I was recently sent a complimentary copy of Wound Magazine’s latest hard copy issue. They originally contacted me regarding their new iPhone application iWound which was launched this summer and is sailing to the top of Apple’s charts as we speak, however I don’t own an iPhone and so I can’t really comment much on their branching out into multimedia publishing, except to remark that they seem to be doing awfully well judging by the news.

Wound is the only lifestyle application on the Apple iTunes Store to be currently rated ‘new and noteworthy’.  Their customers have given the application a 5 star rating and are delighted with their endorsement from Apple.  iWound is available in 77 countries worldwide and can be purchased through your local iTunes store. UK visitors can download the iWound application from iTunes App Store today for under £3 – click here. What’s more they offer a digital version of the venerated arts and culture magazine here.

The current issue entitled La Grande Illusion (which I figure references Jean Renoir’s 1937 classic movie of the same title) is jam packed with lush full page photography featuring proponents, renegades, instigators and movements across the fields of art, fashion, design and architecture. It takes a while to skim through the rather impressive array of magazine sponsorship before one encounters the true content of the magazine, but it’s understandable considering the quality of the arts journalism, photography and subject matter in general. With head offices based in London UK, Japan and Shanghai China it comes as no surprise that Wound’s scope is a measure of true international style and taste, celebrating an edginess and originality unseen in many competing publications. In fact Wound feels more like an eighties issue of iD or Face matured by the hard knocks of today’s fragmented society, seeking out artistic inpiration like a sniffer dog at a drug fuelled warehouse party.

Whatever your cultural bias and taste, I can guarantee you an exciting read, both I and my partner were rather wowed at times by the content, and for myself the article featuring art bad boy Wim Delvoye was a real eye opener. There are plenty of articles to keep the most jaded of culture vultures on their toes, a brand new ‘Close-Up’ section features a fascinating insight into the mad and bad world of the Berlin-based electronica supremo Peaches.

There’s a rather beautiful section featuring underwater divas, modern day mermaids that crosses the vague boundary between art and fashion, without the use of digital special effects the photographers Rene and Radka have come up with some stunning photographs.

I also delved into an article about the Amsterdam-based architectural and conceptual experiment that is The Lloyd Hotel, with its inspired mix of traditional and post-modern design, and a rather macabre history as a former prison during the Nazi occupation, this and other aspects of the building have been deliberately incorporated into the interior experience in a rather profound and meaningful way.

Another favourite article of mine examines the life and work of Amy Bessone – a Los Angeles based painter who blows up images of small porcelain statues to an enormous scale. Dealing with ideas of reproduction and replication, as well as the vague distinctions between high and low art, the mass-produced object, and the art market as a whole. If i hadn’t seen the work I doubt I’d have been sold on the idea, but in fact Bessone produces a very strong and yet strangely intriguing collection.

Amy Bessone – Woman and Serpent – 2007

If you’d like to know more about Wound and iWound then visit their site at www.WoundMedia.com, make sure to check out their blog whilst you’re there, it’s a fascinating read.

This post is tagged Amy Bessone, arts magazine, culture, iWound, Peaches, Wim Delvoye, wound magazine