team in hip hop. I don’t think we’ll ever stray too far from that expertise and strength. But the Rising artist journey has a lot of common threads of discovery and struggle, and lack of access to data and anonymous fans and gate kept services and exclusion from the industry. And no access to capital, bad financial services, All of these things are consistent and bust through all of the genres and the choices. We can send you a list of the people that were in our Nashville Showcase and then our Atlanta Georgia Showcase, just to give you a flavor of how we’ve brought these stories to life. But really they’re just in the artist’s voices themselves, and we’re not trying to chart a narrow path through what a TIDAL artist is. Just what a Rising artist is.

Baltin: The one thing that we have found in interviews we’ve been doing this year, with everyone from Herbie Hancock to Samara Joy, is the return to organics and the fact that people really want a human connection. And that’s one of the things that really interests me because I think that’s where streaming for a long time failed is not being able to do that. How can you bring that human component in?

Dorogusker: It’s such a good observation. And we do see the same diversity and a lot of people with conflicting feelings about social media. I think the only focus for us that’s going to work and scale is giving artists agency and access to engage with what’s around them, however makes sense to them and let them tell stories. So that means de-anonymizing their fan base, that means revealing data to them in a way that they can take action on it. That means giving them tools to engage with social media however they want. A lot of fans would say they just want to be behind to velvet rope and meet their favorite artist. That might not be what the artist wants. We’re not just going to turn over the database and let people email, text message and DM their favorite artist. That’s not safe or a smart way to do it. But all of these tools, analysis, databases, loans, publishing rights, these are all just so elusive and we need to put it back in the hands of artists so they can decide what their journey is going to be like. And right now they have a lot of people deciding on their behalf and it’s a big mess.

Sacerdote: I also think, just to add to Jesse’s point and a little bit more on the ground, the decisions that we make from a product perspective is, there’s obviously all the tools to better manage social media, to put more content on all the platforms. Every single day we talk to companies that are creating a better way to email fans and things like that. It is very important to us that we improve, not just to Jesse’s point, visibility and ownership and control and agency and access to all of these things. But to do so in a way that actually saves the artist’s time, saves the artist’s energy, because those are the two things that they need to create music. So again we just always want to default and gravitate towards helping the artist afford to make music and afford to live off of their art. And us putting more tools in front of them isn’t necessarily the solution. And so we’re spending a lot of time talking and directly building with artists. We have already artists that are enrolled in Artist Home and using it today because we just want to make sure that it’s not another platform that they need to log onto and manage in the 15 minutes of admin time that they have during the day because they’re busy working at a coffee shop and then trying to book some gigs at night.

Frank Ocean Publishes New Mutations Photography Book

By in Photography

Frank Ocean Publishes New Mutations Photography Book

Frank Ocean’s luxury company, Homer, is publishing a new book of the musician’s photography. Th 48-page book, Mutations, retails for $75. See excerpts from the book below.

Frank Ocean made headlines in April when he headlined the first Sunday night of Coachella 2023. The set was not streamed, and he played songs including “Novacane, “Bad Religion,” and more before abruptly leaving the stage due to the festival’s curfew. Ocean did not return for Coachella’s second weekend, citing an apparent leg injury as the reason for his absence.

Read “A Visit to Homer, Frank Ocean’s New York Luxury Store” on the Pitch. Plus, check out “Dissecting Frank Ocean’s Coachella Performance and Its Aftermath.”

Frank Ocean Mutations

Photo by Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean Mutations

Photo by Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean Mutations

Photo by Frank Ocean

Frank Ocean’s New Project Is Here

By in Photography

Frank Ocean’s New Project Is Here

Crazy to think that in the two years since Frank Ocean launched Homer, his nascent luxury label, he still hasn’t released any new music. Really makes you think. Reeeeaallllllyyyy makes you think.

Still, Homer’s roll hasn’t really slowed. With or without Frank’s direct input, Homer continues to launch jewelry collections and the occasional semi-affordable collectible — “semi”-affordable because, compared to Homer’s four- and five-figure necklaces, the $50 art books and posters almost look like bargains.

Here we are on June 1 and Homer’s done it again. The imprint has released Frank Ocean’s latest photography book, Mutations, on the Homer website.

For $75, you get a 48-page booklet printed in America on “tissue-weight paper,” according to a press release. Published by Homer, Mutations comprises “a retrospective of artwork from October 19 to December 22, 2022” including photographs taken by Frank Ocean himself.

Frank is responsible for most of the Homer photography anyways, so the fact that he’s taking plenty of his own photos is hardly a surprise. Still, you never know when and how this guy will release anything so there’s that, at least.

Other recent Homer developments include a $25k penis ring and an offer to listen to fans’ music — whatever came of that last one, though, is unknown.

Frank fans have staunchly stuck by their man despite his “disappointing” showing at Coachella 2023, and Homer seems to at least be conscious of Frank Ocean followers’ wariness of the high price tags attached to most of the Homer jewelry, which is why the company is also offering lower-priced trinkets, accessories, and one-offs like the Mutation book.

It ain’t new music, but it’ll have to do for now.

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Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs

By in Photography

Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs

Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs


Frank Ocean. Photo by András Ladosci.


 

Frank Ocean is back with a book of photographs. Mutations is a 48-page collection shot by Ocean himself, available at his fashion boutique Homer both online and in-store for $75. The photos were taken between October 19 and December 22, 2022 and are printed on “tissue-weight paper,” according to a press release.

Mutations is Frank Ocean’s first public offering since his performance at weekend 1 of Coachella. Initially signed on as the headliner for both weeks, Ocean dropped out of the second date after harsh criticism of his first set. In a press statement, Ocean said that a leg injury suffered before the first weekend’s show had forced him to bow out of returning to the desert. Part of the resulting media frenzy around the debacle included a Billboard report alleging that the festival had spent millions of dollars on a hockey rink that went unused.

Read Next:

Still, the magazine does look quite nice! See some previews of it below. It’s part of a new Homer collection, which we’ll learn more about soon.

Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs

Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs

Frank Ocean reveals first post-Coachella release: a book of photographs

June 2023 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

By in Art World News

June 2023 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists

“Whirling Colour” by Jon Foreman

Every month, Colossal shares a selection of opportunities for artists and designers, including open calls, grants, fellowships, and residencies. If you’d like to list an opportunity here, please get in touch at hello@colossal.art. You can also join our monthly Opportunities Newsletter.

 

ArtPrize Call for ArtistsFeatured
ArtPrize is an open art competition that takes place for 18 days from September 14 to October 1 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and any artist working in any medium from anywhere in the world can participate. The competition will give out a total of $600,000 in awards and grants this year, including a $125,000 grand prize to one artist. Artist Grant applications are now open through June 16 at artprize.org.
Deadline: June 16, 2023.

$1,800 Innovate Grants for Art + PhotoFeatured
Innovate Grant awards two $1,800 grants each quarter to one visual artist and one photographer. In addition, six applicants will receive honorable mentions, be featured on the website, and join a growing community. International artists and photographers working in any medium are eligible.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. PST on June 22, 2023.

 

Open Calls

Touchstone Gallery People and The Planet Open Call (International)
Visual artists working in any medium are invited to think about how humans interact with the earth and all of its inhabitants. Artists are encouraged to submit pieces that explore environmental and social issues, the climate crisis, natural materials and resources, Indigenous perspectives, changing landscapes, and connections to the land. Works must be original and completed within the past five years. There is a $35 application fee.
Deadline: June 4, 2023.

The Booooooom Art & Photo Book Award
In partnership with Artmobile, Booooooom is open to submissions for its Art & Photo Book Award, which will grant six artists the opportunity to publish a collection of work free of charge. Submissions should be finished projects as opposed to works-in-progress, and the award covers all production costs.
Deadline: 11:59 PST on June 5, 2023.

Passepartout Photo Prize (International)
The Passepartout Photo Prize aims to support the development of talented photographers from all over the world by offering cash prizes and the opportunity to exhibit in a gallery in Rome. Photos of any kind of artistic style, size, and technique (digital, film, and experimental processes) are accepted. One winner will receive 500 Euros, and there is a 25 Euro entry fee.
Deadline: June 6, 2023.

Prospect Art Open Call for Curators (Los Angeles)
Prospect Art is currently searching for a Los Angeles-based curator to contribute to its BROADCAST programming, which showcases media-based artists throughout the year. Curators at any stage of their careers are eligible, and the selected applicant will receive a $1,200 honorarium and compensation for writing a curatorial essay.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. PT on June 10, 2023.

Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise (U.S.)
The Vilcek Prizes support emerging to mid-career immigrant designers who have demonstrated exceptional achievements early in their careers. Three winners working in digital design, graphic design, product design, or social design will receive $50,000.
Deadline: 5 p.m. EDT on June 12, 2023.

Vilnius Academy of Arts, SODAS 2123, and the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association Symposium (International)
This symposium is looking for contributors for the artistic and research-based gathering “Walking is Still Honest: About Being and Moving Together.” The call is open to artists, urban planners, art historians, cultural historians, philosophers, historians, sociologists, neuroscientists and other researchers who are interested in the act of walking, its various forms and cultural meanings, and the history, present and future of walking.
Deadline: June 15, 2023.

SaveArtSpace This Place Meant Open Call (International)
Curated by Sadaf Padder, This Place Meant is an open call for third-culture artists and descendants of mass displacement. Artists of all ages are eligible, and chosen projects will be displayed on a billboard in New York City. There is a $10 application fee.
Deadline: June 19, 2023.

CUE Open Call for Solo Exhibitions and Curatorial Projects (U.S.)
CUE’s annual open call provides emerging and underrepresented artists and curators the opportunity and necessary resources to realize an exhibition at CUE’s storefront gallery space on West 25th Street in Manhattan. Artists receive a $5,000 honorarium and curators $2,500, and there is a $10 application fee.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. EDT on June 30, 2023.

Getty Images Creative Accelerator (International)
This program will choose 50 emerging photographers to participate in a one-year curriculum to learn all facets of creative and commercial content. Chosen artists receive $500.
Deadline: Midnight on June 30, 2023. 

Mophradat Orbitals Open Call (International)
This open call will take four curators and arts researchers to Dakar, Senegal. During the one-week guided research trip, the participants will meet and share experiences with peers from the art scenes they are visiting. Mophradat will provide flights, travel insurance, accommodation and per diems, and reimburse visa costs. Applicants must be from or living in the Arab world.
Deadline: July 10, 2023.

In Translation at Glen Arbor Arts Center (International)
Applications are being accepted for In Translation, the Glen Arbor Arts Center’s juried exhibition that runs from August 18 to October 26. In Translation explores this question: What is the role of the artist, the visual maker, in the 21st century? Visionary? Commentator? Taker of dictation? Aesthete? Four artists will receive awards ranging from $150 to $500. There is a $35 application fee.
Deadline: July 13, 2023.

USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative Industry Art Valley Program Open Call (International)
This open call will accept five international artists and scholars who use comprehensive media materials. From November 1 to December 15, selected artists will hold exhibitions with Shanghai organizations and receive RMB 10,000. Applicants can be at all career stages and working in drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, interdisciplinary, and architecture.
Deadline: July 14, 2023.

Art For Change Prize 2023 (International)
From M&C Saatchi Group and Saatchi Gallery, this year’s prize asks emerging artists to creatively respond to the theme of Regeneration. £20,000 will be split between six winners, who will exhibit their work at Saatchi Gallery in London.
Deadline: July 17, 2023.

Boynes Artist Award (International)
The 9th edition of the Boynes Artist Award will accept artists of all career stages. Winning artists have access to a $3,500 cash prize pool, $250 in art supplies, the creation of a professional artist website, publication, newsletter features, and long-term support and guidance. There is a $25 to $35 submission fee.
Deadline: July 30, 2023.

 

Grants

NYSCA/NYFA Artists with Disabilities Grant (New York)
The program will distribute $1,000 to visual, media, music, performing, literary, and multidisciplinary artists living in New York State with a disability who have experienced financial hardship due to COVID-19.
Deadline: 5 p.m. EDT on June 6, 2023.

Forman Arts Initiative and Philadelphia Foundation: Art Works (Philadelphia)
Art Works accepts applications from local cultural nonprofit or fiscally sponsored organizations with annual operating budgets between $250,000 and $5 million as well as individual artists with a commitment to incorporating community perspectives into their work. Individual artists will each receive $50,00 over two years. Organization awards will range from $75,000 to $150,000 over two years and can be used to support any aspect of an organization’s mission.
Deadline: June 16, 2023.

Laura Patricia Calle Grant (U.S.)
This $20,000 grant awards an artist or collective the opportunity to paint a mural in the Metro Atlanta region. The work should inform and promote awareness of social equality, feminism, immigrants’ rights, LGBTQIA+ rights, and cultural diversity.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. on June 30, 2023.

RedLine Contemporary Art Center INSITE Fund (Denver Metro and Front Range)
The INSITE Fund awards grants of up to $10,000 to public-facing visual arts projects in Colorado that take place outside the studio, museum, art center, or traditional gallery setting.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. on June 30, 2023.

CIRC Artist Grant (International)
The Circ Artist Grant provides two unrestricted $1,000 awards per grant cycle. Emerging, mid-career, and professional artists are eligible.
Deadline: June 30, 2023.

Prospect Art Open Call for Visual Artists (International)
Visual artists are eligible for the NEW WORK program, which offers a $1,000 project grant. There is a $10 application fee.
Deadline: July 3, 2023.

Illuminations Grant for Black Trans Women Visual Artists (U.S.)
Now in its fourth year, this annual $10,000 grant draws attention to early-career Black trans women visual artists, highlighting an existing body of work and providing critical support for their practice. The winning artist will complete a studio visit with our rotating panel of judges, and four distinguished finalists will receive $1,250 awards.
Deadline: July 12, 2023.

Adobe Creative Residency Community Fund (Ukraine or refugee)
Adobe’s Creative Residency Community Fund commissions visual artists to create company projects on a rolling basis. Awardees will receive between $500 and $5,000.
Deadline: Rolling.

 

Residencies, Fellowships, & More

ON::View Artist Residency Program, Fall 2023
Applications are now open for the On::View Artist Residency Program in Savannah, Georgia. The residency supports artists from across the globe, working in all media, for periods of one to three months. Selected artists gain access to a high-visibility studio space to complete a new project, continue an in-progress endeavor, or to conduct research exploring conceptual, material, performative, and social practices.
Deadline: June 1, 2023.

Headlands Center for the Arts Residencies (International)
The Headlands Center for the Arts is offering two residencies: The Chamberlain Award offers $10,000 to an artist working in social practice. The Chiaro Award offers $15,000 prize to a mid-career painter living in the United States and includes a private studio.
Deadline: June 5, 2023.

WORTHLESSSTUDIOS Artist in Residence (International)
Running from September to December, this residency is production-focused, supporting underserved sculptors and installation artists at pivotal moments in their careers. Five to six artists will receive $3,000 material stipends, $1,500 artist stipends, and shared studio space in Brooklyn.
Deadline: June 7, 2023.

New York Foundation for the Arts JGS Fellowship for Photography (New York)
This fellowship awards $7,000 to five New York State photography artists living and working outside New York City.
Deadline: 5 p.m. EDT on June 14, 2023.

Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia Working Artist Project (Atlanta)
This year-long fellowship offers three artists a solo exhibition, promotion, a studio apprentice, a full-color catalog, and a $15,000 stipend to create work over the course of the year. Applicants must both currently live in, and have studio space in the following counties: Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Forsyth, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry, and Rockdale, and remain an Atlanta-based artist for the length of the grant period.
Deadline: June 14, 2023.

The Prairie Ronde Artist Residency (International)
Hosted by The Mill at Vicksburg, this residency offers artists from a range of disciplines a 5 to 7-week stay with the goal of engaging with The Mill and its surrounding 80 acres of property. Residents receive a $2,000 stipend, $500 travel grant, private housing, and an exhibition.
Deadline: June 15, 2023.

Stove Works Residency (International)
This residency invites eight artists to live and work for one to three months at a time in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Six of the studios are designed to accommodate artists who require significant space in their practice, while the remaining two accommodate non-object-based practices, i.e. writers, curators, and academics. There is a $20 to $30 application fee.
Deadline: 11:59 p.m. ET on June 15, 2023.

Springboard for the Arts Rural Regenerator Fellowship (Upper Midwest)
This fellowship is open to artists, makers, grassroots organizers, community development workers, public sector workers, and other rural change-makers. Fellows participate in two years of peer learning and receive an unrestricted $10,000 stipend. Applicants must live, work, or have a strong connection to a rural community in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, and/or the Native Nations that share those geographies.
Deadline: June 20, 2023.

Niels Bohr Institute Arts & Science Residency (International)
The Strong team at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen is a research group working on gravity, black holes, and gravitational waves. They are inviting proposals for artist residencies of up to three months that engage the science of the Strong group and create works that explore the field of black holes, gravitational waves, and the notion of time. Travel and accommodations are provided.
Deadline: July 1, 2023.

The Studios at MASS MoCA Residency (International)
Fully funded fellowships at MASS MoCA are available for two or four-week residencies. Selected artists receive private studio space, housing, access to workshops, and member benefits.
Deadline: July 8, 2023.

ICCI Art Valley Program (International)
The USC-SJTU Institute of Cultural and Creative of Shanghai Jiao Tong University is recruiting five international artists and scholars to participate in the ICCI ART VALLEY PROGRAM from November 1 to December 15. Visiting artists will hold exhibitions, lectures, workshops, and/or other public programs and will receive accommodations, airfare, and a stipend of at least 10,000 RMB.
Deadline: July 15, 2023.

Loghaven Artist Residency (International)
Loghaven invites artists working in architecture, dance, music composition, theater, visual arts, writing, and interdisciplinary practices to apply for residencies occurring in 2024 and 2025. Both emerging and established artists are eligible, and residents receive a living stipend of $850 per week in addition to travel and freight reimbursement. There is a $20 application fee.
Deadline: July 15, 2023.

The Farm Margaret River (International)
Open to all disciplines and individuals and collectives, this residency focuses on site-specific projects created during eight weeks at The Farm Margaret River in Australia. Chosen applicant(s) will receive lodging, studio space, and a $7,500 grant.
Deadline: August 1, 2023.

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