Images:
Photography: © Errikos Andreou, 2013
Artistic direction and styling: Fragiskos Papasifakis

Roy Lichtenstein, Oh, Jeff…I Love You, Too…But… 1964
Collection Simonyi © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012

Tate Modern presents a retrospective of one of the great American artists of the twentieth century.

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective is the first full-scale retrospective of this important artist in over twenty years. Co-organised by The Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, this momentous show brings together 125 of his most definitive paintings and sculptures and reassesses his enduring legacy.

Lichtenstein is renowned for his works based on comic strips and advertising imagery, coloured with his signature hand-painted Benday dots. The exhibition showcases such key paintings as Look Mickey 1961 lent from the National Gallery Art, Washington and his monumental Artist’s Studio series of 1973–4. Other noteworthy highlights include Whaam! 1963 – a signature work in Tate’s collection – and Drowning Girl 1963 on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The artist’s rich and expansive practice is represented by a wide range of materials, including paintings on Rowlux and steel, as well sculptures in ceramic and brass and a selection of previously unseen drawings, collages and works on paper.

Room after room pays tribute to his extraordinary oeuvre, celebrating the visual power and intellectual rigour of Roy Lichtenstein’s work.

Roy Lichtenstein, Whaam! 1963
Tate. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012

Lichtenstein: A Retrospective
Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
Until 27 May 2013

Roy Lichtenstein, Masterpiece 1962
Private Collection © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2012

Snug in bed, under the pillow
some Venus and Adonis
this
is healthy, really
it’s healthy

but what’s this?
Leaping from the gloss the
advertisement misread
to say masturbation
is the silent emergency—

is the silent emergency…
we can’t go on like this—

for one I’m not political, mostly
mistaken for dead and back
again, snug in bed. So
it’s healthy.

Who’s the most
important thinker in theology,
Christian thinker, tinkering in
theology? Ask
the girl downstairs.
I (the only?) am
provided accommodation

at the top of the Babel and so
can only hear what is

beneath this pulsing pillow
of mine, oh so snug
this crafty, this well kept
copy, read beneath

a yellow bulb.
The noise is, meanwhile,
stacking up down there.
Me: all this releasing,
and… is it relaxation?

What siren is started
in the ear (stuffed with feather,
sheet, illustrated reinterpretations
(neo-neo?) slumber)? What?
The ear presses (silence); little mice
noises of neighbor, neighbor. Is that
it? Is the girl very gay? Am I even happy

up on top? Oh all of us gay as in old times,
snug in our addresses. Now
and again: What was that? Oh nothing
back to bed now. We are really
happy aren’t we, aren’t we? You
couldn’t hear me? No matter,
we’re all so lovely

so healthy. It’s healthy,
I mean: I’m a man, I think,
and you, you’re you (obviously).
Never mind we built this big
tower.

Oh but my copy is crumpled;
it really has lasted such a long time
though.
Read the part about
the horse, those horses knew
what the chase was all about.
Read aloud to me while I drift
off. I’d like that. And the part
about the flower? Oh yes,

that too please.

Text: Going On Four Hundred Years In Bed by P. K. Harmon ©
Image: John Everett Millais [1829–1896], The Black Brunswicker, 1860, oil on canvas, Lady Lever Art Gallery, England

Images & video:
© Maciek, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.
Featuring Billy Huxley from D1 Models

Images:
I Thank You For This Moment Of Serene Bliss
By © Predrag Pajdic, 2013
For Wrong Weather
Featuring Tomas Tengarrinha & Diogo Filipe from Elite Lisbon
Wearing Dries van Noten, COMME des GARÇONS, Kenzo, Studio Pretzel
Shot at the Botanical Gardens Porto, Porugal, March 2013
Assited by Cristina Miguel & Elizabeth McGorian

In youth resurrected,
This blossom I carry
Is without price

There is a mark of you
Upon each part of me
Inscribed in skin

I need no ink nor blood
spilled in remembering
Your laughter

When I close my eyes
Rapture, sunlight and kisses
You asked and I answered

I cannot die for I have taken
To wings and currents of air
That bring me news of you

Patiently
Now I
Wait.

Text: © JL Nash, 2013
Images: © Predrag Pajdic, 2013
Featuring Anna Sudbina in a head piece by Alessandro Mengozzi
For the Flower CASTLE 2013 exhibition curated by Gijs Stork, Kasteel Keukenhof Art Foundation, The Netherlands, 14 March – 16 June 2013

Two figures sit either side of a table, cut flowers in a vase providing the only splash of colour. One figure sits blindfolded, his face covered with many pairs of wings arranged as a mask that doesn’t see. The second figure impeccably dressed in a dinner suit wearing a crown also made of birds’ wings, watches him. Each of them sits motionless for two hours. A small black briefcase is beside the watcher and wings rest on side stools. Beneath the brightly coloured flowers upon the table, are discarded snake skins. This setting in its viewing, in its blindness, single light illuminating, challenges to wonder whether it is a metaphor for heaven or hell? Or perhaps this is purgatory, the waiting and stillness of the two men, ticking like time, beating like the intermittent sound of the heartbeat that rings through the space, in parts.

After two hours, to the sounds of flapping wings, the watcher stands and taking a large pair of scissors cuts through the collar of the other’s shirt then violently rips it open to expose the blindfolded figure’s back. The powerful dominance gives way to surgical intervention; he uses a needle and thread to stitch into the skin between the shoulder blades, and attaches the wings which have been waiting.

Now, exposed with newly acquired wings, the blindfolded figure doesn’t begin to move until the watcher stands before him. Tenderly, as the wind blows life into the sail of a boat, the watcher breathes life into this fallen angel.

Uncoordinated, like a child who has just discovered how to walk, the angel, struggles to ascend, awkwardly captured by the spell of the song which is being sung by the watcher who walks away. As he pushes away from his seat, limbs learning to move, arms spread out to keep his balance, all he has to follow is the sound of a voice, moving away.

Each note becomes his strength as his eyesight cannot help him navigate the distance. Precariously he moves across the floor, focusing on each step taken on unsteady legs but gains strength, yearning to follow the watcher, until an exit out behind closed doors leaves the viewer to wonder whether having been a witness to the end of something or the resurrection of another. Has the dead been brought back to life? Is the work of the psychopomp no longer needed in the shadows of new life, new hope and the yearning that love instils?

The Myth Of Yearning Never Ends
Performance by Predrag Pajdic with Anthony Thévenoux
Taxidermy by Mathieu Miljavac
And the original music score by Benjamin Gibert
2 March 2013 from 3 – 5.30pm
Wrong Weather Gallery, Porto, Portugal
The exhibition Fallen From Grace, Risen From Man
by Predrag Pajdic with Mathieu Miljavac continues until the 23rd of March 2013

Images of the performance by Benjamin Gibert, 2013
Text: © J L Nash, 2013

Fallen From Grace, Risen From Man – exhibition – Predrag Pajdic & Mathieu Miljavac
Featuring Sohrâb Chitan, Benjamin Gibert & Anthony Thévenoux
Opening on the 2nd of March 2013 from 3pm
Until the 23rd of March 2013
Wrong Weather Gallery, Porto, Portugal
with the live performance
The Myth Of Yearning Never Ends
by Predrag Pajdic with Anthony Thévenoux
and the original music score by Benjamin Gibert

Predrag Pajdic is a London based artist and curator, who organises high profile art projects internationally as well as writes and lectures on contemporary art and culture. In 2010 and 2011 he was the Artistic Director of the City of Women Festival of Contemporary Arts in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He holds an MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute of Art and a BA in Fashion Design from Central St Martins, London. Pajdic’s artwork has been shown in more than 200 international exhibitions amongst others including Victoria & Albert Museum London, The National Academy of Sciences Washington DC, Exit Art New York, Selfridges London, Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade, Boimans Van Beuningen Museum Rotterdam, Wellcome Trust London… His work is in the collections of The British Museum London, Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Musee De La Mode Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum London and numerous private collections. His book Beneath The Shadows The Soul Walks in collaboration with J.L. Nash was published in October 2012.

Mathieu Miljavac is a Paris-based artist whose taxidermy seeks to question our relationship with everyday and ordinary animals, such as city pigeons and mice. His approach avoids naturalistic representation of his subjects, and focuses instead on creating narrative power. His pieces aim to create a new appreciation of the way in which these totem animals can trigger emotions in us. Mathieu’s work in taxidermy is an evolution of nearly 20 years of creativity in other adjacent industries. For many years, he worked in the fashion industry, as a designer, and in the specialist area of ennoblissement – an ornamentation discipline in couture – making pieces for clients including Christian Dior, Givenchy, and Valentino. He also spent 5 years working on conceptual floral design for clients including George V Hotel in Paris. His work has been exhibited in Paris at L’Eclaireur and Les Mauvaises Graines, and at the gallery Collection of Design in Lyon. It has been used in the touring production of La Mouette by Le Laboratoire de l’Acteur Theatre Company.

Images: © Predrag Pajdic, 2013
You can also watch a preview VIDEO HERE

Martin Stranka is an innovative photographer from Prague, who in the past three years has won over 40 awards, which include the Professional Photographer of the Year, Sony World Photography Awards and International Photo Award. We, at The Pandorian, are impressed with his current book which takes the imagination through quite unique spaces, even inside the gap between conscious and subconscious, awake and dreaming. He is currently raising funds towards the publication of such and we urge you to join us in supporting this incredible emerging talent. Please visit his CAMPAIGN HERE.

Images: © Martin Stranka, courtesy of the artist.

What can be said
in the body that the mind
cannot express? Look
at me. Every part
springs with spring (or
something) because

you look. I am
in a field that is
fenceless, I am
being taken in
by your vision:
me, then me as image
turned over, then let’s say

rearranged in the mind, your mind.
I suppose one might see the reflection
on the eye itself, your eye that is

blue and marbled and might I
even see it and so this exchange
continuous as long as we are
in this field? This does not
express it but look at me.

Consider the new growth
though this image fails
too I suppose. Tiny shoots
green with failure. My own eyes
green now and silently working

toward an understanding and then
expression finally (or something)
so you know what is expressed—
this is the body talking
and everything around it
falling away so just the body

being given to you
to your blue gaze
to look to look

Text: Blue to Green by P. K. Harmon ©. Courtesy of the poet.
Images: © Predrag Pajdic, 2013