Capturing light

Peter Yeoh
Avant Art, Feature
Hiroshi Sugimoto has made his name as a chronicler of time immemorial. His photography emerges from and lives in the interstices of personal and collective memory, as part of what he calls “the history of histo...

House of leaves

Cristina Bodgan
Avant Art, Feature
  Every house needs a foundation to stand on – this house of leaves is built on the David Roberts Art Foundation (DRAF) in London. Inside it, you dwell among artworks, intellectuals, resident curato...

No wallflower

Michelle Shi
Avant Art, Feature
Inside the Chinese film industry, only a lucky few girls go far beyond simply being well-known in China. But those who are selected by legendary director Zhang Yimou, one of the few directors to achieve int...

The power to preserve?

Nicola Kavanagh
Avant Art, Feature
Two men are balancing on a small craft, propelling themselves along a moonlit river using long sticks as oars. There are two more boats ahead. All the half-naked sailors are fishermen, from an indigenous pe...

The vocabulary of response

Nico Kos Earle
Avant Art, Feature
As a choreographer, whose signature style has been described as having a “sculptural quality”, Russell Maliphant’s life-long obsession with the human form and its artistic representation is brought to life ...

Face value

Emilie Lemons
Avant Art, Feature
One of the well-honed skills of any Londoner worth their salt is an ability to keep walking and continue with their journey at a rapid pace, regardless of what stands in their way – be it a clipboard-wieldi...

It’s all dandy

Sarah Tweed
Avant Art
Wayne Holloway-Smith is one of London’s most exciting young poets. He has been nominated for awards. His poems have been anthologised and appeared in a wide range of literary journals and magazines. In 2010...

Brainwashing the nation

Sarah Tweed
Avant Art, Feature
Who is to say what is art and what is not? Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, sure. But what about Street Art? What started as an underground revolt, has somehow filtered through the cracks right into broad...

AKA47 as Art?

Ruthie Holloway
Avant Art, Feature
Guns have always proved an interesting object-cum-subject for many an artist, and now, to raise money for Peace One Day’s Global Truce Foundation 2013, ex-Afghanistan soldier and photographer, Bran Symondso...

Gods and mortals

Peter Yeoh
Avant Art, Culture, Feature
Since the invention of photography in the 19th century, photographers have aspired to capture memorable moments in sports and create defining images of young mesomorphs doing great things in athletic events. In...

Vacant expression

Nicola Kavanagh
Avant Art, Feature
Still Alive. Those are the words spray-painted in English and Japanese across the side of an abandoned house in an old, somewhat forgotten, district of Onomichi, Japan. Not a house victim to graffiti, but r...

Talking shop

Rowena Chiu
Avant Art, Feature
Kiosk was set up in 2005 on Spring Street in Soho, New York. Half museum, half store, it has since atttracted a quiet following of customers interested in meticulously sourced artefacts from around the worl...

Chaotic utopias

Tara Wheeler
Avant Art, Feature
The beautiful and the grotesque, the everyday and the surreal – chaotic, abstract utopias. Glass last covered the work of remarkable Japanese artist, Yutaka Inagawa, in 2009 just as the first major retrosp...

Art as life

Marie-Louise von Haselberg
Avant Art, Feature
It has been 40 years since a Bauhaus exhibition has been on show in the UK and its opening at the Barbican cannot have been more timely.The year 2012 means the Olympics to Britain and the spirit of unity wh...