Christine Magazine

ann hamilton

ann demeulemeester

models own

the lady vanishes

the beast within

dark fantasy

absense = presence

your place or mine?

nan goldin

re-adjusting our eyes again

2011 FALL ISSUE

the contents_

feature stories

P9

re-adjusting our eyes again

P15

造

P37

dark fantasy

absense = presence

P59

ann DEMEULE

MEESTER

P65

the beast within

P43

thelady

P21

MODELS

OWN P25

VANISHES

P51

the ann hamilton experience

nan goldin

P31

YOUR PLACE

OR MINE

departments

P2 P4 P6 P8

the big bang_ the radar_ the details_ the scene_

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: the big bang_

Rick Owen

the big bang_

how it all began

top: Rick Owen Himself bottom: Winter collection campaign 2011

C: When and how did you know you wanted to launch your own business?

C: Who helped you along the way?

RO: Legion. I regret that some of those relationships simply didn’t survive the move to Europe, but I couldn’t very well stop the momentum, nor should I have, I suppose. But there are friends who contributed with their hearts whom I miss…

Rick Owens: I have always thought it would be inevitable, but frankly, I never expected to get this far. My crumbling studio on Hollywood Boulevard was about as far as I thought it would go, and that seemed perfect.

C: What were the early days of the business like? What do you know now that you wish you had known then?

RO: There was a moment where I thought that someone smart learns how to listen to the energy around him and accept ideas, to develop a creative team. Apparently, I’m not that smart because that road distracted and disoriented me. What was slightly smart was recognizing that, for better or worse, richer or poorer, I need a lot of empty space.

C: This business is replete with highs and lows. What have been some of yours?

C: What’s the best piece of advice you ever got—and how does it relate to your work?

There’s not a leather-loving being out there who doesn’t worship at the altar of

Rick Owens. Since launching his company in 1994 in Los Angeles, the subversive designer has always played by his own rules, redefining the classic leather jacket for a rising generation of rough-edged fashionistas.

Though he attracted a following of influential devotees (Kate Moss among them) early on, Owens finally gained formal recognition when he won the CFDA Emerging Talent Award in 2002. We have a feeling, however, that “formal recognition” is not what Owens is all about.

The now Paris-based designer has a reputation for marching to his own drummer—and legions of leather-sporting ladies and gentlemen look that much cooler for it. Below, we catch up with the rebellious Mr. Owens to find out what gets him going.

RO: I was having some sort of meltdown about something and a bitchy friend rather ruthlessly told me, “Wow, get over yourself.” I think I turned purple with rage, but I’ve never forgotten that.

And he was right.

C: At what moment did you know you had “arrived?”

RO: I did a New Yorker profile a few years ago, and after reading it, I thought, “Gee, that sounds pretty fucking convincing…”

RO: There are highs every day. Getting new samples that come out right, opening a new store, seeing kids that started out with me growing up and having babies. Who can remember the lows?

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: the radar_

Balmains | Nars

the radar_

In depth look at

an objet d'art.

Vroom into Spring with Balmains antiqued biker jacket

Not everyone wants to wear florals and pastels in the spring.

For fashionistas disinclined to join the Easter-like fashion parade, Balmain has just the thing for you: this Antique Leather Biker Jacket, subject of today’s Pedestal column (the inaugural item of clothing! We’ve only showcased jewelry and accessories here before. But this jacket definitely fits the “objet d’art” criteria).

Balmain designer Christophe Decarnin loves blending of anarchy and party glamour with glittery, glamorous accents; his whole collection is brimming with edgy, urban grunge influences.

“I’ve always loved punk,” he tells us.

And he misses nary an opportunity to layer in additional rocker chic detailing.

Francois Nars heads to Beverly Hills to talk beauty with Barneys

Available in black, the jacked is made of antiqued leather, and sports a bevy of zippers on the front, pockets, and sleeves. The belted hem adds extra street cred.

Soon after he launched his line in 1994, François Nars became one of our cosmetic-counter heroes. His brightly-hued products are as eyecatching as they are long-lasting, and just when we think our makeup collections are complete, he offers up a new shimmer, stick, or gloss lipstick that we simply can’t live without.

Earlier this summer, Barneys Fashion Director Amanda Brooks caught up with the NARS founder in Los Angeles, where a group of beauty bloggers gathered to preview his exciting new collection for Fall 2011 (now available at Barneys).

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: the details_

street style

the details_

see what others are wearing

Okay, it's pretty obvious that our love for street style is actually more like an obsession, but can you blame us? Street style is like fashion in its natural habitat, out in the wild and on real, living people.

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1. Margiela Tabi boots. $945 2. ann demeulemeester laced up boots. $1800 3. proenza schouler ps1 bag. $1790 4. helmut lang leather skinny. $920 5. margiela tabi boots. $945 6. alexander wang tuxedo jacket. $ 540

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: the scene_

l’arc de triomphe

the scene_

party+fashion

l'arc de triomphe_

Celebrating Givenchy's “Ridiculously, Extrawordinarily Insane" Collection at Paris' L'Arc And now, for a calm, measured opinion, we turn to Rachel Zoe: "The collection was unbelievably, ridiculously, extraordinarily insane!" the stylist and reality star crowed at Riccardo Tisci's Givenchy after-party at L'Arc. But all the other guests seemed to agree. "I'm a big, huge Riccardo fan," Elle's Kate Lanphear said. "My favorite piece was the silver sequins.

How do I get my hands on that?"

As it turned out, she'd need only ask Natalia Vodianova. The model, who opened the show, turned up to the party in that very look.Just after midnight, Tisci arrived with an adoring

entourage: Liv Tyler, Erin Wasson, and Naomi Campbell.

After a few quick snaps, the crew was swept to the VIP back garden, where they celebrated with Lindsay Lohan, Jennifer Hudson, Ciara, and Ne-Yo. "It was such an intense season!" said Tisci, after hugging Carine Roitfeld and Julia RestoinRoitfeld. "Everyone recognizes me as a dark designer, and this collection was still true to my soul, but it showed that I can open the window to what is light, and enjoy."And enjoy is what the partygoers did. They mobbed the dance floor, they

filled the room,and one—Sky Ferreira—jumped onto the rooftop to perform a short set, which included a cover of David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" and her own "Sex Rules."

"She's an incredible artist and I absolutely love her look," Tisci said appreciatively. (The feeling was mutual: Ferreira offered him a homemade congratulations card.) Ferreira fever, in fact, seemed to be spreading: "She's a very special person and I really, really love her," Theory's Olivier Theyskens said of the young pop star. That the temperature inside the club rose

to feverish levels, too, didn't seem to dissuade any of the revelers, including show-closer Gisele, from dancing till dawn.

Some even seemed to prefer it.

"I've been in New York but I really wanted to spend summer in my little Paris home," Theyskens explained. "I was able to do that this week!"

— Katharine K. Zarrella

above: Givenchy creative director Tisci with hip hop artist Kanye West.

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Fall

Ann Demeulemeester Francis Bacon Celine Claude Cahun Helmut Lang Alexander Wang Nan Goldin Martin Margiela Ann Hamilton Givenchy

fall issue

story by

cathy horyn

r e - a d j u s t i n g ¤

Our Eyes, Again

Although some quarters of the fashion world continue to plead for a frivolousness that seems as naff as those blue shades (let’s face it, we have a lot of old-school designers who haven’t seen the light), there are small signs of sanity. Or so I like to think.

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: the feature_

re-adjusting our eyes again

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let’s face it, we have a lot of old-school designers who haven’t seen the light.

Revolutions with the sidearm of the Internet expose much, not least perfidy. The Telegraph in London has a fascinating obituary of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi — serious, dryly funny — that contains the observation that the Libyan leader looked like “a parody of Sixties radical chic.” It was those craggy features and retro blue-tinted shades. Colonel Qaddafi was no joke, but we once laughed (as the obituary noted) at his outlandishness. For a trip in 2002, to South Africa, his entourage consisted of a personal jet, two transport planes, a container ship filled with buses and goat meat, $6 million in petty cash and 400 security guards. Well, no more.

Although, some quarters of the fashion world continue to plead for a frivolousness that seems as naff as those blue shades (let’s face it, we have a lot of old-school designers who haven’t seen the light), there are small signs of sanity. Or so I like to think like that.

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¤ And the brown-paper binding, similar to the way Bruce Weber does his photo books, is appealing.

2 We have at the moment a strong crowd of designers not merely believing in clothes with a modern attitude but also showing us what they mean — and without turning craft into some fetishistic pile of stuff that no intelligent person would consider wanting for a second. I include in the group Raf Simons, Stella McCartney, Alber Elbaz, Rick Owens, Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, Miuccia Prada, the Proenza Schouler boys, Phoebe Philo, Thomas Tait, Narciso Rodriguez, Christopher Kane and Olivier Theyskens (thanks to the insight of Andrew Rosen at Theory).

Well, that’s a very healthy list. Who could want for more? You see taste and modern sensibility and craft being measured in a lot of interesting ways. I finally had a chance to look at Barneys’ new series of catalogs, produced by its creative director Dennis Freedman with photographers like Nathaniel Goldberg, Juergen Teller and Ilan Rubin (an accessories catalog called “Arm Candy” — crazy about it), and I like the directness and the diversity of personalities. It’s not labored. And the brown-paper binding, similar to the way Bruce Weber does his photo books, is appealing.

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: the feature_

re-adjusting our eyes again

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¤

On Thursday, when I went to see Jeff Rudes, the founder of J Brand, and the company’s first ready-to-wear line, I was prepared to be skeptical. Who needs another contemporary-priced blazer and pair of chinos? Well, give the collection your eye when it starts appearing in stores in December. Donald Oliver, the creative director, has done a great job incorporating useful elements of quality (nice linings, say, and Japanese fabrics) into garments like notched-lapel jackets and cool sweatshirts done in black leather or a linencotton.

Finally, get your mitts on the fall/winter edition of Bon magazine, which is produced out of Stockholm and London, and edited by the brainy Madelaine Levy. She, too, is not interested in seeing craft turned into weird consumerist fluff for p.r. people to pour nonsense over. The issue contains a lively round-table chat with Ms. Levy and several editors, and I loved the smart piece by Laird Persson about Giorgio Armani’s enduring influence, with photographs from his advertising campaigns over the last 20 years.

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fall issue

¤

In a rare interview, the controversial artist opens up.

4 We have at the moment a strong crowd of designers not merely believing in clothes with a modern attitude but also showing us what they mean — and without turning craft into some fetishistic pile of stuff that no intelligent person would consider wanting for a second. I include in the group Raf Simons, Stella McCartney, Alber Elbaz, Rick Owens, Sarah Burton of Alexander McQueen, Miuccia Prada, the Proenza Schouler boys, Phoebe Philo, Thomas Tait, Narciso Rodriguez, Christopher Kane and Olivier Theyskens (thanks to the insight of Andrew Rosen at Theory).

Well, that’s a very healthy list. Who could want for more? You see taste and modern sensibility and craft being measured in a lot of interesting ways. I finally had a chance to look at Barneys’ new series of catalogs, produced by its creative director Dennis Freedman with photographers like Nathaniel Goldberg, Juergen Teller and Ilan Rubin (an accessories catalog called “Arm Candy” — crazy about it), and I like the directness and the diversity of personalities. It’s not labored. And the brown-paper binding, similar to the way Bruce Weber does his photo books, is appealing.

13

: the feature_

re-adjusting our eyes again

¤

You see taste and modern sensibility and craft being measured in a lot of interesting ways.

5 On Thursday, when I went to see Jeff Rudes, the founder of J Brand, and the company’s first ready-to-wear line, I was prepared to be skeptical. Who needs another contemporary-priced blazer and pair of chinos? Well, give the collection your eye when it starts appearing in stores in December. Donald Oliver, the creative director, has done a great job incorporating useful elements of quality (nice linings, say, and Japanese fabrics) into garments like notched-lapel jackets and cool sweatshirts done in black leather or a linencotton.

Finally, get your mitts on the fall/winter edition of Bon magazine, which is produced out of Stockholm and London, and edited by the brainy Madelaine Levy. She, too, is not interested in seeing craft turned into weird consumerist fluff for p.r. people to pour nonsense over. The issue contains a lively round-table chat with Ms. Levy and several editors, and I loved the smart piece by Laird Persson about Giorgio Armani’s enduring influence, with photographs from his advertising campaigns over the last 20 years.

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fall issue

V story by Anna Delgado photography by Steven Klein

{

absense = presence

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: the feature_

absense = presence

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#01

martin margiela exhibition: New York Nov. 12- Dec 22. martin margiela show room in new york: maison martin margiela femme. the poster for an exhibition in antwerp, belgium.

Between 1988 and 2009, Maison Martin Margiela grew into a global cult brand. At the heart of the cult was the noisy invisibility of the eponymous designer.

In October 2009, after several years of intrigued – then frustrated – rumors among journalists, fashion editors and fans, Maison Martin Margiela announced that Margiela was no longer designing at the brand that he created. The reaction was confused. People wanted more information. As a cult brand, it had spent 20 years inspiring loyalty, love, and disciples. Despite years of communication that the brand was designed by a team – the hand of Margiela, albeit invisible, was a big part of the brand’s equity.

With Margiela gone, how should the brand evolve? There are lessons to be learned from real-world cults – who face varying levels of crisis when a leader leaves, retires, dies, kills himself, is proved embarrassingly wrong or – in some other way – is no longer available. We believe that the future of Maison Martin Margiela can benefit – in

.

martin margiela Belgian fashion designer. He studied at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts along with the legendary avantgarde fashion collective the Antwerp Six. Many still consider him to be the “7th” member of the collective.

After graduation in 1980 he worked as a freelance designer for five years.

Between 1985 and 1987 he worked for Jean Paul Gaultier, before showing his first collection under his own label in 1989.

Between 1997 to 2003 he became, despite his non-traditional design, the creative director of the Hermès women’s line.

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: the feature_

absense = presence

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#02 Signage Stores are never listed in phone books or identified with sinage.

Uniforms – Staff at stores and at Margiela HQ wear standard white labcoats.

Colors – White – called “whites” in Margielas peak – is the ubiquitous color of all stores, Margiela HQ, and of the sheets that covered all in-store furniture and displays.

Packaging – Margiela packaging is monochrome and logo free.

Models – Runway models at MMM more than any other designer often appear on the runway with covered faces.

Runway shows – Seating is mostly first-come, firstserved, avoiding the industry standard of seating hierarchy.

Collective speaking – The brand used a first person plural response to all requests, emphasizing the collaborative, disciple-like consensus of their thoughts.

Photography – The aesthetic of photo communications came to resemble the spiritualist photography of the 19th century; models appeared as ghostly blurs, and a sense of fragility hovered in the air, somewhere between the theosophy of Blavatsky and the work of Louise Bourgeois.

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During the 1980s, the Japanese avantgardists, creator of the label Comme des Garçons—had turned the fashion scene upside down with their eccentric and ground-breaking designs. Martin Margiela and the Antwerp Six would carry on the work, revolting against the luxurious fashion world with garments of oversized proportions such as long arms, and with linings, seams and hems on the outside.

: the feature_

absense = presence

As the brand became successful in the mid90s, Martin Margiela retired completely from public view, at a time when the idea of the invisible designer found itself at odds the accelerated rise of celebrity culture. As other designers chose – or were required to become – famous; Margiela’s anonymity became louder than ever. And ironically, his invisibility became exponentially interesting to the media. No article was written without some reference to his invisibility. It was part of the appeal, it defined the brand. But the clothes still dominated.

The figure of Martin Margiela became relevant to wider debate – still going on – about the relationship between designer, celebrity, and the brand they represent… A debate summed up in this comment by Zac Posen.

“I think there’s a great divide in fashion right now between the desire of the old school, which valued being hidden and shy, and what is going to bring our industry forward, which is connection, personality and craft.” — Zac Posen In fact, Margiela uniquely was operating at both levels simultaneously. The hidden part WAS the personality…

So far, so Jean Baudrillard.

#03 The concept of deconstruction, also embraced by the aforementioned Rei Kawakubo, is important for the understanding of Martin Margiela’s fashion statement. Margiela famously redesigns by hand objects such as old wigs, canvases and silk scarves into couture garments.

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models own

M DELS O WN Photography PAOLO ROVERSI styling MARIE SAUVE

: the feature_

INDIVIDUALITY IS FREEDOM LIVED AND THE ONLY TRULY TIMELESS STYLE SEVEN OF FASHION’S FRESHEST NEW FACES SHOW US HOW THEY WEAR THE SEASON’S SIGNATURE PIECES AND GIVE US AN INTIMATE INSIGHT INTO THEIR INDEPENDENT SPIRITS- UPCLOSE AND PERSONAL

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M

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name

1

hannah holman

sydney, australia since 2010/traveling try to keep my mind clear and concentrate on not falling over

hometown. modeling. what she like about.

?

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what she thinks about on the runway

2造 julia nobis

buenoes aires, argentina since 2009. chance to exchange even some words with people I admire ignore the people looking at me to prevent me from being nervous

: the feature_

models own

rome, italy since 2009 traveling and meeting people and keeping the pace and not passing other girls

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tati cotliar

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mirte maas

mendham, new jersey since 2010. become different person everyday try to gove the most i can

leamington, utah since 2008. new experiences .try to clear my mind and see it from the perspective of the other

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kirby kenny

At the age of 27, model Kati Nescher is no sprightly, spring chicken ... at least in industry terms. But the Russian-born, German-raised Nescher offers something her prepubescent modeling peers often lack: life experience. Represented by DNA Models, the model-mother (she has a son, Theo, who will be 2 years old in January) was spring 2012’s silent threat. With virtually no preseason buzz, Nescher scored Marni’s spring 2012 opening and closing looks, and also appeared in shows for Prada and Jil Sander in Milan. But it was in Paris where Nescher’s chameleon-like ability was put on full display, walking for everyone from Alexander McQueen to Givenchy to Louis Vuitton to Yves Saint Laurent. We met with Nescher last week between an editorial and campaign shoot to talk about working alongside Kate Moss and Gisele Bündchen, her favorite books, and how she feels about kick-starting her career when a lot of models are thinking about retirement plans.

Working with Juergen was great. He speaks German, so, you know, we could talk freely. He was easy to work with. He saw me and said, “Oh, cool, I like your hair so just put the glasses on and [take] your clothes off and go into the light and let’s do some pictures.” I was like, “I like you, Juergen.”Actually, yesterday, I tried to buy my contact lenses. Kate came in a bit later than everyone else, which was fine, being that she’s Kate Moss. She was speaking with the makeup artist and Marc [Jacobs] all the time. She seemed like a nice person, though maybe a bit reserved. As for Gisele, when she came in with Pat McGrath, she was all like, “Hiiii! I’m here!” It was interesting seeing two big top models with their different personalities. I like to swim and jog. I prefer the sea, but a swimming pool is good enough.

And of course, running everywhere with my child, playing and riding a bicycle.

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In the Frame / In a rare interview, the controversial artist opens up to Glenn O’Brien about the art world, her transgressive work, and why she’s a survivor.

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n n i a n gold

Nan Goldin / Heart-shaped Bruise 1980 NYC I‘ve known Nan Goldin for about 33 years, mostly from across the room. In the ‘80s, that room might have been in New York at the Mudd Club or at a party at Cookie Mueller’s apartment or at a crazy little house

: the feature_ NAN GOLDIN

profile born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents

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Nan Goldin / The Hug, 1980, NYC I‘ve known Nan Goldin for about 33 years, mostly from across the room. In the ‘80s, that room might have been in New York at the Mudd Club or at a party at Cookie Mueller’s apartment or at a crazy little house

Nan Goldin / Kim in rhinestones, Paris. 1991

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NAN GOLDIN

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Nan Goldin / JCookie and Vittorio’s Wedding, NYC 1986

Nan Goldin / “Variety” booth, New York City 1983

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Cookie, a hard-boiled but unspoiled glamourgirl actress, writer, and amateur doctor, was Nan’s best friend back then and a tight friend of mine too. Cookie and I had the same birthday, same sense of humor, and same taste in bad habits. Oddly, I was wary of Nan for some reason, and maybe she was wary of me. I knew she was okay because Cookie loved her, but we were still always across the room—the wariness of watchers watching each other.

But I knew Nan from her art and always loved seeing exactly what she saw—on a wall or in slide shows, at the Mudd Club or wherever.

She captured this strange world we occupied from the inside, in all its awkward grace and wounded beauty. She was more than a fly on the wall; she was the wall and the light too. Maybe I was just saving Nan for later.

Now it’s much later and I find her not across the room but across the table, and I can’t help but love her. She’s a very radiant soul.

I visited her in a quiet part of West Berlin, where she lives on and off. (She also spends time in New York and Paris.) Nan’s life has had big ups and downs, and I didn’t know what to expect when I saw her, so I was pleased to find her, at 58, seeming together, if a little cranky and jittery around the edges. We finally hooked up after a lot of texting back and forth. (At one point, she texted me, “I have a terrible relationship with time.”)

profile She enrolled at the Satya Community School in Lincoln, where a teacher introduced her to the camera in 1968. Goldin was then fifteen years old.

Her first solo show, held in Boston in 1973, was based on her photographic journeys among the city's gay and transsexual communities, to which she had been introduced by her friend David Armstrong.

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Nan Goldin / Misty and Jimmy Paulette in a Taxi, NYC, 1991

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When I picked her up from the big old apartment where she was staying, she was smoking cigarettes (her only current vice) and fussing over a computer and an espresso machine (neither of which she’s mastered), preparing for her newest slide show, Scopophilia, to open at the Matthew Marks Gallery in New York (October 29) and a film festival she’s curating in Denmark. We found an outdoor café where she could smoke and we could watch the passing parade. Nan is a wanderer and the closest thing we have now to the classic expatriate of the 19th century.

She has mostly been away from New York for years, living in Paris or London and now Berlin. Her absence from the United States is on principle: “I decided if Bush stole the election, I’d leave, so I left,” Nan says, adding with a laugh, “but it didn’t seem to have any effect on politics.”

Nan Goldin / Valerie and Bruno, Valerie with pink panties, Paris, 2001

Nan Goldin / Cody in the Dressing Room at the Boy Bar. 1NYC, 1991

Everybody has been saying that Berlin now is like bygone New York, a place where life comes ahead of business; it is cheap, energetic, full of artists, and open all night, and that was how I found it. I was staying in a house near Bertolt Brecht’s theater, and the title of Nan’s famous slide show and first book, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, was taken from a song in Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera.wBut that was just a title.

Nan’s pictures were never really about sex but about need, people’s need to merge, to be close. The people she photographed were those she felt were extraordinarily beautiful, extraordinarily brave, or both. She felt a particular affinity for drag queens and bodybuilders because of their determination to transform themselves. At the very beginning, in the late ‘60s and ‘70s, she was recording her memories for later use. “I used to think that I couldn’t lose anyone if I photographed them enough,” she wrote in her 1998 book, Couples and Loneliness.

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NAN GOLDIN

I just missed Nan in New York when she was there this past summer showing a slide show, the way she has for more than three decades, color photo after color photo tuned to a perfect soundtrack (from James Brown to the Velvet Underground). But I didn’t really miss the show; my friend Michael Zilkha, another survivor of those times, showed a few of the photos to me—:The Ballad,The Other Side (which begins during her days in Boston), and the self-portrait All By Myself. I knew much of her cast of subjects, but I saw the pictures differently now and was quite astonished by the beauty of the images, the perfect pitch of the framing, the sublimity of the light.

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Nan Goldin / Nan Goldin: Ryan in the Tub, Provincetown 1975

Nan Goldin / Nan after being battered,NYC 1984

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your p ace m ne

?

By —

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Holly Brubach

Photographs By —

Maciek Kobielski

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your place or mine?

When designer Alexander Wang bought his Tribeca apartment, he never imagined that the previous owner— a former New York Times Style Editor— would be back to check up on him. Holly Brubach goes home again.

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A view of the mirrored bedroom

“I guess you have the address�

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your place or mine?

Alexander Wang’s press diretor wrote in an e-mail confirming my appointment at the designer’s new apartment. I did, not that I needed it.The following Friday I rang and

My feet knew how to walk there. waited at what for 15 years had been my own front door. Wang buzzed me in. Four o’clock—the mail should be here by now, I thought as I passed the boxes on my way to the elevator. During its slow ascent I listened to the turn of the gears; I knew their rhythm by heart. And then the door opened, and my déjà vu abruptly ended.

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“Welcome to your apartment”

Wang with a furniture by Jean Baptiste Vendamme

Wang greeted me, as if I were just returning from a long vacation and he had redecorated in my absence.

In fact, I had sold him my loft eight months before. Standing in the place where my pantry used to be, I took in the scene: white walls, black velvet couch, black Karl Springer coffee table, black crocodile dining chairs, black Serge Mouille floor lamps, a pair of chairs covered in black goat fur, zebra rugs, a black fox throw.

An entire black menagerie seemed to have given their lives for the privilege of a place in the home of New York’s hottest downtown fashion designer. “Well,” Wang corrected himself, “my apartment.” In keeping with the no-color scheme, he was wearing a white T-shirt

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and black jeans, which confirmed the impression that his outlook on life and the world brooks no ambiguity.

Accompanied by his decorator,

Ryan Korban, Wang led me on a tour. This loft, they claim, is the most personal expression so far of the visual “language” the pair have formulated over the course of five years and two apartments, Wang’s showroom and first store, and the shop-within-shops that serve as worldwide outposts for his brand. “Very rich, very luxe” is Korban’s verdict on the result.

A view of the mirrored bedroom

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Their collaboration was founded on a friendship dating back to their years in college (Korban at the New School; Wang at Parsons) and solidified by parallel paths in their chosen careers. “Ryan never had formal training in interior design and architecture,” Wang says. “And when I started my line, I didn’t have formal training or experience in fashion, so we shared a lot of the obstacles in setting up our own businesses and breaking into a world we felt was foreign to us. We had our own ideals and ideas about ways of doing things.”

For Korban, those ideals came from fashion.

“The sexiness and the youthfulness—that’s what gets me excited,” he says. “Even the

your place or mine?

Wang with a sculpture by Jean Baptiste Vendamme

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people at the top in fashion, even though they’re older, I see their desire to be sexy and young, and I feel that is lacking in the interiors world. I’m trying to bring a sexiness to everything I do.”

But never mind, Alex, all is forgiven. To the extent that what takes place within a space reverberates and lingers, I bequeath to you the dim echo of New Year’s Eve dinners for 16 in black tie; lazy Sunday mornings; a candlelight picnic in a blackout; at my bedside reading P.G.

a long recuperation with friends

Wodehouse novels aloud; a Christmas tree trimmed with small photos by someone I loved; a Super Bowl party preceded by a curbside tailgate; and the occasional spontaneous outburst of dancing brought on by a favorite song, for an audience of no one.

May the memories you make there be as happy as the ones I take away.

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dark fantasy

ÐåRK (fantasy)

You might think you’ve peeped the scene ,You haven’t, the real one’s far too mean. The watered down one, the one you know Was made up centuries ago. They made it sound wack and corny. Yes it’s awful, blasted boring. Twisted fictions, sick addictions..Well gather ‘round children, zip it, listen. story by Jeff Anderson | photo by willy vanderperre

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right

arizona muse in Balenciaga 路 left proenza schouler

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1 Even an exclusive interview with Bibhu Mohapatra before fashion week, in which the designer shared his inspirations for Fall 2011 (The Crucible,The Occult, Futuristic Distopia, Good vs. Evil) could not prepare me for the experience of stepping into the box at Lincoln Center as the collection was unveiled. From Carl Orff's thundering overture O Fortuna blasting in the background to the models whom were expertly portraying menace through haughty looks and judgmental glances, the presentation was absolutely, terrifyingly thrilling. And that is before we even get to the clothes.

The perfect tailoring and exquisite detailing for which Bibhu Mohapatra has become known was present in every piece but this time the collection also had a palatable creative energy that contained the truly cinematic inspiration for the collection, and made it so much more than a fashion week presentation; it was an artistic tour de force.

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image: S. Whittle for Style WyldeBut when you cast aside all that art and expression, the pieces were just plain pretty.

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celine

image:S. Whittle for Style WyldeAt the most basic level, the thing that brings me back to Bibhu Mohapatra's work season after season is that as capable as he is as an artist to draw on a seemingly outlandish inspiration, and ctually execute in a manner that is both clear and dazzling he never loses his understanding of the female form and the principles of great construction. In other words, these pieces aren't just avant-garde and interesting they are wear work season after season is that as capable as he is as an artist to draw on a seemingly outlandish inspiration, and ctually execute in a manner that is both clear and dazzling he never loses his understanding of the female form and the principles of great construction. In other words, these pieces aren’t just avant-garde and interesting they are wearable, and undoubtedly will be worn on red carpets and in gala halls everywhere for years to come. From silk cocktail dresses with woven strap details, to goat hair coats with punched leather accents, these are definitely the pieces women will want to wear in Fall 2011.

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able, and undoubtedly will be worn on red carpets and in gala halls everywhere for years to come. From silk cocktail dresses with woven strap details, to goat hair coats with punched leather accents, these are definitely the pieces women will want to wear in Fall 2011. image: S. Whittle for Style WyldeBut when you cast aside all that art and expression, the pieces were just plain pretty. image:S. Whittle for Style WyldeAt the most basic level, the thing that brings me back to Bibhu Mohapatra's work season after season is that as capable as he is as an artist to draw on a seemingly outlandish inspiration, and ctually execute in a manner that is both clear and dazzling he never loses his understanding of the female form and the principles of great construction. In other words, these pieces aren't just avant-garde and interesting they are wearable, and undoubtedly will be worn on red carpets and in gala halls everywhere for years to come. From silk cocktail dresses with woven strap details, to goat hair coats with punched leather accents, these are definitely the pieces women will want to wear in Fall 2011.

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the lady vanishes

the

lad yanishes

by Darren Campion

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1 The two were saved from execution only when it became apparent that Allied forces would soon take control of the island, as indeed they did, early in March 1945. These women, whom both the localpopulation and their Nazi captors alike considered to be eccentric spinster sisters, were Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. After the war they returned to their life of quiet isolation, but Cahun’s health had been severely affected by her imprisonment. Worn down by illness she died in 1954, while Moore took her own life in 1972. Extraordinary as all this undoubtedly is however, the truth is indeed more complicated than it first appears.

Cahun and Moore were, in fact, Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe – stepsisters, lovers and artistic collaborators. Together they produced some of the most enigmatic and challenging photographs in the history of the medium, nominally considered self-portraits by Cahun.

Although this work has been little known until recently,enjoying a brief notoriety with the rise of gender studies in art history and academic circles, it traces, at least in part, another linage within photography. So while these works are perhaps too wilful, too hermetic to be regarded as an influence on the development of photography in general, the photographs they produced really illuminate, with their own dark radiance, the misunderstood potential that photography has to make the unseen visible, to create new, if uncertain, realities.

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Moving in the radical and avant-garde circles of 1930’s Paris they had met André Breton, the architect of Surrealism, and were undoubtedly influenced by his ideas about the irrational and the unconscious in art. Immersed – if never quite at ease – in this heady creative atmosphere Schwob (not yet Cahun, but operating under a host of increasingly ambiguous pseudonyms) dedicated herself to writing and along with Malherbe was deeply involved in cutting-edge theatre productions. But in 1937, tiring of the fevered atmosphere in Paris (along with worrying political changes in Germany) they moved to the island of Jersey, where they had previously spent summers and in this private world began to concentrate entirely on their work, though they by no means lost contact with their old associates, at least until the outbreak of war.

The question of collaboration – and indeed of authorship – remains a thorny one however. Most of the pictures, and certainly the best of them, feature Cahun in various guises. It is for this reason that the usual definition of the photographs is as self-portraiture, but again, nothing with this work can be as easily defined as it might seem. In truth, however, it is difficult to know exactly what the intention behind the work might have been. A lot of the photographs and other materials were irretrievably lost or destroyed during the occupation, and what now remains, though not an insubstantial amount, is fragmentary, so whether the pictures were intended to stand as artworks in their own right, as studies for a larger project, or as documents for performances even, will probably never be fully known.

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Since the rediscovery of the work then, a surprisingly diverse body of critical writing has sprung up, trying to fill the gaps in our knowledge about Cahun and Moore, even reshaping their work in order to fit certain agendas. It seems that in many cases the attention given to Cahun’s electric presence in the photographs has somewhat obscured the role Moore (an accomplished illustrator in her own right) undoubtedly played in their creation,especially given that they had already collaborated on a series of collage works titled Aveux non avenus. Regardless of whatever their respective roles may have been however, there can be no question that the photographs are “about” Cahun – her face is just another mask and she never comes to the end of them, never exposes what the masks might conceal – supposing it’s anything at all.

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Over the last decade, Ann Hamilton has emerged as one of the most provocative installation artists of our time

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THE ANN HAMILTON EXPERIENCE

tthe he

a n n a m i lt on ann h hamilton xpe r ienc e eexperience

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The Body object no 18

ARTIST: Ann Hamilton

WORK DATE: 1987-2006

CATEGORY: Photographs

MATERIALS: photograph

EDITION/SET OF: 4/15

REGION: American

STYLE: Contemporary

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Christine: What were your first thoughts when you were offered the American pavilion at the Venice Biennale?

C: Was the pavilion built In 1895, the year the Biennale began?

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Ann Hamilton: From the very beginning I responded to the fact that this is an American pavilion in another country.

So I took my cues from the pavilion’s American references and its neoclassical architecture.

AH: No, it was built in 1929, the year the stock market crashed. A rather auspicious date. Its architecture is very Jeffersonian; there are two symmetrical wings that embrace a central courtyard. You’re very aware as you step into the interior courtyard that you’ve crossed a first threshold, and on entering the central rotunda you cross yet another one.

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THE ANN HAMILTON EXPERIENCE

C: The architecture of several of the permanent pavilions in Venice – I’m thinking specifically of the Dutch and Russian pavilions – seems designed to symbolically reinforce the nation’s values. Is that true of the American pavilion?

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C: You seem to work simultaneously on two fronts – you think through the ideas in relation to a site on a fairly abstract level, and at the same time you think in response to very specific material conditions.

AH: Yes. I saw the pavilion for the first time last June, and immediately upon returning to the States I went to see [Thomas Jefferson’s Virginia home] Monticello, and I started reading about American history in a way that I hadn’t before. I suppose there were some parallels to how I approached my recent installation at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art [in Ridge field, Connecticut]; for that work, whitecloth, I researched New England’s Puritan history. For the Biennale the question became: How does an architectural ideal embody a vision of social democracy?

And then what are the schisms, paradoxes, and contradictions within that vision?

AH: Yes. And I was also thinking about the rhythms of actually being in Venice. The simplest observation I had that was pertinent to the project was that you’re always getting on and off boats, so you’re constantly accompanied by a subtly shifting horizon. I was thinking about air and movement, of metaphors of descent – that was a very visceral, emotional response. And then, because it’s a very particular circumstance to be representing a national identity, I had a more conscious sociopolitical response. I came away thinking about what issues might be most pressing for us now as a country.

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The Body Object Series #4

ARTIST: Ann Hamilton

WORK DATE: 1987-2006

CATEGORY: Photographs

MATERIALS: photograph

EDITION/SET OF: 5/15

REGION: American

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STYLE:

Contemporary

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C: Where did these thoughts lead?

C: And the viewer must decide how to enter the building, around one end of the wall or the other.

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C: Where did these thoughts lead?

C: You will also have a spoken-word audio recording as part of the Installation. What will be on the tape?

AH: I approached the building as an object, and began working with the relationship between its exterior facade and its interior space. I began with the idea of a mirrored wall that reflected the garden in which the pavilion sits.

That went through several permutations before I arrived at what we’re building now, which is a large, rippling glass screen that extends across the entire front of the building.

It doesn’t dematerialize the building but renders it very liquid as an image.

AH: Yes. And once in the rotunda, you must again decide whether to go left or right. One thing we’ve done is remove aH of the false ceilings that had been installed in the ’60s, which covered the skylights in the four adjacent galleries.

For the first time in years there is natural light coming into the space, which is filled not with objects but with something more like a phenomenon. There is a mechanical system that sifts an intense, fuchsia-colored powder slowly down the walls. The powder is very responsive to your movements – to the turbulence in the air you create but are not aware of. It’s almost invisible as it descends over the walls, which have been encrusted with small raised bumps that spell out a text in braille. There’s a continual movement, a marking of the text that doesn’t actually stay on the walls.

AH: It’s taken from two volumes of poetry by Charles Reznikoff called Testimony: The United States 1885-1915 Recitative [1965]. They’re incredibly wrenching accounts of acts of violence based on turn-ofthe-century legal documents. And rendering them in braille in some sense mirrors the way this kind of violence is difficult to absorb into the democratic ideal.

AH: I used the middle section of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, which was an extremely important speech in its time, quite radical in its brevity. It’s an attempt to ask: How do you heal the schism that comes from the inheritance of slavery and that is the basis of much of this country’s early history? I translated the text into an international phonetic code and spelled out the paragraph according to that code, and you hear my voice, in unison with itself, whispering it over and over again with urgency. The meaning isn’t immediately apparent; it’s more about the rhythm of the voices than the voices as conveyors of meaning. The quality is halfway between an echo and a remembrance that can’t quite be pieced together.

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body object series #5-bushhead, 1984/1993.

ARTIST: Ann Hamilton

WORK DATE: 1987-2006

CATEGORY: Photographs MATERIALS: photograph EDITION/SET OF: 5/15

REGION: American

STYLE:

Contemporary

C: Frequently, your most immediate reference points come from literature.

C: What practical problems did you encounter in working on this project?

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AH: Yes, I’m beginning to do work that is more actively about being a reader. The way one reads is almost like a signature, much in the way one might write or speak.

AH: Well, lately my process has shifted, so that increasingly a lot of what I need is highly skilled technical help. Previously, I produced my installations with the help of volunteers who worked by hand. But now much of my work requires more complicated technology – this piece, myein, is set into the membrane of the building – so we’re really pushing the limits of what’s possible.

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C: What has caused this shift away from the laborIntensive hand-manufacturing?

C: Do these preoccupations – which seem hinged on a dialectic between sensory experience and information acquired through codified forms of knowledge – date back to your formative years in the Midwest? You grew up in Ohio, where you still live.

AH: My work shifts in response to my emotional needs from the work, and I’m now looking for different kinds of experiences. But certainly making the braille is very much a hand process. And as we were standing there today putting dots on the wall, I recognized how the underlying concerns of the work are similar to other pieces I’ve done. No matter how much you think you’re making a new work, what rises out of it are continuing concerns.

AH: It’s hard to know because sometimes you’re blind to your own interests. On one level you do this intellectualized research and you think you’re really onto something – but it’s almost as if you’re keeping yourself busy because you’re blind to deeper issues. It’s like you set up a process that allows these issues to rise to the surface. And as my research takes its own path it almost forms an organism within which each project occurs.

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Holly Brubach Photographs By —

Maciek Kobielski

Talking to Ann over the phone from her office in Antwerp, I get the feeling that, behind the warm, soft spoken tone and little doubts punctuating her speech, there is a woman in control who gets things done her own way. If this steely determination explains her success, what strikes me the most about Ann is how incredibly humble she is. At the end of our short discussion, she is keen to stress that “after all, this is only clothes”, and that things have to be put back into perspective. This sense of reality and pragmatism, which is so rare in her field –but then again, so very Belgian– singles her out from the rest.

Her leitmotiv? Beauty, in all its facets and forms, combined with a deep sense of rebellion that shapes her as a creator and a woman. Both your men’s and women’s Spring/Summer collections were inspired by the Dada movement and one of its most iconic fifi gures: Marcel Duchamp.

By —

Ann Demeulemeester

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I think it was the spirit of it. If you ask me who my favourite artist is, it is very likely that I Hill say Duchamp. It is someone who embodies the opposite of conventional behaviour. He also has an open mind and intriguing quality. I was wondering if the spirit of Dada was best illustrated in the way you used luxurious, playful elements, such as feathers, graphic stripes and fringes in a very laid-back, approachable way.

What is it that attracted you to his art form?

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I think the elements you refer to belong to what I call my own “private library”. Let’s say that I have this library in my head that has been shaped by all these years of existence. It is my culture in a way and accounts for who I am. In your life, you get to see beautiful and incredible things: when something strikes me, it automatically goes to the “library”, straight to my head. Sometimes things come out in a way that cannot be controlled in a way.

Was this a form of stylistic irreverence on your part? : the feature_ ANN DEMEULEMEESTER

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Yes, I love feathers and have been working with them for a long time. This time, the feathers were dyed and almost had this glamorous aspect, but the beginning of the story goes back to a trip with my husband.

A thing pops up and I get to do something with it. Is that the case with feathers?

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We were in Shanghai for an opening and, as you always do when you visit a foreign land, you try to capture the soul of that place. We strolled around looking at f lea markets and antique shops, walking down old streets in order to try to understand the origins of the place. I was in a little street surrounded with old things and suddenly came across a red record in an envelope with Chinese letters. We were not sure what the letters meant, but fell in love with the object.

Where were you going? : the feature_ ANN DEMEULEMEESTER

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THE BEAST WITHIN

the

beast within

Story by

Francis Bacon may have fallen from favour, Jonathan Jones but his art tells the brutal truth about mankind’s bloodiest century.

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The pictorial history of the first world war sat on a shelf and sometimes, bored with Action Man, I would take a look inside. Suddenly you turned a page and there was a face photographed in profile with an empty space where the nose and mouth had been before they were blown away. I am looking once more at that face, the same profile, with the terrible maim. The flesh that remains is smeared whitish pink; the hair stands sharply backward in shock. Crushed right down in the ruin of a jaw are fat lips, halfway down the poor bastard’s throat. His one visible eye is right against the wound.

This is the face of Francis Bacon, as he depicted it in the third panel of his 1967 triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait. The renowned artist was not, of course, deformed in this or any other way.

His face is probably more familiar in photographs now than his paintings are - that hand grenade of a phiz, photographed in ruddy old age over his shiny leather jacket or portrayed in pensive prime by his friend Lucian Freud. Since his death in 1992, Bacon has gone through all the vicissitudes of a modern master - the disputes over galleries and suspect drawings, the ghastly biopic, and, in a muted sort of way, the critical reaction. It’s not exactly that anyone has come out and said Bacon was a load

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Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944)

The one on the right, was a part of the inspiration for the monster that bursts out of John Hurt’s stomach in “Alien”.

left most resembles a human form, and that it might represent a mourner at the cross.

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of crap. But there hasn’t been a big London show of his work in years, apart from a Hayward exhibition curated by his critical champion David Sylvester.

Now that Sylvester himself has gone, along with Bruce Bernard and the rest of Bacon’s postwar Soho milieu, I think that curators and museum directors feel an inexplicable weight lifted: at last we don’t have to laud those depressing old paintings with the mutilated bodies in them.

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Scotland, though, is uncool about art, and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art has a big, generous and yet precise exhibition, Francis Bacon: Portraits and Heads, as if he were still where it’s at. I’m not sure that’s true and my suspicion is confirmed when I hear a couple of students wonder who this puzzling artist is.

I used to really dislike him. When I were a lad, in the 1980s, Bacon was feted not only by museums but at the highest levels of state. Making the pilgrimage to see the show that confirmed Bacon’s masterly status was oppressive. It is oppressive, when you’re young, to be told what to admire. More than that, if you believe in a socialist utopia, or any similar faith, as we did when we were students, Bacon’s forsaken forms are as welcome as an accurate account of Stalin’s purges or Saddam Hussein’s attacks on his own people. Bacon is the painter who delivered the worst news about the modern world. His was a terrible century. Fascists killed millions but revolution killed millions more. Intellectual honesty was almost impossible in a world where it seemed necessary to take sides. In the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, a drawing by Picasso for one of his Weeping Women is a profound tribute to the suffering of Spain in the civil war - but Picasso compromised himself by joining the Communist party, after Stalinists had systematically betrayed Spain.

The left is good at self-delusion. Bacon was an apolitical, good-for-nothing gambler with no principles to blind him to reality. And that is why it fell to him to acknowledge the real meaning of the atrocities whose photographic evidence appeared all over the world with the defeat of Germany. At the time he painted Head I, in 1948,”responsible” people were busy separating the depravities of Auschwitz from accounts of mass murder inside the USSR. Humanism was still the watchword of the left. So here, in Bacon’s appalling painting, is what he thought of humanism: a disintegrated face fused with the baying head of a baboon.

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Edition /01 COPYRIGHT NEW YORK 2011 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED