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CONTENTS Nov/Dec/Jan 2022
66
WORK FROM HOME, BUT WITH PANTS Sam Parker runs Parker Gallery from his Los Angeles home. There, he has a particular fondness for hosting Northern Californian artists and scenes.
68 70 A MODERN CLASSIC Chanel’s go-to architect for 25 years, Peter Marino is unveiling a new Chanel building in Miami and launching a book on his designs. 72 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES Bernie Krause has recorded animals’ vocalizations for 50 years, culminating in an immersive audio-visual experience. 74 MONUMENTAL AMBITIONS Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing tapped land artist Saype to wake up the Miami coastline with his fleeting tidings of hope and humanity. 77 FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD Let us introduce you to four designers THE DOWNTOWN DIARIES Quentin Belt first became notorious as a partygoer and photographer. Now he’s excited to turn the page again.
defining the next era of American fashion.
86
WHERE IS THIS GOING? Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s paintings are full of color and action; they’re beautiful, intense and pictures of emotions, of feelings good and bad.
90 A NEW PORTRAIT OF HISTORY Through bright and seductive abstract painting, Ryan Cosbert tells stories of the Atlantic slave trade, Black explorers and present-day American chaos.
92 GIVENCHY TEAMS UP WITH ARTIST EWAN MACFARLANE FOR
POETIC INSTALLATION To launch his Fall/Winter 2021 collection in stores, Givenchy Creative Director Matthew M. Williams employed a different kind of model.
Finneas poses in Dior suit, Mad Lords necklace, and T.U.K. shoes with Alex Israel’s SelfPortrait (Wet Suit) (2015) and Sky Backdrop (2013) at the Marciano Art Foundation. Photographed by Davis Bates. Styling by Jared Ellner 46 culturedmag.com
CONTENTS Nov/Dec/Jan 2022
94
ON PHILOSOPHY, PHYSICS AND THE ART OF TRANSFORMATION Designer Max Donahue speaks about coming of age in the pandemic and the danger in defining the artistic process.
96 NIKOLAS BENTEL DROPS IT LIKE IT’S HOT Artist and designer
Nikolas Bentel sees products as a kind of language and has dedicated his practice to storytelling through design.
98
MAKER’S MARK Still relatively fresh out of art school, painter Lauren Quin’s electrifying visual language is unlike any other.
100 SAMUEL ROSS TAKES HIS FRIENDS WITH HIM The British
designer walks us through the need for an artistic community and the sacred elements of his design toolbox.
102
Denzel Golatt wears Louis Vuitton Men’s head-to-toe. Photographed by Micaiah Carter. Styling by Alexandra Cronan and Kate Foley of Studio&.
CULTURED COLLECTIONS: HOLLYWOOD EDITION Producer and co-head of the Creative Artists Agency motion picture talent department Joel Lubin’s passion for art is made tangible through his ever-growing collection.
124 RADICAL SENSE OF PRESENCE Los Angeles light and sound experience Chromasonic aims to show the color of sound—and also the sound of color. 128 ALL FOR ONE AND ONE FOR ALL Feminist architecture collective WIP Collaborative began in February 2020. One month later, its seven leaders banded together with a mission in mind.
132 THE SECRET HISTORY OF MONDRIAN’S MASTERPIECES To celebrate Piet Mondrian’s 150th birthday, Swiss skincare brand La Prairie is sponsoring the conservation of four of his masterpieces.
134
THIS GIRL IS ON FIRE Actor Malia Baker dishes on her activism and the legacy she’s building.
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CONTENTS Nov/Dec/Jan 2022
136
WHO HAS A FORKED TONGUE AND WALKS IN THE HILLS? From the hills of L.A. looking down on his kingdom, serpentwithfeet sings experimental and heavenly R&B: songs that take you to other dimensions.
140
HOW TO PLAY A LEGEND ON CAMERA Young actor Demi Singleton shares the importance of staying true to self, and dishes on her new role as Serena Williams in King Richard.
152
THIS IS THE SIXTH ANNUAL YOUNG ARTISTS LIST AND WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED? The individuals within radiate the energy of potential and teach us that when you invest in telling origin stories, the future opens.
176
THE POP ARTIST AND THE POP STAR: ALEX ISRAEL TALKS TO FINNEAS Alex Israel and Finneas go deep on youthful artistic drive, how to become a success and how to balance creativity and relaxation.
184
ARTISTS MODEL LATEST MENSWEAR COLLECTION FROM LOUIS VUITTON Virgil Abloh’s new collection is energizing the next generation of young creatives, captured here by photographer Micaiah Carter.
204
HASAN MINHAJ IS BUILDING WITH LIGHT The comedian breaks down his creative philosophy and affirms his purpose of illuminating the culture during dark times.
210 NICOLE BYER AND SASHEER ZAMATA TALK BBW Nicole
Byer steps out with her first special, a riff on “BBW” titled Big, Beautiful Weirdo and TBS’s revival of Wipeout.
214 AN ICON REVISITED: DIOR’S STORIED MEDALLION CHAIR
CHANGES SHAPE Dior Maison has invited 17 contemporary designers to interpret the fashion house’s signature seat.
Artist Tourmaline in the skies of downtown New York. Photograph by Aubrey Mayer.
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CONTRIBUTORS
ABDI IBRAHIM
JENNA SAUERS
TIANA REID
Abdi Ibrahim is a 25-year-old Somali-American photographer and director based in Los Angeles. Raised in Seattle, Ibrahim is the son of two immigrants, and he began shooting film photography at age 17 while exploring his neighborhood and community. Creating images that tell a story with a surreal aesthetic, his work is a cross between documentary and conceptual photography and has been published in the New Yorker, Vanity Fair and i-D magazine. On photographing fashion designers Maisie Schloss and Kenneth Nicholson for this issue, he says, “It was great having the opportunity to be around two individuals that are great at what they do and to capture them in their spaces.”
Jenna Sauers is a New York-based writer and television producer originally from New Zealand. A contributor to Cultured since 2018, she helped make the final season of Netflix’s award-winning comedy series Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, and her journalism and essays have been published in magazines and newspapers including the Guardian, Bookforum and Harper’s Bazaar. For this issue, she spoke to the protean singer-songwriter serpentwithfeet, whose original R’n’B is influenced by the gospel music he sang growing up in a Black Pentecostal church in Baltimore, and by his vocal training in classical and choral music and opera. “Talking with serpentwithfeet was so much fun,” says Sauers, noting the conversation covered “life since his move to Los Angeles—even his favorite hikes around the city.”
Tiana Reid is a writer and scholar from Toronto, Canada and currently a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of English at Brown University. Her writing has appeared in Art in America, Bookforum, Frieze, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times and The Paris Review, among other publications. For this issue, Reid interviewed Rafael Domenech, Elise Duryee-Browner, SeanKierre Lyons, Elliot Reed and Emily Segal, new inductees to Cultured’s sixth annual Young Artists List. “I still don’t know what ‘youth’ or ‘art’ means to me,” she says, “but after talking to these five, I almost wish I had the nerve to call myself [a young artist].”
ALEX ISRAEL Artist
For the last decade, Los Angeles native Alex Israel’s art has embraced pop culture as a global language. His practice doubles as a brand, centered around a Southern Californian Millennial lifestyle for which his iconic profile-inshades logo becomes a sly emblem mobilized across the worlds of art, entertainment, fashion and tech. Embedded within each of Israel’s endeavors is not only a landscape (of LA) and a portrait (of himself), but an interrogation of the role of contemporary art in this new world. For this issue, Israel is in conversation with musician Finneas, whose work he greatly admires. “Finneas is a deep thinker, a brilliant craftsman and a powerful voice of his generation—that much we know from the music itself,” the artist says. “Speaking to him, I learned that he’s also a really nice guy.”
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Writer
Writer
ABDI IBRAHIM: JAMA ALI. JENNA SAUERS: DANA DRORI. TIANA REID: NICK JOSEPH. ALEX ISRAEL: QUENTIN DE BRIEY.
Photographer
CONTRIBUTORS
VINCENT DESMOND
AURETA THOMOLLARI
DANIELLE KWATENG
Vincent Desmond is a culture writer and essayist currently living in Lagos, Nigeria. At age 19, Desmond began his writing career freelancing for the likes of Dazed, VICE and i-D, where he primarily wrote about fashion and identity. Today, his writing can be found in American Vogue, British Vogue, Elle, GQ, Allure and Paper. For this issue, Desmond interviewed the next generation of American fashion designers, Maisie Schloss of Maisie Wilen, Kenneth Nicholson, Jameel Mohammed of Khiry and Raul Lopez of Luar. “It was fascinating exploring how each of them, in their own way, combine their talent and unique perspectives to create clothing that is as much fashion as it is art,” says Desmond of the experience. “It was truly exhilarating mapping it out for this issue.’’
Aureta Thomollari is a creative director, art advisor and writer who has made her mark on the world’s art and fashion scenes. She shares her passion for culture with over half a million followers on Instagram and has captured the attention of major fashion houses like Valentino, Bulgari, Gucci, Fendi and Prada. For this issue, she attended Art Basel 2021 and wrote on La Prairie’s art collaborations. “This is the second year running for La Prairie’s partnership with the Piet Mondrian Conservation Project,” she explains. “The goal of the effort is not only to ensure that Mondrian’s work is preserved for all time, but the concurrent research being done will also be published, so that art historians and the general public will benefit from a greater understanding of his indelible impact on visual culture.”
As the current Executive Editor of Teen Vogue and communications lead for photography collective See in Black, Danielle Kwateng covers pop culture at the intersection of identity. For this issue, Brooklyn-based Kwateng interviewed six creatives who were photographed by Micaiah Carter in Louis Vuitton’s Spring Summer 2022 menswear collection. “Black visibility is more than just having a seat at the table. It’s about being able to show up fully as one’s authentic self, cognizant of structural inequalities or gatekeeping,” she says. “I had a great time interviewing the models in this feature about their passions and intentions for the future.”
MICAIAH CARTER Photographer
The work of American photographer and director Micaiah Carter blends fine art, fashion, portraiture and street photography to communicate honesty and raw emotion in a way that looks and feels timeless—equal parts nostalgia, forward-looking, yet also, completely of the moment. He has shot for publications such as Vogue, WSJ, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, GQ and Wonderland, as well as a variety of brands including Pyer Moss, Nike, Apple, Thom Browne and Samsung. As a cofounder of artist collective See In Black, he also highlights and supports the advancement of fellow Black photographers. For this issue, capturing six creative talents in Louis Vuitton latest men’s collection, Carter says, “I loved the ability to shoot other Black men who are emerging artists. I felt connected and grounded, which is very rare in fashion. I was excited to blend the two worlds together!” 54 culturedmag.com
Contributing Writer
Writer
VINCENT DESMOND: IYESOGIE OGIERIAKHI. AURETA THOMOLLARI: JULI THOMOLLARI. DANIELLE KWATENG: KENDALL BESSENT. MICAIAH CARTER: RAHIM FORTUNE.
Writer
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DAVIS BATES
TESS THACKARA
BRANDON HICKS
Davis Bates is a photographer based in Los Angeles best known for his creative analog photography. While he loves shooting as much as possible, he is particularly fond of portraiture and experimenting with the use of color and movement. His work can be found in Gay Times, Billboard, Wonderland and Notion magazine. For this issue, he captured singer-songwriter and music producer Finneas, saying “It was a pleasure to shoot with Cultured magazine and capture such a talented individual.”
Tess Thackara is an arts and culture writer based in New York whose words have been featured in The New York Times, T Magazine, WSJ., the Financial Times, The Art Newspaper and Artsy. For this issue, Thackara interviewed Michaela Yearwood-Dan, a London-based painter whose early exposure to Young British Artist Chris Ofili when she was a teenager enabled her to envision a future as an artist. “It was a total pleasure to speak to Michaela who was incredibly open, generous, and funny in talking about her work, life experiences and perspective on our culture,” says Thackara of the conversation. “She’s sharp as a tack but also doesn’t take herself too seriously—the kind of personality I love talking to in the art world. Always nice to speak to a fellow Londoner too!”
Brandon Hicks is a Los Angeles-born artist specializing in portrait photography. He captures his subjects in their purest element by bringing authenticity to each photo. For this issue, his subject was comedian and actress Nicole Byer. “Shooting with Nicole was incredible,” he says of the experience. “She was a natural in front of the camera and her positive energy was infectious. She was open to my ideas and even gave a few ideas herself. Those are my favorite kind of people to photograph.” Hicks’s work has previously been featured in the pages of Time, Nylon, Interview and The New Yorker.
Photographer
BRANDON “JINX” JENKINS Writer
Brandon “Jinx” Jenkins is a podcast host, writer and DJ based in Brooklyn. He currently hosts Mogul, the award-winning narrative podcast documenting hip hop’s innovators, and co-hosts No Skips With Jinx & Shea, a show that dives deep into rap’s most unskippable albums. For this issue, Jenkins interviewed comedian and actor Hasan Minhaj about his latest one-man show, The King’s Jester. “Sitting down to speak with Hasan is something I looked forward to,” he says. “He has a way of making really big ideas feel handheld, at the same time finding a way to zoom in on nuance.”
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Writer
Artist and photographer
DAVIS BATES AND BRANDON HICKS: PORTRAIT BY SUBJECT. TESS THACKARA: THOMAS GIDDINGS. BRANDON JENKINS: ANDREW MORALES.
CONTRIBUTORS
This condominium is being developed by TCH 500 Alton, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Developer”). Any and all statements, disclosures and/or representations shall be deemed made by Developer you agree to look solely to Developer with respect to any and all matters relating to the marketing and/or development of the Condominium and with respect to the sales of units in the Condominium. Oral representations cannot be relied upon as correctly stating the representations of the developer. For correct representations, make reference to this brochure and to the documents required by section 718.503, Florida statutes, to be furnished by a developer to a buyer or lessee. These materials are not intended to be an offer to sell, or solicitation to buy a unit in the condominium. Such an offering shall only be made pursuant to the prospectus (offering circular) for the condominium and no statements should be relied upon unless made in the prospectus or in the applicable purchase agreement. In no event shall any solicitation, offer or sale of a unit in the condominium be made in, or to residents of, any state or country in which such activity would be unlawful. FOR NEW YORK RESIDENTS: THE COMPLETE OFFERING TERMS ARE IN A CPS-12 APPLICATION AVAILABLE FROM THE OFFEROR. FILE NO. CP21-0065. All images and designs depicted herein are artist’s conceptual renderings, which are based upon preliminary development plans, and are subject to change without notice in the manner provided in the offering documents. All such materials are not to scale and are shown solely for illustrative purposes. Renderings depict proposed views, which are not identical from each residence. No guarantees or representations whatsoever are made that existing or future views of the project and surrounding areas depicted by artist’s conceptual renderings or otherwise described herein, will be provided or, if provided, will be as depicted or described herein. Any view from a residence or from other portions of the property may in the future be limited or eliminated by future development or forces of nature and the developer in no manner guarantees the continuing existence of any view. Furnishings are only included if and to the extent provided in your purchase agreement. The project graphics, renderings and text provided herein are copyrighted works owned by the Developer. All rights reserved.
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Letter from the Editor
point in an artist’s career when they are about to strike a chord with a wider audience guides so much of my editing, but it is never more true than when we are working on our annual Young Artists List. It is the talent, passion and dedication of these new voices that inspires me most and gives me energy for the coming year. Our sixth annual list presents 20 extraordinary individuals and their meaningful progress. Their stories give me hope and remind me that art can change the world. Thank you to my incredible team who helped assemble this feature—Tiana, Kat, Simon—and to Aubrey Mayer, who beautifully captured our subjects, visiting each in their studio space (I hope to do a book of them in the future). Finneas, our cover star, is one of the most captivating young talents I have ever met. Thanks to Cartier, I was up close and personal at an intimate performance this September in Los Angeles, and beyond his immense vocal talent, I instantly felt his depth of vision as an artist. On set at the Marciano Art Foundation against a backdrop of works by Alex Israel, further evidence of his capacity and generosity of spirit sprung forth. While he did admit he hated photoshoots, he was polite, thoughtful, game and kind. I am proud to feature such a well-rounded pop star in our biggest issue of the year. It would not have been possible without my friend Alex. Having heard him lecture on pop culture I felt he could lead a candid conversation with the rising star and capture what I witnessed live. Thank you, Alex. Also in this issue, we feature young actors Demi Singleton, who plays Serena Williams in the new movie King Richard, and Malia Baker, also making her Cultured debut. Creatives Lauren Quin, Nikolas Bentel, Ryan Cosbert and Michaela Yearwood-Dan are other promising talents in addition to our list. These days, I am more grateful than ever, as Cultured is reaching its next major milestone—2022 marks a decade and I feel gratitude for those advertisers, readers and subscribers who have brought us here. Thank you for being part of our journey.
Sarah G. Harrelson Founder and Editor-in-Chief @sarahgharrelson Follow us | @cultured_mag
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PORTRAIT OF ERIZKU AND HARRELSON BY BFA.
WELCOME TO THIS YEAR’S Young Artists issue. The tipping
From top left: Sarah Harrelson in Rick Owens with friend and Young Artists List alum, Awol Erizku, at our Tiffany Haddish cover launch at the West Hollywood EDITION. On the cover: FINNEAS: Photographed by Davis Bates. Styling by Jared Ellner. Grooming by Patricia Morales. Finneas wears Louis Vuitton suit with Cartier ring.
THANKS TO THIS YEAR’S COVER SUBJECTS. SUBSCRIBE TODAY AT CULTUREDMAG.COM.
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Work from Home, but with Pants Sam Parker runs his eponymous gallery out of his Los Angeles home. There, in sunny Southern California, he has a particular fondness for hosting Northern Californian artists and scenes. BY ROB GOYANES
EARLY SUNDAY MORNINGS, when the light is at its most lyrical, Sam Parker and his wife Madeline Hollander do yoga. Their 1924 Tudor home—rented, not owned, containing five rooms—sits at the edge of Griffith Park in Los Angeles. They do tree poses and downward facing dogs in a room filled with art, not because they are collectors, but because Parker runs a gallery from their house. They’ll be in the company of Gladys Nilsson, Peter Bradley or Roy De Forest, depending on the exhibition, and Ringo, their standard poodle the color of apricots, will come in and cock his head in curiosity. Started in 2017, Parker Gallery has since mounted an ambitious, intergenerational program focused on early-career artists as well as those in their eighties and nineties. “I realized soon enough that it would be a really important angle of the gallery, to reintroduce a lot of artists that’d been forgotten,” Parker says. One recent exhibition was a restaging of “The De Luxe Show,” arguably the first racially integrated art exhibition in the US in 1971. Parker, along with New York-based Karma Gallery, included pieces that appeared in the original show, as well as newer work by the artists. With a combination of intentions related to both the market and museum, Parker
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“I’m definitely attracted to the eccentric and the wily. I get really excited about something that confounds me and pushes the boundaries of good taste.” belongs to a long line of domestic spaces functioning as art spaces. New York’s storied apartment galleries aside, there is the less well-known history of such spaces in California. Bill Copley ran a gallery in Beverly Hills in the 1940s where Man Ray had his first California show, and Candy Store Gallery, a former candy store turned
residence and then gallery by Adeliza McHugh, gave Jim Nutt his first show. Parker himself also has a familial connection to the history of such homespun tendencies: His grandmother, fiber artist Gertrud Parker, started the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Folk Art in 1982, which she initially ran out of her home.
Belying these intimate settings, Parker Gallery also seeks to provide a wider platform for Northern California artists and their aesthetics; it’s a region which gave birth to the wildly influential Funk and Nut Art movements, whose colorful tendrils would touch fine art and pop culture alike. “I find that I often have to temper my own personal taste,” Parker says. “I’m definitely attracted to the eccentric and the wily. I get really excited about something that confounds me and pushes the boundaries of good taste.” Currently, the early work of Joan Brown, the Bay Area figurative painter known for people and animals rendered in fanciful color and everyday settings, often domestic ones, is being shown by Parker. Brown, who tragically died in 1990 alongside her two assistants while installing a ceiling mosaic at the Eternal Heritage Museum in Puttaparthi, India, was a crucial figure of the movement that struck out against the dominance of abstract expressionism. A goal of Parker Gallery is to give Californian artists their due, but also to put them in conversation with the outside. “I think Northern California has always had this really regionally focused mentality and it’s hard to get beyond that,” Parker says. Sometimes, to understand home, you have to leave it, then come back.
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THE DOWNTOWN DIARIES
Photographer Quentin Belt first became notorious as a New York partygoer. He documented the city’s changing faces for a decade. Now, he’s turning the page.
¶ NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHER QUENTIN BELT is not a faceless fixture in the nightlife scene. He arrived in the city one summer weekend in 2010 and never left, though you wouldn’t have heard him call himself a photographer back then. Since the heyday of the club Santos Party House and his hand in the inception of queer performance night Mustache Mondays, Belt has caught the gaze of many recognizable Downtown darlings on his (now preferably disposable) film camera, forever immortalizing the cream of the art sex and historic party pantheon of our cursed era. Lusty pizza nights. VMA after-parties. Glamorous gossip groupies. Ubers and Prada. Eyebrowless elites. Anderson Cooper? A medley of Instagram and fond memories of venues past making their way across the pages of publications like Interview. Despite his love for documenting the new energy of those spiraling ever upwards around him—Quentin, 36 years old, prefers to capture the candid moment without getting caught up in the shadow side of fleeting friendships and superficial niceties that often comes with the party life. A Tenchi Muyo! (a nineties Japanese anime series) and Kanye fan who has taken to the world of recharged solitude and sobriety since the onset of the pandemic, he’s been reflecting much on the ascent of his peers and his growth, as well as another direction for himself. “During the time I got sober, my focus switched from the idea of who I was to who I really am. That was a turning point for me,” Belt says. “Even though people know me as a photographer, I’d eventually like to be an actor or comedian at some point.” Between New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Berlin, his core community belongs to an extended family of artists and designers. “The thing that keeps me going is watching the people I care about succeed. Right now, I’m celebrating being [a part of] the DIY momentum that’s happening.” By V I V I EN LEE 68 culturedmag.com
Bottega Veneta ©2021 South Coast Plaza
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A MODERN CLASSIC
¶ HOW DOES YOUR BACKGROUND IN FINE ART DEFINE YOUR APPROACH TO ARCHITECTURE? Peter Marino: It has made me more sensitive to aspects like color, texture and the human visual perception of things, rather than what I may say is typical architecture. It’s a really different approach. HOW HAS THE DESIGN OF CHANEL STORES EVOLVED OVER THE YEARS? The brand designs to be modern and timeless, so in theory it shouldn’t ever outdate our boutiques. Having said that, we do pick some locations—look at the new one in Miami— that are going to be more modern and fun than one we might do in London or New York. Just as you aren’t going to sell winter coats in Miami, we aren’t going to have the same architecture everywhere we go. WHAT DISTINGUISHES THE NEW MIAMI DESIGN DISTRICT OUTPOST? It’s a big white cube with cubic windows and a huge volume inside—much larger in that sense than almost any other one I’ve done. It has an exhilarating staircase under a skylight, because the sun in Miami is something you really want to emphasize, and it is more striking in that we have only used black and white. We usually have a lot more color, but this building has a younger, edgier vibe. WHAT SETS CHANEL APART? It has a kind of modernity that never goes out of fashion—and you can’t say that about many other brands. Peter Marino in front of Y.Z. Kami’s A Portrait of Coco Chanel (1993).
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ARTWORK: Y.Z. KAMI (PAGE 9)
One of the most prominent designers shaping buildings in the fashion world, Peter Marino has been Chanel’s go-to architect for 25 years, overall realizing more than 200 projects for the iconic brand. As well as launching his book The Architecture of Chanel through Phaidon in November, the architect is unveiling a new Chanel building in the Miami Design District during Art Basel. This highly anticipated outpost embodies the archetypal Chanel aesthetic, pairing the smooth white stucco façade of a two-story, cubed structure with contrasting black detail, and drawing customers into a gallery-like space that places Chanel items alongside striking works of art.
The Origin of Species
COURTESY FONDATION CARTIER POUR L’ART CONTEMPORAIN, PARIS, 2016. PHOTO © UVA.
Over the last 50 years, sound artist Bernie Krause has been calling the animals two by two, and recording them. The culmination of these more than 5,000 hours of vocalizations from at least 15,000 land and sea creatures is an immersive audio-visual experience that made its North American debut this November at the Peabody Essex Museum in partnership with the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, along with a new documentary on Krause by French filmmaker Vincent Tricon. A celebration of the diversity of our natural world and a reminder of its alarming and tragic decline, The Great Animal Orchestra is a collaboration with London-based United Visual Artists that allows visitors to step into the biophonic kingdom. If a bird calls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Sure. Krause has got it on tape.
Bernie Krause and United Visual Artists, The Great Animal Orchestra (2016).
“THE GREAT ANIMAL ORCHESTRA IS the culmination of 4.5 billion years of the Earth’s sonic evolution. This exhibit, commissioned by the Fondation Cartier in collaboration with United Visual Artists, is the first to combine sound and image in a configuration where audio intentionally dominates graphic. Environmental science, technology and the arts often try to grasp an operational sense of the world based on what we see. But a much fuller understanding can be realized from what we hear. My idea of art is to create quintessential performances of sonic wonder—what I most want others to hear manifest in the world. Hence, The Great Animal Orchestra.” —Bernie Krause
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MIAMI
PALM BEACH Seasonal Gallery 247 Worth Avenue 11.2021–04.2022
@lehmannmaupin lehmannmaupin.com OSGEMEOS, Summer Time, 2021
Solo exhibitions by: DO HO SUH OSGEMEOS ERWIN WURM MANDY EL-SAYEGH
Art Basel Booth G19 11.30– 12.4.2021
Monumental Ambitions
Balmain’s Olivier Rousteing tapped land artist Saype to wake up the Miami coastline with his fleeting tidings of hope and humanity.
OLIVIER Rousteing’s decadelong tenure at Balmain has engaged artists in collaborations of all scales, from ballets at the Paris Opera’s Palais Garner to Coachella performances. For Art Basel Miami Beach’s roaring twenties return, Rousteing challenged himself to think bigger by engaging with Saype, a painter whose canvas is the land. “Here in France, over the past couple of years, Saype’s work has excited those on the lookout for new ideas and voices in the arts,” Rousteing tells me of the selection. He continues by citing Beyond Walls (2019), an enormous painting of clasped refugee arms painted over the tongue of Paris’s Champs De Mars (the lucky park that unfurls beneath the Eiffel Tower). “That work really hit me,” he says. “It was such a moving call, hoping to awaken all of our consciousnesses—by reminding us of the all-too-often deaths and tragedies as desperate migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea.” The concept of Saype’s upcoming beachside commission for Balmain is still under wraps when we speak in late October, but he hints that it will be less about Miami than about global conversations and collective memory. Like Rousteing, Saype’s first impressions of Miami arrived largely filtered through Hollywood— 74 culturedmag.com
“It was such a moving call, hoping to awaken all of our consciousnesses—by reminding us of the all-too-often deaths and tragedies as desperate migrants attempt to cross the Mediterranean Sea.” —Olivier Rousteing and so rather than engage with a city he is unfamiliar with, he decided to look at the prompt as an opportunity to engage with the fineart world that descends annually for the epic fair. “What I can say is that I think of this work more as a contemporary-art installation, something that I have never done,
than as a pure work of land art,” Saype says. “I will certainly feed more on the essence of the project, the meaning and its vocation than the location.” What Saype can share is that his signature eco-friendly black and white pigments will be implemented. Like Rousteing’s love of black and
studs, Saype returns to the same palette of contrasts over and over and has created a recognizable, emotionally packed aesthetic. This is what Rousteing is ultimately hoping to unleash at Art Basel Miami Beach in the service of the environment and preventing climate catastrophe, and on a public but also personal front. “I am very much hoping that Saype’s positive and hope-filled message will help push my work forward—as he motivates me and my entire team to double-down on this house’s strategy of more Earth-friendly choices for all of its creations,” Rousteing says. “Besides awakening our consciousness, Saype always makes it clear that respecting the Earth does not have to mean cutting back on an artistic vision—it only requires pushing your creativity and imagination further.” If you want to learn more about Balmain and their projects, head to the Bal Harbour boutique where on November 29th there will be a Charity sale benefitting (RED).
Balmain’s upcoming artist collaborator Saype paints with eco-friendly pigments to create large earthworks. The exhibition will be unveiled December 1st at SCOPE and run through the week of Art Basel Miami Beach.
PORTRAIT: VALENTIN FLAURAUD FOR SAYPE.
BY TINA SHRIEK
FRANCESCO CLEMENTE
TWENTY YEARS OF PAINTING: 2001 - 2021
NOVEMBER 5, 2021 – JANUARY 16, 2022 PRESENTED BY VITO SCHNABEL GALLERY THE OLD SANTA MONICA POST OFFICE
Francesco Clemente, White Rose, Red Earth, 2010, Oil on canvas, 86 5/8 x 69 3/4 inches (220 x 177.2 cm); © Francesco Clemente; Courtesy the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery
FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD
FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD L E T US I N T RO DU C E YO U TO F O U R D ESI G N E RS D E F I N I N G T H E N E X T E R A O F A M E R I CA N ST Y L E.
R AU L LO PE Z (Lu a r) JA M E E L M O H A M M E D (K hir y) K E N N E T H N I C H O LSO N (Kennet h Ni ch ol son) M A I SI E SC H LOSS (M a i si e Wi l en)
BY VINCENT DESMOND
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FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD: KHIRY
FOR JAMEEL MOHAMMED, the creative director of luxury jewelry brand Khiry, Afrofuturism is everything. It’s the filter through which he defines his art and his identities. As we talk over Zoom, I see a tapestry with the word “future” written across it and intricate designs which he describes to me, explaining what they mean as well as their history. Growing up in Chicago as the only child to a single mother, Jameel found himself often existing in what he calls a “dream space” in which he would imagine and reimagine the world through his eyes, and eventually began creating art that would bring that world he had imagined in some way to this world. “As a kid, I had a lot of free time and I occupied myself with making art, or imagining and being in these kinds of dream spaces that I now recognize as really central to my practice,” Jameel tells us. “I started with anime and manga and comic-book drawing, which involves a lot of character design and development and a lot of thinking of how what this character holds and wears kind of signifies that they’re in an alien realm or a futuristic realm.” In middle school, his aunt had bought him some leather paint as a birthday gift and Jameel began making custom sneakers. “I started a custom sneaker business in the summer before I started high school,” Jameel says, grinning at the memory. “At the time, I was trying to find ways to incorporate art into a business that could directly sustain my life. And so that was like an early version of that.” Even as his celebrity profile and clientele grows, Jameel finds that his practice of imagining and creating from his dream space has remained the same. “There are specific lines and shapes that reoccur in my mind,” Jameel explains. “And to me, there are a few different kinds of praxis,
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Khiry Makes Afrofuturism Sparkle and Pop Khiry designer Jameel Mohammed came from a dream space. Now he’s making the jewelry of our dreams and dressing the stars, from Michelle Obama to Tyra Banks to Megan Thee Stallion. PORTRAIT BY ROEG COHEN
Left: Khiry designer Jameel Mohammed sits in his Brooklyn studio in front of a tapestry and body suit of his own creation. Right: Luar designer Raul Lopez sprawls in his East Williamsburg apartment, not far from where he grew up and developed an affinity for the Hasidic Jewish tailoring that influences his own pieces, like the jacket he is pictured wearing.
and one is thinking about the physical shapes, architecture, nature and how Black people are interacting with it now and what might that look like in a future where Black lives are more equitable, and the world is more equitable.” It is this design practice and philosophy that has drawn the likes of Michelle Obama, Issa Rae, Tyra Banks, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion and so many more to Khiry. It is also this philosophy that has made him a recipient of the 2021 CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America)/Vogue Talent Fashion Fund, and turned Khiry into, more than just a jewelry brand, a global phenomenon exploring Afrofuturism. But to Jameel, his large-scale success just means the stakes are higher. As a creative living in 2021, especially a Black one, Jameel finds that he has to pace himself. When asked about the future of Khiry, Jameel pauses; and not because he doesn’t know what’s next but because he has so much he wants to do. He shares that if he had been asked this two months ago, he would have listed the multi-category plans he has on the horizons, from retail pop-ups to internship programs and immersive experiences—all of which he says are still coming—but today he is more careful and deliberate about planning and executing those plans. “I’m being extra careful about questioning what are the steps that can get me there with the structural ability to affect the change that I want,” Jameel says, “as opposed to getting to my goals tired and panting. How do I create a brand that can withstand the tides of history and continue to have a voice on the matters that will arise, all while continuing to have the ability to have a real impact on the careers of other artists, creatives, artisans and all other people in the supply chain? These are the questions I ask myself.”
FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD: LUAR
AS WE TALK, RAUL LOPEZ begins to show me pictures, and they are not the type of pictures featuring finetuned glamour you might expect from a designer of his caliber. They are pictures of the most random things, but you can tell he is in awe of their beauty. To anyone familiar with Luar, this isn’t surprising. Raul Lopez, a queer Latinx designer, has spent his entire career creating beautiful garments from the most mundane things. Lopez first came into international recognition as a co-founder of Hood By Air alongside Shayne Oliver, and then in 2016 went solo by launching Luar. By 2018, Lopez’s design had been worn by some of the biggest style stars in the world, including Rihanna and Solange, and he was one of the ten finalists for that year’s CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund. Born in Brooklyn to a Dominican family, Lopez’s interest in design could be traced back to his seamstress grandmother from the Dominican Republic, who arrived in the late fifties to work in a factory on Astor Place, and then his mother, who also took a similar path. “I just became so obsessed with how you could take this fabric and create something different and I was just wowed,” Lopez shares. “I also remember when my dad, who worked in construction, would try to make me come to the construction site and I would fake a stomachache to stay home just to see my mom’s sewing.” In lieu of a fashion degree (which Lopez shares that he wanted but his family could not afford), this became his fashion education, and he took it with great speed. By the time he was 12, Lopez was wearing his designs to school or making modifications to his clothes using his mother’s sewing machine. “When I was 11 or 12, I would chop up a T-shirt and jeans and I would take the sleeves off of it,” Lopez tells me. “I remember looking at my mom and how she sewed and saying ‘I can do this,’ and then grabbing the machine and just sewing the legs to the sleeves to create a long sleeve from a short sleeve and then make some texture on it. I also remember I went to school and everybody was like, what the fuck?” As a child of immigrants, Lopez’s parents had certain expectations of him
Luar Lovers Relax: Raul Lopez Is Back After a couple seasons pause, Luar came back to New York Fashion Week this year and blew everyone away. Designer Raul Lopez grew up in Brooklyn, founded Hood By Air with Shayne Oliver in 2006, then started Luar on his own in 2016. He’s had highs and lows. He’s as New York as can be. Now he tells us how it all began. PORTRAIT BY ROEG COHEN
and his career path. He was expected to become a doctor or a lawyer, and while Lopez recognized that they just wanted him to be successful, he also knew he wasn’t going to walk down a traditional path. “I always knew what I wanted to do and be. But at first, my parents weren’t the most supportive,” he says. “I think when I started Hood By Air, they thought maybe I was onto something because they started seeing that people were copying what I was doing and dressing the way I was and so they started to accept it.” Lopez’s design approach is to bring all the chaos and grit and beauty that makes the everyday New Yorker experience and turn it into amazing pieces. He doesn’t need to go for a walk at the beach or make time to meditate, instead, he seeks out people and culture and even ugliness which he can then help people find beauty in. “I’m a people person,” Lopez shares. “I’m the quintessential New Yorker and I am highly inspired by looking at people, trash and all the craziest things that people would not expect. I could look at a bag floating that gets stuck on a tree. And I would run after it and take a picture. I’m not really influenced by beauty. I like ugly. And I like to take the ugly and make people see the beauty in it. That’s what Luar is all about.”
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FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD: KENNETH NICHOLSON
WHEN KENNETH NICHOLSON enlisted in the Navy, it didn’t initially seem like a place that would serve as huge inspiration for his menswear brand, but it did. Nicholson remembers a particular moment when he had looked at a room with the beds pushed to the extreme ends of the room. “It seems like a weird thing to say but I remember looking at it and thinking of how much it looks like a scene from a movie. It all looked so scenic and like a period film,” Nicholson explains over a video chat. That moment helped him begin to shift through his experience at the Navy and look at it like he would a film, fishing for references and appreciating not just the lessons in discipline but also the structure that the military applied in designing its outfits. Today, years later, he still makes references to military designs when designing pieces for his eponymous menswear brand Kenneth Nicholson. Growing up in Houston, Texas, Nicholson was heavily bullied as a child, but discovered culture which provided a safe space for him to thrive creatively. “Movies and pop culture and fashion became these things that I could always reach for and take solace in,” Nicholson shares. After securing a degree in fashion studies at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, he enlisted in the navy in 2004 and worked on a military base in Afghanistan for a year, and, later on, was briefly in Thailand working as an interior design consultant. In 2016, he debuted his brand with a simple goal— to interrogate menswear. “With Kenneth Nicholson, I want to expand what menswear can offer,” he shares. “I want to give people options in menswear and I want to create pieces that hold emotions.” And that is exactly what he has been doing; artfully bringing shapes that have traditionally been considered to belong to women’s fashion into practical menswear pieces and marrying these with his signature military details, Nicholson has created a brand that is redefining what menswear can be. For Kenneth, interrogating menswear also
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Left: Designer Kenneth Nicholson is piloting a distinctive aesthetic and approach all his own out of his Downtown LA studio. Right: Maisie Schloss has blasted beyond her Kanye West launch to become a go-to designer for the Hollywood vanguard.
From the US Navy to the CFDA Menswear designer Kenneth Nicholson studied fashion in San Francisco. Then he joined the Navy and traveled the world. Now he’s winning accolades for his menswear label, Kenneth Nicholson. This is clothing full of feeling and emotion. PORTRAIT BY ABDI IBRAHIM
goes beyond providing men with more clothing options. It includes providing them with clothes rich in sentiment. “For me, it is important that my clothes have emotions behind them,” he says. “I don’t want to just create pieces and have people wear them. I want them to fully experience it all.” This distinct approach to fashion has made Nicholson highly sought after. Recently, he styled British Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton for the Met Gala. And beyond that, he is a recent CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund grant recipient, a newly inducted CFDA member, and a 2021 CFDA Fashion Awards nominee for American Emerging Designer of the Year. Nicholson’s upward trajectory isn’t stopping anytime soon. Despite his brand being relatively new, he approaches design with an expert eye and an understanding of what he wants and the impact he wants to have that one would expect from someone with a brand much older than five years. Nicholson is a prime example of a new crop of designers who are redefining what the fashion industry is by building on the changes brought by those that came before, all while showing everyone what the future of fashion can look like.
FASHION’S NEW VANGUARD: MAISIE WILEN
MAISIE SCHLOSS CAN’T believe how much time she spends in her car. As the Los Angeles-based designer talks about her meteoric rise—and it is meteoric—she is fascinated most by how much time she spends working on everything other than actual designing now that she’s CEO of her own brand. In the last few years, Schloss has gone from being a design graduate to working at Kanye West’s Yeezy as a designer to being the first recipient of his Kanye West fashion incubator grant, which skyrocketed her career to new heights and led to her setting up on her own. When Schloss and I talked, the 28-year-old was in New York in the midst of the madness of New York Fashion Week. She’s working on the styling, going over music sets, doublechecking everything and then triplechecking everything again to ensure it all works well as she prepares for her brand’s live runway debut in New York. And even with so much to do, you can tell Schloss is fascinated by it all and has been preparing for this her whole life. “I always joke that I’ve been grooming myself to be a designer since I was about 12,” Maisie tells us. “Fashion was always my thing. As a kid, I loved making art, I loved clothes, just always. So I’ve been very steadily working along this track for pretty much my whole life.” By her late teens, Schloss began actively making a career for herself in design by enrolling in the prestigious Parsons design program, and then moving to LA, where she began first as an assistant and eventually climbed to senior womenswear designer at Yeezy. “Working at Yeezy shaped me a lot,” Schloss shares. “Perhaps the biggest way it helped me grow as a designer is that it made me think realistically about clothes and think about the woman wearing the final product while designing.” In 2019, Schloss was selected for Kanye’s grant, which provided seed funding and mentorship to independent designers. The grant
Maisie Schloss Is the Boss Since honing her craft as a designer at Yeezy and subsequently being awarded the inaugural Kanye West fashion incubator grant, Maisie Schloss has launched her own brand, Maisie Wilen, in Los Angeles and become her own CEO. PORTRAIT BY ABDI IBRAHIM
provided Schloss with an opportunity to do what she has always wanted to do on an even larger scale—design a brand geared entirely towards making fashion fun. Now working not just as a designer but also as a CEO, Schloss is intrigued by how much running a brand is really like being in charge of a perpetual, ongoing project. “It threw me into the spotlight, but also into having responsibilities more than just design,” she shares. “As a designer, you are really responsible for design and just that. Whereas now suddenly, I’m responsible for every aspect of the business. However, that has helped me think of the design too in a different way, in a sort of macro way, of how does it all fit together? The business, the design, the creativity, etc.” Today, Maisie is making waves in the fashion industry with her brand Maisie Wilen—named after her first name and her mother’s maiden name. And while her stint at Yeezy has no doubt been very influential in her career and she credits it for helping her become an even better designer, the Maisie Wilen design and aesthetic is entirely Schloss’s creation. One way the two brands differ greatly, according to Schloss, is print. “Now I’m designing with a lot of print, which didn’t come into play at [Yeezy],” she says. “But when designing Maisie Wilen, print is a very huge part of the entire design process.” Schloss has ditched the “emerging designer” tag long ago and grown even beyond her co-sign from Kanye West. Now she has her sights set on even more and higher achievements. She wants to dress Dolly Parton, she would like to see Cher in Maisie Wilen. However, she insists that her biggest win would be to create and establish a brand that becomes the go-to for women looking for thrilling clothes. “I want to make clothes that feel very special,” she explains. “Clothes that are a little unusual but also your favorite item in your wardrobe that you get a lot of use out of. I want to make exciting clothes.”
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Design New York / 7 December
Auction 7 December, New York
Edmund de Waal “Plate 1, Part 1, Page 1”, 2011 Glazed porcelain, lacquered wood, burnt oak © Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist.
Public Viewing 3 - 6 December Enquiries designnewyork@phillips.com +1 212 940 1268
phillips.com
lunya.co
GOOD IN BED
SLEEPWEAR FOR THE MODERN WOMAN
Where Is This Going? 86 culturedmag.com
BY TESS THACKARA M I C H A E L A Y E A R W O O D - D A N ’ S PA I N T I N G S A R E F U L L OF COLOR AND ACTION; THEY’RE BE AUTIFUL, INTENSE AND ENGULFING; THEY’RE PICTURES OF EMOTIONS, OF FEELINGS GOOD AND BAD.
MICHAELA YEARWOOD-DAN paints big, seductive paintings that reveal their secrets slowly. Your eye might settle on an intimate line of text tucked into a swirling composition of richly colored plants, or subtle flourishes of Swarovski crystals, acrylic nails or gold leaf applied to a painting’s surface. Or you might catch sight of cotton flowers, decorated with pearlescent beads and stitched into her canvases. “I like to accessorize my work,” she says with a chuckle, over a recent Zoom call from her London studio. Yearwood-Dan, who is just 27 years old, has just wrapped the remote install of her first US solo show at Marianne Boesky in New York, on the heels of a busy couple of years—including joining the rosters of Marianne Boesky and London’s Tiwani Contemporary, collaborating with author Margaret Atwood on a cover for Harper’s Bazaar, and completing a mural commission for Facebook’s London offices. Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s The only way is up, 2021.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY LANCE BREWER. COURTESY THE ARTIST, TIWANI CONTEMPORARY, LONDON AND MARIANNE BOESKY GALLERY, NEW YORK AND ASPEN. © MICHAELA YEARWOOD-DAN
88 culturedmag.com PHOTO: SØLVE SUNDSBØ / ART + COMMERCE; COURTESY OF TIWANI CONTEMPORARY.
“THE ART WORLD IS VERY Q U I C K T O E M U L AT E W H AT E V E R I S C O O L , F A S T- M O V I N G A N D L I B E R A L T H AT I S H A P P E N I N G I N T H E WO R L D. I F YO U WA N T TO WORK WITH ME, LET IT The Boesky show featured sumptuous, semi-abstract works that document the artist’s emotional responses to the pandemic years, a period of anxiety, but also one in which she fell in love (her first “proper queer relationship”) and found relief in the new space for conversations about race that opened up following global Black Lives Matter protests. One of those works, A conduit for joy (2021), is a lavish diptych with the words “How does it get even better?” floating over gold leaf and a flurry of tropical color, windblown leaves and scatterings of crystals. The artist’s impulse to adorn is as much about personal style as it is about the atmosphere she is trying to evoke in her paintings and the pleasure she takes in the process. Yearwood-Dan grew up in South London, which explains, she says, why she feels naked when she leaves her apartment without gold jewelry on—as well as something about the aesthetic choices in her paintings. She also enjoys the slow, delicate process of embellishing her canvases. And this streak of opulence has deeper, art-historical roots. Yearwood-Dan went to Catholic schools as a kid and remembers gold-inflected religious imagery as some of the first she was exposed to. Her abstract arrangements of color and flora— often centered around a portal-like negative space in the middle of the composition—in some ways emulate “grand frescoes and the Sistine Chapel and the movements of big skies and unearthly visions,” she says, even as they express something much less grandiose and more personal. They represent, in her own words, the “diaristic, self-historicization of the emotions and feelings I’m going through.” Lately, her compositions have taken on more movement—partly the result of having
BE UNDER THE GUISE OF AN INTELLECTUAL SHOW T H AT I S N O T C O M P L E T E LY I N T R I N S I C A L LY L I N K E D T O T H E F A C T T H AT I A M B L A C K . ”
taught herself to make ceramics and turning her Leyton apartment into an impromptu clay studio during the lockdown in 2020. According to Yearwood-Dan, the process of painting onto spinning clay has loosened her handling of paint. “I think the work is also a lot more confident,” she says, as she has settled into a style and visual language that began to take shape some three years ago—but which is the manifestation of almost a decade of exploring her voice and identity. Growing up in low-income housing, Yearwood-Dan was a self-professed theater kid and shared a love of the arts with her dad, but rarely went to museums save for occasional trips to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Royal Academy and the Tate. She didn’t set foot in a commercial gallery until she was in her twenties. “I didn’t feel that I had the ability to access those spaces until I graduated,” she recalls. An early encounter with Chris Ofili’s painting No Woman, No Cry (1998), a portrait of Doreen Lawrence—whose son Stephen was murdered in a racist hate crime in South London in 1993—helped Yearwood-Dan to
envision a future as an artist. “Everyone talks about representation, but there are some moments of representation that do shake you to the core, and for me, it was discovering Chris Ofili at age 16 or 17,” she says. “Being a Black person growing up in South London, Stephen Lawrence and Damilola Taylor [who was killed, aged 10, in Peckham] were names I knew as if they were my cousins.” It was also the colors, the reference to Bob Marley and the distorted figure that made the painting feel familiarly African to her. As an art student at Brighton University, where Yearwood-Dan was taught exclusively by white people, the feeling of being out of place in the art world persisted, and she felt she had to skew toward figurative painting in order to make work about racial disparities. Now, back in London and continuing to cultivate a more nuanced expression of her psychic state, Yearwood-Dan has numerous opportunities coming her way. But she cautions against the frenzy of interest in Black artists that has come in recent years. “The art world is very quick to emulate whatever is cool, fast-moving and liberal that is happening in the world,” she says. “If you want to work with me, let it be under the guise of an intellectual show that is not completely intrinsically linked to the fact that I am Black.” In 2020, she declined dozens of emails inviting her to participate in all-Black shows. “The shift is great and deserved,” she adds, “but sometimes you have to think: Where is it going? And take the path of caution. Take the right opportunities and make sure the people you’re working with are authentic. Finally we’re able to have these conversations that in the community we’ve been having for a really long time,” she says. “We can’t get shut down.”
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A New Portrait of History
At just 22 years old, Ryan Cosbert is telling stories through bright and seductive abstract painting: stories about the Atlantic slave trade, about Black explorers, about her childhood home and about present-day American chaos. BY CHARLES MOORE PORTRAIT BY DARIN COOPER
BROOKLYN-BORN
ARTIST
Ryan Cosbert grew up with a pile of sketchbooks. The School of Visual Arts (SVA) alumnus, who, in 2021, graduated from the same alma mater as her mother had, spent her youth traveling between New York and Virginia Beach, Virginia, honing her craft throughout. Ask her about her work before attending SVA, and she’ll explain it was “semi-developed.” In school, she experimented with silkscreen and block printing, photography and drawing, only committing to the pursuit of abstract painting her sophomore year. She began to research Sam Gilliam and Jack Whitten, Norman Lewis and Alma Thomas, Pat Steir and Anne Truitt and Ed Clark—scouring art books, playing and replaying every video she could find on YouTube. In the few months that have passed since graduation, Cosbert has developed a ritual: spending the bulk of her time in the studio, finding her voice, and developing her now-signature style. The artist relies on a grid or “tiled” format designed to evenly distribute the texture of her canvases, providing crucial organization and infusing each piece with a geometric complexity that not only adds dimension to the work in question, but pays homage to her childhood home: Cosbert’s mother laid
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tiles on their kitchen floor, in the bathrooms and on walls, inspiring the artist to use them materially in every piece. This same materiality is paramount to Cosbert’s approach. Today, she mainly uses acrylic paint, though in the past she has experimented with enamel and oil. While researching her works, she’ll make careful, calculated material decisions—weaving her choices into the subject of the painting. Chronic Soul (2020), for
instance, features watermelon seeds, representative of the seeds slaves carried in their hair and clothing en route to America from Africa in the 15th through the 19th centuries. Newspaper, tile grout and large-scale fabrics— the latter inspired by her father’s work as a designer,and the artist’s own early experiences custom-dyeing fabrics and making garments—are also present in her practice. Then, there are the bullet casings—specifically in Cosbert’s
Mayhem series (2020–21), which she started the week of George Floyd’s killing in late May 2020. “Originally, my idea was to open the conversation, or just present the issues we’re having in the Black community,” the artist explains, citing topics ranging from mayhem and chaos to police brutality and inner-city crime. Viewers will note the emerging painter’s work offers an exceptional blend of current issues and historical nuance—including footnotes from the past that have slipped through the cracks of our sociopolitical dialogue. Consider Ode to Matthew Henson (2021), one of the artist’s most ambitious works, currently on display in Washington, D.C., at the Mehari Sequar Gallery. The piece portrays Matthew Henson, the first AfricanAmerican explorer to travel to the North Pole, who embarked on his first Arctic exhibition in 1891 and is largely in the shadows today. Vibrant color—blue and white acrylic paint reminiscent of the Arctic chill—sits in contrast to photo-transferred depictions of Henson, offering a figurative representation of the subject. By giving voice to underdogs like Henson, Cosbert—at just 22 years old—has carved out a remarkable niche as a painter of history, the present and abstraction.
Kavi Gupta Art Basel Miami Beach Booth A14 December 2–4, 2021
Kavi Gupta 835 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IL 219 N. Elizabeth St., Chicago, IL kavigupta.com | info@kavigupta.com 312.432.0708 Image: Mary Sibande, The Ascension of the Purple Figure, 2016
Givenchy Teams Up with Artist Ewan Macfarlane for Poetic Installations
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF GIVENCHY.
Launching with his Fall Winter 2021 collection in stores, Givenchy Creative Director Matthew M. Williams employed a different kind of model. In collaboration with multimedia artist Ewan Macfarlane, installations of humanoid sculptures in motion—crouching, climbing and reaching—and clad in Givenchy fashion looks are being presented in select boutiques. Through their poses, the works express far more than a well-dressed mannequin could; they imbue a sense of emotion as they grasp, too, for the self-expression that clothing allows us.
A sculpture by Ewan Macfarlane for Givenchy.
“I’VE LONG ADMIRED EWAN’S work, and these sculptures really speak to me because my process as a designer is always about finding the humanity in luxury. I’m always looking at the reality of the person who will bring the clothing to life: it should feel powerful and effortless, equal and joyful. What someone wears should always portray who they are inside. I feel like the beauty of Ewan’s work helps me convey that in a powerful and poetic way.” —Matthew M. Williams
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Jeffrey Deitch presents
CURATED BY MELAHN FRIERSON AND AJ GIRARD
29 DEC. 05
DELFIN FINLEY, TWO SIDES OF THE SAME COIN, 2021
NOV._
2021
THE MOORE BUILDING Miami Design District 191 NE 40th Street, Miami FL
PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH MIAMI DESIGN DISTRICT AND WOODHOUSE
with support from
On Philosophy, Physics and the Art of Transformation
Inspired by texture, fantasy and his clients’ energies, Max Donahue’s creations are fantastical amalgamations of material, carefully constructed into cohesive designs. The fashion designer, artist and recent Parsons School of Design graduate spoke with Cultured about the constant evolution of his art and self, how coming of age in the pandemic changed his perception of work and life, and the danger in defining the artistic process. BY CHLOE LEWIS PORTRAIT BY JOHN NOVOTNY TELL US ABOUT THE PROCESS OF YOUR DESIGNS: WHAT INSPIRES YOUR ART AND WHERE DOES THAT TAKE YOU? My thoughts, intentions and dreams in the present guide me through my making process. Lately I’ve been starting with material. I find materials that I’m drawn to and, at that moment, I begin dreaming of what I’ll create. Then I drive that vision until it becomes reality. I try not to define my process too much, because I find that to be limiting. How can you manifest a pure abstraction into reality if you’re caught up on how you must make it real? In the case of creating art from a dream, you can’t define what’s real before it is. I have an idea of what I’ll do along the way, but I never attach myself to these ideas too intently. What if in a future present moment, I find a new way to approach the dream? I keep my mind open throughout the whole process and let whatever comes come. Also—everything is a dress. Pants, shirts, tops, skirts, all of it is a dress. The dress as a symbol, the dress as an energy, The dress as a vessel for higher understanding and pure expression. Elegance, mystery, strength, beauty. The dress is the culmination of everything I am. I’ll share it with you soon. WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE MEDIUM TO WORK WITH, AND WHY? Right now, I’m drawn to taffeta, spandex and mohair. I love the weight and texture of taffeta; it’s mysterious. Spandex I love for its versatility. Mohair is gentle and peaceful, and when knit in yardage it has a heavy drape that I love to play with. In terms of mediums that will always be a part 94 culturedmag.com
of my practice, rope is an essential material. Anything that I can tie with my hands is a major part of what I create. When I tie my dresses, the direction is uninhibited. HOW HAS COMING OF AGE IN THIS PANDEMIC TIME INFLUENCED YOUR WORK? Coming of age in this time has completely shifted my
perception of my work and my life. When the pandemic began, I was 21, and at the height of confronting my identity. Every day I was asking myself who I wanted to be, examining my purpose. The pandemic showed me how to facilitate personal growth through my artwork. I began using my body to create my garments,
which opened up my understanding of self, mind and body. Finding myself through my work has also taught me how to apply these thoughts to other people—I love working with clients and making dresses that match their energy, that embody what they need in the moment. My entire creative process has changed over the last 18 months, and I’m so grateful for the growth I’ve experienced. The journey is the destination, as they say. IF YOU COULD COLLABORATE WITH ANY PEER, WHO WOULD IT BE? Kim Kardashian comes to mind first. She has mastered the art of the present moment. To make a dress for her would be a great challenge. Philip Glass is a dream collaborator as well. His music exudes the energy I feel when I make and I would love to speak with him about his process. Fabiola Gianotti, a physicist at CERN, also really intrigues me. I hope she could teach me about quantum mechanics… the intersection of physics and art is a collaboration I find essential. And, lastly, Pierpaolo Piccioli. I have so much to learn. To work with Pierpaolo and the team at Valentino would teach me great lessons that I am eager to discover. WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY EXPLORING IN YOUR WORK? All things big—things I don’t fully understand, hard to grasp concepts like quantum mechanics, metaphysics, time. I find immense beauty in wondering, in reaching to understand what may never be understood.
80 Lafayette Street, New York NY // www.toddmerrillstudio.com Unique works debuting at Design Miami 2021. Available exclusively at Todd Merrill Studio Bench, Credenza, Chair: Jean-Luc LeMounier // Ceramic LED Wall Sculpture: Teemu Salonen // Vase: Maarten Vrolijk // Painting: Stefan Rurak
In a self-portrait, Nikolas Bentel sits in his Loopy chair holding a Ball Flute—two of his 2021 designs.
NIKOLAS BENTEL DROPS IT LIKE IT’S HOT
In the early days of lockdown, Harlem-based emerging artist and designer Nikolas Bentel took a cue from the streetwear world, devising his future launches like the latest drop at Supreme: limited in quantity and on a regular schedule. Fast-forward and we’re in the midst of these twelve episodic product reveals, each with its own website, for handmade pieces such as his Loopy chair—a bright yellow tubular steel design—and the more whimsical Extra Time Timer, an hourglass that allows a five-minute bonus. The 28-year-old Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation at Columbia University student sees products as a kind of language, and has dedicated his practice to storytelling through the design of everyday objects. If that story provokes a chuckle, all the better. BY ELIZABETH FAZZARE
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CAN FUNCTIONAL DESIGN TELL A STORY? HOW SO? I am a firm believer that any object can tell a story, whether it is manufactured, taken from nature, functional or nonfunctional. Functional design in particular has many stories to tell—how it was made, the person who made it—or it can stoke dialogue between the designer and user to become a whole new story. WHAT MAKES A “GOOD” DESIGN TO YOU? Something that is “good” design is something that fulfills its intended purpose. However, I believe purpose can be absolutely anything! Perhaps the purpose of the object is to deliberately be “bad design” for a certain user. HOW DOES YOUR DESIGN DROP MODEL DISRUPT THE CURRENT CONSUMER INDUSTRY? The quick episodic style of drops is a format that more so disrupts me. It forces me to get ideas out quickly and to not get stuck on the current trend or get too tied down to a perfect font or concept. I also believe that in order to make a real impact on our design industry’s concept of what a performative product can be, it is important to continually express that through this, project after project. Each project in my series has a slightly different story to tell that I hope inspires a bit of pause, contemplation and entertainment. For instance, the Loopy Chair is a story about rethinking how we manufacture things. The Pasta Bag is a story about taking a mundane yet recognizable household item and making it exciting. A lot of my past work has been about how to reimagine our products and how they are made. This series is a continuation of that theme. IF YOU COULD DESIGN A DROP ITSELF, WOULD IT BE DIGITAL OR TAKE ANOTHER FORM? If I had no monetary restrictions for a drop, I would love to host a “backwards birthday party,” where instead of receiving gifts, I end up making presents for my family and friends who attend.
Balmain - 9700 Collins Avenue Bal Harbour, FL 33154
BALMAIN.COM
Maker’s Mark Still relatively fresh out of art school, painter Lauren Quin is already a hot commodity with works recently soaring hundreds of thousands above asking price for instance at TWO x TWO for Aids and Art in Dallas. It doesn’t hurt that Quin’s electrifying visual language is unlike any other. BY JANELLE ZARA PORTRAIT BY CAITY KRONE
FRESH OFF THE OPENINGS OF TWO summer solo shows—“Vocal Fry,” at the San Francisco gallery Friends Indeed, and “Bat’s Belly,” at Stockholm’s Loyal—Los Angeles painter Lauren Quin, 28, went straight back into the studio. “I feel like I make my favorite paintings after the show,” she told me, during a recent studio visit. Unhindered by any commitments or deadlines, she was taking the opportunity to experiment on a larger scale. Two halfwaycompleted, 13- to 15-foot-wide canvases hung from the walls of her studio, a roughhewn, temporary sublet in Culver City. Already saturated with color, each composition still had its own issues to resolve, she explained. “I’m thinking of adding more heat.” With recent acquisitions by various institutions, including the ICA Miami and the X Museum in Beijing, Quin’s paintings are in high demand, and it’s easy to see why. They roil with the frenetic energy of many lines in motion, each moving with a different weight and at a different speed; the finished compositions hum with the radiant electricity of a neon sign.
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Her latest works revolve around the tube, a plump, luminous limb that pulls the eye around the canvas. While the tubes are still wet, she etches into them with a turpentine-dipped butter knife or spoon, revealing the contrasting brushstrokes in the layer underneath. The etching forms a kind of rippling, kinetic effect that buzzes above the surface. “There’s just so much detail that fizzles out when you’re seeing a photo of it,” Quin said, but, truthfully, she likes it better that way. “I wanted to make something that couldn’t really be encapsulated by an image,” she added— something that would require in-person viewing in our increasingly digitized world. Having just earned her MFA at Yale in 2019, Quin has been painting for as long as she can remember. She grew up in Atlanta, and cannot recall her first time picking up a brush, nor ever painting a straightforward, figurative work. After high school, she attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. “I was so nervous about committing to being an artist,” she said, and actually planned on becoming an art
therapist. Studying the history of art therapy, she was fascinated by the rhythmic, repetitive elements of patients’ work, which ultimately made their way into her own. After graduation, the artist moved to New York before taking a gallery job in Los Angeles, then promptly turned around to complete a residency at Skowhegan in Maine. Afterwards, towards the end of her MFA program, she “unlocked a new type of mark,” she said—the tube. She returned to LA and hit the ground running, eager to incorporate this new element into her work: “I felt like there were so many options that I had to try out.” These days, still unwinding after six years of art school, Quin works diligently in the studio from morning until evening. “Being here in a disciplined, durational way is really useful,” she says. She approaches each composition as a problem to be solved, continually growing and refining her arsenal of techniques, processes, and approaches. Quin’s practice is still very much in progress, and it’s exciting to imagine where she’ll take it.
Painter Lauren Quin in her Los Angeles studio, with Butter at her feet.
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Samuel Ross Takes His Friends with Him The British designer of fashion brand A-COLDWALL* and founder of design consultancy SR_A walks us through the need for an artistic community, the influence of the severed diaspora, the power of beauty and the sacred elements of his design toolbox. BY JULIE BAUMGARDNER PORTRAIT BY OLIVER MATICH
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COURTESY OF FRIEDMAN BENDA AND SAMUEL ROSS.
Samuel Ross with an editioned 2021 marble-and-powder-coated steel lounge chair of his design.
HOW CAN BRUTALISM AT ONCE OPERATE in the realm of craft and the human touch? Refrain from calling it a contradiction in the case of Samuel Ross, the multidisciplinary designer perhaps best known for his “British working class-meets-Savile Row” fashion brand A-COLD-WALL* and his productive, creative friendships with Virgil Abloh and Kanye. Barely 30, this Brit, whose parents are Windrushgeneration Caribbean, is already hitting benchmarks and garnering accolades comparable with designers far more senior. He’s won a British Fashion Award (2018), the Hublot Design Prize (2019) and a GQ Fashion Award (2020). Collaborations with Dr. Martens, Nike, Apple, Beats and Louis Vuitton are also under his belt. He regularly gives grant funds to emerging Black and POC designers, and he’s inside a creative circle of contemporary tastemakers who want to do things their way. “If you think about all the great art movements in history, they all came up through community, dialogue, discussion and the iteration of ideas. That’s something I believe in as a design process,” Ross says. Still, when it comes to fashion, he says, “It’s about contextualizing the idea and exploring that there’s a relationship with contemporary culture now, whilst ensuring there’s a signature aesthetic that’s easily recognizable.” Ross isn’t satisfied with just working in fabric construction or image creation. He has a fine-art practice and oversees a design consultancy he calls
“It’s not luxury, SR_A, short for Samuel Ross & Associates, founded in 2019. “When it comes to design, I often see myself as a problem solver,” he says, “you’re trying to find a way to layer experience to be almost-discovered through engagement, haptics and touch.” That all sounds a bit technical and philosophical—a point Ross laughs about—but looking at his latest series of work, Rupture—seating and tables that fuse hand-manipulated marble, threaded rope and machine-cut steel—there’s a palpable dialogue between cold, cool modernism (cubism, to be exact) and something much more human. That would be the West African references (e.g. Edo and Benin objects), Ross says, which
“amplify the perspective of what it means to be part of a severed diaspora. You see the materials almost pulling away from one another.” Ross has not been to Africa, but feels not only inspired by, but incredibly rooted in “Blackness living across digital services and spaces and finding ways to keep this interconnected voice and spirit.” He says, “It’s almost an obligation of being a minority to ensure the correct absolute documentation in what people of that demographic background were thinking in that time in history.” Still, “there’s an outrageousness” that a “British Caribbean guy is referencing this severance and dislocation,” he says. He wants to make clear that “What I’m trying to do is not necessarily talk always about trauma, pain, or fear or victimization or Critical Race Theory. I’m not. I’m trying to talk about the innate dynamics that exist from such a happening.” His series called “Rupture,” and his wellpublicized Trauma Chair, both of which will be at a solo-booth Design Miami presentation this December with his gallery Friedman Benda, are meant as totems of beauty. “There was a push to ensure that these works were beautiful,” says Ross, adding that in the studio the other day, surrounded by his team, “some of the works, they make you shed a tear. The ways the forms interact, you can feel the references. You don’t need to explain it.” And likely no explanation is needed. As mightily as some have tried, disciplines can’t be contained within a singular identity, region or theory, particularly in a globalized, post-colonial, digitally driven world. Ross sees semiotics, semantics, color theory, proportions and geometry as “almost sacred laws” of design language. “I feel it’s a bit of a toolbox—you soon find out the cadences that have relationships and work together, and the ones that do not,” he explains, freeing him to select his references from any movement or moment. However that doesn’t leave his practice vulnerable to chaos or lacking cohesion. There’s a strict core to Samuel Ross, the firm and the man. “We are people of craft who care about material. We care about information being conveyed correctly in visual and haptic means,” he says. “It’s not luxury, it’s artisan.” Ross’s roots, his family life and parents, helped carve him as a creative. “The craftsman, the artisan, the engineer, the maker: these traits were always encouraged,” he says. And though he occupies the haute world of art, design and fashion now, Ross is actively shifting centers of power and production, taking on canon and convention and fusing it with craft and community.
it’s artisan.” culturedmag.com 101
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By day, Joel Lubin keeps the wheels of Hollywood turning looking after his star clients, as a CAA board member and as co-head of its motion-picture group, but he is being increasingly known as a pillar of the contemporary art scene in Los Angeles. Recognized for his aesthetic point of view and his dedication to the artists he has chosen, Lubin plays prominent museum board member as easily as he does grassroots supporter. His passion for art is infectious, as seen in his ever-growing collection. Here, Lubin speaks with Editor-in-Chief Sarah Harrelson about his collecting philosophy.
Hollywood Edition C U LT U R E D C O L L E C T I O N S :
PHOTOGRAPHY BY IZAK RAPPAPORT
WHAT WAS THE PIECE, ARTIST OR EXPERIENCE THAT DREW YOU INTO COLLECTING SO FERVENTLY? I don’t know if there was a specific piece or experience that drew me in. I have always been a very visual person and, more importantly, very drawn to creative people. I believe it was natural that I would find my way to art at some point in my life. Professionally, I have been working with artists of a certain kind (actors, writers, directors) for most of my career, so that also naturally facilitated my interest in supporting artists in other mediums, and creative thinkers. DO YOU MAKE AN EFFORT TO MEET ALL THE ARTISTS YOU COLLECT? HAS THIS EVER CHANGED HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT THEIR WORK? I always try to meet the artists I support. It is exponentially more rewarding if I can create a connection with the artist. Sometimes when an artist can articulate what their work is about, it gives me more insight and a deeper appreciation for their practice. And sometimes you can make some great new friends.
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DO YOU HAVE A DRIVING MOTIVATION THAT SHAPES YOUR COLLECTING HABITS OR IS IT MORE INTUITIVE? I would say it’s definitely intuitive. There is a visceral feeling I get when I connect to art. It’s always personal in some way. And, as I said before, I find there are times when I can’t articulate why a particular piece is meaningful to me, which is one of the great mysteries of art. WHAT WERE THE FIRST AND LAST WORKS YOU COLLECTED? My first piece was made for me in 2011 by Alex Israel, who at the time was working on AS IT LAYS (his performance piece). The piece, which is part of his Flat series, makes up the background of his set and is very Hollywood, so of course it spoke to me. The latest piece I acquired was from Susan Chen. She is an Asian-American figurative painter whose voice is completely unique. I also recently acquired a sculpture by Thomas J Price, a London-based artist who I had the good fortune of meeting while he was giving a discussion on his practice.
I can thank Russell Tovey (who has an amazing podcast called Talk Art) in both cases, for making me aware of Susan and Thomas’s work. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ART FAIR? IF SO, WHY? I would have to say Art Basel Miami. I love the energy of South Beach. Marc Spiegler and Noah Horowitz, who just moved to Sotheby’s, are friends, so there’s also a personal connection, which always makes the difference.
From left to right: Cory Arcangel’s Ibiza / Lakes (2016) and Tajh Rust’s Subject XIV (Naby) (2020), above the fireplace. Previous spread: Joel Lubin in his Los Angeles home, seated on a Charles and Ray Eames rocker chair. Artworks from left to right: Matthew Wong’s Distance (2018), Kevin Reinhardt’s Conversations with Myself, 1963 (Blue) (2020), Gary Hume’s California (2013).
Etel Adnan’s Planète 12 (2020) above Erwin Wurm’s Suit (2009).
Alex Israel’s Risky Business (2014-15) and Carole Feuerman’s Miniature Serena (2011) atop Yves Klein’s Table Bleu (1961-63).
Brandon Landers’s The Great (2020).
“There is a visceral feeling I get when I connect to art. It’s always personal in some way. And, as I said before, I find there are times when I can’t articulate why a particular piece is meaningful to me, which is one of the great mysteries of art.”
Henry Taylor’s portrait of a fellow artist Tiona Nekkia McClodden (2018).
Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe’s To be titled (Orange beret) (2021) above Sarm Derbois’ Saint Exupery (2015).
Calida Rawles’s Wandering the Wild (2020), at the end of a hall. culturedmag.com 105
OCTOBER 10, 2021–JANUARY 9, 2022 Eddie Aparicio Tau Lewis SANGREE Wilmer Wilson IV Sondra Perry Las Nietas de Nonó WangShui
1 MUSEUM Los Angeles | hammer.ucla.edu | @hammer_museum LAS NIETAS DE NONÓ, ILUSTRACIONES DE LA MECÁNICA, 2016–19. PERFORMANCE, WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK, JUNE 28–30, 2019. PHOTOGRAPH © 2019 PAULA COURT, COURTESY OF WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART, NEW YORK
SAMUEL ROSS
DECEMBER 1 - 5, 2021
843 N SPRING ST CHINATOWN LOS ANGELES AVAILABLE FOR LEASE
SCAN QR CODE TO DOWNLOAD BROCHURE
FOR LEASING INFORMATION 310 395 5151 & INFO@INDUSTRYPARTNERS.COM
redcarltd.com
ICA MIAMI/Betye Saar \Serious Moonlight /
/ Oct 28, 2021 – Apr 17, 2022
Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami
61 NE 41ST St Design District 305 901 5272
Installation view: Betye Saar, Resurrection, 1988, at Cal State Fullerton, California. Courtesy the artist and Roberts Projects, Los Angeles, California.
Reserve Your Free Ticket Online icamiami.org
DIANEROSENSTEIN.COM
TIM DAVIS I’M LOOKING THROUGH YOU
MIAMI IS I T S OW N WO R K OF ART ArtofBlackMiami.com
Photo by Saddi Khali
#ArtofBlackMiami
Art of Black Miami is a marketing platform and destination driver organized by the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau that showcases the diversity of the visual arts locally, nationally and internationally, celebrating the Black diaspora. This initiative highlights the artistic landscape found in heritage neighborhoods and communities year-round throughout Greater Miami & Miami Beach. For more information, visit ArtofBlackMiami.com © Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau — The Official Destination Sales & Marketing Organization for Greater Miami & Miami Beach. CS-03837
D E S R E M IM M U LTI M E D IA EXP E R I E N C E & I M P O RTANT ARTWO R KS
Nader Museum 62 NE 27 ST Miami FL 33137 t+1.305.576.0256 info@nadermuseum.com www.nadermuseum.com www.boteroimmersed.com
@boteroimmersed
Ph o to g raph s
S a m o y l o v a
Fountain, 2017. Anastasia Samoylova
A n as tas i a
b y
An expansive and ongoing photographic series by Anastasia Samoylova responding to environmental changes in the coastal cities of South Florida. The exhibition is conceived as an installation of 46 images printed on a variety of materials. While working as emphatic individual images, the arrangement and sightlines create a nuanced spatial collage of tensions and resonances.
This exhibition is presented with the generous support of Susannah and John Shubin, Sheryl F. Gold, and Touzet Studio.
Open through April 17, 2022
COLLECTION 008 BY CÉSAR BUITRAGO
NADIA HIRONAKA & MATTHEW SUIB: FIELD COMPANION Nov 20, 2021 - Feb 5, 2022
Also on view: A landscape longed for: the garden as disturbance featuring Andrea Bowers, Sandi Haber Fifield, David Hartt, Jim Hodges, Ebony Patterson, Ema Ri, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, and Onajide Shabaka guest-curated by Adler Guerrier and Laura Novoa, and The Depths, a video exhibition guest-curated by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz.
Miami Art Week Reception Tuesday, Nov 30 | 6-8pm
3852 N Miami Ave | Wed-Sat 11-5pm
Breakfast in the Park at the Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum FIU
Join us for a free lecture with artist
Alfredo Jaar Sunday, December 5 from 11am – 2pm
Alfredo Jaar, A Logo for America, 1987/2014, Public intervention, Digital animation commissioned by The Public Art Fund for Spectacolor sign, Times Square, New York, April 1987, Courtesy Times Square Alliance, New York and the artist, New York
10975 SW 17th St., Miami, FL 33199 | 305.348.2890 frost.fiu.edu
Tickets at guggenheim.org Global Partners
Gillian Wearing in collaboration with Wieden + Kennedy, Wearing, Gillian (detail), 2018. Color video, with sound, 5 min. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Purchased with funds contributed by the Photography Council, 2019.67. © Gillian Wearing, courtesy Maureen Paley, London; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York/Los Angeles; and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
MITCHELL-INNES & NASH IN MIAMI EARLY WORK BY EDDIE MARTINEZ ALONGSIDE WORKS BY FREDDIE BRICE DAVID BUTLER IKE MORGAN MARY T SMITH BILLY WHITE 151 NE 41ST STREET, SUITE 125 OPENING NOVEMBER 24, 2021 MIANDN.COM
Eddie Martinez, Untitled, 2006. © Eddie Martinez.
Radical State of Presence Los Angeles light and sound experience Chromasonic aims to show the color of sound— and also the sound of color. I think. BY SAMANTHA BROOKS PHOTOGRAPHY BY TREVOR TONDRO
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Chromasonic’s three founding artists—from left: Orpheo McCord, Johannes Girardoni and Joel Shearer.
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AS I PULL UP TO Chromasonic, I’m filled with gratitude that I’m not headed to some back alley at the edge of Highland Park to experience whatever latest installation everyone will be posting on Instagram. Instead, 2100 Zeno Place, just below Venice Boulevard and just far orpenough from the chaos of Abbot Kinney, is in the heart of the Venice artist district, and the oldschool energy is inherent. Admittedly, I haven’t done my homework when I show up. I’ve been smashed with deadlines, and all I know from briefly looking online is that Chromasonic is a light and sound experience. I arrive a bit late and somewhat flustered (deadlines—and perhaps a haircut I need to race across town for later—looming). When Johannes Girardoni, one of the artist founders of Chromasonic, asks what my current energy and stress level is, I laugh a bit. “It’s up there,” I say. “Perfect. You’ve come to the right place.” I enter the space, an 800-square-foot windowless venue created from two shipping containers located at the front of a rather large artist warehouse where the Chromasonic team has been carefully fine-tuning their piece for the last few years. (Satellite One is the first of a series of light and sound immersions the team will debut across the world.) I take my shoes off and am told to put my phone away. “You can Instagram later, but it’s not really the kind of thing that works on social media—you can’t photograph a feeling. Besides, one of the fundamental philosophies of Chromasonic is to detach from technology,” says Girardoni, who has been working as a sculptor and installation artist for the last two decades. “But we get that we’re also using technology to detach from it,” adds Harriet Bourne Girardoni, Chromasonic’s Director of Culture. The creative team also includes, musician, composer, and sound artist Joel Shearer and percussionist and composer Orpheo McCord. There’s a comment card that asks me to rate my mood and expectations before entering. Then,
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I walk into the vessel—perhaps best described as womb-like—and the experience begins. I’m a bit amped up on stress-fueled adrenaline, but also cognizant that if this light and sound show is too melodic, I might immediately crash and fall asleep. (It’s hard to write about a nap.) I don’t. Not even close. While never piercing, the sounds element is also never
“You can Instagram later, but it’s not really the kind of thing that works on social media—you can’t photograph a feeling. Besides, one of the fundamental philosophies of Chromasonic is to detach from technology.” —Johannes Giradoni
hush, and the lights are never too dim. There’s plenty going on to keep you engaged, but not so much that it’s sensory overload. This has all been carefully measured and fine-tuned. For the first ten minutes, it’s a soothing spectrum of rotating hues of LED lights accompanying rhythmic analog and electronic sounds—think more Solaris soundtrack than Daft Punk. I’m alert and into it, but then something hits me, and I just relax. For the next 20 minutes, I’m not thinking about much. I don’t meditate (I
can never be still enough for it), so I wouldn’t compare it to that, but I’ve definitely slowed down and feel calm and soothed. When it ends, I’m relaxed and centered. I ask the team if anyone ever leaves Chromasonic with the reaction “meh,” and I’m told that that’s definitely not a thing. Bourne Girardoni reads me back a comment card from one of the 2,000 guests who have experienced Chromasonic in the first three months since it debuted in June, and it says, “My second experience was even stronger than my first. I felt a reunion with myself and voice, anchoring me back in my awareness.” Indeed, it’s almost impossible not to enjoy or come out at least a bit more reflective. “It’s not a bliss ride for everyone, but it gives people the space to tap into whatever is waiting for them,” says Joel Shearer. “We like to call it ‘enhanced awareness,’” adds McCord. “We have found that a Chromasonic Immersion can certainly act as a catalyst to deepen one’s meditation practice.” The thing is that you can think as hard or as little about Chromasonic as you like. At its baseline, it’s a 30-minute immersion into light and sound. But dig deeper, and you can analyze how much of it is art, where do the lines of art and technology merge, is this wellness? The light and sound isn’t random—it’s a mathematic algorithm. I majored in art history in college and barely met the GE science requirement until my senior year when I finally passed a class called “Antarctica,” so the mechanics behind how Chromasonic works are lost on me, but Girardoni describes it to me as, “a harmonic connection that binds with artificial sensory mechanisms. We’re taking sound and making it visible. Taking light and making it audible, which creates a feedback loop between the artificial sense and the real.” I’m not sure if I was convincing, but I nod and act like I completely understand all of that, when really, I’m just thinking about the beautiful synergy between the color and the sound. And that’s all you have to do too.
Chromasonic’s Satellite One.
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All for One
Feminist architecture collective WIP Collaborative was begun in February 2020, as a group for American female solo practitioners looking to support their fellow women architects. When the pandemic hit the United States one month later, seven of these leaders banded together with a mission in mind: to research, support and build design that engages everyone, both physically and mentally. BY ELIZABETH FAZZARE
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and One for All
Restorative Ground, designed by WIP Collaborative. Photography courtesy of WIP Collaborative and Hudson Square Properties.
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In that transitionary New York neighborhood where the West Village, SoHo and TriBeCa meet, historically home to print shops but now dubbed Hudson Square by developers filling it with luxury condos and the forthcoming Disney HQ, a streetside playscape has made a colorful appearance.
Assembled of primary shaped volumes in a variety of material textures and hues of red, orange and pink, it is a construction of ramps, benches, tables and a rope-made hammock. Pops of teal-blue powder-coated railings and planted trees provide guidance and shade in this temporary public parklet. It’s the kind of place everyone can enjoy: that’s exactly how it was designed. The project is the first built work of feminist architecture collective WIP Collaborative, which was initiated in February 2020 as a group of women leading their own design practices and looking to support each other. “It was meant to challenge the convention of practice where everyone is siloed into singular firms and there’s less of an open dialogue,” explains member Lindsay Harkema, who performed the initial outreach to bring the architects together. A few weeks later, a working group of seven independent designers, Abby Coover of Overlay Office, Bryony Roberts, Elsa Ponce, Ryan Brooke Thomas of Kalos Eidos, Sera Ghadaki, Sonya Gimon and Harkema herself, submitted a proposal for a new
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public space in Hudson Square. The pandemic struck. Zoom calls resumed. And in July 2021, Restorative Ground, in all its colorful glory, was born. What threads these seven women, and this project, together is a dedication to interdisciplinary, democratic design; that is, design that is not only physically accessible and multipurpose, but engages every mind as well. Their designs respond to the concept of neurodiversity: the idea that human brains do not all function in the same neurocognitive way. In practicality, this may mean that, for example, some people prefer silence while others prefer noise in a work environment, or that those who are on the autism spectrum may have different reactions to social situations than those not. At Restorative Ground, the varying textures, colors, heights and functionalities—there are areas for play, work and rest within the streetscape— contribute to its neurodiverse design. To WIP Collaborative, this is the future of architecture: truly inclusive spaces. Many of the members had been conducting similar research
independently—on topics including public space, inclusive design, interdisciplinary practices and expanding the definition of architecture—before they found like minds to share it with. Perhaps surprisingly, neurodiversity is not often brought to the design table in a conventional project, but the group’s work is proving its worth. In September, WIP was awarded their second competition win: a collaboration with New Yorkbased Verona Carpenter Architects, supported by Center for Independence of the Disabled, NY, Bronx Independent Living Services, INCLUDEnyc and P.S. 42, to design neurodiverse playgrounds, streetscapes and parklets with the nonprofit Design Trust for Public Space. “From the beginning, we’ve been really interested in tuning into things that have been overlooked in the built environment, and who’s not being served in public spaces,” explains Roberts. “Neurodiversity encompasses autism, ADHD and the sensitivity that comes from those conditions. But it also includes mentalhealth issues, the way that anxiety, depression or trauma can make one more sensitive,” she
Six of seven of the WIP Collaborative team members. Clockwise from left: Sera Ghadaki, Lindsay Harkema, Abby Coover, Ryan Brooke Thomas, Bryony Roberts and Elsa Ponce. Sonya Gimon not pictured. Photography courtesy of Hudson Square Properties.
continues. Harkema goes on to explain that these are the kinds of invisible disabilities that good public design should accommodate. In addition to their research-guided practice, the studio has been hired as a public-realm consultant for others. “These [disabilities] impact so many people, especially since the collective grief of the pandemic,” Roberts emphasizes. “We think it’s really important to address this in general and particularly right now, it’s incredibly urgent and completely unacknowledged.” The idea of running a collective studio, and a feminist one at that, was certainly not invented with WIP Collaborative’s inauguration. WIP, the women explain, is a dual acronym for both “Women in Practice” and “Work in Progress”, and they work—and design—with both principles in mind. In eschewing inter-industry competition, working with women across several disciplines and ridding their organization of hierarchy and the sexist practices that have historically held women back from rising through the ranks at a firm or caused them to drop out of the design world altogether before they can, the Collaborative
“Our projects are about giving agency back to the individual. And I think that connects to the larger idea of the WIP. We created this because the way the discipline was operating wasn’t actually beneficial for the things we wanted to do.” –Lindsay Harkema follows in the footsteps of historic trailblazers like London’s Matrix Feminist Design Cooperative, founded in 1981, or the contemporary group Black Females in Architecture. Everyone
has a seat at the table and design is thought of that way, too: holistically rather than siloed into “capital A” architecture, design, landscape, urban design etc. It’s also, though, a labor of love for each member as they continue to run their own practices, teach at various institutions and sit on architectural boards and committees simultaneously. “Our projects are about giving agency back to the individual. And I think that connects to the larger idea of the WIP. We created this because the way the discipline was operating wasn’t actually beneficial for the things we wanted to do,” explains Harkema. Their design process itself goes back to basics: talk to a community, consider context and think deeply before creating something that can serve all. “In our first attempt working together, seeing the same perspective on design that I’ve always valued, but felt maybe unique in pushing for, fall into place with the seven of us, organically speaks to not just a set of values, but also a collective approach as designers,” says Thomas. “It’s super, super rewarding.”
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The Secret History of Mondrian’s Masterpieces Next year is Piet Mondrian’s 150th birthday. To celebrate, Swiss luxury skincare brand La Prairie is sponsoring the conservation of four of his masterpieces, which will be exhibited next summer in the glass halls of Basel’s Fondation Beyeler. While working on these compositions, the conservationists have begun to unravel their secrets. La Prairie invited Aureta Thomollari to go behind the scenes. PHOTOGRAPHY BY PIERRE MOUTON
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Fondation Beyeler conservationists at work.
PERHAPS YOU’VE STOOD IN a gallery, looking at a piece of minimalist modern art, and overheard someone say, “My kid could do that.” But is it true? Can anybody do it? Are the paintings of Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian as simple as they appear, or is there more to them than initially meets the eye? Today we are learning Mondrian’s secrets, thanks to the efforts of the brilliant scholars at work in the Fondation Beyeler. In honor of his 150th birthday, conservationists are working on four of his greatest artworks, under the generous sponsorship of La Prairie, for a comprehensive Mondrian exhibition to open June 2022. This is the second year running for La Prairie’s partnership with the Piet Mondrian Conservation Project. The goal of the effort is not only to ensure that Mondrian’s work is preserved for all time, but that the concurrent research being done will also be
published, so that art historians as well as the general public will benefit from a greater understanding of Mondrian and his indelible impact on visual culture. These investigations are important because Mondrian was quite secretive about his process, as I learned in a presentation by the Fondation’s conservationists. By closely examining the four masterworks under restoration (Tableau No. I, Composition with Yellow and Blue, Composition with Double Line and Blue and Lozenge Composition with Eight Lines and Red (Picture No. III)) they have deciphered clues to his techniques. They have learned that Mondrian would revise his paintings over and over, sometimes for years; there are three separate dates on Tableau No. I, for example, indicating he worked on it for five years. Their use of high magnification devices has revealed how apparently simple colors are layered, and how his famous lines would
change width as he changed his approach and reconceived his ideas of composition and perfection. It is inspiring to me to learn the extent of the revisions Mondrian would subject his work. So I was happy to learn that this conservation work does not try to hide flaws or undo the effects of time on the paintings, but merely preserve them. I feel the same way about the beauty of a human face, and this is why I admire La Prairie; the company understands that true beauty comes from within. While it’s a distinctly human wish to stop the hands of time, La Prairie utilizes the latest science to enhance our body’s natural processes, not to artificially alter our appearance. I left the Fondation consumed with thoughts about the timelessness of beauty and art, and filled with gratitude that passionate people are working earnestly to preserve both.
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This Girl Is on Fire
Botswana-born actor Malia Baker dishes on her activism and the legacy she’s building. BY ASHLEY YANCEY PORTRAIT BY KYRANI KANAVAROS
2021 HAS BEEN A BIG YEAR for 14-year old rising actor and activist Malia Baker. Not only did she kick things off by joining the cast of Are You Afraid of the Dark’s second season, but season two of The BabySitters Club, the hit Netflix series she stars in, was released to widespread fanfare. Most recently, it was announced that she is set to star in the new Lifetime film Caught in His Web, alongside none other than EGOT winner Whoopi Goldberg and the legendary actress Garcelle Beauvais. While things have been heating up for this young Hollywood star, it is clear she is just getting started. “I’m so excited!” Malia gushes, about the release of The Babysitters Club. “It’s a dream job to wake up to everyday, and I get to visit some of my friends as well. They all live in the States so I never get the opportunity to see them unless we’re filming.” Born in Botswana, Baker was just two years old when her father moved the family to Canada, her mother’s home, where the family resides today. Moving to the mainly white suburbs of Vancouver was a bit of a culture shock at times, where even the simplest of societal norms and traditions varied. “It was just a whole other world,” Baker says. Back in Botswana it is customary to address respected elders as Auntie or Uncle. “[My family] looks alike, mainly dark-skinned Black women, so it became a neighborhood situation.” Back in Vancouver, however, after showing her appreciation for assistance with a simple, “Thank you, Auntie!” to a store associate and being told, “No, no, sweetie, you’ve got it mixed up,” Baker realized just how unique her upbringing had been. Different environments were requiring different parts of herself to be shown. “As this very young and mixed-race girl, coming into that realization was a huge awakening at such a young age.” Those early lessons and experience have made a huge impact on Baker, who considers herself not only an actress, but an activist as well. She’s spent the last two years fighting for the causes that are close to her heart. “Right now I’m really focused on women’s empowerment. I feel like it’s a topic that’s never-ending.” She has found inspiration in the likes of Greta Thunberg and Malala Yousafzai, other young women who have walked this path before her, and presses on. As she has found, the various issues she prioritizes can quickly take off on legs of their own.
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“I’ve been fortunate enough to be working with Girl Up. It’s an amazing organization focused on hiring girls.” A movement to advance girls’ skills, rights, and opportunities to be leaders, the United Nations’ Girl Up campaign guides and champions girls along their journey from leader to changemaker. Recently nominated to be a champion for the organization, Baker was the co-host of their annual #GirlHero Awards this past October. “I get to be amongst so many amazing women, which feels like a dream come true!” In addition she also splits her time with Uniquely You, a mentoring organization dedicated to helping Black girls define and become who they are, She’s the First, an organization committed to the education and empowerment of girls, and Zahara’s Dream, a professional-development organization which distributes attire and creates mentoring relationships for young girls. Next up for Baker is a busy fall and winter season. She’s been preparing to spend some time filming in South Carolina. “That’s a big change for me, the first time I’m out of Vancouver doing my job, so it’ll be very, very fun,” she says. “The new project is a studio film so it’s bigger than what I’m used to. It’s my first feature as well,” she exclaims, with her eyes shining. “There’s going to be a whole bunch of new opportunities.” An avid reader and writer, Baker has also been toying with the idea of putting her own project out into the world. “I’ve been writing a book for the last year or so. It’s about my experience as a girl in today’s society. Having it come from a youth’s perspective is very different.” She pauses for a moment and reflects. “I’m just really grateful to be able to expand into different universes of either writing or producing or directing or things like that.” A recent chance encounter with Marsai Martin has made it seem that much more possible. “There’s another thing that’s in the works as well!” she shares before smiling brightly, showing all of her teeth. “There’s just so many opportunities to create around your own beliefs and morals and values and just things that you love doing,” she says, when considering the culmination of her work thus far. “Not everyone is the type of person to speak in front of hundreds of people at a rally and that’s okay. But I feel like everyone is able to go to a website and click yes to a petition that they’re passionate about.” And with that, she’s headed to get ready for her next appointment, an exciting meeting in the city of angels, Los Angeles.
Catherine Regehr dress and Andy Wolf sunglasses. Styling by Jason Pillay. Hair by Sade Kehler. Makeup by Zabrina Matiru.
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JUAN VELOZ
Who has a forked tongue and walks in the Hills? BY JENNA SAUERS
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serpentwithfeet sings a new kind of R&B that’s experimental and heavenly, while still full of emotion and feeling. He’s up on the trails in the hills of Los Angeles, looking down over his kingdom. These are love songs to take you to other dimensions.
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serpentwithfeet wears Issey Miyake FW21 suit, Stüssy beanie and artist’s own glasses. Previous spread: Bode jacket, Urban Outfitters shirt and beanie, Wales Bonner pants, visvim shoes and artist’s own glasses.
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“I THINK QUIET TIME IS really important,” says the musician known as serpentwithfeet, on the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “Sometimes—how do I say this?—I think sometimes we may become a little bit too comfortable with ourselves. The same way that you can become comfortable with a partner or a family member and feel like you don’t need to check in, I feel like we can do that with ourselves, and assume that our tastes or our passions are the same.” He would hardly be the only person
professional choirs and studying classical music. Wise went on to study classical vocal performance at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, and was on a path to train as an opera singer. Instead, rejected by the graduate vocal programs he applied to, he realized he would have to try to create a musical world of his own. “Everything I’ve learned through the years has taught me something about storytelling,” he says, reflecting on what unifies his wide-ranging formation. “It’s taught me something
worrying and more time recounting the love.” On Deacon, themes of Black gay love and community surge to the surface. “I think we take different seasons to lean into certain feelings,” he says. “I’m always interested in showing the spectrum of my emotions and the range of my writing, and, yeah, it was just time to show this part of the spectrum.” Currently, Wise is at work on an upcoming EP, which he describes as “like an extension of” Deacon. It includes reworked versions of some of Deacon’s songs, as well
“Everything I’ve learned through the years has taught me something about storytelling.” to emerge from the year 2020 wondering, who even am I, these days? Allowing himself room for change, and directing conscious energy towards registering those changes is, he says, the biggest personal lesson of the global pandemic so far. “I think it’s important to interrogate yourself, and you can only do that in quiet time,” he says. “That’s something I really value, taking quiet time to ask, who are you today? What are you today? What do you like today? What do you need today? Because that might differ from yesterday.” Born Josiah Wise and raised in a devout Pentecostal family in Baltimore, the 33-yearold songwriter and singer grew up singing in his church’s gospel choir from the age of six; he calls gospel music and R&B “my first loves.” From 11 on, he began honing his instrument by singing with larger and more
about the architecture of song, about the importance of nuance, and the importance of detail, whether it’s a jazz standard or a recititative or pop music. I think everything has taught me something about storytelling.” After first gaining notice for his 2016 debut EP Blisters and his 2018 album soil, which received much acclaim, Wise released his equally well-received second album Deacon in March. As serpentwithfeet, Wise draws on his esoteric musical roots to create new sounds in R&B; he has attracted collaborators as diverse as Björk and Ty Dolla $ign. While his earlier work could be spiky and combustible in exploring queer longing and heartbreak, Deacon marks an emotional shift—it reveals Wise at his most joyful and his most sensuous yet. “Maybe it’s the blessing of my thirties,” he sings on the track “Fellowship,” “I’m spending less time
as a few tracks that didn’t make the album. “I just want it to feel effervescent, and joyous and fun,” he says. Right now, he’s also reading Conversations with Toni Morrison, a selection of interviews with his favorite writer, and Robert Jones Jr.’s novel The Prophets. The sight that has most recently inspired him was a mountain view from a hike in LA; after years in New York City and the East Coast, he appreciates the slower pace and access to nature of Southern California. “There’s a lot of hiking here. You get a lot of sunlight. There’s a lot of quiet time,” he says. “I’m always struck by the mountains, and looking over the city, whatever trail I’m on, just overlooking the city when I’m at the top of the hike, that is always breathtaking to me, and that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of.”
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Photography by Erik Carter
How to Play a Legend on Camera By Talia Smith
Young actor Demi Singleton breaks down her early journey to stardom, the importance of staying true to self, and her new role as Serena Williams in King Richard.
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All clothing and shoes by Gucci. Hair by Vernon François. Makeup by Nick Barose for Exclusive Artists using Armani Beauty.
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“[Will Smith] is truly one of the funniest people I have ever met in all of my 14 years. He’s accomplished so much in his life but he’s still a normal person.”
If you’re familiar with the teachings of Eckhart Tolle then you’re familiar with the saying that “True Power is within, and it is available now.” Demi Singleton is a walking testament to this. At just 14 years old, her passion, inward power and deep awareness of her purpose have allowed her to live many lives. One such mission being her role as a young Serena Williams in the new, highly anticipated, critically acclaimed film King Richard. Singleton plays alongside Hollywood legend Will Smith, who stars as Richard Williams, the father of Venus (played by Saniyya Sidney) and Serena. The film, directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green and set to release November 19, focuses on the upbringing and family dynamics of the Williams sisters and chronicles their early journey to greatness. The young actor is the exemplary Pisces: creative, intuitive and sensitive. Although this is her first major role, Singleton has been preparing for this moment for years. “My whole life, performing has always been my number-one thing,” she says. “When I was three, I started dancing. I started playing cello when I was four. I started singing when I was seven. Performing is something that I’ve always loved to do even before I officially started training.”
After years of hard work and a three-year-long audition process, the young star landed the role of Serena Williams. Playing one of the most iconic and history-making tennis legends didn’t come without intensive study of her mannerisms, yet Singleton was able to accomplish such feats with lots of online digging and very close communication with the family. “The Internet was really my best friend. I would search the Internet for any videos I could find of Serena and Venus, to understand the relationship a little better. I studied the way that she walked, the way that she talked. There was this one video where she laughs a certain way, and I try to laugh like her. Their family was also very involved with the film. Their sister, Isha Price, was an executive producer, so she would help on set with their mannerisms and send us videos of them when they were little, videos that I couldn’t find on the Internet.” Singleton also had the benefit of filming with a master teacher like Will Smith, who helped make the experience even more memorable. Recounting her time on set filming with Will, she says, “He is truly one of the funniest people I have ever met in all of my 14 years. He’s super kind and really humble and down to earth. He’s accomplished so much in his life but he’s still a normal person. As far as advice, I gained a lot of knowledge from watching him get into character for 10 hours to 15 hours straight, without breaking his accent, which is something that inspires me.” King Richard deals with themes of societal pressure, family dynamics, race relations and so much more, which Singleton says are all crucial themes for audiences to understand. “I would say one important theme is family. Family is everything. Throughout the movie, you see how close the Williams family really was with one another. Serena and Venus are iconic, but they didn’t do it on their own. People don’t know what Serena and Venus and the rest of the family went through behind the scenes for them to get to this point. No one knows what Richard even went through just to have his girls play safely on the tennis court. They really had to work harder than any other player that they were playing against, especially with them being Black girls in an all-white sport.” Like Serena, Singleton has a similar message for other young BIPOC women following their dreams, “If there’s something that you really love, don’t hold back... don’t let ‘no’ stop you, because being in this industry, I’ve heard ‘no’ so many times, but if I let that stop me, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Just keep going and try your best to tune out any of the negative things that you hear.” Suffice to say, Singleton has been following her own advice. Outside of acting, the multi-hyphenated actor continues to stretch her legs and express her Honduran and Dominican roots through other creative outlets, “I try to infuse my culture in my work. Over quarantine, I’ve been working on an EP and some music that I would like to get out by early-to-mid next year. In the music you’ll hear some Dominican inspirations. Outside of music, I think that I would like to branch out to producing and hopefully directing. Especially to create stories that are by Black authors and that have a really strong and powerful message. I think those are the types of stories that the world needs to see.”
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COMMUNITY ART CULTURE
HYDE PARK CHICAGO
Altman Siegel, San Francisco, CA Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA Berggruen Gallery / Alexander Berggruen, San Francisco, CA Blum & Poe, Los Angeles, CA Crown Point Press, San Francisco, CA CULT Aimee Friberg Exhibitions, San Francisco, CA David Gill Gallery, London, UK David Zwirner, New York, NY Demisch Danant, New York, NY Fergus McCaffrey, New York, NY Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA Friends Indeed Gallery, San Francisco, CA Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, France Gallery FUMI, London, UK Gladstone Gallery, New York, NY
JANUARY 20-23, 2022 FORT MASON CENTER fogfair.com
Haines Gallery, San Francisco, CA Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles, CA Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA Hostler Burrows, New York, NY
January 19, 2022 Preview Gala Benefiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
James Cohan, New York, NY Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, CA KARMA, New York, NY Kasmin Gallery, New York, NY kurimanzutto, Mexico City, Mexico Lebreton, San Francisco, CA Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY Magen H Gallery, New York, NY Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, NY Matthew Marks Gallery, New York, NY Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, NY Nathalie Karg Gallery, New York, NY Nina Johnson, Miami, FL Pace Gallery, New York, NY Patrick Parrish Gallery, New York, NY pt. 2 Gallery, Oakland, CA R & Company, New York, NY Ratio 3, San Francisco, CA Rebecca Camacho Presents, San Francisco, CA Reform and the Landing Gallery, Los Angeles, CA RYAN LEE, New York, NY Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London, UK Talwar Gallery, New York, NY Tina Kim Gallery, New York, NY White Cube, London, UK
Miami’s Visual Arts Awards
Congratulations 2021 Winners!
Creator Award Winners
The Michael Richards Award
Stephen Arboite Juan Barquin Elysa D. Batista Cristine Brache Karla Caprali Raymel Casamayor Leo Castañeda Dimitry Chamy Abhi Chatterjee-Dutt Alberto Checa william cordova Morel Doucet Carlos Estevez Diana Eusebio Naomi Fisher Colin Foord Chris Friday Gabriela Gamboa Jessica Gispert Cooper Jacoby Regina Jestrow
Carl Juste Karla Kantorovich Andrea Nones Kobiakov Summer Jade Leavitt Monica Lopez De Victoria Arsimmer McCoy Anthony Mendez Ruben Millares Aurora Molina Samuel Murrain Edison Peñafiel Sandra Ramos Lorenzo Jamila Rowser Donna Ruff Steve Saiz Gabriela Serra Anita Sharma Juliana Tafur Roscoè B. Thické III Miguel Yurrita
César Trasobares Social Justice Award Loni Johnson Teacher Travel Grants Ania Moussawel Maria Lezcano Rebeca Quiroga
Presented by:
More information at TheEllies.org Image: César Trasobares, Museum of American Democratic Art: Tumbling Chairs, 1994. Installation at Center for the Fine Arts, Miami.
fernandowongold.com
December 2 – 4, 2021
Photograph taken by Mateo Garcia / Belle & Company Franz Ackermann, About Sand, 2018, City of Miami Beach Art in Public Places
Image courtesy of the de la Cruz Collection. Pictured: "Untitled",1995 Billboard Dimensions vary with installation © Felix Gonzalez-Torres, courtesy of the Felix Gonzalez-Torres Foundation.
There is Always One Direction 2021 - 2022 Exhibition
Harumi Abe | Carlos Alfonzo | Kathryn Andrews | Tauba Auerbach | Hernan Bas | Walead Beshty Mark Bradford | Joe Bradley | Agustín Cárdenas | Dan Colen | Martin Creed | Aaron Curry Salvador Dalí | Peter Doig | Kaye Donachie | Tomm El-Saieh | Isa Genzken Felix Gonzalez-Torres | Mark Grotjahn | Jennifer Guidi | Wade Guyton | Guyton\Walker Rachel Harrison | Arturo Herera | Jim Hodges | Thomas Houseago | Shara Hughes | Alex Israel Israel/Smith | Rashid Johnson | Alex Katz | Martin Kippenberger | Wifredo Lam | Glenn Ligon Michael Linares | Nate Lowman | Adam McEwen | Ana Mendieta | Murjoni Merriweather Sarah Morris | Njaimeh Njie | Albert Oehlen | Paulina Olowska | Gabriel Orozco | Laura Owens Jorge Pardo | Seth Price | Rob Pruitt | Christina Quarles | Sterling Ruby | George Sánchez-Calderón Xaviera Simmons | Dana Schutz | Josh Smith | Vaughn Spann | Reena Spaulings | Rudolf Stingel Su Su | Ilona Szwarc | Rufino Tamayo | Kyle Thurman | Cosima von Bonin | Kelley Walker Elizabeth M. Webb | Jonas Wood | Christopher Wool | Yesiyu Zhao 44th Street
Admission Free.
NE 42nd Street
23 NE 41 Street NE 41st Street
NE 1st Ave
9:00AM - 4:30PM
42nd Street
N. Miami Ave
Art Basel Miami Beach 2021: Tues. Nov. 30th - Sat. Dec. 4th
NE 43rd Street
de la Cruz Collection
23 NE 41 Street | Miami, Fl 33137 Miami Design District | 305.576.6112 www.delacruzcollection.org
1 1 .29.2021
This is the 6th Annual Young Artists List and What Have We Learned? The Pop Artist and the Pop Star: Alex Israel Talks to Finneas Artists Model the Latest Menswear Collection From Louis Vuitton Hasan Minhaj is Building with Light Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata Talk BBW An Icon Revisited: Dior’s Storied Medallion Chair Changes Shape
culturedmag.com 151
This Is the Sixth Annual Young Artists List, and What Have We Learned? 152
by Henry Dexter, Kat Herriman, Tiana Reid and Simon Wu
Youth,
like art, is a mindset, not an age. The handpicked individuals that follow radiate with the energy of potential. We believe that in the next year they will all show us just what they are capable of, both inside institutions and beyond. If this annual feature has taught us anything, it is that when you invest in telling origin stories, the future opens up.
Photographs by Aubrey Mayer
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Elliot Reed, more on page 168.
The world turns for Tourmaline. Drawing from two decades of organizing and activism, her artistic practice is rooted in envisioning a counter-history for Black trans communities. Lately, she’s been working on three main projects: a biography of Marsha P. Johnson in collaboration with her sibling, Che Gossett, premiering a film at the Brooklyn Museum as an extension of her Pleasure Garden project and designing a swimwear line for Chromat, with a runway show at Riis Beach. She ascribes the expansion of her practice to all the generous teachers that have shown her kind mentorship. “There’s so much pollen in the world,” she tells me. Tourmaline moved to New York in 2002. She grew up Catholic in Boston, where she became
accustomed to the ritual of religion, but for the in the 1830s. The film is set in Seneca Village, a last 20 years has practiced astrology avidly in- free, Black, land-owning community that was stead. A friend called her “such a Cancer”—it destroyed for the development of Central Park. led her to learn more about herself in a way that Part of Tourmaline’s project is to make evident that which has already or has always existed: “I she didn’t have access to before. ref lect back through my work the beauty and Much of her practice hinges on the term “critical ease and power and joy of my community,” she fabulation,” from the scholar Saidiya Hartman. tells me, “and it has an effect on me, the maker. It refers to the violences that an archive can And that effect is that it makes me remember, enact on marginalized communities (to exist to remember who we really are.” This sense of as nothing more than a mark in a ledger) but gauzy, elliptical time pervades all of her work. also the power that rewriting those stories can I asked her what dreams she has been having have on our lived experience today. In Salacia lately. She gave me five: to do a residency in (2019), Tourmaline’s film at the center of her 2021 exhibition “Pleasure Garden” at Chapter space, to make a film, to buy a Lamborghini NY, she focuses on the life of Mary Jones, a and cover it in “slutty” little f lowers, to get Black, trans sex worker who lived in New York more rest and to have more fun. SW
Time's Ellipsis, Tourmaline
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Tourmaline poses with racks of costumes from a recent film work, during a residency in the Financial District.
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Flower Warriors, Sean-Kierre Lyons The title of Sean-Kierre Lyons’s first solo exhibition show at Larrie, a gallery in New York City, carried a vernacular affirmative. “Mmhhmm” featured sewn plushies, reminiscent of psychedelic yet deranged children’s toys, that riff on various tropes, stereotypes and minstrel characters from Black folklore and the Antebellum South. The title, like much of their work, denotes not quite agreement or approval but rather sarcasm, play and a little bit of venom. In Lyons’s practice, the cute and the cuddly are pulled to extremes; they’re double-edged swords, ways to display the horrors of the racialized history of animation. Lyons, who was born in Salinas, California, and raised in Brooklyn, where they live now, is self-taught. As a child, they drew cartoons and animals. “I honestly didn’t really think of art as a career,” they tell me, zooming from NYC with their dog Pulpouri. “I didn’t think of it as anything other than just kind of enjoying myself.” That kind of dewy-eyed fantasy remains something of a touchstone in their art today. In 2020, they had a solo exhibition of drawings at Fortnight Institute, “In Battle Petals Fall”, featuring their color-penciled “f lower warriors,” bright and whimsical blackface figures with petals for hair, leaves for hands and machetes and jump ropes as accessories. “The work that I’m making now is just literally bringing dreams that were made or I had last year, but in a more tangible way,” they say. In other words, the f lower warriors are coming to life. While working in drawing, performance art, textiles, painting, drawing and sculpture, Lyons lives in dreams. “I feel like all of the drawings and like all of the world that I’ve been building is just like a dream. It’s like consciousness.” When I ask them about what surprises them about their work lately, they def lect into life itself. Life as art. Life as surprise: “The best surprises aren’t actually in the work—I mean, it’s still making the work— but the best surprises have been these like intense moments of observation that I feel like I’ve been having lately,” they explain contemplatively. “The other day, I sat and I stared at a rock for like an hour. And I was enamored by it.” TR
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Sean-Kierre Lyons works on a painting bound for MoMA PS1's "Greater New York 2021" show.
Kristi Cavataro holds a piece of her stained-glass sculpture close in her Bronx studio.
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Cosmic Variations, Kristi Cavataro
It was lucky that sculptor Kristi Cavataro acted on her affections for stained glass before the pandemic. By March 2020, she had already worked out how to hack the traditional technique and make it do her three-dimensional bidding. Cavataro’s living-work configuration in the South Bronx made it almost convenient to have a painstaking, math-driven process to attend to while the world shut down. The artist spent months hand-plotting, cutting, soldering and ultimately bending the will of small colorful windows to erect hieroglyphs independent of a page. Flaunting Louis Comfort Tiffany’s signature copper hand-wrapping technique for her own means, Cavataro’s forms exist in an uncanny valley where one might also find post-Soviet anti-fascist memorials and AI narratives about humanit y. A visit to Cavataro’s studio reveals the origins of her uncanny shapes. The body-sized sculptures do echo the freewheeling gestures from her ritualistic watercolor practice. The artist t ypically works in series, so when painting this means selecting a palette and running methodically (pathologically?) through its cosmic variations. Cavataro pinned a collection of them to the wall like butterf lies— they square off against a mood board of 3D shapes the artist generated using CAD (computer-aided design software). “Sometimes it feels like I need to make everything to figure out what I want to make,” Cavataro says, adding, “but once I commit I will see it through to the end.” Currently, Cavataro is wrestling with a dark-purple rib cage. I am in her medical theater and we are looking into the guts. In the fragmented frame, I see vertebrae components from the artist’s first New York solo show at Ramiken last spring being reworked. This is part of Cavataro’s obsessive algorithm: the new always recycles the old. Looking forward, Cavataro predicts glass as far as the eye can see. “Glass is so time-consuming that I have yet to try a fraction of the things I want to,” she confesses, peppering in aspirations to mix her own colors rather than adhering to the rigidity of supplier catalogs, and dreaming of blowing up her sculptures' scale. Perhaps these experiments will be ready in time for her next solo at Ramiken in 2022. If the rib cage is completed in time, it will head to MoMA PS1 this fall, where the artist is showing as the youngest member of the "Greater New York 2021" show. There are infinite possibilities ahead. KH
Means Over Ends, Alex Gvojic Alex Gvojic once posed for Cycle Source magazine, a phase he cringes at now and keeps back on a shelf stacked high with interior-design books, Hito Steyerl missives and H.R. Giger bibles. For an outsider, the motorbike fetish follows the eloquently idiosyncratic string of interests (including Japanese cars with built in Fast & Furious DVD players, DIY computers with tiki dancers inside them and music videos) the artist is constantly adding to. He epitomizes the advanced amateur, a quality he thinks he picked up from his mother. Gvojic’s prowess for dabbling is ultimately responsible for his expertise. If you follow art or fashion, chances are you’ve encountered Gvojic (whether you saw his time-skipping Mugler runway video with Bella Hadid and Eartheater stomping in windowed catsuits or made it to the 2018 Venice Biennale and holed up in his snug, jungle theater in the Arsenale—a cinematic collaboration with longtime creative partner Korakrit Arunanondchai). If you work in either industry, you are no doubt indebted to him. His practice is a social one that manifests in being known throughout the downtown lands as a fixer, a guardian angel, a dream-maker-come-true-er. If someone is looking for a hyper-specific effect, mood, vibe, he can divine the recipe, and gobs of ambitious special effects will be invoked for pleasure. For Gvojic, in addition to providing the scaffolding of why, collaboration constitutes the means, payout and process. Ends like footage and sculpture are happy remains. Last week, he dropped everything and went to shoot a campaign video with Meriem Bennani for Miu Miu. “It was my first time working with Meriem,” he tells me, now recovering in New York. “It was shocking how amazing she was to work with. The thing I like about working with other people is you can embrace polar opposites, and then you have to figure out how to make it work in these situations with different personalities, styles and parameters.” Gvojic and Bennani have a date for future filming in Morocco on the books; I envision them on a pair of motorcycles, ripping through the desert accompanied by animations sailing like Tinkerbell familiars alongside Peter Pan ambitions into the sunset. Despite being so visible to his peers, Gvojic’s relationship to the fine arts is irregular—his name often appearing on intro slides as environment designer or director of photography—but that hasn’t stopped his work from being at the center of institutional dialogue over the past decade, often in collaboration with Arunanondchai. Together they’ve shown at almost every major global institution, including the Palais de Tokyo in France, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing and MoMA (not to mention all the biennials). Their latest opened only a few weeks before we spoke at the Kunsthalle in Zürich. “It was comforting to see everything turned back on,” Gvojic tells me. “I live between the ridiculousness of so many different worlds, and this was the first time that it felt like those engines were going again.” His next few days, though, will be dedicated to something more personal—a documentary of sorts he has been making on his dad, and that I’ll be waiting on the edge of my seat to see. KH
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Alex Gvojic begrudgingly shows us his souped-up ride in New York's financial district.
Emily Segal turns her attention to film at home in her adopted Los Angeles.
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“[B]eing an artist in any setting is just code for having an alternate value system. Being in, but not of,” writes the narrator of Emily Segal’s 2020 novel Mercury Retrograde. Born in New York City and now based in Los Angeles, Segal, who is an artist, writer and trend forecaster, shares many similarities with her autofictional protagonist. Both were involved with an art collective and consultancy called K-HOLE (yes, the one that coined the viral term “normcore”). Both worked for a start-up with a bizarre corporate culture (in 2014, Segal was the first creative director of Genius). More important than any factual connection, though, is a ref lective sense of undecidability or ambivalence or constant questioning of all the various fields in which one works. “There are all these moments in the book where there is this question of: is this art, is this commerce, is this power play or is this just idiosyncrasy, is it delusion, etc.” Segal says over the phone. Set thick in the middle of the commercial, brand strategy, luxury and art worlds, the book has a distant, an outsiderish quality. “My role as a trend forecaster is always something that I took with a grain of salt or with scare quotes around it, because it is fundamentally a ridiculous job title,” she says. The “real” Segal co-founded the consultancy Nemesis with Martti Kalliala (half of electronica duo Amnesia Scanner) in 2017. In 2020, during lockdown, she started, with friends Hannah Baer and Cyrus Simonoff, Deluge Books, a queer literary press that put out her book, along with Black Venus Fly Trap, a collection of poems by Jeanetta Rich. She is currently at work on Burn Alpha, “a homoerotic private-school thriller,” which she crypto-crowdfunded using Mirror, a blockchain-based publishing platform. “I always thought of myself as an artist primarily,” she says. “To me, being an artist represented the most freedom that one could possibly have.” TR
Emissary for the Unseen, April Bey I first encountered April Bey’s work in an exhibition at the California African American Art Museum, where a generous and inventive installation of her richly colored collages made from artificial fur, digitally woven tapestries and figures painted in watercolor and highlighted with glitter introduce Atlantica, a mythological planet the artist establishes herself as an alien emissary for. The aesthetics and construction of Bey’s canvases recall the ecstatic costumes and f loats of Junkanoo, a Bahamian street parade that takes place on New Year’s Day and sees the real-world detritus of the prior year given new life as the otherworldly visages of magical avatars. Bey, who grew up in the Bahamas on the island of New Providence, has been dreaming of Atlantica since, as a young girl, she began to ask her father some very basic questions about the world around her. Bey wanted to understand “Why she looked more like her father, who is Black, than her mother, who is white?” Why their hair stood up, and hers didn’t? Bey’s father was a “science-fiction nerd,” and, sensing that his young daughter didn’t have the vocabulary to understand the nuances of race and colonization, he put their situation in terms he thought she would understand. The two of them were aliens, sent down from another planet to observe and eventually report back on what was happening on Earth. Thus Atlantica was born. The vividness with which we feel this fictive world when in the presence of Bey’s work is a testament not just to the rigor of the artist’s imagination but also to the power of narrative as a force. When she talks about Atlantica, Bey references how the story became a way to cope with a reality too brutal to accept on its own terms, but it also exists as a cipher, through which the often hidden strangeness of existing in a colonial context finds expression. For one, Atlantica was a way to make sense of the violence of the tourist economy much of the Bahamas remains entirely dependent on. Now Bey lives in Los Angeles. There she keeps a studio downtown and teaches at Glendale Community College, a public institution where Bey says she feels lucky to have the opportunity to have classes primarily composed of BIPOC students from immigrant backgrounds, like she once had been, the kind of young people who might too come to see themselves as Atlantican emissaries. HD
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April Bey shows us her work table in LA.
Florian Krewer stands with a freshly painted canvas in his Bronx studio.
Occasional Tiger Intervention, Florian Krewer 161
Perched above the industrial no man’s land of Hunts Point, Florian Krewer’s South Bronx studio favors bike and car owners. If you drive, you don’t have to carry your wheels up six f lights of stairs, as the German painter does daily. However you arrive at the top, the view is worth it. Through a smudged picture hole all of New York is framed. You can catch your breath leaning here, or in a La-Z-Boy which is about the only island of safety in a highly f lammable sea of Francis Bacon shudders. There are buckets of oil paint crusting over in eye-biting hues, cigarette cartons, plastic trays, a splattered fan, paintbrushes retrofitted into witch's brooms, a huddle of ladders and studio clothes left for dead. Krewer cleaned before our arrival. Oil paint and rabbit glue tint the air. The wettest looking composition depicts a shadowy figure, stretching at least four feet, f lanked by a colony of bats. The other canvases, which all dwarf me, are painted matte black for now, with primitive etchings of animal-spiked erotica. Krewer apologizes for the relative bareness. A shipment of paintings bound for Michael Werner’s London gallery left recently. This is Krewer’s fourth show with the gallery and the final installment in a trilogy of cascading projects that started in the spring ,with a two-pronged exhibition with Michael Werner and Tramps, then transitioned to a Fall/Winter 2021 collaboration with Loewe’s Jonathan Anderson, where Krewer’s figures navigating urban landscapes were juxtaposed with photos by nineties fashion scene-maker David Sims. I wonder if the more explicit compositions for Michael Werner’s London space would make the leap to the runway as deftly. In the show, Krewer leaves behind his figures in urban landscapes in favor of something more explicit: full-frontal sex acts with the occasional tiger intervention. “While the New York show was much more about the outdoors and city, these new works are intimate portraits of my friends and what I consider my adopted family,” Krewer says. “I don’t need to skirt around what interests me, or embellish a topic. I like to strip it down and confront the subject. I think you can feel that.” This tendency towards head-on collision is what makes Krewer’s practice so enticingly visceral. There is very little padding between the artist’s hand, life and the audience, allowing for a type of viewing that is atypical to painting’s inside-baseball twang. “I get up early in the day and head right to the studio after just a glass of water. This way my mind is clear and the impressions of the night are razor sharp and untainted,” Krewer confesses. “I then get to work through these experiences and emotions that come with it. I usually work for hours on end.” KH
How Did We Get Here? Bri Williams Hauntingly numinous and disarmingly modest, Bri Williams’s sculptures, made mostly from found materials, clothes, jewelry, discarded furniture and the tiny carcasses of small birds, all submerged or slathered in soap, hint at the poetics of their construction and their circumstance. In her work, these objects, themselves often saturated if not sodden with excess real and symbolic significance, appear suspended in the glycerin-soap medium like scientific specimens. Over the course of the sculpture’s life, the color slowly begins to seep out of the encased object and into the soap, forming a darker, milky haze around the artifact something like a placenta. In her recent exhibition at the Kunsthaus Glarus, “Angel Abra,” which was curated by the conceptual artist Puppies Puppies (Jade KurikiOlivo), Williams presented three decapitated carousel horses, titled Medusa (2018). The work uses the figure of the mythological Gorgon to discuss the over-sexualization, rape and monstrosities Black women are often subjected to. Throughout her practice, private personal narratives are entangled with critical interjections into the history of racial violence, yielding a deeply psychological dissection of the brutal and hidden ways its logic and effects pervade daily life. “There are no secrets about what is happening anymore,” Williams says, “so how did we get here?” It’s not an easy question to answer or even to sit with for too long. In an upcoming exhibition at Progetto, an artist-run space in Southern Italy, Williams tells me she plans to look to medieval torture devices and tarantism for inspiration and “to create objects around their vernacular.” Tarantism is a curious illness apparently common in the region from the 15th to the 17th century, a form of hysteria whose primary symptom was an extreme impulse to dance that was widely believed to have been caused by the bite of a tarantula. One finds the artist searching for historical antecedents to our present moment, tracing domination and cruelty through dark-ages punishment devices, the psychic violence of racialization through a classical Greek monster, and a distinctly contemporary kind of delusion, not unlike Havana syndrome, back to the cradle of madness itself: Western Europe. Williams received her MFA at Mills College in Chicago before returning to Los Angeles, where she now lives and works. While in Chicago, Williams met the artist and poet Diamond Stingily, who later included her work in a 2017 show she did at Ramiken Crucible’s Downtown LA space. In that exhibition, Williams showed handmade childhood dolls in disturbing stress positions, lying prone or facing into the wall. The figures' straightforward articulations of raw emotion are not unrelated to the meditative material processes that Williams herself employs, such as “carving and burning into wood, heating soap, drawing and even reading and researching,” which have become automatic ways of registering psychic disturbance or activity for the artist. Williams’s work then explores these visual externalizations of interior turmoil, examining the records for the imprints of the subconscious, the tangible structure of language, or otherwise incommunicable moments of trauma. HD
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Bri Williams lights up a sculpture in her LA studio.
Sula Bermúdez-Silverman wields two webbed-hand sculptures in her LA studio.
The Artificiality of Colonial Categories, Sula BermúdezSilverman
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Trained first as a textile artist, Los Angeles native Sula Bermúdez-Silverman has, for the better part of the past two years, found herself working primarily in sugar, that sweet disaccharide through which, it has been said, one could read the entire history of the new world. Bermúdez-Silverman’s conceptually driven practice begins in extensive research, the diverse threads of which are then woven together, taking on distinct material identities in the process. Fascinated by the Age of Exploration, she melts down sugar, often on a hot plate in her downtown studio, before casting it into the panels of dollhouses, their miniature casements or the appendages of canonical movie monsters as a way to gesture at the global networks of trade and domination that were set up to facilitate the extracted commodity’s safe passage between the colonies and Western imperial centers. In her exhibitions, sugar is often presented alongside glass and sand, which function like physical homonyms disorienting perception and fixity. For her graduate thesis at the Yale School of Art, Bermúdez-Silverman made two tables that joined at the center, one for each of her grandmothers. She has both Afro-Caribbean and Jewish heritage. In addition to a litany of objects that represent or in some way stand in for the religious and cultural traditions of her ancestors, the dense installation also features a video of the artist having her hair done by Rachel Dolezal, a white woman who worked at the NA ACP and notoriously rose to national prominence after it came to light that she was masquerading as Black. BermúdezSilverman tells me that her interest in Dolezal as a cultural figure and as a very real individual began when she found herself hesitant or unable to pass firm judgment on what she thought of her. The video, which shows only 13 minutes of the hours-long encounter between the two and is presented without sound, pulses with tension and indeterminacy. What is perhaps most impressive is that while in description the artist’s work might sound entirely dependent on the references that it weaves through, in reality, without having to know who Dolezal is or that BermúdezSilverman is biracial, the video somehow formally communicates the unease of identity and identification. Best known for her ghostly, glazed dollhouses, which have been the centerpiece of exhibitions at the California African American Art Museum and Murmurs in LA and Josh Lilley in London, BermúdezSilverman’s work is dense but remains conceptually nimble and supple as it lurches across history to demonstrate the artificiality of colonial categories. HD
Sondra Perry stands in her Newark, New Jersey, storefront studio, which formerly was a hair salon.
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Sondra Perry, one of the most incisive explor- Speaking to her, I get the feeling of some- is something she grapples with daily. People ers of the technologies that frame our under- one moving closer to that which feels vital, like her mom and her aunts are the people she standing of race, identity and the body today, urgent to her, even if it means letting other hopes to work with primarily in her psychoanis reconsidering what is most urgent in her things, like art, take a backseat for a little alytic practice. life. Over the last several years, she’s had sev- while. Psychoanalysis is also a way to focus She has been trying to put some of this theory eral solo shows, including at the ICA Miami, on the Marxist themes already latent within into practice in her own life too, realizing she The Kitchen, MOCA Cleveland and the her work—the ways that capital warps the psy- maybe doesn’t want the type of artist's career Serpentine Galleries in the UK. Her work has che, particularly as it relates to labor, the body where she has to “employ a bunch of people.” been collected by the Museum of Modern Art, and nature. I’ve always admired her work for So she’s taking it day by day. She’s grateful. the Whitney Museum of American Art and the way that it bridges ecological and techno- She’s teaching at Yale, working on a project the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. But I logical discourses, “embedding the technolog- for Rolls-Royce and a long-term research don’t think this is what really matters to her. ical into the earth and the body,” as she says. project inspired by Kathryn Yusoff ’s A Billion “I’m going back to school for psychoanalytic And it’s personal. She grew up working-class. Black Anthropocenes or None, which she recomtraining,” she says. “Since the pandemic my The experience of class alienation (“I went mends everyone reads. That’s it, for now, and priorities have shifted. I’m happy to be alive.” to Columbia! I’m the petit bourgeois now!”) that’s enough. SW
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Upending the Archive, Rafael Domenech Rafael Domenech has immense clarity of concept. He prefers to call his works “publications” rather than sculptures. Exhibitions are “about developing a visual essay, rather than objects f loating around.” Moving through his show should feel like moving through a city. Language “has to take a much more architectural position, rather than a descriptive position.” He feels more comfortable saying, “I do what I do” rather than, “I’m an artist.” “I try to use the art platform as an oblique perspective on life,” he says on Zoom from New York City, the day he’s heading to Berlin for a project at Hua International. Born in Havana, Cuba, Domenech speaks in long paragraphs—about urbanism, literature, architecture, hierarchies, the Western canon—moving organically from one thought to the next. Much like his work. “When I think about shows, I don’t think about art necessarily,” he says. “I think about developing methodologies. I’m not interested necessarily just in what an artwork says or is. Artwork for me is an object that’s not the conclusion, but a pause time of a conversation with these ideas that translated into the material world.” Lively conversationalism—exchange, relation, drama, surprise—pervades his work. A devoted reader of concrete poetry, Domenech assigns poetic titles to works that attempt to provoke engagement. Take The plastic river has no corners (2021), a sculpture made with plywood, plexiglass, glue, vinyl, construction mesh and other materials. It looks like a book with a well-cracked spine but has a safety-orange extension cord weaving through circular and oval holes. The title itself extends, obscures and disrupts rather than clarifies the object itself. “When I title works, I always try to put a title that can point away from the work. It drags that work with you, but it also points somewhere else,” he says. “You know, it adds another image on top of the image.” TR
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Rafael Domenech blends into his busy work space within a larger Yonkers studio complex he helps run.
DeSe Escobar with Serenity in hand. Painting by Julian Rebeiro.
Let the Good Vibes Roll, DeSe Escobar
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I think I first caught a glimpse of DeSe in 2018, as she shimmered on the other side of a dance floor coddled in something sleek and silky. Her bag hung off the V of her upturned arm. A Britney Spears trance remix. She seemed to warp the air around her, like asphalt in the summer. Club Glam, DeSe Escobar’s party at China Chalet filled with young creatives, was open to anyone—gay, straight, queer, trans—so long as you did your best to be glamourous. Before that I knew her as @1inamilli0nangel on Instagram and I’d read about her as an “AltKardashian” in The New York Times. DeSe studied fashion design at Otis College of Art and Design in California, and moved to New York in 2010. Working an underpaid and overworked fashion job, she started immersing herself in nightlife and drawing during the day. By 2015, she had found her chosen family, the House of Ladosha, and they helped her start Club Glam. Nightlife—as performance, as care, as community—informs much of her artistic practice. For her contribution to the 2021 group show “It’s Much Louder Than Before” at Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles she showed a sculpture—a light-green cape dress she’d worn when hosting a rave in Bushwick, with the train lifted up like wings. “There was a huge snowstorm that day. The cape got all wet. And someone spilled wine on me. I left it like that,” she tells me. Her work is often collaborative, something of experimental theater, performance and conceptual art. For a 2019 solo show at FRAGILE in Berlin, “More in the Morning,” she installed an “LA Airbnb” in the gallery, complete with a bed, a full tub and a living room. The show led the viewer through a narrative of a group of six girls getting ready for a night out. The opening became an after-party and a performance as her friends arrived. DeSe ascribes some of her natural party-hosting abilities to growing up in a big Filipino family in California. “On weekends my aunties would set up banks of tables outside and play mahjong until six in the morning,” she says. “There was always this vibe of getting together and catering to a community. So at parties I’m always making sure there’s a good vibe, that it’s safe.” Since the pandemic she’s started to host Glam Nites at the Jane, an evolution of Club Glam, and is exploring an archive of clothing and designers she admires. When we signed off I figured I’d see her soon, perhaps somewhere dark and dancy. SW
Without a Beginning and an End, Elliot Reed Artist and director Elliot Reed’s website and Instagram is his name followed by the word “laboratory” or “labs.” Labs are for experimenting and researching—and playing. Reed’s background is music (he used to have a solo electronic music project) and his grandmother certainly knew how to play: “My grandmother was a church organist growing up, which was really impressive to me as a kid. I remember she’d always leave in the middle of service to go play a giant pipe organ,” they tell me. “She would play the hymns and stuff on this huge, hundred-yearold thing. She taught me how to play piano when I was really young.” Reed was born in Milwaukee and lives in New York City, where their practice includes video, sculpture, choreography, installation and performance. Just as he feels that his experience with his grandmother’s craft began before she even got out of her seat, his recent work has expanded the timeline of performance. “My desire to do more elaborate things on stage and for an audience took me further and further away from instruments and more into experimenting with different kinds of live art making.” His exhibition “Three Works” at OCDChinatown is also considered performance, in a broad sense: without a beginning and an end, without a performer, without a stage, without a script. Creativity under conditions of constraint took a sharp turn in 2020. As part of “This Longing Vessel: Studio Museum: Artists in Residence 2019–20,” presented at MoMA PS1, Reed showed Duets, four livestreamed performances that took the requirements of public-health guidelines as a “formal challenge,” a far cry from their regular work, which tends to involve people gathering together at bars or museums or galleries. “We were doing live mixing of the video that was going to the stream. So there’s this double spectacle happening,” he ref lects on the process. “That question or play, figuring out how to aestheticize the livestream or how to add another layer of artfulness and creativity to something that could have been a restriction—all while acknowledging the bounds of the form—was interesting to me.” TR
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Elliot Reed obliges the camera by filling his mostly vacant Brooklyn studio with movement and cowbell.
Julien Ceccaldi gives his mannequin sculpture a piggyback as he installs his 2021 Lomex exhibition.
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The pleasure principle applies to basic needs and urges, but what about the desires that aren’t so necessary? At Julien Ceccaldi’s “Centuries Old,” a double-headed solo show hosted by Jenny’s and Lomex in New York this fall, the artist delved into the satanic impulses he encourages through two female characters lifted from his decade-old illustrated series. Their cute, anime-inf lected likenesses spread across the two downtown spaces in various postures, sometimes dressed in Ceccaldi’s clothes, and make their way through French writer Joris-Karl Huysmans’s Là-Bas (1891), an autobiographical novel about finding oneself in the rediscovery of the occult. “So many of the things people associate with the devil are the things I like to do,” Ceccaldi says, brushing the snarls out of a princess wig and standing near a stained-glass triptych depicting a girl elated with a new purchase. “I wanted to make a show about pleasure with no judgment and what that would look like.” While theatrical in its allegiance to costumes and sets and, perhaps more importantly, the shopping they require, Ceccaldi’s exhibition forwent any narrative, operating more like a tool for stretching out the personas of his drawn heroines. The artist’s comic books (he’s on his seventh) are where the storytelling happens. The exhibition space is saved for more athletic experimentation. I imagine Ceccaldi after dusk, alone in the gallery wrestling nineties nostalgia onto handmade skeletons—a scene from a CEO-retreat, character-building nightmare with Oskar Kokoschka dolly psychosis undertones. Some of the cottagecore, downtown grunge, mall-nostalgic idlers at the opening of “Centuries Old” matched the mannequins Ceccaldi had dressed. This blush of realness lent a humor to the show that made it feel like everyone (dolls included) was in on the joke. Some of the screen printed hoodies that the sculptures wore also made their way into the crowd, further blurring the punchline. Wearing mine onto an airplane, I got told to take it off. That the bob-haired centipedes running down its front were too much for f light, or at least this particular attendant. I asked if it helped that they were wearing Blair Waldorf-inspired headbands? She shook her head solemnly. Apparently the devil can wear Brandy Melville but she can’t go to Los Angeles. This is the magic of the work, that it conjures visceral reactions even in its play. More tricks are coming; Ceccaldi is already on his iPad assembling the beginnings of what will be the next book. The topics have changed since his first comics collection, where great outfits couldn’t protect even the most heroic amongst us from being ghosted or our hangovers. “When I was younger I focused on the club because I felt that is where I always was, but I couldn’t find the depictions to prove it,” Ceccaldi says. “Nowadays things are different. I’m different.” KH
Everywhere There Is Splendor, Farah Al Qasimi “I think the highest form of art is a children’s TV show,” Farah tells me, from her live-work studio in Bedstuy. “So much has to be uncovered, so delicately.” This makes sense considering her photographs: lush, colorful, off-center images that approach the world with a childlike curiosity and a theorist’s tact. I first met Farah when I invited her to do an artist talk at the Brooklyn Museum. Then, in 2018, just a year out of her MFA at Yale, she had already had two solo shows at her Dubai gallery, The Third Line, and a particularly buzzy one in New York at Helena Anrather. And the buzz was well deserved. In “More Good News”, Farah’s photographs made the hypermasculinity of the US and the UAE look weird, even sort of cute. In a work like Nose Greeting (2016) we see two men huddled closely together, their noses almost touching—a common greeting made tender, almost erotic. Since then, she’s made videos inspired by horror films and produced major commissions at the MIT List Visual Arts Center and Art Basel. In "Back and Forth Disco," her recent Public Art Commission for MTA bus stations, she turned her eye towards the immigrant-centered spaces of New York City, showing us bodega chandeliers, nail salons and Chinese markets. I find myself drawn to her photographs for their visual splendor, but I stay for their examination of class aspirationalism. “I want to democratize taste; it’s important to me that my photographs are legible in some way to someone not in the art world,” Qasimi tells me, when I mention that my parents, immigrants from Burma, might also recognize the interiors and finishes of her images. Perhaps she finds them both beautiful and troubling, as I do. And Farah is also an accomplished musician—a classically trained pianist and band rat. This sense of improvisation and rhythm ripples in many of her images. “The pandemic changed what I thought about the role of the artist in society,” she says. “I started asking, ‘What does it mean to be someone who can make things?’” With the artist Meriem Bennani, she most recently organized Prints for Palestine, raising over $5,000. She learned how to sew. This ethos—of an artist embedded in her social worlds, be it New York or the UAE, working to observe and challenge its fabrics— has only become more prominent in her newer work, which mines her family’s immigration history from Lebanon to the US in the fifties. The show, which opens this fall at CAM in St. Louis, couldn’t have a more apt name—for the work, and for her practice more generally: “Everywhere there is splendor.” SW
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Farah Al Qasimi poses with her 4x5 camera, designed by Standard Cameras, and Cleo, her dog.
Brandon Ndife at work on pieces bound for the New Museum’s 2021 Triennial.
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Brandon Ndife officially broke up with painting more than a decade ago, but they still f lirt. The sculptures that the Ohio-born, New Yorkbased artist phased into bear the marks of oil’s licks but without all the canvas fuss. Instead, recent works use ready-made containers of domestic life like cabinetry, desks and shelves as the foundation for rowdy new amalgams that push familiar signifiers of comfort and order into uncategorizable entropy. At “MY ZONE,” Ndife’s solo debut at Bureau gallery in March 2020, the silhouettes of a sconce, a door and a side table, altered by polyurethane foam, corn husk and aqua resin excrescences, arrived barely recognizable as themselves. Abetted by the institutional lighting, the tableaux invoked the image of an examiner reconstituting an accident in their studio for further study, poring over the hand-painted wreckage. If these homey leftovers were once completely scorched by disaster, here they were presented in recovery, in fungal rebound. Ndife imitates the creeping tendrils of new life with abstract-expressive gestures and various plastics, and his painterly handiwork and precise coloring have been described as verging on trompe l’oeil illusion. “I tend to enjoy accessible material, so perhaps [my work] is like trompe l’oeil in the way these operate as portals that get us thinking about objects that are larger than our systems, that are larger than ourselves,” Ndife says. He adds, “But I’m never trying to make a smoke screen. It is very much a hand-applied process, any texture you see is what it is. It’s not trying to conceal itself. Why I tend to use raw materials is because they become activators for conversations, and all lesser kinds of considerations like ‘What are we looking at?’ fall aside.” In Ndife’s work, the emotional plane takes precedence over the laboriousness of aesthetic execution. The sculptor is a generous host who embraces the medium’s capacity for creating bridges of familiarity even in alien contexts. This fall, the artist lavished final f lourishes on a set of new works that push the scale from the semi-contained chaos of Tetsumi Kudō birdcages to the more threateningly life-sized gestures of Robert Gober and Louise Bourgeois cells (all of whom are touchstones for Ndife). Luckily for the shippers, Ndife and us, these menacingly beautiful pieces wouldn’t have to travel far to their next destination: the New Museum Triennial. “I’m always making last-minute changes,” Ndife admits, still in the period of adjustments. “The works are organically evolving all the time, not just to suit the spaces they inhabit.” The ambiguity of whether these advancements are the material’s or Ndife’s gets to the line of reasoning the artist has been pushing us towards, where substitutes can be main characters and destruction can be progress; his own future holds several institutional shows that are for now, like his aims, under wraps. KH
Psychoactive Frescoes, Matt Copson Matt Copson’s Coming of Age trilogy of operatic animations are each titled with a different permutation of those same three words: “coming," “age” and “of.” They follow an adorably cartoonish baby beginning to make sense of the world around him and himself as he comes, sometimes bluntly, into contact with the surrounding reality. The idea for the series first began to germinate in Copson’s mind when, on a trip to Italy, he was struck by the sheer number of bambinos to be found in the paintings and frescoes of the Renaissance. Once a central figure in art, children have become increasingly rare as subject matter in the centuries since, raising the question “Where have all the babies gone?” In a culture so hysterically dedicated to youth, and in an age marked by social and technological forces of infantilization, why has the purest symbol of natality, of birth and its infinite possibilities, all but disappeared from the images we make of ourselves? Copson’s animations fall, like much of his older work, somewhere between fables and deadpan comedy, using fantastical beings to communicate basic truths about human experience. Scored by his longtime collaborator and partner, the musician Caroline Polachek, the simple line animation is projected using the same laser machines that pulse beams of electric light into crowded concerts and clubs. Last year’s exhibition “Coming of Age” found its ideal audience in the huddled masses of teenagers who f locked to High Art in Paris, where the work was shown, to make TikToks against the backdrop of Copson’s psychoactive frescoes, posting thousands of videos from the space; the virality of content rubbing up against the natality of the newborn. The craze that these untidy images and the ideas behind them induced in Parisian Gen Zers speaks, consciously or not, to the relevance of Copson’s investigation of our cultural acceptance of a foreclosed-upon future, and the commonplace nihilism that comes along with that. His follow-up exhibition, “Age of Coming,” opened at C L E A R I N G gallery in Brussels in the fall of 2021, and his animations were also shown at Art Basel in September. Born in the UK, Copson now splits his time between London and Los Angeles, where in addition to making his own artwork, he is working on projects such as an opera at the Royal Opera House (to premiere next year) and music videos with Polachek, which allow him to engage an extensive audience. But even on the big stage, the voltaic brilliance of his big pop visions are undercut with the existential fidgeting and theological searching of a Blakean humanist. HD
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Abroad for a show at C L E A R I N G gallery, Copson photographed by sometimes collaborator and partner Caroline Polachek.
Hamishi Farah takes the camera to New York's Pier 32 park.
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At 30, the painter Hamishi Farah, a Somalia-born Australian national currently living and working in New York City, has quietly but steadily produced an impressive and incisive body of work where elusively fermented portraits of coquettish toucans, dewy eyed, bee-stung lapdogs, insects and arachnids commingle with images culled freely from art history and pop culture; there is, for example, a delicate but expressive portrait of Sasha Obama, another of rapper Juelz Santana and one of Paul Karason (“Papa Smurf ”), a white man whose skin turned blue from a rare form of silver poisoning. The breadth and diversity of Farah’s subjects is a testament to the ambition of his critical project, which investigates “the colonial libido,” aims to “displace the category of the human” and attends to the enduring “impact of Christian imagery on conventions of representation.” He alternately engages these fronts straightforwardly and playfully, headlong and obliquely, all the while developing what functions as an effective annotation on the accepted history of painting. Perhaps most notoriously, Farah exhibited an intimate painting of Dana Schutz’s young son Arlo, rendered tenderly against a soft, pastoral landscape, in the months immediately after controversy erupted around Schutz’s Open Casket (2016), a painting she made of Emmett Till’s disfigured corpse that was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Schutz’s picture, which she argued was a pure expression of the extraordinary and unique empathy of a mother for the death of any child, sparked debates about the fetishization and commodification of Black trauma and experience in the work of white artists and, ultimately, about the larger power and responsibility of images. Farah’s painting too received a good deal of backlash from those who understood it as a hollow act of retribution, rather than as a prickly visual model through which we can disinter the hidden ways race contorts and controls our ability to exercise basic freedoms. But as Farah’s London gallerist Rózsa Farkas of Arcadia Missa has pointed out, “Drawing equivalence [between the two works means] you have missed a key point... The child in Hamishi’s painting hasn’t been murdered.” This spring Farah opened two major solo exhibitions, one at his gallery in Los Angeles, Château Shatto, and another at Fri Art, the kunsthalle in Fribourg, Switzerland, that traced the obsessive depiction of Christ’s bodily wounds through our contemporary fixation with images of victimhood and suffering. HD
The I-Don’t-Know of Art, Elise Duryee Browner Elise Duryee-Browner meets the camera in a midtown New York office park.
On view at Elise Duryee-Browner’s first solo exhibition, "Vibe of the Era," at Gandt in Queens, New York, was a sculptural object called Gold Coin (2021). Platformed and spotlighted in the dimly lit Astoria apartment gallery was a 24-karat gold coin with a doll face in the highest definition, nearly f loating in a deep abyss. “Some people like money because it protects them from the vagaries of culture, which can be cruel…” reads the last line of the press release accompanying the show, which also asks, without answering, questions about anti-Semitism, violence and capitalism. “Out of the desire to control the narrative,” Duryee-Browner explains, she wrote it herself. “I think it would be cool to let someone else do it someday,” she muses. The themes of "Vibe of the Era" most obviously include money, currency and financial transactions, but a deeper look at her practice also discloses an unwavering interest in reciprocity and exchange, in collaboration and politics. “There’s a looseness to a lot of elements of what I do,” Duryee-Browner, who is also writer and musician, admits. Without a specific medium, without a stif ling grip on her artistic identity, without an art-school education, she is freed up to barter with her own artwork. “It’s easier for me to explain [what I do] in stories,” she says. She has learned to work intuitively, falling deep into the I-don’tknow of art. “I have a show coming up at a friend’s gallery upstate, near this farm that I visited,” she says, pulling out a big, orange carrot with green tops that she will likely show. “I’m interested in being mildly cheesy and sometimes I’m super concrete.” And yet Duryee-Browner’s work carries with it a kind of reluctant sincerity, a belief in relation. She herself might call it, after a Badiou quote she can no longer find, “grace.” TR
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Elizabeth Englander cornered in her Red Hook studio.
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One of the first sculptures that Liz made was based on Isis and Horus—an Egyptian Madonna scene. “It’s about loneliness,” she tells me, “this contact that you’re never able to achieve.” She often works with the form of grand sculpture—monuments, icons and relics—but translated through personal materials—her late mother’s dish towels, her own old swimsuits and childhood ribbons. In a sculpture called Virginia (2019) for her 2019 “Headmasters” show at Los Angeles’s Smart Objects, she poked skewers into the gauze of her sister’s prom dress, drawing out the material’s pucker and frill to get at the growing pains of adolescence. “I suppose it’s a way of letting go,” she says, when I ask her how the process of sculpture changes her relationship to those objects. Sculpture actually came to Liz later—she studied painting in undergrad and didn’t start making 3D work until 2016. She worked as a guard at the Met for a few years before starting her MFA at Hunter College. In a work like Title9iana (2019), from her thesis show, she tied together bamboo sticks into the shape of an archer inspired by busts of Diana, the Greek goddess. Pink rubber dishwashing gloves, a fanny pack and a pacifier mark the hands, crotch and nipple, respectively. Lately, she’s been studying Hindu and Buddhist sculpture, interested in religious cultures where sculptures are sometimes considered alive. “They’re fed, bathed, clothed— people ask them to do things, and sometimes they do it,” she says, as I recount the way my Buddhist parents treat their own statuary. Following the aliveness of sculpture has led her to collect random objects at thrift stores, junkyards and on the street. She may not know the object, but she can sense something of its history. In her newest body of work she’s working with old children’s desks. This sensitivity extends to a holistic awareness of practicing sculpture in a world of waste. “The materialistic reality of being a sculpture is kind of crushing,” she says. “It’s just so much stuff.” She likes to give new life to old objects, but is aware of how the ecological footprint mushrooms when shipping becomes involved. For now, she’s grateful to be working on a show at Theta in New York for later this year, where the work will be shown in the city of its making. SW
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F I N N E A S A l e x I s ra e l a n d F i n n e a s g o d e e p o n y o u t h f u l a r t i s t i c d r i v e , h o w t o b e c o m e a s u c c e s s , w h o y o u c a n t a l k t o a b o u t w h a t y o u’ re m a k i n g , a n d h o w t o b a l a n c e c re a t i v i t y a n d re l a x a t i o n — a n d t h e n I s ra e l h i t s h i m w i t h t h e q u i c k f i re r o u n d .
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Finneas wears Strongthe jacket with Cartier necklace and rings in front of Alex Israel’s Wave (2018) acrylic on acrystal at the Marciano Art Foundation in Los Angeles.
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Finneas in Dior suit, Mad Lords necklace and T.U.K. Footwear shoes standing in front of Alex Israel’s Sky Backdrop, (2013) acrylic on canvas.
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A L E X I S R A E L : I’m curious to know how music started for you.
FINNEAS: I started making music when I was 11; my parents played hobby-level piano and guitar. I was a fan of some pop song and my dad said pop music is generally pretty learnable compared to Beethoven. He said, “I’ll teach you these four chords and you’ll know how to play this pop song that you listen to all the time, and you’ll know how to play like 100 million other songs.” That felt like this cheat code. I quickly was like, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,” and took it too seriously. You hear a lot of people talk about making a career out of their passion or art or whatever. They’re like, “Yes, man, I was just doing it for fun or whatever.” I don’t know why, but even from the age of 12 years old, I was like, “You think this is a game?” ISRAEL: Where did that work ethic come from? FINNEAS: If you go see a big soldout show and everybody’s jumping up and down, you’re like, “Well, I would really like to do that. Playing these shows for nobody and my mom is not as dope as that looks.”
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I began to think, “How can I sell out a show? How can I get to a place where people are showing up?” The question I wanted to ask you, was there a before time where it was like, “Yes I’m just painting because I like it”? Or was it always hard work? ISRAEL: It is hard work. I guess when I was young and I was in high school, I didn’t know any artists. I had art teachers, but they weren’t out in the world with big art careers. No one in my family was an artist and nobody that my family knew was an artist. I always loved art and it was my favorite subject at school, but I didn’t really know that I could be an artist. I didn’t know what that meant; it was all very abstract. Then, I think it was my senior year of high school, I got an internship with an artist named Lita Albuquerque and I realized, “Okay, she actually makes a living doing this and this is her career.” After my freshman year of college, I did the same thing with another artist named John Baldessari; I was his intern. At that point I put it all together and became like you: focused on
achieving tangible, palpable goals for my art, and wanting it to reach its full potential. FINNEAS: Prior to those examples of a career within the field of art, did you have this feeling of, “I guess I’ll work at Kinkos and that’ll be the thing that I do while I paint on the side?” ISRAEL: Yes. In high school I was still too green to know that I could work in a gallery, but when I was in college, I thought maybe that’s what I’d do, or that I could work at a museum or as an architect or an art history teacher or in some other capacity close to art. And then when I finally saw what being an artist could be, I realized that’s what I wanted to do. It was a scary thing to announce because I was pretty young and came from a family that wasn’t creative and artistic. FINNEAS: I had the same feeling as I got a little older. I thought being an engineer in a studio that artists come in and out of would be probably fairly fulfilling or working at a label as assistant to an A&R. I wanted to be under the umbrella of music in whatever capacity. ISRAEL: It’s certainly hard to say, “Oh, I’m going to be a full-time creative.” It’s a declaration that you’re going to be putting yourself out there, constantly. FINNEAS: Totally. ISRAEL: Such things can become paralyzing, so it’s a good thing you got over it and did it. FINNEAS: The other thing is that I work really well with deadlines. I’ve been working on this one project for so long and it’s because there’s no deadline. If a deadline materializes for this project, I’ll get it done before that, but right now I’m working at this snail’s pace. When you are creative, especially in the early stages, you have no deadlines: it’s on you to finish pieces, and it’s on you to put them together. A lot of people find that hard enough, to just be their own taskmaster. ISRAEL: Yes. Being my own taskmaster is something that’s always come naturally to me. It sounds like you are the same.
FINNEAS: Yes, I feel compelled to finish. I feel bad or tortured if I have something that I haven’t finished and should have. I can’t sit and watch a movie with my family if I’m like, “I should record those vocals.” ISRAEL: Going back to your origin as a young musician, was it always both singing and playing piano for you, or was one more dominant? FINNEAS: I was in a choir program in LA called the Los Angeles Children’s Chorus. It’s super classical, it’s secular—maybe that’s the wrong word for it, but we sang music of all religious backgrounds, and it was all rehearsed and performed in a church. It was a great exposure to different types of classical music,and it was also rigorous, and so if organizations like the Hollywood Bowl or the LA Philharmonic needed children’s voices for a piece they’d call. That was probably the coolest part of it. It was this very professional-feeling environment. My identity was for a long time that I was a singer. Funnily, that was not good training at all for singing in pop. They were holding kids to a very high standard of behavior, more so than ability. It was just like, “Listen, we’re backstage at the LA Philharmonic, everyone else here is like the best violinist of all time so don’t be a fucking brat and annoy them or shout at each other.” It was, “Don’t move. Sit there like a statue.” We actually did Billie’s new album in its entirety at the Hollywood Bowl this summer, and we did a bunch of it with the LA Philharmonic. Gustavo [Dudamel, the orchestra’s director] is the coolest, chillest guy and I could barely talk to him. I was so intimidated from childhood of him and had that weird internal, “This is wrong. I’m not a highenough power level to communicate with this person.” ISRAEL: It’s like when you see an old teacher, and they want you to call them by their first name and you’re like, “I just can’t do that.” FINNEAS: I can’t. I had another choir director who I loved, Anne Tomlinson, who was just really
incredible at her job. She was rigorous and stern and all the stuff you want in a teacher. One time I remember she saw me sprinting down the hall. I did the Ferris Bueller. I was running down the hall and then stopped because I saw her. She just laughed and said, “You seemed so scared of me. You don’t have to be so scared of me.” I remember being like, “It’s probably good. It keeps me from making jokes in the back with my friend and laughing. That’s the alternative here. I’d rather be intimidated by you.” ISRAEL: Would you credit Los Angeles as having played a role in nurturing your interest and talent in music? FINNEAS: Yes, for sure. The biggest credit goes to my folks. ISRAEL: I’m curious to hear how you went from playing piano and singing and writing music, to producing music? FINNEAS: Recorded music has always been the thing that I was always just really enamored with, more so than live performance or
live to tape. I’ve always listened to a lot on my headphones, so you hear all the cool panning of instruments and some crazy nuanced stuff that you wouldn’t hear if you were listening on a little boombox in your house. I was in this band in high school with my friends, and we were so bad. ISRAEL: What were you called? FINNEAS: We were called Hollow Point Eyes for a while. What you can do if you’re in a band is split a day’sworth of studio time. You go in with an engineer, they set up mics on all of you and you track it live. You come away and when you’re just listening to it stone cold on a CD in your car, you’re like, “We all sound terrible.” So began my, “How do I make this not so terrible?” I’d pay for another day, and I’d go back and be like, “Can we redo the guitars?” They’d be like, “Sure,” and those would get a little bit tighter, and I was like, “Can we redo the drums? Can we overdub some shakers? Can we overdub some background vocals?” You learn that a production that you’re hearing where you’re thinking
“ T H E W A Y T H A T W E O P E R A T E I S T O M A K E E X A C T L Y W H A T W E W A N T T O M A K E , A N D T H E N I F I T ’ S P O P U L A R , I T ’ S P O P U L A R B Y A C C I D E N T . ”
about the piano and the vocal might have 40 layers of harmonies way in the background and a beautiful subsynthesizer underneath the whole thing. I became enamored with it. Then when I was 14, the price of Logic Pro X went down from $800 to $200. I found it accessible enough that I could be super bad at it but learn. I’ve always wanted to learn how to code, but it’s not intuitive enough for me to get any better at all. Something about Logic was like, “This is hard and I don’t sound good, but I am learning every time I’m doing it.” ISRAEL: It helped you narrow the gap between what you heard on the radio and what you heard on the CD that you took from the recording sessions. FINNEAS: Exactly. I didn’t have to pay for studios. I could just do it myself. Most of my band’s drums we tracked in my sister’s bedroom. We set up a million mics and a full kit and pissed her off. It’s fun. ISRAEL: Is Billie your only sibling? FINNEAS: It’s just the two of us. There was a period of time where I really wish there had been a front-of-house engineer or a tour manager but it is just the two of us. We were and are close in and out of our professional sphere; we’re just very close. We love each other a lot. I’m actually about to go on a tour, really the first substantial full United States tour that I’ve done alone as a solo artist, but the number one thing I’m apprehensive about is I usually go everywhere with her and I get to travel with my confidant and best friend. I love our crew, but it’s not the same as your sister. ISRAEL: It’s an opportunity to grow. FINNEAS: You’re right. The other thing about us doing all this together, even though it’s her name and it’s her visions, is I remember seeing the Beatles movie Eight Days a Week and there’s some interview clip where I think Paul or George talks about how the Beatles all knew Elvis. They’re like, “He’s the only Elvis and we always had each other on the highest of highs and at the lowest of lows.” It’s so nice
to have your sister there to roll your eyes at and be like, “This is so lame today.” ISRAEL: That must be an incredible advantage. FINNEAS: It’s really good. We both have a lot of these single-entity friends who have their entourage, but it’s really just them. It seems really trippy mentally. Who do you bounce ideas off of really? The amount of times Billie or I get asked to do something and one of the other ones goes, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” I know that if it were just one of the two of us, we’d say yes to all of it. ISRAEL: That honest friend. The honest person there in the room with you all the time. FINNEAS: Exactly. What does that look like in your professional career? As a musician, there are these auxiliary titles that people know about. There’s your engineer, and your mastering engineer, and then live there’s your band and stuff. What are the roles of the people that you turn to? ISRAEL: We have our art dealers, who are our outlets to the commercial world, we have curators who are our conduits to the museum world. Those are traditional roles. I have a studio assistant; I have fabricators who help me to create my art. There are all these different people in my ecosystem. I’ve also worked with collaborators. I worked with the writer Bret Easton Ellis and we made art together. That was a great experience. I work with brands. I do all kinds of things, and there are always other people involved. In my art practice, I don’t ever lock myself in a room and create. Working with other people gives me a little bit of distance from what I’m doing, which is really helpful in terms of being able to be selfcritical and to think about what I’m doing with a bit of space. It’s kind of a system or structure I’ve set up to help myself be more self-aware. But then sometimes you have to lose yourself completely and just forget all of that—all the systems you’ve established and all the routines.
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182 culturedmag.com STYLING ASSISTANTS: EMILIA FISHBURN (@EMILIAFISHBURN); GEMMA VALDES (@MINING_FOR_GEMMS); CLARA PERLMUTTER (@TINYJEWISHGIRL).
Finneas wears GmbH’s shirt and pants with an Anne Sisteron necklace. Grooming by Patricia Morales. Special thanks for Marciano Art foundation.
FINNEAS: Absolutely. Who do you have mutual complaints with? Who do you sit with and go like, “Oh, and then this happens,” and they sit with you and they go, “Ah, tell me about it.” Who’s that person for you? ISRAEL: It’s not one person but I do have peers, other artists. And any one of those people whom I mentioned before as being in my orbit could take on that role for me. It could also be friends. You’re lucky it’s your family for you. FINNEAS: Yes, it’s my family and then the other people that I probably get to commiserate with the most frequently are other producers, writers, collaborators. ISRAEL: Your peers? FINNEAS: Yes, it’s an odd relationship we all have with our collaborators where we’re supposed to inform the creative heavily and guide it and nurture it. At the end of the day, you’re still very much in the employ of this artist and so the power dynamic can get odd. The best collaborators, like the most generous ones, they’ll go, “Oh, what do you think about this?” And often times the label is saying, “Please guide this. They need you to guide them on this.” They themselves are in the room going, “I don’t want to do that at all.” I always pick the side of the artist because I’m working with them because I admire or I’m inspired by them. You sometimes are succeeding in one room and simultaneously failing in the other room. ISRAEL: Always pick the side of the artist. Always.
FINNEAS: It’s never ever turned out to be the wrong choice. ISRAEL: It’s so necessary for the establishment of trust, which is so necessary for the freedom of creativity. FINNEAS: If you make something, I mean, you see it happen a lot. There are so many artists, especially in the pop music space, putting out music that they are not passionate about and don’t like. Even if it does well on a commercial level, they don’t feel attached to it; they don’t feel proud of it. The way that we operate is to make exactly what we want to make, and then if it’s popular, it’s popular by accident. I would advise everybody to work that way. ISRAEL: You can never predict what’s actually going to be popular, can you? FINNEAS: Never. Once you are an established entity, you can cater to the kids that are already listening to your shows. We don’t necessarily cater to it, but we have them in mind. If we’re making some song, we have a lot of experience touring now and we’ll know, “Oh, this is going to be a really fun moment in the show and we’re all going to sing this line. This is going to be some call and response.” So, what are your most productive hours during the day? ISRAEL: Now that things have reopened, it varies. It’s rare that I feel I can truly be alone and focused on my thoughts. One is when I’m driving because I don’t look at text messages and emails and I’m able to just think, listen to music and be inspired. Another one is when I’m
flying on an airplane. My favorite thing is to turn off my phone. FINNEAS: I never buy Wi-Fi. ISRAEL: Me neither, never. There are certain times of day where things are quieter. Early in the morning if I’m jetlagged I can get a lot done before work starts, or at the end of the day when everyone stops calling. It’s about finding these quiet moments to be able to reflect and think, and to relax your brain a little bit. Then in that moment of relaxation often comes inspiration. FINNEAS: When you talk about flights, are you working on the flights? ISRAEL: Sometimes I’ll actually pull out my laptop and write something or make notes about ideas that I have, but usually on flights I like to sleep and zone out and read a book and watch a movie. Yesterday I watched the Wizard of Oz on the way home from France, and I hadn’t seen it in decades and it’s an amazing movie. I’m not good at taking time for myself. I need to get better at that. Okay, I’m just going to ask you a few speed-round questions. Have you watched Squid Game? FINNEAS: I haven’t seen Squid Game yet and the only reason is that I’ve been in a silly, goofy mood as of late and I’ve been watching Ted Lasso and High Maintenance on HBO. The idea of watching a bunch of people be murdered, I’ll have to be ready for it. ISRAEL: What do you think of Adele’s new single [“Easy On Me”]? FINNEAS: I like it. I have to admit to myself that I would have maybe overproduced it, and that’s just
a testament to how incredibly minimalistic Greg Kurstin kept the vocals and the piano. The production is so simple and I love it. I think really it’s just because it’s Adele’s voice, and that’s all we want to hear. It’s beautiful. ISRAEL: What was it like working on No Time to Die? FINNEAS: Stressful. It was really fun. There were a lot of moving parts and a lot of people. Usually, our metric of success is if we like something at the end of it, and that was not our metric of success there. Once we liked it, then it was like, “Let’s figure out if we can get all of these other people to like it too.” It was an honor and cool to work with Hans Zimmer, it was really fun. ISRAEL: What are your thoughts on Erewhon [the notorious Los Angeles health-food store]? FINNEAS: They have an orangeglazed cauliflower at their hot bar that I love. Or is it rice? ISRAEL: It’s buffalo cauliflower. FINNEAS: They have buffalo cauliflower, and then they have an orange rice ball. I’m so glad you remember. The buffalo cauliflower is what I was thinking of, but they also have an orange glaze on a ball of rice. Love that shit. I love watermelon. If you buy any quantity of watermelon there, it’s the best. It’s so good. It’s the best. ISRAEL: What’s the best thing about Gen Z? FINNEAS: The thing that everybody says is the worst thing about Gen Z. They’re sensitive. Sensitivity is great, that’s going to lead to better people.
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ARTISTS MODEL THE LATEST MENSWEAR COLLECTION FROM LOUIS VUITTON
Virgil Abloh’s new collection is energizing the next generation of young creatives, captured here by photographer Micaiah Carter. BY DANIELLE KWATENG PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICAIAH CARTER STYLING BY ALEXANDRA CRONAN AND KATE FOLEY OF STUDIO& ART DIRECTION BY MALCOLM DIA
IN A MOMENT WHERE WE ARE producing
Breaks and Beats. The Spring Summer
own thing—but who also aren’t afraid of
more content than meaning and copy comes
2022 menswear collection that follows
pushing gender paradigms,” says Carter,
before originals, Louis Vuitton menswear
pays tribute to the multiverses that sprung
who co-cast and photographed the models in
artistic director Virgil Abloh decided to
out of “Amen, Brother’s” originality and
the collection. “When casting the models, I
send a search party deep into the archives
other untapped possibilities in instances
wanted to break barriers in how Black men
of oral history to remember something real.
of Black excellence yet to be recognized
are perceived and explore authenticity within
He arrived at a critical music history kernel:
by the mainstream. Here, photographer
our community.”
“Amen, Brother,” a 1969 B-side track by
Micaiah Carter honors Abloh’s intentions
the Winstons that went on to become one
and pushes the idea forward by capturing a
Vuitton
of the most sampled in history thanks to
series of inspirational friends and creatives.
brand’s new store in Miami—is a reflection of
its appearance on DJs BreakBeat Lou and
“For this shoot, I wanted to amplify
all these elements: pride, resilience, gender
Lenny Roberts’s 1986 compilation, Ultimate
other Black creatives who are doing their
ALL CLOTHING AND ACCESSORIES BY LOUIS VUITTON MEN’S
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The collection, now available in Louis stores
worldwide—including
fluidity and the nuances of Black identity.
the
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DENZEL GOLATT Photographer Denzel Golatt humbly describes his creative process as “simple,” but the final result is anything but that. The self-taught talent started his photography journey in high school doing senior portraits and other events. Fast-forward to the present day and his imagery is crisp and toys with color balance, texture and lighting to reveal compelling images of people in his sphere of influence. “When I shoot, I often build off of the person I’m photographing; I try to capture my subjects in a vulnerable and grounded light while also embracing their authenticity,” Golatt says about his technique, which often highlights the beauty of Black existence. “Moving from the Bay Area to North Dallas I was the only Black person in my elementary school, which shaped the way I viewed myself and sparked a need for more inclusivity. Creativity has become a superpower to uplift my family and community.”
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KOHSHIN FINLEY Safe spaces where organic, casual conversations can take place are the starting point of Kohshin Finley’s work that intertwines black, white, and grey brushstrokes into large-scale portraits. “Our conversations being grounded in that type of meditative environment allow for honest conversation that influence the painting, steer the painting, and become a substantive and integral part of my practice,” the 31-year-old artist says. When studying the work of the Los Angeles-born and bred talent you’ll notice that there’s a sense of pride in the sitters—it’s intentional. “Not only is Black and Brown visibility a cornerstone of my practice, but turning that visibility into legacy is also paramount.” He adds, “It is my duty as an architect of imagery, who creates portraits of my friends and greater community, to create honest and inspiring images for the world to see. I can’t control what other people create or how they consume, but what I can control is my own pinpointed efforts. My own efforts to ensure that the image that is being consumed is not just an image of someone who is Black or Brown, but more importantly of someone who is wholly themselves.” Finley’s work is currently on show in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Black American Portraits exhibition, until April 2022.
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FABE ROBINSON At six-foot-two with buttery smooth skin and chiseled cheekbones, Fabe Robinson looks like he belongs on a runway or in a major fashion campaign. It’s undeniable that he’s a model. But before he was posing for brands like Puma and Yeezy, he attended Cornell University and would go on to work on Wall Street. As a child growing up in Harlem, the 29-year-old never imagined now being in an industry where one has to be super visible and in rooms with global tastemakers. “Modeling has evolved my perception of the world and opened up doors for me to show what’s actually possible,” he says. “Never in a million years did I think I’d meet some of the people I’ve met and get to experience life at that level. It has given me the drive to continue, although we all get moments when we want to throw in the towel and try something else.” He adds, “That would be second to seeing my face on billboards plastered around the world and having people send pictures of them to me, which is truly a rewarding feeling.” Based in Los Angeles, Robinson has expanded his talents beyond modeling and runs Fesh by Fabe, a knitwear line inspired by his Jamaican roots. His plans for next year: release a top-secret project, expand his fashion brand, and “continue creating art through pictures, TV and film.”
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EGYPT CRAFT There’s a power held by good percussionists. With the simple change of tempo, a song’s tenor can completely morph. It’s a talent often associated with white artists, but like most artistic mediums in America, the skill of drumming in live bands was refined by Black legends: like Max Roach and Elvin Jones. Those who practice drumming and love it know how transcendent playing can be. “[My drums are] the tool I use to be able to traverse through the different fields of music in a sense,” says 24-year-old model Egypt Craft. “As someone who was a huge metalhead, playing has just opened me up to so many forms of music and broadened my understanding of not just the music but the world because of it.” Born in Colorado but raised in Los Angeles, Craft has posed for brands like Band of Outsiders and starred in a Phillip Youmans project, but his first love is probably music. “You’ll see the first album from my band Tryptamine,” Craft says when asked about next year’s goals. “We’re already pushing it to the max and have been planning for this year extensively, so look out.”
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JARED MALIK ROYAL For 27-year-old director Jared Malik Royal, his work is informed by fresh perspectives of the world. “I think the best inspiration for work comes from living an interesting life,” he says. “There’s a balance I aim to hit in both personal and commercial work that hinges between artistic expression and subtle storytelling.” Currently based in Brooklyn, Royal was born in Detroit and moved all around the US, but was primarily raised in Texas, where he attended the University of Texas at Austin. His buttery smooth visual storytelling has been commissioned for brands like Nike, Calvin Klein and Outdoor Voices. He’s also made Selling Soul, a short film set in the ’70s that interrogates the insidious nature of the marketing of unhealthy products to Black consumers. Looking forward, Royal is excited about a photobook that he’s adapting for television and more risk-taking projects. “I want to challenge our beliefs and create space for critical thinking around how we think about love, relationships, and health,” he says.
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GILBERT WALLACE In reality, like in this shoot—where he appears covered in a vibrant mix of Louis Vuitton puffers—model Gilbert Wallace is playfully exploring his life passions. “I’m rediscovering my creative mediums. I haven’t practiced enough to claim them as my own. But it has informed me to always try to tell an honest story,” the 28-year-old says. When he’s not modeling for streetwear brands like Divinities, Wallace is admiring beautiful cars and decompressing at the beach. Scrolling through his Instagram timeline reveals the life of a young Californian, absorbing nature and flowing with the motions of an ever-evolving city. When asked about the year ahead, Wallace has pretty conventional goals. “Create financial security, self-control over my vices, more prayer/gratitude, practice practice practice, peace with the past, a middle finger to the fear, a humble heart in any space, and God is the greatest.”
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First Photo Assistant: Jordie Turner Second Photo Assistant: David Winthrop Hanson Glam: Karo Kangas
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Is Building with Light THE COMEDIAN BREAKS DOWN HIS CREATIVE PHILOSOPHY AND AFFIRMS HIS PURPOSE OF ILLUMINATING THE CULTURE DURING DARK TIMES.
By
B r a n d o n “J i n x ” J e n k i n s Photography by R y a n P l e t t Styling by S a m S p e c t o r culturedmag.com 205
Widely
known for his work as a Daily Show alum, his awardwinning stand-up special Homecoming King and for steering six seasons of his own show—Netflix’s Patriot Act—Hasan Minhaj has historically starred as himself, often in service to his audience’s understanding of the political and social world around them. He met viewers in the ways they were most accustomed: fast-paced, pointed and with a heavy reliance on visual storytelling and graphics as evidence. With his final season of Patriot Act having wrapped in the midst of the pandemic last summer, some of the audience was left wondering where and how he was going to appear next. Which prism was he going to focus his power through? In the time since the last episode of that show, the 35-year-old comedian and actor has been branching out into new mediums. He has partnered with Cole Haan for a limited line of footwear. He has announced his participation in the Batman Unburied podcast, starring as The Riddler. He is one of the first faces you see as a new cast member on Season 2 of Apple TV’s The Morning Show. And he is currently in the thick of a national tour for his brand new oneman show, The King’s Jester, that stretches into spring of 2022. These might all sound like deviations from the ways in which we have known him over the years, but for Hasan this wider scope is the result of a renewed focus on the things most important to him and a reshaped approach toward creating a brighter future. These days, he’s equal parts microscope, telescope and megaphone. A juggling act, with all of his senses trained on finding the light within himself and among the people, and then reflecting it out for all to see. BRANDON “JINX” JENKINS: I rewatched 2017’s Homecoming King. We were living in a completely different world then. So much has changed since that comedy special. HASAN MINHAJ: The world, the country that we live in and the conversation that’s happening in the country is completely different. BJ: How have you changed since then? How has your stage act changed? HM: The big buckets I’m hitting are fertility, fatherhood, and freedom of speech. One of the things that’s the undercurrent of my work is family, and not to be corny about it, but it does allow me to speak with a level of authenticity. And what I love most about personal storytelling is even though it’s just my experience, at the very least I’m providing a sincere perspective that’s authentic. There’s so much now, in the media, that is a regurgitated opinion, that they’re leaning on the current meta-narrative. I’m at that point in art where I’m like, “I don’t give a fuck about what your opinion is, because I know you’ve cross-checked it with what blue-check Twitter has told you.“ Instead, tell me your story. Tell me what you’ve done. BJ: Word. HM: My evolution after Patriot Act was, “Alright, this is my next big storytelling show.” And I could totally do a deep dive on a myriad of political topics. What I would rather do, just like with Homecoming King, is let the backdrop be the personal stakes of my life and everything that’s gone into that over the past few years. BJ: Is there a thing that you thought you felt confident about back then, a position in the last couple of years, that has changed? Something that
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reflects through your comedy differently now because of what you’ve been through as a person, what the world has been through? HM: I’ve been thinking about this a long time and it doesn’t sound right to say, but... it’s authentically true to me. I feel we’ve lived through this pandemic and I felt this deep sense of digital disillusionment. And I get this feeling all the time, bro. It’s like... I don’t know if you feel this... I can’t change the world, but I can change my world. BJ: I’m just now getting to that point in my own life. What’s set that in motion for you? HM: Bro, I’ve got into kerfuffles with every autocrat you could think of. Everybody knows my international beef and everything that came of it. I’ve put my family through a lot. I’ve put people that I love through a lot through the opinions and the positions that I’ve taken. A lot of the things that I’ve talked about on the show, it’s still a year plus since the show ended and a lot of those things haven’t changed at all. You know what I mean? Insulin pricing is still the same. Healthcare system is still broken. College debt is still exacerbated, even worse. Mortgage crisis, rent forgiveness, all these things we were talking about on [Patriot Act]. And all the enemies have only gotten bigger. BJ: They got bigger. They got stronger. HM: You know what I mean? They’ve metastasized in a way that... I think even my teacher, Jewish Yoda, Jon Stewart, would have never imagined from the days in which he was early reporting. And one of the things that I realized is, “How do I take all this craziness and not just descend into madness?” And the only thing that saves me, I think, is grounding myself in the things that I have agency over. And that’s being with my kids and being like, “Okay, this is my little franchise.” How can I shape the world through this, to the best of my ability? And that doesn’t mean that I don’t care about all of those other things we’re dealing with, but I did have to close a few tabs. BJ: Yeah, word. HM: And I think that’s being rebranded as self-care, this, that and the other. For me, I’ve played it as an agency proposition of like, “What can I immediately control?” Because my energy and my time is finite and I can’t be launching digital drone strikes with bad-faith actors on the Internet all day, every day. That’s not going to be it, you know? I’m not saying I have the answers. I’m saying, this is the conclusion that I’ve arrived at, as of right now, in this moment, as we’re talking to each other. BJ: You and I spoke at the top of the pandemic. At the time, I remember you saying something like “Some people ask me why I don’t have a podcast or do more things.” And you said, “I like to work and focus on my stuff and do that well. I don’t necessarily need to be everywhere.” Something to that effect. But here we are, over a year later, and you’ve joined the cast of The Morning Show, you’ve dropped a shoe collab with Cole Haan, you’re starring on a Batman podcast and you’re back on the road. HM: But I’ve been gone for a year and a half. BJ: True. But you’ve picked up more things, and I’m wondering what that’s a sign of. HM: Worldbuilding, man. Worldbuilding. Each of those projects represents something. And I’ve taken a great deal of inspiration from the Black performers that have come before me, Black comedians and Black artists
Above: Gucci suit and Prada turtleneck. Right and previous spread: Thom Browne coat, jacket, shirt, pants, socks and boots.
“There’s so much now, in the media, that is a regurgitated opinion, that they’re leaning on the current meta-narrative. I’m at that point in art where I’m like, ‘I don’t give a fuck about what your opinion is, because I know you’ve crosschecked it with what blue-check Twitter has told you.’ Instead, tell me your story. Tell me what you’ve done.”–Hasan Minhaj culturedmag.com 207
Minhaj wears Louis Vuitton coat, shirt, pants, sneakers and watch. Styling assisant: Fred Kim Grooming: Jessi Butterfield
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“How do I take all this craziness have given us diaspora kids the blueprint. For the longest time, new, brown America, Asian America, we’ve been deemed economically relevant, but culturally irrelevant. But we’re starting to see things change. We’re now fighting for cultural relevance. We’re imprinting our fingerprint on American popular culture, which does matter. It’s a powerful thing. You can tell it resonates, it humanizes people. It makes them feel important, but it represents possibility. And I think the way Black America has done that in music and popular culture and movies— we have started to take the pages from that, continued to add our chapter to the narrative, which is making American popular culture, I believe, richer. It’s one of the few soft powers we actually still have that is great, that I’m proud of. And, each of these projects had to represent possibility. David Goyer is one of my favorite writers of all time, he wrote the Dark Knight trilogy. He is an incredible, not only film writer, but comic-book writer. And the fact that when they made Batman Unburied they cast Winston Duke as Batman... I was like, OK, I gotta be a part of this. I’ve gotta work with David and I gotta be Edward Nygma [The Riddler]. Because I never thought that would be possible. For me bro, it’s really like that idea of possibility and cultural relevance. BJ: Are you finding that in your other projects? HM: The Morning Show is that same thing. Like how crazy would it be if I saw somebody who looked like me on this big, splashy, sexy, one-hour drama with Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, who so represent American cinema? They’re America’s sweethearts. And Apple has spared no expense building out this show. For me it was one of those things, like, I’m going to take my swing now. But it’s no different than what I’ve done in other parts of my career. The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was that same thing for me. I’ve never seen somebody who looks like me stand on that stage and poke fun at the president and the media. For me, it’s all about that. Just that stretching of culture and representing possibility for my people. BJ: I’m hearing everything you just said, and I’m also considering prior statements where you’ve said the Chris Rocks, the Chappelles are some of your idols. They’re something beyond comedians. They’re like planets, massive entities. And I look at what’s going on with you... you’re not just stacking up IMDb credits. Something is happening. HM: They’ve brought people into their orbit. I think I represent something for a lot of people and it didn’t really click for me at first. It started clicking for me around the time I was doing Patriot Act. I would see the audience, they’d go, “Yo, you remind me of my cousin. Yo, you remind me of someone I went to
high school with.” And I’m like, “Bro, are you kind of dissing me? Do I look like Pratik you went to high school with? Are you basically saying I’m average?” And I used to kind of have this insecurity about it, but I actually realized that is my superpower. BJ: How so? HM: What they’re saying is “Yo, you look like someone I was in civics class with my junior year. And the fact that you made it has this level of relatability.” But, furthermore, what that’s given me an opportunity to do is bridge these two worlds. I’m the Sunday school Muslim kid that grew up in Sacramento, in the Desi community, then was knighted by Jon Stewart, then was able to go on to Netflix, was able to go to the Correspondents’ Dinner and now do work with David Goyer, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston, do shoe collabs... To me it’s that ability. Can I bring our story from the margins to the mainstream? BJ: Okay, but the thing about being in that position, is this looming idea of “keep it 1,000” as you ascend. You know, like get on, but don’t front. HM: One of my first principles is light over heat. There’s a lot of heat out there: there’s a lot of just ephemeral social-media content that’s not deep in nature. But every once in a while there’s something that just represents true light that really resonates with people. BJ: The things that connect with us, connect us as people?
and not just descend into madness?” HM: You see examples of it, Ted Lasso is that. Ramy resonated with me like that. It was so funny. I would run some episodes back. To me, it was light over heat. There’s just so much heat—in Hindi we call it hungama, which means just craziness. Kind of just Jake Paul crazy. America is hungama. Whoever controls the circus hungama controls the media narrative, but I’m a light person. Like, what’s the core ontological truth of what you’re saying? There’s certain scenes that are in The King’s Jester that have that. Which is why I’m talking about fatherhood, family, freedom of speech. Things we’ve been dealing with forever. That is what I’m chasing.
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After years of working with Netflix on ensemble projects, comedian Nicole Byer steps out with her first special this November, BBW—defined here as “Big, Beautiful Weirdo.” Her podcast partner and friend in comedy, Sasheer Zamata, dives into the tongue-in-cheek title, which they came up with together, as well as what they are having for dinner and why Tinky-Winky is the best Teletubby.
Nicole Byer and Sasheer Zamata talk BBW 210 culturedmag.com
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SASHEER ZAMATA: I’m so excited to talk to you about your amazing special. I was there in person. You frigging crushed. I’m a proud papa. I’m so happy for you. Did you pick a name? What is it called? NICOLE BYER: It’s Nicole Byer BBW: Big, Beautiful Weirdo. SZ: Oh, I like that. NB: Well, you essentially named it. You said it should be a play on “BBW.” SZ: I did say that. NB: Which is traditionally a big, beautiful woman. If you’re not in the know of what they named fat-lady porn, that’s what it is. SZ: Oh, I thought it was a big black woman in porn. NB: No, big, beautiful woman, because you can’t discriminate against the white fat, the Puerto Rican fat, the Asian fat. SZ: Well good. I like that it’s weird because that is you. (laughter) NB: Yes, she’s a little weird. SZ: I looked through my texts to find other name options that we had gone back and forth on, and there was that long one that was like Big Bold Bodacious Brave Brassy Beautiful Bossy Black Bitch. (laughter) NB: Yes. I still like it, but I do see everyone’s concern. It is the longest name. SZ: It is the longest and that’s not… You’ve got to have something catchy because if people try to type it in, they’re like, “Wait, does it start with ‘Big,’ or does it start with ‘Bodacious’?” NB: Oh, when you said BBW I immediately was like, “What? Big, black waffle?” SZ: You did say that and I lost my mind. I was like, “I guess, yes. I guess it has to be a big, black waffle.” NB: Naming things is hard. SZ: It is hard because then it’s like that’s what it’s called and what if you hate that name, but it’s forever called that thing? NB: I know. That’s how people end up with dumb names like… Oh, I don’t want to call someone’s name dumb. Okay, Brenda. Actually, I’m Brenda enough. You get a baby you name her Brenda? SZ: Yes, like a toddler named Brenda. Get out of here. NB: Get out of here fucking Brenda. 212 culturedmag.com
Byer wears Zelie for She dress and Cocotay earrings. Previous spread: Oyemwen dress and Cocotay earrings. Makeup by Jen Fregozo. Hair by Moira “FINGAZ” Frazier. Hair assistant: Danny Newsom.
SZ: Although Brenda is a good name for a special. I don’t know why. NB: It is. “Nicole Byer is Brenda.” SZ: That could be your next one. NB: It could be like, “What does that mean?” SZ: You never address it in the special at all. It never comes up. It’s not a joke, it’s just “Nicole Byer is Brenda.” NB: I’m now Brenda. That’s my stage name. SZ: Oh my God. That’s your Sasha Fierce? NB: Yes, my sassy alter ego’s name is Brenda. SZ: It’s weird for me to ask you questions because I know everything about you and your special, but what was something that you were the most anxious about leading up to the taping? NB: Oh boy. Everything, because you were literally with me as I tried to pack my bags incorrectly. Instead of bringing a suitcase upstairs I just brought items downstairs and was packing and then being like, “Oh I forgot something upstairs.” It was very dumb. SZ: Yes, of course. What was something that you were the most excited about? NB: I think I was the most excited about not getting it over with, but
finishing the first show, because after the first show was done, I knew I could just have fun on the second show. It’s taped, there’s a special, but the second show was for me. I also was excited to put the whole outfit together because I had done fittings but I hadn’t put the hair on, I hadn’t had the makeup on, the shoes, and just seeing everything come together, even the stage was fun too—I was just really excited to tape it. SZ: How much thought went into the look of it all? Your look and the stage. NB: I was asked, “What do you want to wear?” I have a stylist, Marko Monroe, who is honestly so wonderful. He is so smart, he knows references. I sent him a bunch of Instagram inspiration just for what I like to look like in general. He’s like, “What are you thinking about this special?” I was like, “Well, I want to be in a suit, but not a boring suit that any old person could have, and purple.” He was like, “Got it.” What we came up with was a purple suit that was bell bottoms with a gold chain, and a leopard-print crop top because you got to be brave and show that belly. Then my hair is half up, half down like a Barbie doll from the eighties. I just wanted to be like an eighties business Barbie and I
think I achieved that. Then for the stage I knew I wanted deep purples and fuchsias, and then there was a little pushback. It was like, “But you’re in a purple suit.” And I was like, “Yes.” They were like, “Oh monochromatic.” He was like, “No. The suit will be lighter than the stage. I promise you the suit will pop and so will the backdrop.” And it really did. It looks really pretty. SZ: It looks so pretty. I don’t think I know anyone who loves purple like you love purple. NB: It’s a good color. How can you not smile when you see purple? Barney is purple. Barney’s fun. Grimace, he’s a milkshake monster. He’s purple. How do you not smile when you see Grimace? SZ: What’s that Teletubby’s name? NB: Tinky-Winky. He’s the best. He’s the only one whose name you know. SZ: And he has a purse. I mean, that’s a fashionable Teletubby. NB: Yes. The purple Teletubby TinkyWinky is the most fabulous, the most fashionable, the most well-known because he’s purple. SZ: Yes. Now that this hour of material is cemented in time, are there going to be any jokes that you told that you’re going to miss telling? NB: Yes. There’s going to be a bunch of jokes that I miss telling. My closer, I’ll miss; my opener, I’ll miss. There’s a lot of stuff that got added towards the end because I did two or three weekends of shows to prepare for the special and I just added some stuff here and there that I was like, “I’m not going to get to tour with that and really play with it.” I’ve played with it enough, sbut I have a throwaway Kelly Clarkson line that really makes me laugh. I’ll miss doing that. SZ: Yes. I think that also happens after any taping where you finish it and then a week later, it’s like, “Oh, here’s another tag I could’ve added to that, or here’s something I didn’t even think of.” That’s what happened to me. NB: Yes, that happened to me too. I was like, “Oh, I could’ve done this. Oh, I could’ve done that.” Also, can I tell you? I have to cut so much. SZ: Because it’s too long? NB: It’s too long. I have already cut four minutes of it. I lost a whole joke, and it still clocked it
at one hour, nine minutes. SZ: Dang. That’s a good problem. It’s better to have too much than too little. NB: Yes. That’s how I feel about my life. I’m too much, but that’s okay. SZ: It’s okay, and I’m too little. Then I just stand next to you, so I can get some of your energy. NB: Is that why we’re friends? You’re leeching off of my energy? SZ: I’m not leeching. I’m just a succubus absorbing any remnants of your energy. No, that’s not true. NB: That’s okay. I’ll share with you. SZ: Thank you so much. NB: You texted me and I never texted you back. I’m really sorry. SZ: Hey, it’s okay. I texted Nicole, “Is there anything you want to talk about in your interview?” and didn’t get a response. But here we are? NB: Sorry. I just knew you could handle it. SZ: Or you didn’t read the text, but that’s okay. NB: It’s the latter. SZ: I’m going to miss your—I don’t even know if you’re going to include it or not, but there was an encore joke that you said after you finished the special. NB: I really would love to add it. I don’t know if it will be added because it’s already running long. Tonight, I need to rewatch it and carve into it a little bit more, but I do love that joke. SZ: Yes. If it doesn’t make it in, you get to still do it and I get to keep laughing in the back. I feel like you do a really good job in your material of addressing important topics, but also keeping it silly. How do you figure that out when you’re writing your material? NB: Anytime it’s like a hot-button topic, I have a point of view on it. Is there race stuff in the special? Yes, there is. The race stuff I talk about is stuff that happened to me. It’s like talking to friends. You talk to a friend about something that really bothered you, but then you’re a comic and we joke about it back and forth and then you find the levity and you’re like, “Yes, I can make that situation funny.” The first joke I ever wrote was about my dead parents. SZ: What was that? I don’t know if I remember that. NB: Yes. “A bunch of my friends are
at the age where they’re moving back in with their parents after college, but I can’t move back in with my parents because graveyards have a curfew.” Then the second one is, “I started doing improv and my dad was finally okay with me becoming an actress. I invited him to come to my graduation show, but he died, because he’d rather be dead than see his daughter do object work.” Let me tell you, people don’t like those jokes. SZ: They’re very well-written jokes. You got to write what you know. NB: Then you and I know dead parents. SZ: Is there anything off-limits in your material?
SZ: I noticed you didn’t walk down the streets of New York City and walk into the back door of the theatre. NB: No, I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any backstage shots of the theatre. You know what you’re watching and if everything comes together, my opening will be something that people have never seen before. SZ: I hope it comes together. You’re going to go on tour pretty soon. Do you feel excited to try new material? NB: I do, but also, I have not had any time to write. But I’m pretty decent under pressure, so I’m excited. It’s a work in progress and I hope people understand that. They probably won’t.
“I don’t know how to find levity in something I’ve never really experienced.” –Nicole Byer NB: Super traumatic things that have not happened to me. I used to have a domestic-violence joke that I would tell, and I told it at a college. A couple people got angry. I was like, “I don’t have experience with that so that’s out of my wheelhouse.” I don’t know how to find levity in something I’ve never really experienced. SZ: That’s a good rule for all performers. How often do you want to release more specials? Do you want to do a special-a-year model that some comics do, or do it whenever you feel like it? NB: I personally don’t want to do one a year. If I released a special next year it would just be all new material and I don’t know if it would have had the time to breathe. Every two years is good, three maybe. I’ll just know when the material’s there and it’s better than the last one. I’m just trying to grow. SZ: Are there any stand-up-special clichés that you try to avoid? NB: I don’t want to shit on anybody who made these choices, but I don’t love a lit-up name behind you. A red curtain was not for me, I didn’t want red.
SZ: How much do you rely on the audience to help you figure out a new joke? NB: If they laugh at the premise then I’m like, “Okay, this has a little bit of legs.” If they don’t really laugh at the premise, I’m like, “Okay, they’re not into it now, but maybe they’ll get into it as I get into the joke.” Then if they really just don’t like it, I go, “Okay, maybe that was bad. Maybe I’ll try again.” I don’t want to say I do that to an audience, but I’m performing for an audience. If they don’t like the premise, I have to figure out why. SZ: I like that. They shouldn’t dictate your whole act. NB: There’s a couple moments in this where I tell the audience that they’re wrong. SZ: Sometimes they’re wrong. Do you have a joke where you’re like, this plays different all the time. Depending on where I’m at in the country or where I put it in the show, it’s a different response? NB: The Black Lives Matter joke when it is all white people, not great. Also, I have more fun with all white people because they get real fucking tight. SZ: I was going to ask what city is
your favorite city to perform in? NB: I love New York, I love Portland, Austin is fun. Honestly, Oklahoma City and Indianapolis are two of my favorite weekends to play. SZ: Indianapolis was very, very fun. NB: Fucking killer. I loved it. SZ: My hometown. NB: Your people came out in droves. What’s your favorite city to play? SZ: I would say D.C. and New York City; Austin, Texas. Those places. I like big cities. NB: We’re city girls. SZ: I’m a city girl. I like the coastal elite unless you’re in Texas. NB: We’re in a bubble, baby. SZ: Love being in that bubble. You mentioned before that, I don’t know if it’s going to be your next special or a future one, but that you’re dying to do a cabaret show? NB: Yes, I would really like to do a cabaret show. I just sing songs poorly and we don’t address it and everyone gives me a standing ovation because they’re like, “She tried.” I don’t know if I’ll actually do it because I think it’s a lot of work. Maybe I will. SZ: I don’t see why not. NB: It sounds funny, but honestly I really have not gotten past two bits in it. SZ: Why don’t you start with a short video and then, if you like doing it, you can build it up to an hour? NB: That is a good idea, friend. You’re always good at just bringing me good ideas. Where are we getting dinner tonight? SZ: Oh, yes, did we agree on that? You sent me two options. NB: No, I sent you eight options. Should we just go to Little Dom’s? SZ: No, you said we’re going to try something new. NB: Okay. Well, look at the options I gave you. SZ: I liked both of them. NB: Boy, this is just going to be an ongoing thing for the rest of our days. SZ: I know. We’ll keep trying to find other places and we’ll consistently go to Little Dom’s. NB: I mean, it’s tasty, it’s beautiful. I love it. I love rice balls. SZ: A rice ball’s good. This interview’s been brought to you by Zoom and Little Dom’s. NB: Let’s zoom on over to Little Dom’s and get a rice ball. culturedmag.com 213
AN ICON REVISITED: DIOR’S STORIED MEDALLION CHAIR CHANGES Dior Maison has invited 17 contemporary designers to interpret the fashion house’s signature seat. The immersive display at Design Miami/ puts each chair under spotlight.
BY OSMAN CAN YEREBAKAN
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THERE IS POWER IN reinvention, in handing over a tradition to the hands of the burgeoning new definers of beauty. When Christian Dior first unveiled his atelier at 30 Avenue Montaigne in 1947, he invited the romantic designer Victor Grandpierre to decorate the space frequented by the Parisian elite. The Medallion chair—a Louis XVI era-inspired, oval-backed seat—eventually became one of the couture temple’s crown jewels. Dior has now invited 17 international designers to imbue the chair with their particular visual vocabulary. Seung jin Yang,
Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with Seungjin Yang. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
Nacho Carbonell, Atang Tshikare, India Mahdavi, Linde Freya Tangelder, Khaled El Mays and others have each reconsidered and transformed the Medallion’s core foundations, from its curvaceous beech wood-frame to the Toile de Jouy linen upholstery. Beyond the discernible, however, the designers have filtered the chair’s legacy—its history and future alike—through their own personal and professional experiences, which seem to exist intertwined. The chairs premiered in September during
Salone del Mobile in Milan’s Palazzo Citterio, where a spectacular staging washed each piece with a dramatic spotlight inside a dimly lit basement. Fittingly, the U.S. debut is during this year’s Design Miami/ at the experiential art center Superblue. Ranging from those which completely depart from the original to those echoing its silhouette, the new Medallions contribute to the chair’s enduring timelessness. Below, we explore the practices and work of six of the designers from the ambitious project.
SEUNGJIN YANG PORTRAIT BY SUNGMIN KIM
THERE ARE designers inseparable from a signature form anchoring their trajectories: Seungjin Yang’s whimsical balloon chairs hold this eminent status, as does the Medallion chair for the legacy of Grandpierre and Dior as well. Despite their mutual roles as careerdefining pieces, the two chairs, however, could hardly be more different. Against the Medallion’s ornate seriousness and delicate heft, Yang’s creations are playful, bewildering and airy—both in literal and metaphorical senses. The Seoul-based designer starts each chair by blowing air into balloons of sausage-like forms, followed by coating the elastic ethereality with eight layers of epoxy resin. This firm dress renders each bulbous shape— which was once as thin as air—rigid on the outside yet still uncluttered inside. The 35-year-old then orchestrates them into seats in numerous juxtapositions, which most recently include the Medallion chair’s classic structure. The inherent weightlessness in Yang’s chairs is here elevated through a translucent texture, flirting between materialization and evanescence. The balloons’ rounded playfulness, however, renders the chair inviting, first for an inspection of its curious texture and later to perch for an airy repose. culturedmag.com 215
Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with Nacho Carbonell. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
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NACHO CARBONELL PORTRAIT BY NICK VAN TIEM
COULD A BAG be a living entity, or a lamp? Both Christian Dior and Nacho Carbonell could prove the answer is “yes.” Similar to the former’s eradefying timelessness in figure and material, the Spanish artist and designer creates with a belief in his objects’ living natures. Carbonell’s soaring Eindhoven studio is a laboratory of his very own metal welded branches, papier-mâché buds and bronze mesh flowers. His ecology-inspired objects populate this particular universe in which he utilizes the physical potentials of art to form usable objects that allude to fantasy, play and mythology. His Medallion chair
stems from his nearly surgical approach to an object’s soul, in this case through dissecting the backrest’s intricate structure. He builds a dynamic between the macro and micro by sizing down the form and remaking it in miniature bronze versions. The designer’s commitment to nature’s way of creation yields an interpretation embodied in multitude and repetition. The chair is composed of tens of small renditions of the backrest in the firmness of bronze, individually stemming from thin long stalks which attribute each “petal” a floral essence and a determined unity.
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LINDE FREYA TANGELDER PORTRAIT BY MARION BERRIN
Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with Linde Freya Tangelder. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
AN ICONIC NUDE, a colossal building or a welcoming chair, sculptural forms unite in their lingua franca of mass, texture and volume. The exchange between use and beauty, as well as corporeality and semblance, relies on the waltz of the mind and hand of a maker— be it a designer, an architect or a sculptor. Linde Freya Tangelder’s interpretation of the Medallion, titled Sage, strips the iconic design to its core. The Dutch designer’s sleek lens skews contemporary but with a mythical edge. If timeless elegance can ever feel unexpected then it is through Tangelder’s deft ability to marry the brutish and the feminine, a trait that the founder
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of destroyers/builders studio embraces in her own practice as well. She completely transforms the chair, while committing to preserving its structural nuance and the linen’s silver color palette in aluminum. Tangelder’s chair is futuristic, and its somewhat industrial appearance derives from the equally technical and manual production process, which include CNC-milling, welding and hand-brushing. The final smoothness achieved on its trio of legs and the minimalist backrest imbues the otherwise impenetrable shape with a recognizable humanity, an inner softness that contrast with metal’s innate rigidity.
Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with India Mahdavi. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
TEXTURE IN BOTH fashion and design transcends a material’s tactile nature— beyond the touch, texture summarizes histories embedded in process and beauty. Few fabrics convey this quality like the Medallion’s upholstered fabric, Toile de Jouy, the storied French linen which came into prominence in 18th-century Europe yet received its palatial status in the hands of Dior. The fabric’s pastoral patterns dance between buoyant trees and glorious fauna—tigers, birds and monkeys—with a monochromatic density, in blue, pink or silver. Similarly, Iranian-French designer India Mahdavi channels emotion into touch and alluring motifs. Pastel-hued and lush, Mahdavi’s objects suggest slowing down and introspection, achieved through her abstract constellations of form and color. The designer began exploring the Indian region of Kashmir’s chainstitch embroidery tradition, Ari, with her pillow series, and here she extends that exploration to seating. The quintet of chairs, which she upcycled from the House’s salons, each bear distinct patterns on their seat, backseat and back: loosely scattered polka dots, sensual color bursts and zigzagging hallucinations. A pure white beech-tree wood frame holds each medley, providing a clean slate for the illusory and luscious potpourri.
INDIA MAHDAVI PORTRAIT BY MARION BERRIN
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Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with Khaled El Mays. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
KHALED EL MAYS PORTRAIT BY TANYA TRABOULSI
IN SOULFUL design, theatricality is a trait not be overlooked, neither to be disdained for the doubt of flamboyance nor misconstrued as outrageous. Balancing the right notes of theatricality is a masterful craft. While the Medallion’s ornate charm—a statuesque form, painterly touches and artisanal craftsmanship—defies trends and eras, a new generation of designers such as Khaled El Mays are undertaking the challenge of concocting new fables through objects. The Lebanese designer’s vivacious furniture pieces are nearly alive, laden with characteristics, much like actors of a mythic play. El Mays’s spirited handmade armchairs, lamps and coffee tables are dressed with leather fringes, curvaceous silhouettes and oak, much like puzzle pieces of a personality, humorous and grand. The Pratt graduate’s response to Dior’s invitation is a three-part ritualistic formation that slowly progresses towards a visual climax. A powdery pink chair that mimics the original design, save for a few intervening accents, initiates the trio. The architecture-trained designer then proceeds to a performative form with a towering backseat, finished with fringes over its circular head and four wooden legs. The three-act play culminates with the chair’s full transformation, a completely bent backseat renders the form both unfamiliar and inviting.
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Dior, Limited Edition Medallion Chairs in collaboration with Atang Tshikare. Available by special order: 1.800.929.DIOR
ATANG TSHIKARE PHOTOGRAPHY BY AYESHA KAZIM
EVERY OBJECT CRAFTS its own tale, compiling the story of its maker inch by inch and narrating it to the user through touch and experience: take, the Medallion’s wood carvings and refined upholstery. Likewise, local folklore nourishes the visual vocabulary of South African designer Atang Tshikare, particularly that of his Tswana lineage. Oral histories passed down through generations guide the self-taught designer towards his materials’ spirited promises. Through winding bronze, woven grass, or embroidered beads, Tshikare concocts his version of tales, leaving room for an enigma in each object. The Cape Town-based designer named his chair Dinaledi, meaning “stars” in his mother tongue Setswana, in celebration of the constellation of stars within the overall cosmos. His experience of seasons from the Southern Hemisphere blossoms into a totemic chair with heavily sanded wood and vegan tanned leather debossed with references to stars. The scene-stealer is the layering of black and white glass beads that transform the wooden frame into a dense mass, a nearly velvety surface that charms the eye and intrigues the mind. The chair’s visual power also transforms into linguistic meaning through nineteen pictographs that dot its surface: based on the writing systems of the Bantu people, the protruding icons represent notions such as “we” or “soul” and challenge the hierarchies of language, purpose and communication.
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