MVP of the week — Featuring GUESS USA x htown
Kicking off this week’s MVP is Back in the Dazed, a new retrospective exhibition by iconic British photographer Rankin. For the exhibition, Rankin is revisiting his era-defining photography from between 1991 and 2001 – a period in which he shot over 200 figures moving the needle across culture – with Dazed. Also across that decade, Rankin’s photography would transcend imagery, as he spearheaded mainstream LGBTQIA+ representation, and would take his camera onto the street to photograph working-class children, handing notions of “high culture” to everyday people. With everyone from the likes of Blur and David Bowie to Kate Moss and Kylie Minogue, Rankin’s photography knew no boundaries, and the exhibition – which will take place at 180 The Strand – provides the first retrospective in the UK of Rankin’s groundbreaking works over this prescient decade. Back in the Dazed is running at London’s 180 The Strand from May 29 until June 23, 2024.
Western aesthetics are certainly IN for 2024, and with that in mind, California label GUESS USA brings its Western Americana style to London, partnering with htown store on a month-long pop-up. For the pop-up, GUESS USA tapped Eli Russell Linnetz to create the brand visual language from photography to set design. Fitted to match the brands aesthetic with washed stone walls, wood floors and Americana thematic accessories, the space will host a specially curated selection from their SS24 collection. Featuring pieces you’d likely discover in artisanal roadside boutiques sprawled across America, this season GUESS USA leans into classic Western films to define its colour palette, which focuses on dusty, earthy tones, with subtle touches of dirtied pink and rustic oranges appearing throughout. The GUESS USA x htown store pop-up will be live from Thursday 16th May, 2024 and will run for a duration of one month until 16th June 2024 in htown’s Shoreditch store.
Finally, mega-gallery Gagosian has two concurrent exhibitions during London Gallery Weekend that revisit photographer Nan Goldin’s formative moments. Sisters, Saints, Sibyls reprises her three-channel video installation making parallels between martyrdom, rebellion and her sister’s suicide—a defining moment in Goldin’s life that ultimately led her to run away from home and eventually become an artist. And some of her earliest works are presented at Gagosian’s Shop space in Burlington Arcade—black-and-white photographs from the mid-1970s of her chosen family, Boston’s transgender community, captured at home and at drag club, The Other Side. Meanwhile, Downstairs, she has curated a reading room of books by artists and writers she admires, as well as publications about her own work. Sisters, Saints, Sibyls will run from now until June 23, 2024 at 83 Charing Cross Road, London.
