Document Issue 4 by Nick Vogelson

FREJA BEHA PHOTOGRAPHED BY COLLIER SCHORR

MALGOSIA PHOTOGRAPHED BY BENJAMIN ALEXANDER HUSEBY

ARTWORK BY STERLING RUBY

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tokyo

paris

london

cole photographed by juergen teller

ON THE COVERS

Freja Beha Erichsen

Photography by Collier Schorr. Fashion Director James Valeri. Hair Stylist Holli Smith. Make Up by Ozzy Salvatierra. Prop Stylist Robert Sumrell. Special thanks to Fast Ashleys and Gloss Studio.

Spring/Summer 2014

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N O. 5 9

N O. 9 4

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Editors’ Letter

Laurent Claquin & Dennis Freedman

Karlheinz Weinberger by John Waters

Henzel Studio, Please Tread On Me

AND JUERGEN TELLER

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARCUS HANSEN

M O D E R AT E D B Y H I L A R Y M O S S

Poetry by Wayne Koestenbaum

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Contributors and their Documents

PORTRAITS BY MARK ABRAHAMS

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PROFILES & FEATURES N O. 2 6

Sterling Ruby’s Basin Theology ARTWORK BY STERLING RUBY T E X T BY K E V I N M C GA R RY N O. 3 6

Willem Dafoe INTERVIEW BY JOHN ORTVED PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS N O. 4 3

Erykah Badu INTERVIEW BY NICHOLAS WEIST PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS N O. 4 8

Didier Malige by Joe McKenna PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS N O. 5 4

Future in Conversation with Italo Zucchelli M O D E R AT E D B Y N I C H O L A S W E I S T PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS

Bethann Hardison by Liya Kebede PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS N O. 6 6

Jean-Marc Houmard & Athena Calderone INTERVIEW BY NICK VOGELSON PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS N O. 7 0

Valeria Golino & Francesca Marciano INTERVIEW BY CHIARA BARZINI PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS

TEXT BY NICHOLAS WEIST

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Peter Doig The Early Works I N T E RV I E W BY PA R I N A Z M O GA DA S S I

TEXT BY HILARY MOSS P H OTO G R A P H Y BY PAU L W E T H E R E L L

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Kris Van Assche’s Naked Truths

Rio’s Rising Architect Carla Juacaba.

INTERVIEW BY JO-ANN FURNISS

INTERVIEW BY CHARLES RENFRO

PHOTOGRAPHY BY W I L LY VA N D E R P E R R E N O. 1 9 3

Peter Hujar TEXT BY HELEN MOLESWORTH

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The Secret World of The MacDowell Colony TEXT BY CRIS BEAM PHOTOGRAPHY BY VICTORIA SAMBUNARIS

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Narcissister in Conversation with Peaches

Camille Henrot’s Grosse Fatigue

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARK ABRAHAMS

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Peter Saville’s Fashion Apocalypse Now

ART WORK BY CAMILLE HENROT T E X T BY DA N I E L E BA L I C E

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Ron Galella: The Original Paparazzo TEXT BY NICHOLAS WEIST P H OTO G R A P H Y BY RO N GA L E L L A

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Robert Heinecken: The Magazine, Reconsidered

Draped Down at the Studio Museum in Harlem

T E X T A N D I M AG E S C U R AT E D B Y D R E W S A W Y E R

TEXT BY MONIQUE LONG

Comme des Garรงons 520W 22nd Street

Dover Street Market 160 Lexington Avenue

New York

doverstreetmarket.com

ON THE COVERS

Malgosia Bela

Photography by Benjamin Alexander Huseby. Fashion Editor Jodie Barnes. Hair Stylist Mark Hampton. Make Up by Hiromi Ueda. Casting by Samuel Ellis Scheinman. Top and skirt by Miu Miu.

Sterling Ruby

Original Artwork by Sterling Ruby. Special thanks to Gloss Studio.

Spring/Summer 2014

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PROFILES & FEATURES CONT’D

FASHION N O. 1 0 6

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

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Freja Beha Erichsen

PIERRE DEBUSSCHERE

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STREET PHOTOGRAPHY

Denham Fouts: The Most Expensive Male Prostitute in the World

Nan Goldin Reflects on Self-Portraiture INTERVIEW BY VINCE ALETTI PHOTOGRAPHY BY NAN GOLDIN N O. 2 5 0

Michae¨ l Borremans T E X T B Y D AV I D LY N C H N O. 2 7 2

Pierre Soulages: Reflections in Black TEXT BY CHRIS STIEGLER A RT WO R K BY P I E R R E S O U L AG E S N O. 2 9 2

Following the Right Hand of Pierre Bismuth TEXT BY ALISSA BENNETT ARTWORK BY PIERRE BISMUTH N O. 3 5 0

A Brutal Landscape P H OTO G R A P H Y BY DA N TO B I N S M I T H

PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIER SCHORR FA S H I O N D I R E C T O R J A M E S VA L E R I

Hanne Gaby Odiele

BY DA N I E L A R N O L D INTERVIEW BY TOMMY TON

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Flora & Fauna

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Together

BENJAMIN ALEXANDER HUSEBY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

FA S H I O N E D I T O R J O D I E B A R N E S

C H R I ST I A N M AC D O N A L D FA S H I O N D I R E C T O R J A M E S VA L E R I

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Grace & Discipline PHOTOGRAPHY BY COLLIER SCHORR FA S H I O N D I R E C T O R J A M E S VA L E R I

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OBJECT OF DESIRE

In the Details P H OTO G R A P H Y BY DA N TO B I N S M I T H

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The World of Jacquemus PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALESSIO BONI S T Y L I S T & M O D E L L I LY M C M E N A M Y

EDITOR RONALD BURTON N O. 3 3 6

Beauty School

T E X T BY DA N I E L E BA L I C E

P H OTO G R A P H Y BY B R E T T L LOY D

FA S H I O N D I R E C T O R J A M E S VA L E R I

FA S H I O N E D I T O R T O M G U I N N E S S

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OBJECT OF DESIRE

In Motion P H OTO G R A P H Y BY A N DY B E T T L E S EDITOR RONALD BURTON N O. 2 6 2

Apple Of My Eye PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEX OLSON FA S H I O N E D I T O R S T E V I E D A N C E

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Retroflex PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMILLA AKRANS FA S H I O N E D I T O R L U D I V I N E P O I B L A N C

SOURCE MATERIALS

T E X T B Y A R T H U R VA N D E R B I LT

Editors-in-Chief & Creative Directors NICK VOGELSON & JAMES VALERI

Managing Editor NICHOLAS WEIST

Associate Publisher JAMES NAVARRETE

Editorial Consultants PIERRE ALEXANDRE DE LOOZ, FELIX BURRICHTER Contributing Editors CHARLES RENFRO, MARIPOL, ANN BINLOT, CHIARA BARZINI, HILARY MOSS

West Coast Editor-at-Large SHAY NIELSEN European Editor-at-Large DANIELE BALICE Literary Advisors DAVID MCCONNELL, DARRELL CRAWFORD Art Advisors ANDREA SCHWAN, PARINAZ MOGADASSI, ALISSA BENNETT Copy Editor T.J. CARLIN Art and Editorial Assistant MAX HIRSCHBERGER Editorial Intern STEPHANIE ECKARDT Fashion and Market Editor RONALD BURTON Fashion Assistant KADEEM GREAVES Contributing Fashion Editors LUDIVINE POIBLANC, JODIE BARNES, CATHERINE NEWELL-HANSON, STEVIE DANCE, TOM GUINNESS

Casting Directors SAMUEL ELLIS SCHEINMAN at DMFASHIONSTUDIO, ROS OKUSANYA, BARBARA PFISTER Fashion Interns GIORGIA FUZIO, GINEVRA VALENTE, LEANNE WOODLEY, ANDRE RICHARDS, LEANNA WONG, JADE VALLARIO, SOPHIE MENAN and KENNY P. PAUL Type Design COMMERCIAL TYPE Graphic Designers ALBERT HICKS IV and HARRISON KUYKENDALL Contributing Writers & Interviewers

JO-ANN FURNISS, VINCE ALETTI, JOHN WATERS, WAYNE KOESTENBAUM, JOE MCKENNA, LIYA KEBEDE, CHARLES RENFRO, ITALO ZUCCHELLI, PEACHES, HELEN MOLESWORTH, DANIELE BALICE, CRIS BEAM, MONIQUE LONG, KEVIN MCGARRY, JOHN ORTVED, NICHOLAS WEIST, HILARY MOSS, DREW SAWYER, CHIARA BARZINI, PARINAZ MOGADASSI, ALISSA BENNETT, CHRIS STIEGLER, TOMMY TON, ARTHUR VANDERBILT

Contributing Artists

COLLIER SCHORR, STERLING RUBY, BENJAMIN ALEXANDER HUSEBY, NAN GOLDIN, CAMILLA AKRANS, MARK ABRAHAMS, DAN TOBIN SMITH, PAUL WETHERELL, CHRISTIAN MACDONALD, BRETT LLOYD, ALESSIO BONI, ANDY BETTLES, ALEX OLSON, PIERRE DEBUSSCHERE, DANIEL ARNOLD, PETER DOIG, CAMILLE HENROT, PIERRE BISMUTH, PIERRE SOULAGES, THE ESTATES OF ROBERT HEINECKEN, PETER HUJAR, GEORGE PLATT LYNES, AND KARLHEINZ WEINBERGER

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Document No. 4 Printed in March, 2014. Copyright © Document Publishing, LLC. ISBN 978-88-6208-259-4 ISSN 2280-8701 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical—including photocopying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system— without prior permission in writing from the publisher. SPECIAL THANKS

Patrick Crowley, Matthew Adams, Darrell Crawford, David McConnell, Jessie & Ashok Childs, Valeri family, Vogelson family, Michele Saunders, Alexander Galan, Laurent Claquin, Jenn Ramey, Mina White, Kyle Hagler, Leigh Crystal, Jennifer Baker, Art & Commerce, Ziggy Levin, Liman Chang, Art Partner, Candace Marks, Sally Borno, Stewart Searle, M.A.P., George Miscamble, Adam Sherman at Steven Klein Studio, Andrew Leahy, Bryce Ebel, Christian Schwartz, Jean-Marc

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Editors’ Letter

pontaneity, authenticity, and simplicity have emerged as the words to define this issue. We met up with Nan Goldin, a photographer known chiefly for depictions of real life and her self-portraits that she sat down to discuss with writer and critic Vince Aletti. This piece looks back at her entire body of self-portraiture, starting with her days in Boston, and sheds light on authorship, authenticity, and the role of self-critique (No. 236). We explore other powerful and compelling women: activist and model Bethann Hardison, a leading champion of diversity in fashion, who sat down with model Liya Kebede to discuss the need for constant support of women of color in fashion (No. 62). We also traveled down to Rio in advance of this year’s World Cup where Charles Renfro discusses the role of women architects with arcVision prize recipient Carla Juaçaba (No. 226). We’ve always been intrigued by artist Robert Heinecken’s take on media objectification, and his juxtaposition of fashion images with eros, which formulate a type of “J’accuse” to consumerism in the modern age (No. 80). So it is with great pleasure that we are able to include a never-before-seen portfolio of Heinecken’s original magazine cut-ups, coincident with the MoMA exhibition, and organized for Document by MoMA curatorial fellow Drew Sawyer. We’ve also been intrigued by youth and innocence because of their immediate power, a common trait with the confident women and men in Document. We plumb the depths of this power, from the rarely-glimpsed early works of Scottish artist Peter Doig (No. 160) to the self-stylings of Swiss biker gangs as seen through the lens of Karlheinz Weinberger, unearthed and captioned by the king of bad taste, John Waters himself (No. 94). More than anything, though, we’re excited for the frank conversations by some of today’s most intriguing talents: Erykah Badu holds court here, fresh from her center stage-position in the fashion world through a Givenchy campaign (No. 43); Willem Dafoe discusses his mastery of stage and screen (No. 36); comb master Didier Malige converses with Joe McKenna (No. 48), and Future trades ideas on sound and style with Italo Zucchelli (No. 54). Taking cues from these energizing tête-à-têtes, we’ve drawn inspiration from fashion that transcends seasons, washing away the rules of the past. With fashion comes nudity, the glorious body, the language of the soul: from Collier Schorr’s cover story with Freja Beha (No. 106), to Benjamin Alexander Huseby’s mixed casting alongside Malgosia Bela (No. 124), and Christian MacDonald’s point of view on the season’s newest faces (No. 299). Posture and mimic are accessories to our bodies, as much as fashion ever could be. Ladies and Gentlemen, Document Spring/Summer 2014. Nick Vogelson & James Valeri

VINCE ALETTI : “Michael Jackson and Jermaine Jackson, from a series of unpublished Polaroids taken December 12, ’72, of the group then known as the Jackson 5, following an WE ASKED OUR interview at their Los Angeles home (1 ).” JOHN ORTVED: C O N T R I B U TO R S “Michael Ondaatje inscribed F O R S O M E O F T H E I R my first edition of Coming Through Slaughter. It’s totally M O S T I M P O RTA N T illegible, but he narrated what D O C U M E N T S. he wrote while he wrote it (2 ).” HILARY MOSS: “How I spend my time between issues (3 ).” DANIELE BALICE: “I’m a contemporary art gallerist based in Paris and New York, but my radar is always tuned to different fields, such as design, architecture, and fashion (4 ).” CHARLES RENFRO: “The intersection of culture and nature in Brazil is ubiquitous and both inspiring and unnerving. Nowhere is it more pronounced than the Inhotim Sculpture park in Mina Gerais where machined surfaces fight for territory with vines and palms. Is this the future of the lost Modernist project (5 )?” CHIARA BARZINI: “It’s a page ripped out of the surreal, early-sixties Enciclopedia delle Donne (“Ladies Encyclopedia”) that I found on a sidewalk in Trastevere a few years ago. I especially cherish the part about the massaggiatore a vibrazione, the “electric vibration massager.” Even though the woman in the illustration uses it on her head, I’m sure it’s supposed to go elsewhere (6 )!” WAYNE KOESTENBAUM: “I made this painting, Filip with Red Background (oil on canvas) in 2013, after a modeling session with my friend Filip (7 ).” PEACHES: “So even when I’m not feeling like it, I have balls (8 )!” ALEX OLSON: The shirt represents a time and place that I romanticize—I wish I had been a part of this music scene that I love (9 ).” CRIS BEAM: The author of To The End of June (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) and two other books. She wrote about the MacDowell colony, where she found this Flaubert quote taped to the wall of the laundry room (10 ). BENJAMIN ALEXANDER HUSEBY: “A photo by Will McBride (with my reflection in the glass). We swapped some photographs after we did an exhibition together in ’06, and this one is dearest to me (11 ).” JODIE BARNES: “This is a portrait of me by my boyfriend, Rafael Melendez (12 ).” JEAN-MARC HOUMARD: “This is the bottom of a pool I had dreamed of being able to escape to in the middle of a New York winter. I built it with a friend in the courtyard of a tiny hotel we just opened in the old colonial town of Granada, Nicaragua— a small fantasy project with a childhood friend that finally became reality this month (13 ).” ATHENA CALDERONE: “I’ve got to honor my mama for opening my eyes to an elevated taste level and overall appreciation of beauty surrounding food and design. Thankfully she eventually taught me how to SMILE (14 )!” DENNIS FREEDMAN: “ It’s a dogs life (15 ).” JO-ANN FURNISS: This is me and my friend Bryan McMahon. He died last New Year’s Eve —he had a brain tumour. We are plainly in a bit of a state, this photograph is from another New Years Eve. He was hilarious, and had such a sharp eye and sense of style. He was senior fashion editor at Another Man (16 ).” PARINAZ MOGADASSI: “A get out of jail free card, because a criminal mind needs escape strategy (17 ).” LAURENT CLAQUIN: “With the wonderful children of Cite Soleil in Haiti (18 ).” ALISSA BENNETT: Self-portrait with Olivetti Valentine (19 ).” PIERRE DEBUSSCHERE: #254FOULARDS, a project I am working on with my friends (20 ).” JOHN WATERS: I love him even more now that his rap name is ‘Bizzle’ (21 )!” DREW SAWYER: “I’ve spent a lot of time (probably too much) thinking about Walker Evans’s exploration of the boundaries between the document and art (22 ).” PIERRE BISMUTH: (23 ). MARK ABRAHAMS: (24 ). D O C U M E N T N O. 2 4

Original Documents

14 12

8 5

9 13

20 1

17 10

terling Ruby is one of the most prolific American artists to appear in the 21st century, and not just for the volume of objects that come out of his industrial campus near downtown Los Angeles. Also notable is the breadth of mediums and genres he has delved into in order to create his self-reflexive, formal ecosystem. Ruby interrogates legacies of Modernism as well as nomadic strands of abjection and tribalism, questioning the role of humanity in the engulfing machine of contemporary culture. These collages, made for Document Journal, combine ceramic sculptures with uniforms that the artist designed. Ruby wore the garments while creating the sculptures, and then photographed both together. They are a part of his ongoing Basin Theology series—the large containers, which look somewhat like ashtrays, are full of shards that had burst apart from larger forms under hellish conditions in the kiln, and later reassembled. It is the same body of work that is on view now at the Whitney Museum of American Art as part of Michelle Grabner’s portion of the museum’s biennial. Ruby also recently collaborated with Raf Simons, creating prints for the designer’s Fall/Winter ’14 collection. His interest in clothing as a canvas goes beyond the fusion of art and design, drawing quotidian, usable objects into the purview of visual art.

D O C U M E N T N O. 2 6

Sterling Ruby’s Basin Theology F R O M H I S S T U D I O I N L O S A N G E L E S, T H E A RT I S T C R E AT E S A N E XC L U S I V E P O RT F O L I O F O R D O C U M E N T J O U R N A L— FUSING GARMENTS WITH SHARDS EXPLODED I N A K I L N —A S PA RT O F H I S O N G O I N G S E R I E S, N OW O N V I E W AT T H E W H I T N E Y. ARTWORK BY

S T E R L I N G RU BY

TEXT BY

K E V I N Mc G A R RY

“I’m fanatic in my discipline because I want to keep those opportunities coming, because I’m totally selfish and I want to keep on returning to that place that I love.” —Willem Dafoe

INTERVIEW BY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

J O H N O RT V E D

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

G R O O M E R : S A M A D D I N G TO N AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R U S I N G C H A N E L S U B L I M AG E . S T Y L I N G A S S I S TA N T: A M B E R H A R R I S .

C A S T I N G D I R E C TO R S : R O S O K U S A N YA A N D S E O N A TAY L O R - B E L L . G R O O M E R : M A R C O B R AC O AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R F O R O R I B E H A I R C A R E .

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Shirt by RICK OWENS.

Coat by BURBERRY LONDON.

“Theatre is a beautiful, social, public art form where we can all get in a room and watch people get up in front of us and do things that change how we think. That’s important. And that also takes the pressure off the slog of being a human being.”

he 58-year-old Willem Dafoe brings a penetrating depth—at once profoundly humorous, troubling, serious, and odd—to his performances, of which, in a career spanning 40 years on screen, stage, and in art, there have been thousands. Dafoe’s beguiling grimace and the unsettling talent behind it have defined Scorsese’s Christ, Marvel’s Green Goblin and countless other roles less controversial or blockbuster, in films of all sizes. Onstage, Dafoe has performed alternative and experimental theatre since the midseventies. He is a founding member and has almost three decades with the Wooster Group, New York’s foremost experimental theatre company. Today, he continues to surf along theatre’s fringe while rollicking in the mainstream, collaborating with the likes of Marina Abramovic on a project that is neither performance nor art nor theatre, while starring in Wes Anderson’s upcoming The Grand Budapest Hotel. He also stars in Anton Corbijn’s recent A Most Wanted Man— and those are only two of the seven film projects he’s currently involved with. From Rome, the actor reveals the tricks to his very elaborate trade: how to avoid carrying baggage, how to hold your own dancing with Baryshnikov, and why we shouldn’t trust anything we hear on the Internet. ORTVED —What are you doing in Rome?

DAFOE —I’m shooting a movie. It’s tentatively titled Pasolini. It’s by Abel Ferrara and I play Pier Paolo Pasolini. ORTVED —Amazing. You’ve worked with Mr. Ferrara before. DAFOE —Three times. ORTVED —You’ve worked with him in Rome before. DAFOE —Yes. [Laughs.] I have. I’ve worked with him in New York and twice in Rome. ORTVED —I’m calling you from New York. You moved here almost 40 years ago. What was it like to be 21 in New York City in ’76? DAFOE —That was a very beautiful time for me. I don’t know whether it was being 21 years old or if that was a particularly good time for the city. Of course, those were the “Drop Dead New York” days. It was a lot funkier. It was a lot more dangerous. It was a lot. Everything was a little harder, but I was cute so that didn’t bother me. As far as my education and my being turned on with new things, it was a very exciting time. ORTVED —And what kind of new things were you being turned on by? DAFOE —Oh, I was meeting people that called themselves artists. ORTVED —I read somewhere that you’re going to be playing Warhol in a movie about Yves Saint Laurent. Is that correct? DAFOE —It’s not correct. There’s a lot of bad information out there. ORTVED —Well, a movie you’re actually involved with is The Grand Budapest Hotel, Wes Anderson’s latest. You worked with him before. What’s the joy of working on a Wes Anderson movie? Is it the en-

semble cast? Is it the props? Is it his design? Is it him? DAFOE —You named them all. I think the main thing is him. He’s a guy that really makes the film that he wants to make and your job is to help him do that. He takes you aboard because he knows you’re interested in doing that. He’s very precise and he’s very uncompromising. He’s a true auteur in the sense that his movies really look like Wes Anderson movies and his worlds are a personal expression of what he wants to see. I’m an actor but I’m not only an actor. I’m a filmmaker. Acting is one part of film, but a huge part of it is objects and shots and light and all that. And Wes manages those things beautifully and with great care. You don’t always get that opportunity. ORTVED —Another upcoming film, A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn, comes from the John le Carré novel. And are you a fan of that genre? DAFOE —Not specifically. I’ll say this: I don’t watch much television, but the one television thing of all time that I love probably more than anything else was the original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I thought that was just gorgeous. I loved how the story was told and I loved the performances and I loved the writing. ORTVED —There’s actually a line from Tinker Tailor that I love—at one point George Smiley tells another spy that a fanatic is always concealing a secret doubt. It speaks such truth. DAFOE —Beautiful. ORTVED —But it also makes me think of actors. Do you think you’re somewhat fanatical as an actor? DAFOE —No, not to the extent that you’re talking about. I read something today: fundamentalism is born out of a need for security. I think as human beings we crave security. One of the nice things about performance is that you can abandon that and play around with something else. Performing is much more about poetry, and indulging doubt, and being flexible, and reconsidering, and chasing things down the rabbit hole. That doesn’t sound like fanaticism to me. I’m fanatic in my discipline because I want to keep those opportunities coming, because I’m totally selfish and I want to keep on returning to that place that I love, that place where you feel useful. You disappear into the act and then you feel like you live it. ORTVED —You mean the way you get into a role? DAFOE —My hunger to attach myself to something, to attach myself to a task. Not everybody has that. I get a terrific pleasure out of a certain circumstance: just walking from here to there. ORTVED —When it comes to getting into roles, the Shakespearean actor Mark Rylance has said something along the lines of, “It’s very simple, I pretend, like a child.” DAFOE —Yeah, I’m much of that school. I think less about the interpretation and more about doing. I think more about pretending than I do about craft. I think more about experiencing something and

receiving something than I do about creating. Um, that’s not true. I’ll quit there. [Laughs.] ORTVED —Welcome to my business. [Laughs.] Let me ask you about Anton Corbijn, and working with him. DAFOE —I like Control very much. And I shot with him as a photographer. Also, it’s just how he approached me. He came to see me perform in Amsterdam and we talked afterwards and the idea of me playing this British banker was kind of outside-of-the-box casting, so I appreciated that. ORTVED —You worked with Phillip Seymour Hoffman on the film. Did you know him from theatre circles in New York? DAFOE —You know, I didn’t. I’d met him and I’d seen him perform and of course I’d seen him in many movies. Most of my scenes were not with him in A Most Wanted Man, but I got to know him a little bit and I liked him a great deal. I thought he was really smart and sweet and funny. I didn’t know him well; I did not. But what I knew I liked. I’m still quite shocked because we had just been at Sundance to show A Most Wanted Man, and he was gone just a week later. It’s still quite haunting to me. ORTVED —You were both so involved in New York theatre. You have a long history with the Wooster group, and more. What’s the importance, today, of experimental theatre? DAFOE —On this topic I can only talk about me. [Laughs.] ORTVED —That’s fine. DAFOE —I was with the Wooster Group for something like 26 years and when I stopped working with them, I missed it and I was looking. I will say, a couple times I’ve been tempted to see what it would be like to do a conventional play. But I haven’t had that experience. I like performing live because it’s athleticism, it’s ritual, it’s the fact that you control your own timings. The importance is now that everybody’s retreating into their own little self-made worlds, theatre is a beautiful, social, public art form where we can all get in a room and watch people get up in front of us and do things that change how we think. That’s important. And that also takes the pressure off the slog of being a human being, and being reminded every second that we aren’t good enough and we’re dying every moment. [Laughs.] ORTVED —Easy, it’s still Saturday morning here. It’s not even noon yet. DAFOE —[Laughs.] It’s getting dark where I am. ORTVED —The conventional roles that could tempt you: what might those be? DAFOE —I don’t know. ORTVED —On the other side, there’s your work with Robert Wilson. DAFOE —I’m still performing in those pieces; we’re still touring. I’m doing this piece, The Old Woman, which is a two-hander, with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the opera house at BAM. It’s based on writings of a Russian absurdist in the thirties by the name of Daniil Kharms. ORTVED —And what’s it like to spar in a two-hand scene with Mikhail Baryshnikov? DAFOE —Well it’s nice because, as is the case with a lot of Bob Wilson’s

work, there’s a lot of movement. We are animals in a landscape. We’re moving through his space, through his colors, through his light. So it’s fun because we know Mikhail’s a dancer and we know he’s an actor. It’s fun to see where those different disciplines work together. I also enjoy working with Bob because his approach is very formal, but at the same time in his strict structures I find great freedom. ORTVED —Is it intimidating to move with Baryshnikov? DAFOE —Initially, yes. I’m very aware of who he is, but once you get into working then all your attention goes to problem-solving and that stuff goes away. I grew up with him being one of the greatest dancers in history. The truth is that I’m somewhat a frustrated dancer. I feel most comfortable in movement, much more than I do in traditional acting. I mean, where I live, where I act, is when I’m just using my body and movement. ORTVED —Your previous collaboration with Robert Wilson was The Life and Death of Marina Abromovic. Was that a play? Was that performance art? Was it something else? DAFOE —It’s a Bob Wilson film and there’s very beautiful music by Antony Hegarty and Billy Basinski, and Marina is at the center; she is the material. I don’t know what you’d describe it as. I think it’s closer to being an opera, because it’s live music and text. They’re unconventional things, let’s put it that way. ORTVED —One of your fellow Nymphomaniac cast members, Shia LaBeouf, has been making a lot of noise about performance art. Do you think that life as a celebrity has a carnivalesque quality that makes it worthy of meta-commentary? DAFOE —Oh, god. That’s a tough one. I don’t know him. I did work with him. It sounds like he’s trying to make something, so let him make it. ORTVED —What medium would you like to work in next? DAFOE —I’m still in love with performing. I’m still in love with making things. Basically, I don’t know what I want to do next. I’ve always been bad at looking much past the next project. I think it’s hard to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, because you’ve got to give your heart to it; you’ve got to fall in love with it. You’ve got to say: “This, this is the only thing I’ve ever done; this is the last thing I’ll do; this is what I’m doing; nothing else exists on some level.” Okay? ORTVED —I’m wrapping up here, but you bring up love. You have to fall in love with a project. In terms of your work and life, if you can draw a line between the two, when have you been most in love? Do you know? DAFOE —Yeah, it’s pretty much the same all the time. Once I’m in something, that becomes my world; that becomes my family; that becomes my life. The further away it is from my life, whether that’s geographically or character-wise, the more intense it is, because you can abandon your habits and your patterns. I’m not one of these guys that, when I go to location, I bring my music. I go there with a suitcase in my hand. ORTVED —I think that’s as good a point as any to end on. Thank you for the thoughtful replies. DAFOE —Sure. Own it.

Coat and pants by BURBERRY LONDON.

Sequin dress by GIVENCHY

BY RICCARDO TISCI Pre-Fall

collection. Rings by GALILEO BY LILLIAN SHALOM.

hen Erykah Badu’s first album, Baduizm, debuted in ’97, the musician’s poetic lyrics and soulful rhythms captivated audiences around the globe, and instant classics like “On and On” and “Next Lifetime” were born. As the face of Givenchy’s Spring 2014 campaign, the neo-soul artist brings a stoic beauty to Riccardo Tisci’s inspired designs. Badu discusses her style, her storied music career, and her organization Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development, which cultivates creativity in underprivileged youth. NICHOLAS —You’re known for your music and as an artist, but also for your style. How do you think fashion relates to your music? Do you see it as a complete creative practice, or are the two mutually exclusive? ERYKAH —I take the same approach in all genres of art, across the board. It’s intuitive. In music, it makes for a good platform to take time and really mold a piece the way I need to mold it. When it comes to fashion, I create a functional art that moves. NICHOLAS —Do you work with a stylist? ERYKAH —No, I don’t work with a stylist. NICHOLAS —That’s rare. ERYKAH —It’s fun. It’s fun to put those things together, visually. NICHOLAS —In your performance looks and in your music videos, you combine fashion from many different eras. ERYKAH —Yes, different periods, different cultures—it’s just the way my mind works. My music is that way as well. There’s a foundation but the inspiration comes from everywhere. I’ve been influenced by so many things. NICHOLAS —Are there a couple big ones that you can name, or anything that’s been on your mind recently? ERYKAH —Let’s see…I’m inspired by Earl Sweatshirt. He’s a really honest writer, and he’s unusually intelligent. I relate to that—he inspires me across the board. His music inspires me and reminds me to maintain honesty in the things that I do, to have an absence of fear. Listening to Earl Sweatshirt’s music is like therapy to me. NICHOLAS —Your music has always had a higher message, maybe more so than most pop music. Could you talk a little about that? ERYKAH —I don’t know why, it’s just what I feel inside, the thoughts that I sing about. It’s just my truth. [Laughs.] Sometimes my emotions can be mistaken for messages. NICHOLAS —You’ve also indicated in your music that you privilege the voice of the individual. It’s an important message for young people—that one doesn’t need the validation of the group. ERYKAH —It just works better for me to discriminate between which thoughts are mine and which come from elsewhere, before I even talk about them or express them—it helps to keep me focused on my path. I strongly believe that the more positive my vibration is, the clearer my message will be. I keep my negative thoughts from infiltrating my pathway and my dreams. Other people’s thoughts are none of my business.

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“Before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader. —Erykah Badu INTERVIEW BY PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

NICHOLAS WEIST

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

NICHOLAS —Have you found it difficult to be uncompromising in your musical integrity? ERYKAH —I don’t find it difficult, but others may. [Laughs.] NICHOLAS —And what about in your style? You’re so fashionable but your looks are totally unique. Has that ever presented difficulties? ERYKAH —I could do a few more sit-ups and my waistline would be less difficult. [Laughs.] I don’t know… I’ve been doing it for 17 years now, so of course I’ve seen pictures and thought, “Oh my god, I wish I would’ve never worn that.” Yeah, but I did! And it was probably because it was my favorite thing at the time—my clothes always have some kind of emotion attached to them. I just love expressing my joy and my mind through what I wear, or how I cook, or how I dance, or how I write or perform a song—how I move. NICHOLAS —You’ve shared a little of that with the world through your Vine account, which I have to say I’m a huge fan of. Do you enjoy making those videos? ERYKAH —I love it. It’s such a fun tool: it enables me to create a small film from anywhere. NICHOLAS —Do you feel like you’ve accomplished most of your dreams, or are there some left to explore? ERYKAH —I don’t know if I’ll ever accomplish most of my dreams—I have so many! I feel like I haven’t done anything. What have I done? I’ve just made a few records. NICHOLAS —Do you have a favorite moment from making those records? Or a time from when something you really wanted to manifest finally happened to you? ERYKAH —I remember when I signed with Kedar Entertainment through Universal Records. It was my first record deal and it’s the one I still have now. At that time, there had been a couple of opportunities I was almost given, but at the last minute the giver came back and told me it couldn’t happen. I would be very understanding, but very disappointed because it was almost there. And this particular time, when I was getting ready to sign with Kedar, a similar thing happened. He received my demo and saw some promise; he felt an energetic connection to me, and was interested in signing me and wanted me to open for D’Angelo, whom he was managing at the time. I was like, “Yeah, it’s in my city, where they would come through. This is my chance—for the whole city to see it.” But he called at the last minute, saying he didn’t think it was a good idea after all. That

it was going to be “too difficult, technically,” and this and that. For the first time in my life I said, “No. This is going to happen. We’re going to do it and there’s nothing that’s going to stop it. There will be no technical difficulties that will interfere with it. I’m doing this.” I felt very strongly about it, and the stronger I felt, the stronger he felt. That’s the moment I learned that the more you believe in yourself, the stronger the vibration touches someone else, and things begin to happen the way you dreamed that they would. NICHOLAS —You still live in Dallas, but have a place in New York City as well. ERYKAH —I lived in New York for maybe a year and a half, from ’95 to ’97, but I live in Dallas. My whole family is there. I have an apartment in Brooklyn—I guess I call it my shrine. I go there to create and recoup, or hibernate sometimes, but my home is in Dallas where I live with my children. NICHOLAS —What is it about New York that allows you the freedom to create? ERYKAH —It’s just that little box in the middle of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. [Laughs.] Most of the time I go I don’t even leave that apartment. I have just enough: a little bed, a little kitchen with two pots. I make some tea and I look out the window or just lay down. NICHOLAS —It sounds lovely. When you get dressed up to perform or make a Vine, what comes first: the feeling or the fashion? Do you wake up and say, “Today I’m gonna look this way?” Or do you experiment with clothes and put different things on? ERYKAH —I go through phases of stuff. I have a pair of blue pants that were my favorite for a while and were a part of my show uniform—every night, you know. Or my favorite jewelry, it’s just what I’m feeling at the time. Or the metal or the stone that’s helping me right now. I’ll incorporate them into anything I wear—but I think it’s about accessories more than anything, because it’s how you accessorize yourself that gives you your own unique style. That’s what I like about houses like Givenchy. It’s easy to pull from. With Givenchy you can accessorize to build anything, any look. NICHOLAS —Can you describe the process of working with Givenchy? ERYKAH —I was sitting at home one day and I got a call that Riccardo Tisci was considering me for the face of the Givenchy Spring/ Summer 2014 campaign, and I said, “Are you kidding?” and that was

H A I R B Y C H U C K A M O S . M A K E U P B Y S A M A D D I N G TO N U S I N G C H A N E L . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T M I C H A E L B E S H A R A .

“It’s about accessories more than anything, because it’s how you accessorize yourself that gives you your own unique style. That’s what I like about houses like Givenchy. It’s easy to pull from. With Givenchy you can accessorize to build anything, any look.”

Shirt and gloves by

GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI

Pre-Fall collection.

Sequin dress by GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI Pre-Fall collection. Rings by GALILEO BY LILLIAN SHALOM.

“Now my record deal helps me to do things for free or give more time to my community than I could otherwise.”

the end of the conversation. I’m a really big fan. I have a Pinterest, and if you look there you’ll see the things I really like and adore, have crushes on, and there’s a lot of stuff from Riccardo’s line on there. I think we share a sensibility about art—we pull from the ancient future. He has an interesting approach to weaving the contemporary with the couture, and blending tribes and collections. It always seems to work. I thought it was cool how he wanted to blend Africa and Asia because they relate to each other in so many different ways. NICHOLAS —What do you think you bring to Givenchy? ERYKAH —I think that when he wanted to bring more attention to the lack of African American presence on the runway, he also wanted to bring attention to the lack of a sensibility of African and Asian art. Art, period. I bring the staple of my culture. I solidify his vision and what he is trying to manifest, make it a crystal or solid thing because of the relationship I have with my culture and what my music means to him. NICHOLAS —Whom do you dress for, when you get dressed in the morning? ERYKAH —People that like to dress! NICHOLAS —What do you think is the job of an artist? ERYKAH —I think the job of an artist is to be honest and fearless. NICHOLAS —I understand that you also do some philanthropic work in Dallas. ERYKAH —I have an organization called BLIND [Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development], so named because even though my interest is in the black community, because that’s where I grew up and that’s where I’m most skilled in fixing things, it doesn’t end there. I think giving is a blind act that should come from a part of me that sees no discrimination (that’s why I called it “blind”). We mainly focus on putting music, art, dance, theater, all forms of art, back into the community, so the community can put it into the world. I had the opportunity, as a child, to grow up in a community center where I was exposed to theater, music, art, and computer science; things that I would have never had the opportunity to even meet had it not been for those people taking time out of their schedules, helping us as children to travel all over the world while sitting in a gymnasium. That’s what I did before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader. Now my record deal helps me to do things for free or give more time to my community than I could otherwise. NICHOLAS —Have you had some important teachers in your life? ERYKAH —I come from a long line of matriarchal women, and my greatest teachers were my mothers. My first, my birth mother— her name is Queenie—she gave me a powerful medicine when I was a child. She told me that, “I was the best,” and it helped me so much. My second mother is my maternal grandmother. Her name is Thelma. She also gave me a very powerful medicine; she made sure that I knew my role as a young lady and as someone with moral structures and principles. She taught me that if I was going to be involved with anything, whether it be spirituality, music, or some skill, that I have to practice. Things are useless without practice.

My third mother is my paternal grandmother. Her name is Viola. She gave me my sense of knowing why, or knowing why it was important to ask why. She made me understand that I don’t have to believe everything I hear. She gave me the courage to investigate things and not take things at face value or judge people by what I first imagine them to be. My fourth mother, my godmother, she passed away a couple years ago—her name was Gwen. She was the theater director over at the gym where I grew up and learned about all those awesome things I told you about already. She was the one who taught me terms like “upstage” and “downstage,” all those technical things about the art of what I do—how to breathe what I see, how to move. They were all her tactics, not anything learned or given to me through a theory, but rather by her natural abilities. My fifth mother is Mother Nature—the things I had to learn on my own, the understanding I had to come to and still have to come to as a young woman, as a responsible mother, a responsible granddaughter and child. She teaches me willpower, honesty, and the things we need to heal ourselves from moment to moment. NICHOLAS —What would you like to pass onto your children? What role would you like to fill for them? ERYKAH —I’m learning from them! Everyone says that, but it’s true. You learn more about yourself from them than from any other lesson, because you’re responsible for them. You are there to protect them, not possess them. I tell them, “Watch me and you might learn something.” [Laughs.] NICHOLAS —Do you get dressed up together? Do they have a favorite outfit of yours? ERYKAH —The girls just like to be in the shoes. They like to scuff up the floors and walk around in high-heeled shoes that are too big for them, all over the house. My girls are very fashionable. They have a very good eye for marrying style and fashion. I don’t just mean in a little girl kind of way—they understand the “less is more” theory, they understand the symmetry idea. They wouldn’t wear a chunky shoe and a…chunky skirt. [Laughs.] My nine-year-old daughter is very creative and colorful and trendy. And I have a daughter who’s four, who’s dainty and princess-esque. I still get to dress her like my little accessory. I think I have one more year to do that, then she’s going to get her own ideas—so I better move quickly! NICHOLAS —Did you come from a stylish family as well? Did you learn anything about fashion as a kid? ERYKAH —Oh yeah, all the women in my family were very creative. My mom was the Diana Ross of our clan. She was always up-todate, and always knew what to do and what not to do in a fashion sense. I was the bohemian in my family, the “this is my favorite shoe and I don’t care if it has tape around it” kind of person. The tape could become a fashion statement. Or a political statement. [Laughs.] NICHOLAS —Do you have a fashion philosophy? ERYKAH —I think it’s about your smile and your smell. NICHOLAS —And the rest is accessories. ERYKAH —Yeah, the rest is accessories.

ailed as a “hair visionary” by the New York Times, hair stylist Didier Malige’s career spans five decades, beginning with an apprenticeship at the iconic Parisian salon Carita. Malige’s portfolio includes collaborations with fashion’s most famed photographers, including Bruce Weber, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Patrick Demarchelier, Annie Leibovitz, and Bob Richardson, and labels like Saint Laurent, Alexander McQueen, Dior Homme, and Louis Vuitton. Legendary fashion stylist Joe McKenna quizzes Malige about his dream client, working at Carita, and his cats. JOE —Lets talk about Camilla Parker-Bowles, you said you’d like to do her hair? DIDIER —Yes

JOE —I was wondering why you chose her.

JOE —But there must be something about her as a woman that made you think you would like to do her hair? DIDIER — She looks like a sophisticated country woman. But now it’s too late. She already has her coif. Joe McKenna: Do English women have better hair than French women? DIDIER —I think it’s pretty much the same. It’s like comparing Scandinavian women and English women. The Scandinavians don’t have very much hair; I think English women have good hair. I mean, I’m sure there are exceptions. JOE —Let’s go back where you started, at the Carita sisters’ salon. How did you get the job there, did you just apply? DIDIER —No, my mother used to assist a veterinarian, and one of the Carita sisters was a client of the veterinary clinic. My mother asked Rosie Carita if I could be an apprentice at her salon. And Rosy said, sure why not. JOE —Is this what you wanted to do? Or were you in it more for the girls than the actual haircuts? DIDIER —You know, I was very young—so I was not really into those kind of sophisticated girls. JOE —How long did you stay at Carita? DIDIER —Three years, I did my apprenticeship there. JOE —Who did you work under? DIDIER —I worked with Laurent Godefroid and another person called Catherine. They had really, really great clients, and they were hairdressers of a kind that don’t exist anymore. They worked super hard and they were very talented. At that time they did an average of 30 clients a day! JOE —So you had to shampoo and blow dry? DIDIER —No, no, I didn’t shampoo those women. Basically, the hairdresser started with what they called the “mise en place”, and the apprentices finished it. JOE —Were you aware of Alexandre? [[NB editor’s note: Louis Alexandre Raimon, aka Alexandre de Paris or the “”Sphinx de la coiffure” was a famous french hair stylist of the time, who was responsible for Elizabeth Taylor’s hair in the 1963 film Cleopatra, who started the Carita salon together with the Carita sisters before departing.] DIDIER —It was discussed in the cafeteria, but it was rival territory. You would hear rumors, about Alexandre while he was parking his car in the entranceway of Carita. But that whole thing was before my time. JOE —Who were the Carita clients in the sixties? DIDIER —Well, French actresses like Catherine Deneuve and her sister Françoise Dorléac, and a lot of aristocratic women, writers, and intellectuals. They were, as one says, la crème

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Comb Master Didier Malige by Joe McKenna PHOTOGRAPHY BY FA S H I O N E D I T O R

MARK ABRAHAMS

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

G R O O M I N G : A S A M I M AT S U DA .

DIDIER —I guess because Prince Charles liked her. She was a good choice.

de la crème. Between Catherine and Françoise they had really interesting women —women who had made names for themselves. JOE —This must have been about at the beginning of French readyto-wear. Were you aware of fashion? Were you interested in it? DIDIER —Then it was very simple, if you could afford it, it was an Hermès bag, like a Birkin.… and you had to have a trench coat. JOE —A Burberry trench coat? DIDIER —Yes, and at that time in the winter, the women wore knee boots. Also I think it was the beginning of Courrèges. The Carita sisters wore Courrèges. JOE —Did that influence you? DIDIER —I think it did. I remember very well what they were wearing. It was definitely an influence. I think they also wore the Cartier panther jewelry that had been resurrected. JOE —So after three years at Carita what were you thinking? DIDIER —Luckily I moved out of Carita as I was very young to be there, and was given a chance by Jean Louis David, he had a salon on Avenue Wagram. —It was not really chic—, nothing comparable to the Carita salon, which was more like an institution at that time. Jean Louis David was much more for younger people. He gave me the chance to actually do hair, as opposed to assisting. JOE —How long were you at Jean Louis David before you started working with photographers ? DIDIER —A long time. Eventually Jean Louis David moved from Avenue Wagram to rue Pierre Charron in a very luxurious salon that he created himself. He sold everything valuable that he had in his home to open the salon in the rue Pierre Charron. And since he also had been at Carita, he wanted to have a studio team for fashion shoots, like an agency for hairdressers under the name of Jean Louis David. So I started to go to the studio with him and meet different photographers. In the beginning it was nuts. We would work with all the prestigious magazines, it was magnificent, that’s pretty much the way I started. JOE —When did you do your first photo shoot? Who were the people you worked with?. DIDIER —Well probably one of the best names was Bob Richardson, who had moved to Paris with his family. I was also working with Helmut Newton, who was very supportive of my work. And I happened to work with also Guy Bourdin, but definitely mainly Helmut Newton and Bob Richardson . JOE —Did you have any ideas of what you wanted to do with the models’ hair or did they instruct you? DIDIER —Well I think Bob [Richardson] was very influenced by movies, so he wanted to have a certain feeling, but it was really that he would give you the name of a movie and it was up to you to interpret if there was something in that spirit or not, not exactly like the movie. I mean I didn’t speak English then so our conversations were really short, he would tell me the name of a movie to be inspired from. It was always an adventure to work with him, a journey. But then Jean Louis David closed down his studio team, so the only thing for me to do was to work in the salon. I mean to work behind the chair! I didn’t find that terribly exciting. And then I met a few French photographers like Patrick Demarchelier, this was around 1967. JOE —So what year did you move to America? DIDIER —I started to come in the mid seventies. JOE —So between ’67 and the mid-seventies you were working in Paris for fashion shoots? DIDIER —Yes. I had enough work at that point to work only for the studio not in the salon. I never had any cli-

ents anyway. JOE —What brought you to America? DIDIER —I guess kind of wanting to change. Also I knew a few French photographers like Patrick [Demarchellier] who moved to America. JOE —Obviously the work I knew you from, was your work with Bruce [Bruce Weber.]. How did that collaboration begin? DIDIER —I would see his work in Seventeen Magazine. But I didn’t know his work very well. He hadn’t done a lot of work yet but he was creating a new style of photography. His pictures for Seventeen were very beautiful portraits of teenagers. It’s not so different from the work that he is doing now, except that his casting was different. JOE —So you said the work that Bruce was doing at the time was very new for the time. What kind of hair did you do for these new pictures? DIDIER —Well Bruce didn’t really tell you what he wanted, but he had a way of making you do what he wanted. He would talk about the Kennedy family or some other references—so if you were smart, you looked at books and understood what he wanted. He was never a dictator, you had total freedom but he expected you to surprise him. JOE —Well a lot of your work with Bruce was very much about haircuts and what you did with the haircuts. So how did you start, for instance when you did Broken Noses, the film with Bruce? Didier Malige: That was after many years we were working together. I think it was probably when I started to work with him for GQ. JOE —A lot of the guys you used weren’t models. Did you have to give them a look? DIDIER —Yeah. At that time most of the people we photographed were in school. So it was an extra job they would do, you know, they would have really long hair, they weren’t exposed to fashion. So it was a chance to do whatever you wanted to. JOE —You also gave some models great haircuts that became their trademarks. Like Talisa Soto with her bob and Josie Borain’s hair. DIDIER —Those girls were pretty much working only for Bruce. So they really trusted him, and their agents were not watching the girls like they do now. JOE —Did you ever have an experience where you cut someone’s hair and afterwards maybe it wasn’t the right thing to do? DIDIER —I did—I was disobedient! JOE —Is there a big difference between cutting men’s hair and cutting women’s hair? DIDIER —There’s not really much difference. Women have more hair. The way I cut hair, it’s not really like Vidal Sassoon haircuts or whatever, so it’s not too different. JOE —Is there anything that you haven’t done with hair that you would like to do? DIDIER —I’m sure. I’m sure. But—I don’t know what exactly. Maybe I see people doing braids and I really like it, but I think it’s too late to start braiding so I let it pass me by. I guess that is not my signature. JOE —It has been very well documented how the fashion business has changed enormously in the past five, ten or so years. Because of the Internet everything is available to look at very quickly. Is there anything that’s changed for you? How you approach your work today than, say, ten years ago? DIDIER —Well I think now you are asked for a reference as opposed to the old days when you used to go in the studio in the morning and do pretty much whatever was asked by the photographer or the stylist. Now it’s very rare that you go to a studio and get surprised and improvise. It’s much more studied and prepared. JOE —When you did the Karl Lagerfeld campaign in France with Bruce, and the model Linda Spearing had

“Today everything is so controlled by the models’ agents. Lets say if the girl is successful with long hair, the agents are going to keep the hair long as much as they can. But maybe if the girl is more daring, maybe she would have several careers, like Linda Evangelista.”

(Top and left): Photography by Bruce Weber from the book O Rio De Janeiro, and GQ. (Bottom, right): photography by Juergen Teller for American Vogue, 94.

(Clockwise, top left): Photography by Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent S/S ‘14. Photography by Steven Klein for Alexander McQueen S/S ‘14. Photography by Bruce Weber for Karl Lagerfeld ‘82. Photography by Sheila Metzner. Photography by Ezra Petronio, styling by Suzanne Koller. Photography by Daniel Jackson for Vogue Japan, January ‘10. Photography

branches in her hair, that was a spontaneous moment. DIDIER —Yes absolutely, that was very spontaneous! It was a fantasy of the moment, and also maybe I was inspired by a picture that I had seen in National Geographic, of a woman carrying wood on her head. JOE —It’s so different today. Everything seems a bit more controlled. DIDIER —Yes, there’s less improvisation. JOE —Do you have any ambitions that haven’t been fulfilled yet? A long time ago you talked about having a barber shop DIDIER —Yeah I know, but being a businessman as opposed to being a freelance advisor; you have to pay rent, you have to pay people that work with you, I don’t think I will do it in this life. I mean.. you never know.. but I don’t think so. I admire people who do it. JOE —What are the worst conditions for a hairdresser to have to work in? DIDIER —I think the worst is when the talent you are working with is so controlling that you can’t do anything different than what she or him wants. JOE —Let’s talk about your cats. DIDIER —Yes. JOE —Because you like combing their hair a lot. DIDIER —I do, yes. But they also like to be fluffed. I mean it goes both ways. JOE —So is there perhaps a future for Didier Malige cat fluffing salon? DIDIER —I don’t know… I think you have to see how much money you could make. [Laughs.] You know, like, doing dogs’ hair, or cats’ hair, or whatever, and how much of your life it’s going to take. It’s a trade that one has to learn. JOE —Other than the Carita sisters, Didier, were there any other hairdressers that inspired you or made you want to come to America? DIDIER — Well you know –when I was growing up and at Jean Louis David, I would always buy American Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and those people were doing much more extreme work than what was done in France or England. I think each country had their own approach to fashion. I mean it was not global like now. I was definitely quite surprised by that work. Also I liked the simplicity of magazines like Mademoiselle at that time and Glamour. I mean they were representing a type of woman that we didn’t have in France. JOE —Do you think there’s still a difference between how women in France or women in America dress, pay attention to their hair, or present themselves? DIDIER —I think there is definitely a difference in dressing between women in America and women in France. I mean for example in France, even if it’s freezing cold, you still have to look smart. You cannot wear a parka—it’s not in the spirit of the French person. They always want to look the best, I think they would wear high heels as opposed to moon boots [Laughs.]. There’s like a rigor, they wouldn’t want to be perceived as “sloppy.”. JOE —Do you think Warren Beatty’s character in Shampoo is exaggerated, or are all straight hairdressers obsessed with sex and women? DIDIER —I think it’s a bit exaggerated, but I knew one Italian guy in L.A. in the seventies and eighties who had that kind of sex appeal. Usually his last customer was the girl that he was going to go to bed with that night. I mean that was his game I guess. JOE —Anything else about hair that we haven’t talked about? DIDIER —I would say, if you want to be good at it, it’s a passion you have to dedicate your life to, it’s not something you do on the side to try to make money out of. JOE —Which hairdressers working today do you like? DIDIER —There are quite a few: they are my competition! For instance Guido’s [Guido Palau] is always doing amazing work. There is Luigi [Luigi Murenu] that can be very surprising. There is Orlando [Orlando Pita] who has an incredible technique. There’s, Julien D’Ys. And, there is always Christiaan [Christiaan Houtenbos] who can be pretty surprising too. JOE —Do you see that boldness in any young people today?

DIDIER —I like Anthony Turner’s touch. I think he has a very feminine touch with hair that I like about him. But what we do has to be interpreted by a photographer. So it depends on who you work with. There are some photographers who have no feeling for hair! JOE —Would you say that you were very lucky to meet someone like Bruce, who had a vision? DIDIER —Absolutely. There have been several photographers I’ve been really lucky to work with, that are very into hair. It’s like in movies, there are directors who are geared toward special effects and some others that are geared to making actors and actresses do really great work, some photographers are so into their technique that they don’t care about the girl or the hair. And Bruce of course had technique but it was also about the person. You have to find the person that can give you the ability to change hair, play with it, create. JOE —Did you work a lot with Richard Avedon? DIDIER —I did. Not a lot, but I worked with him. Very interesting. JOE —And you had freedom, then? To create hair? DIDIER —He was a bit of a dictator. Not like Bruce, who would never say he didn’t like something. Bruce would try to find a way to photograph what he did like about the hair. Or he might ask the model to take a shower [Laughs.] JOE —If you had to choose one image that was going to be the definitive image of your hair, what would you choose? DIDIER —That’s very difficult, because also it would be about the personality photographing or the person who is being photographed. I think it’s more about a series of pictures than one image. JOE —Is there a series of pictures that does that for you? DIDIER —There is one series I did with Kate Moss, where she is looking like someone from a Diane Arbus picture. I shot those with Juergen Teller. I really like those pictures. There’s also a series I did with Bruce for GQ a long time ago. It was a total new style and direction at the time. And then there’s the Rio book with Bruce that I like. JOE —Ah yes, that was the first time we worked together. DIDIER —Yes, that was a great adventure, I still like those pictures, and still like to look at the talents we photographed, who were mostly totally new to modeling , they were never questioning what you were doing to their hair and let you express yourself freely. But today everything is so controlled by the models’ agents. Lets say if the girl is successful with long hair, the agents are going to keep the hair long as much as they can. But maybe if the girl is more daring, maybe she would have several a careers, like Linda Evangelista. JOE —Do you think you can be “new” in hair today? DIDIER —Yeah, I think so. I’m sure you can. Maybe it’s about coloring– there are definitely people that are doing new things. JOE —Where do you find your inspiration? Is it from the people that you meet? What inspires you to chop off someone’s hair or to do comb marks… DIDIER —I don’t know if it’s inspiration. I think it’s more a dialogue between the photographer and the hairstylist. It’s a bit like being a musician. There is always a conductor, and you get inspired by the conductor. You interpret the direction and try to please that person. JOE —The conductor being a photographer or a designer ? DIDIER —With a designer it’s different, the designer is another “species.” Designers are usually a bit scared of hair because its something you can’t really control, so there’s very few designers who will let you improvise—everything has to be clean, usually, so it doesn’t interfere with the design of the clothes. They want the clothes to communicate on their own. JOE —I think that’s a pretty good note to end on. DIDIER —I think so too. JOE —Thanks for the great hair cut! DIDIER —You’re welcome Joe!

“I know I represent the future of music because I find ways to enter the game. I’m always pushing the envelope.” —Future, in conversation with Italo Zucchelli

T H E DA P P E R R A P P E R R E V E A L S TO C A LV I N K L E I N C O L L E C T I O N ’ S M E N ’ S C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R W H AT TO M O R R OW L O O K S L I K E F R O M T H E TO P O F T H E C H A RT S. M O D E R AT E D B Y PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

NICHOLAS WEIST

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

G R O O M E R : S A M A D D I N G TO N AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R U S I N G C H A N E L S U B L I M AG E . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T: M I C H A E L B E S H A R A .

D O C U M E N T N O. 5 4

Jacket by CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION Pre-Fall.

lthough music and fashion share the capacity for self-expression and the ability to affect one’s mood, they are two vastly different creative outlets. Italo Zucchelli, the men’s creative director for Calvin Klein Collection, discusses the relationship between sound and style with musician Future. NICHOLAS —Let’s

fashion.

start by talking about how music intersects with

ZUCCHELLI —I think that there’s a link between fashion and music in general. They feed off each other in creative terms. Music and fashion have a common language that is very ambitious and which brings different people together. Artists making hip hop music, they like to experiment and they like new styles, so they’re perfect for fashion. FUTURE —Hip hop does embrace all that. It’s part of the culture to express the way you feel through your clothes—same as expressing yourself through your music. You can wake up and feel good about what you’re putting on, having a unique style, and with the style comes fashion. Hip hop, above all, is being creative. When I dress up I get creative, just trying on new things and wearing different textures and different layers. From how I wear my clothes I just go into work and make a beat, it’s like clicking and being and leaning over the beat, and laying in different textures to make a song. It’s like when you wake up in the morning, you express yourself differently every day, and every day is a different new song coming out. That’s how I feel about fashion. ZUCCHELLI —Clothes and music are both ways to express oneself, to say who you are, what you believe in. FUTURE —Exactly. NICHOLAS —Italo, how does Future represent the Calvin Klein man? ZUCCHELLI —When I met Future, he was wearing one of my jackets, a full herringbone. He was wearing it as if it was his special thing, he looked comfortable in it, he was very confident in it. That’s the best that I can ask for, because it was quite an interesting design piece and he wore it with such an effortless ease. That’s why I love working with the people from the music world, because they have personality, they have character, they’re very confident, and they have style! Whatever they wear, they give it a new spin. NICHOLAS —And Future, what draws you to Calvin Klein? FUTURE —I love wearing Calvin Klein. It’s vintage: it’s been around for ages, even before I was born. I grew up on Calvin Klein and it’s just amazing that I’m able to be a part of it. It’s important to focus on what makes you feel good—whatever makes you feel comfortable, you should wear. I embrace what I feel good in, what I feel good wearing, and what looks good on me. ZUCCHELLI —But it’s great to see you wearing these clothes! One can tell you’re comfortable in them, it’s not like you’re doing all this because you have to—you’re wearing the clothes because they just make you feel good, and that’s what it’s supposed to be. When your clothes are worn by somebody with personality and character, it gives the clothes even more personality and character. NICHOLAS —How does hip hop inspire you as a designer? ZUCCHELLI —Hip hop has so much energy and so much style. I respond to the energy of music in general—I always did, it’s part of my process—and hip hop especially. FUTURE —I pull inspiration from everything, from different conversations. Fashion inspires me, different walks of life, different trials and tribulations, other artists inspire me. Everyday life: I get inspired by the simplest things. NICHOLAS —How do you represent the future of music or the future of fashion? FUTURE —I know I represent the future of music because I find ways

to enter the game. I’m in the future so I think forward, what’s coming. I’m always pushing the envelope, so I set trends. I’ve been a trendsetter for just being able to make music and also in fashion. I know what looks good, I know what people will like, I know what they want to hear, I know what they want to wear, I know the style, the flavor. It’s just charisma, you’ve got to have charisma and character to pull off looking fresh. ZUCCHELLI —I think it’s just a style of being creative. Fashion is different than music, you want to be thinking forward, you want to be leading the way, you want to be looking for something new and also at the same time you want to give the world something they can enjoy and something that is understandable. It’s very intriguing, the creative process—looking for the new, this magical new, but at the same time making it understandable and reaching as many people as you can. NICHOLAS —Do you think that’s about producing different things for different kinds of people, or that a particular approach should appeal to everyone? ZUCCHELLI —I think you need to do what is of interest, but I think it’s very important to not be too comfortable about it. When I think about my job I always compare it to music. It’s like creating the perfect radio hit that everybody loves, and that seems it was the easiest thing to do, but the reality is that it took a genius to create. It’s that curve, the achievement of a perfect song that sounds really new and super commercial at the same time. That, to me, is genius, the achievement of genius. NICHOLAS —Future, do you consider yourself an entertainer or an artist? FUTURE —I think of myself as, uh, I’m more of a lifestyle. It’s a lifestyle that comes along with being an entertainer and artist in the same sentence. I just create moments, in music we create moments, expressions to try to pull the audience out. I step outside my comfort zone to feel it and just be able to get the audience. You speak with different people that have different ways of life, so you have to think outside the box. I overstep boundaries with music and fashion just to touch different audiences and people who wouldn’t even listen to my music. NICHOLAS —You two recently saw each other in Milan. ZUCCHELLI —Future, did you have fun there? It was your first time. FUTURE —It was my first time in Milan, and one of the best experiences of my life, being able to go to a fashion show as an entertainer. Y’all laid everything out, made it so comfortable for me. Also being able to go out to dinner and sit down with you to talk. That was the most special moment overall, finding out what inspires you, just finding out about each other, sitting down with each other and just understanding how much love we have for fashion, understanding where the line comes from, the new collection. We had a great conversation. It was like family, like meeting your family for the first time. ZUCCHELLI —Yes it was as if I had known you for a long time. And in fact the day afterward I discovered you were going to be a father! I was so excited. Congratulations! It’s always interesting to speak with people from other disciplines that are your type of people at the same time. FUTURE —Very exciting, yeah. I enjoyed myself. ZUCCHELLI —How is Ciara? Is she good? FUTURE —Yeah, she’s good. She just walked in the room but walked back out when she heard I was on the phone doing an interview. ZUCCHELLI —Give her a big hug from me. Congratulations about the baby for the both of you, that’s very exciting! FUTURE —Thank you.

Blazer and shirt by BALENCIAGA. Jeans by SAINT

LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE.

H A I R S T Y L I S T: M A R C O B R AC O F O R O R I B E H A I R C A R E . M A K E U P A N D G R O O M I N G : S A M A D D I N G TO N F O R K R A M E R + K R A M E R U S I N G C H A N E L S U B L I M AG E . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T: A M B E R H A R R I S .

aurent Claquin spent eight years in the art world (first at the Jeu de Paume, followed by the Centre Pompidou, and then as the chief of staff for the French Ministry of Culture), before beginning to cultivate a new generation of designers as head of Kering Americas. Kering’s portfolio of luxury brands—including Balenciaga, Saint Laurent, Stella McCartney, Gucci, and Alexander McQueen—is second to none. Dennis Freedman has been responsible for some of the most iconic editorials and campaigns of the last decade as creative director of W, and now three years in as creative director of Barneys New York—recently catching the spotlight with his campaign staring transgender people of all ages. Fashion was the starting point for their friendship after meeting at a Barneys event for Carine Roitfeld, but they found more common ground discussing art; in fact, Claquin and Freedman rarely talk business or fashion. DENNIS —How do you approach fashion and art? LAURENT —I consider fashion designers to be different than artists, even if the creative process begins the same way. In fashion, you have to think about how your design will be reproduced. Your efforts will only be successful if you think about distribution, production, and multiplication. This is not the case with art. In a way, art is the ultimate luxury, because each piece is unique. Collaborations between fashion and art are successful when they’re organic—like Stella McCartney with Gary Hume. When you have a connection between the fashion designer and the artist, there is a dialogue, and that’s when you get something interesting as a result. But sometimes artists become brands themselves, and then the dialogue doesn’t produce anything! Now there are very interesting artists who actually work with fashion, textile, and beauty products. These are the

artists that we need to connect with – artists who have a vision and capture the trends, usually ten years before anyone else. And I think it’s a good time to do it, because I get the feeling that now, there are fewer boundaries between disciplines. As at the beginning of the nineteenth century, now you can see a lot of cross-disciplinary conversations: video artists talking with poets, dancers with painters, photographers with fashion designers. If you look at art history, you’ll see that beautiful things were created when different structures and disciplines collided. That’s what we need to recreate! DENNIS —It’s actually interesting that you bring up the idea of crossdiciplinary dialogues, because now that I think about it, the idea for the very first art issue that we did at W actually germinated from seeing Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller’s documentary about the Ballet Russes. It was this company that initiated collaborations between choreographers such as Fokine and Nijinsky, musicians such as Stravinsky and Debussy, and artists such as Leon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, and Henri Matisse. When I left the theatre I was incredibly inspired, and I thought, ‘Well maybe I’m in a position to make something equivalent.’ The first call I made was to Richard Tuttle. Richard immediately came to mind because I knew that he was very interested in all aspects of culture. And that led, basically, to Richard not only building the sets for the shoot, but also directly collaborating with Mario Sorrenti, Camilla Nickerson, Julian d’Ys, and Linda Cantello. Chiara Clemente made a film about the shoot, in which Richard said, “I’m working with people who can see. A lot of people in the art world don’t see things in the same way. It was this collaboration that let me spread my wings. This was the collaboration that let me fly.” LAURENT —Now there are a lot of young artists interested in the

D O C U M E N T N O. 5 9

Art and Responsible Commerce with Laurent Claquin & Dennis Freedman F R O M T H E I R S P OT S AT T H E H E L M S O F K E R I N G A M E R I C A S A N D B A R N E Y S N E W YO R K , T H E T WO C O N F E R O N E T H I C S A N D C O L L A B O R AT I O N. P O RT R A I T O F M R. C L AQ U I N BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

PORTRAIT OF MR. FREEDMAN BY M O D E R AT E D B Y

H I L A RY M O S S

JUERGEN TELLER

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

idea of representation and community. This is also what fashion is about today. Fashion has always been about expressing yourself. But now, more than ever, it’s a way to also reward yourself, fulfill your dreams, express who you are, show which community you belong to. That’s how people use brands: the brands guide their world, and then by having this or that outfit, you can show that you belong to a certain group or community. At the beginning of the last century, you belonged to a category, and you just had one look. If you were a banker, you dressed like a banker. Today you can belong to different communities. You could be a businessman during the day, a yogi at night, and a party boy in the wee hours—and have different clothes for each. DENNIS —What’s really exciting now is that there’s a whole generation of artists who are interested in consumerism as a subject in their work. People like Josh Kline and Stewart Uoo are two artists whose are engaged in that conversation. LAURENT —So is the video artist Ryan Trecartin. About youth, about gaming, about the internet, clothes, it’s all that energy. DENNIS —Clothes, characters, absurdity, all of which deal with changes in our culture in one way or another. Things have changed since I started. It’s only been in the last ten years that I have seen an honest appetite from young designers to engage in a dialogue with contemporary artists. Like Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez at Proenza Schouler working with Bjarne Melgaard. And I think that’s really healthy, because the consumer has changed. As the head of Kering Americas. do you feel a responsibility to steer the brands? LAURENT —Our philosophy at Kering is what we call “freedom within a framework.” We provide brands with a framework, but we want each house to be very specific and independent and true to their DNA. We never, never interfere in the final products – anything that faces the consumer. We actually look more at the back office and provide our management support there— everything from logistics to real estate, taxes, legal issues. But we also of course support the brand, challenge the brand, bring expertise. We add value and knowledge. People don’t really realize that fashion is one of the rare industries that is based on the offer and not the demand. If you ask the people in the womenswear industry, “What do you want for next season? Darks? Yellows? A shorter length?” We don’t know. No one knows! It’s all depends on what the designer has in his or her mind. At Kering, we entrust one person with the full vision, and he or she has full control of everything. The pressure is huge! To look at the comparison with art again, can you imagine if critics responded to artists’ work in the same way that they do to fashion shows? On a single day, everyone comes to look and the next day they’ll tell you exactly what they think…and the work has to be always the same but always a little bit different and always new. And you have to sell everything the first day! That’s why we have a responsibility to support the world of creativity and talent. They are our material. They are what fuels our engine. It’s also a question of sustainability: we have a whole strategy of supporting art and schools, to cultivate the

next generation. We work with a lot of different stakeholders. It’s like an ecosystem in a way. We have our core business, but then we work with suppliers. We work with distributors, department stores, governments and students. We are a whole community and we have, collectively, a responsibility, because of the nature of what we do, the business we’re in, which is fashion and clothes. So we have a holistic approach, and we look at the impact of everything we do, not just with our stakeholders but in the community as well. We have chosen to create a foundation, the Kering Foundation, which fights violence against women. It’s a huge issue in the world. DENNIS —Thinking about that, it relates to the most recent campaign we did for Barneys, which featured transgender models. I don’t think we’ve ever done anything that has had the impact that this campaign has had. LAURENT —It’s critical. DENNIS —It grew out of the personal realization that in the LGBT community, the T has been seriously left behind. LAURENT —You really moved the needle. It was really about that issue, but the way you did it—through clothes, through the shoes, and through the Barneys style in the Barneys way! The impact has been huge. DENNIS —Valentijn, one of the models, was interviewed by the New York Times, and said, “in a consumer society, our validity really rests on our marketability.” And she’s right. We put our business—we put our dollars behind this community. The issue is: where do brands come in? LAURENT —And that’s what you can see across the board right now. Every brand, every company, big or small, understands that they need to have a bigger, holistic approach and do something beyond just business. That’s the way you build your brand. The brand is the product, but it’s also the way you do it, and the history around it—your heritage, your people, your history. You’re not selling only your product, you’re selling a brand. You’re selling a history. DENNIS —I agree. I was lucky enough to join a company that has an extraordinary history of creative innovation and freedom, which started in the very beginning. Although the campaign wasn’t politcal, it brought awareness to a subject that we at Barneys felt needed to be addressed. LAURENT —Tradition. It’s the same with Kering. We celebrated our 50th anniversary last year: the group was founded in 1963 by François Pinault and it’s still a family business. That makes a big difference, because everything they do, they do it for the sake of the company—they want to give back to the community what the community gave to them. So they always had a willingness to do something beyond business and give more meaning to what they do. DENNIS —I think that each brand or each company or each store has to define itself, has to establish its own DNA, like anything else. Because if you don’t define who you are, you’re lost. You’re just one of many. LAURENT —I think that now, for successful leadership, brands and businesses have to have a responsibility. I think it’s almost mandatory.

“The brand is the product, but it’s also the way you do it, and the history around it— your heritage, your people, your history. You’re not selling only your product, you’re selling a brand. You’re selling a history.”

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“I went up to him, and I leaned over to his ear, and I said, ‘Listen, if you really want to have a great show, you’ll put me in it.’” —Bethann Hardison tells Liya Kebede F R O M O N E TO P M O D E L TO A N OT H E R : H A R D I SON A N D K EBEDE TA L K D I V E R S I T Y, S T Y L E , A N D H OW TO S E L L A B U T TO N. INTERVIEW BY

L I YA K E B E D E

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

Coat by THE ROW. Earrings by CARTIER.

“Bruce and I became locked-in buddies and he used to photograph me all the time, and then he pushed me onto Stephen Burrows. Eventually I became a runway model for Burrows. In those days you were a runway model or a print girl, you weren’t both.”

ccording to the women’s blog Jezebel, minorities modeled only about 20 percent of the approximately 4,621 looks that went down the runways of New York Fashion Week last February. Bethann Hardison paved the way for these men and women of color when she began her career as a model in the sixties, and she continues to provide support as an influential agent and mentor. Model Liya Kedebe interviews Hardison about her rise, running a modeling agency, and her fight for diversity in fashion.

KEBEDE —So tell me where you grew up and how you grew up. I don’t actually know where you grew up! [Laughs.] HARDISON —I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, born and raised. I left Brooklyn when I was about 19—I started to venture to my uncle’s, who had an apartment on Fourth Street. He was an art director for J. Walter Thompson. He was kind of a bohemian guy so I tried to spend a lot of time there, but I don’t think I officially left Brooklyn until I was about 21. KEBEDE —And when did fashion enter your life? HARDISON —Style has always been in my life because I grew up in Brooklyn. But my first job in fashion was in the garment district, working at a button factory. That was after my very first job as a longdistance telephone operator. [Laughs.] KEBEDE —What were you doing at the button factory? HARDISON —Back in those days, big business in our industry was coats and suits. And this button factory made custom buttons. It was called Cabot, and they actually painted the buttons. You would take them to designers to see what matched the fabrics. I was such a stylish girl, my boss thought when he hired me, and this was really a factory, so he used to send me to design houses to show off the merchandise. He thought I looked too good to be sitting in the factory all day! [Laughs.] It was great experience for me to go into the showrooms back in those days—it was like Europe, baby! They had these big doors and you’d meet the designers in their ateliers. KEBEDE —But eventually you became a model. HARDISON —I did. Like I said I started in the button factory, then I went to a low-end dress company, at which I learned a great deal. Low-end dresses are a fast market! Then I went to a juniors dress company and I got my first opportunity to model. There was a gentleman named Bertie Ellis, he was a godfather of the industry. I took samples over to him for my job, and when I’d go in, I’d watch and hang around. I saw that this guy was really putting on huge shows: he was getting out, entertaining the crowd. So I went up to him, and I leaned over to his ear, and I said, “Listen, if you really want to have a great show, you’ll put me in it.” KEBEDE —No! You did not do that, did you? HARDISON —Yes, that’s how I started, I promise you. KEBEDE —That’s amazing. HARDISON —He said, really, really! Who are you, where are you from? I said, “Oh, I work for Ruth Manchester,” and he said, “What’s your name,” and I told him, then I left and I went back to my office.

The people I worked for were like my Jewish family. They cared so much for me, and they encouraged me so much. Eventually they got a call from Bertie that he wanted me to be in his fashion show! I was only supposed to have one outfit in that show, but the girl who was the star had to leave, so they put all of her outfits on me! I got an opportunity to really bring the house down. KEBEDE —And that was the beginning! HARDISON —That was the beginning. And then Willie Smith discovered me. He saw my style and he thought it was fab. I told him, “I work in a showroom, you know, I’m just a salesgirl,” and then he asked if I would consider becoming his muse. I told my bosses and they loved it, because Willie was young and popular and he threw his weight around. That’s really how I started modeling, I started doing it for him and he pushed me. He also introduced me to Bruce Weber when Bruce was just starting out. Bruce and I became locked-in buddies and he used to photograph me all the time, and then he pushed me onto Stephen Burrows. Eventually I became a runway model for Burrows. In those days you were a runway model or a print girl, you weren’t both. KEBEDE —So the print girls didn’t have any relationship with the designers? HARDISON —Correct. Because we had runway agencies representing the girls, and the agencies did everything: produced the shows, fit the garments. It was Calvin Klein who decided to put the girl who was in the pages on his runway, so the editor could understand how to see the clothes. And that’s how it started. KEBEDE —What was the most important runway you did? HARDISON —There were two. The first was as a Calvin model. He put this one show in a big loft, which had never been done before. It had a high, long runway with disco music blasting. I had on a kind of cowboy shirt. I’ll never forget hitting that runway: I danced the whole way down! KEBEDE —You danced? HARDISON —I danced. I was a well-known runway girl, one of what they called the “black stallions.” I danced and those people went crazy! In interviews Calvin would always talk about it, because that shirt was one of their biggest sellers, and that was because of how I sold it. And the other most important runway was a show I produced for Kansai Yamamoto, a Japanese designer. He wanted to have it on skates, and I was a well-known skater at the time. I had to choreograph skating! It was one of the most extraordinary moments because he didn’t speak English! KEBEDE —I didn’t know you were a skater, by the way. HARDISON —Yeah, I’m a lot of things. It’s a big world. [Laughs.] Yamamoto was so taken with the show that he wrote me the most incredible letter, all in Japanese. I never understood a word of it, but I still have it! KEBEDE —And what about Versailles in ’73? The international fashion faceoff when French and American designers competed? HARDISON —It was an extraordinary experience because of how

people started looking at the Americans. KEBEDE —Who was with you at the time? HARDISON —Oh, it was so big, but on the dark side it was myself, Billie Blair, Pat Cleveland, Norma Jean Darden, Ramona Saunders, Amina Warsuma, and Charlene Dash. KEBEDE —Does what is happening now for black models surprise you? HARDISON —We came up right after the civil cights movement, the late sixties. The slogan “black is beautiful” became something that the industry grasped onto and held. Naomi Sims exploded, then it was just natural. I mean, look at me! Every time Salvador Dalí came to town he’d go to Studio 54 and he would see me and have his assistant come get me. If you had style and you had personality, you were part of cool! Because you added to the conversation as much as everybody else. It’s a whole different world now—everything is so caught up. When I started my own modeling agency I represented everyone. I love skinny white boys and I love the Asian kids, I love Latin kids. Well basically I love everything that walks. [Laughs.] In the late eighties I saw that using models of color began to slowly catch on. KEBEDE —Why do you think that happened? HARDISON —It was just the right time. There was money moving around, and… I don’t want to say it was because of me, because I existed and I kept pushing the envelope, but I had black kids in my company, and Asians, and non-Caucasians, when no other small agencies would have them. KEBEDE —You started a coalition to fight racism on the runway, and now you’re the face of the movement. HARDISON —Up until about ’95 everything seemed to be going fine. I had discovered Tyson, and he was doing Ralph Lauren. But then I left for an extended trip to Mexico, and the energy of the industry just seemed to change. In ’99 or so, I started getting calls like, “It’s really dying. It’s gone backwards, it’s like you were never there.” By ’04, I had Naomi in my ear saying, “You’ve got to do something!” But I kept saying I’ll do it next year, okay, I’ll do it next year, and then by ’07 I was like, okay, this is it. And in ’07 we called a press conference and I told everyone what we were going to do. KEBEDE —What did it achieve? HARDISON —Well, we changed things! For a time. From ’99 to ’07, casting directors would say they were seeing models but they would tell you, no blacks, no ethnics. Then we had that meeting on September 14, ’07—and for a while it was okay again. But activism has to remain active. That’s the trademark slogan and that’s the mantra, because if your foot doesn’t stay on the pedal, the car will stop. KEBEDE —So this time around you, you added more fuel to the fire. HARDISON —People think they’re so liberal. But liberalism can be borderline racist! It can be very subtle: sway and sway and you’re not standing straight anymore. And so I thought to myself: this will help the industry, because the industry is flatlining. We got people talking about the issue. I loved seeing everybody truly step up to

say: okay, we’re gonna help, we’re gonna co-sponsor things and put a panel discussion together on diversity and have the industry come in at a breakfast like they did with the Elle initiative. And never in the history of our industry have brown girls had such success at being booked into fashion advertising as they do now! KEBEDE —Yes! HARDISON —Of course there are still people I wish I could sit down with at a panel discussion to let them know how important it is to embrace diversity, not for people of color but for our entire, global society. It just feels better! If you try it, it looks better. It just gives things a life. KEBEDE —There are some excellent girls right now. HARDISON —Yeah, that’s true, it’s true that there’s a lot of choice. We have to keep on making it happen. I even went to London and had a great talk with Maggie Mayer, who’s now the president of the British Fashion Council, and she said, “you can help me by getting those girls to us, because so many designers say, ‘but there’s no girls!’” That’s kind of true, because how many girls can afford to go to London, you know? Just to be seen? The new girls can’t afford to go there. But someone gave me an idea that energized me: I thought it would be a great idea to take ten girls on a plane. It’s a very costeffective way to take them around. I’m very pleased with what I’m seeing happen. We won’t know the extent of it until the season’s over. And of course there are some people I’d really like to go up to and just strangle, you know, you just look at them and say, “What is your problem?” But it’s okay. [Laughs.] KEBEDE —I know that I shouldn’t ask you who those people are. [Laughs.] Or should I? HARDISON —We’ll get ’em, we’ll get ’em soon. By April, everybody will know who they are. KEBEDE —In the memoir it will all come out. [Laughs.] How’s the documentary going, by the way? HARDISON —I’ve been working on my documentary since the nineties. It’s been taking me a while! Thank god I have a young filmmaker in my life who knows how to tell stories, because I would have told 5,000 stories in that one film. But he really made me focus on who I am and what I’ve been doing, and tell a story about the lack of diversity in our industry and the struggle to bring girls of color into it. The film is called Invisible Beauty and it follows three girls and also tells my story. I’m the common thread that shows you how it happened, the struggle of getting it done. KEBEDE — Where would you like to be when it’s all said and done? HARDISON —This is easy! I would like to be where I am right now in my life. You can talk about diversity any place in the world now, and I think, I hope that we’ve got a permanent thing going on. At the end of the day I’d like to finish the documentary. And I hope that maintaining diversity encourages designers, and encourages the model agencies to keep searching for more girls. When you get to a certain age in your life you want to settle nicely into the home you’ve built and just hope that when you turn your back, you know that you’ve done your job well.

NICK —Do you wake up early?

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“It’s not just about eating; it’s about feeling good, about feeling sexy. It’s the whole package.” —Jean-Marc Houmard R E S TAU R A N T E U R JEAN-MARC HOU M AR D SPEAKS WITH HIS MUSE, BLOGGER ATHENA C ALDERONE, A B O U T H OW TO KEEP TIMELESSNESS FRESH. INTERVIEW BY

N I C K VO G E L S O N

PHOTOGRAPHY BY FA S H I O N E D I T O R

MARK ABRAHAMS

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

JEAN-MARC —I don’t get up so late, but I like to have lengthy breakfasts—like, three-hour breakfasts. That’s my downtime, that’s when I don’t have to do anything. ATHENA —I love that about you! I love watching you read the paper, nibble at your cookies, drink your coffee—you really have a ritual morning routine. JEAN-MARC —Some people stay in nights watching TV, that’s their downtime. That’s when I work, so mornings are my— ATHENA —Serenity. JEAN-MARC —Yes. NICK —And you spend the summers out on Fire Island? JEAN-MARC —Yes, I have a house there in the Pines—all the way at the end, so it’s quiet—there’s trees all around so you can avoid the whole hoopla and mayhem. ATHENA —Honestly, his approach to that house singlehandedly inspired my love of design! His house makes you feel like you’ve been transported to a different time and place. JEAN-MARC —You do feel that you’re far from New York—it’s really an oasis. ATHENA —After seeing Jean-Marc’s house, I wanted to find a diamond in the rough, too. People don’t know that Jean-Marc did a lot of work on that house, himself! Everything from the renovations to part of the construction to building the tables. JEAN-MARC —I bought it around Thanksgiving, and we spent every weekend that winter building stuff in freezing weather. We had blue hands from having spent all day sawing and drilling outside. It’s very satisfying to see a result that you didn’t just buy from a catalog—that you built yourself. ATHENA —Through that process, I saw a lot of similarities between our personalities—like how we hunt for eclectic home goods. He became obsessed with eBay as well. NICK —Have you found anything on eBay that you couldn’t find anywhere else? ATHENA —Well he found a collection of stuffed birds, right? JEAN-MARC —Yes. [Laughs.] They were already dead when they were stuffed. They had a happy life. It’s amazing, the access that has been provided in the past 15 years. Before, you really had to travel to find things, and now things from around the world are right at your fingertips. I just bought some fabric in India for a project in Nicaragua. NICK —What’s the project in Nicaragua? JEAN-MARC —I’m helping a friend do a small hotel on Lake Nicaragua. So I’ve been going there, every month, to help him with the buildout and styling. It’s almost ready. In a couple of weeks we should be done. NICK —We were saying earlier how nice it is to be having this conversation in Indochine, the place where you two first met. ATHENA —Indochine has borne witness to many rites of passage in my life. It was my first job in New York City. It was so glamorous and so chic that it didn’t feel like work, and I got to see so many beautiful people. That was in ’96. JEAN-MARC —Almost 20 years ago! I must have picked you right out of high school.

H A I R : M A R C O B R AC O F O R O R I B E H A I R C A R E . M A K E U P A N D G R O O M E R : S A M A D D I N G TO N AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R U S I N G C H A N E L S U B L I M AG E . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T: A M B E R H A R R I S .

estauranteur Jean-Marc Houmard has perfected the ingredients for an effortlessly cool restaurant, with New York’s Indochine and Acme both under his belt (among several others). It was at Indochine, the downtown restaurant of the past two decades, where he first met his muse: interior designer and Eye-Swoon.com blogger Athena Calderone, who was then fresh to New York and working as an “Indo” girl. Since those early days, both Jean-Marc and Athena have grown and inspired each other in design, art, and food.

ATHENA wears dress by STELLA

MCCARTNEY. Ring by JENNIFER

FISHER. JEAN-MARC wears suit by BURBERRY LONDON. Shirt by BOTTEGA VENETA.

ATHENA —I celebrated my 21st birthday here. I got engaged while I worked here. I went into labor here, during a dinner at the restaurant! All these really significant moments in my life seem to have been somehow surrounded by Indochine and Jean-Marc. I feel—and I’ve said it to you before—that I grew up here, and you nurtured my eye for design. JEAN-MARC —You give me too much credit. But we are very similar in many ways—we’re not showoffs, we’re a bit removed, and we have to encourage each other to get out there. ATHENA —You encouraged me in unbelievable ways. I got married really young and had a child really young, so a chunk of my twenties was spent nurturing my family, and not so much my career. I knew that I had all this creativity trapped inside me with no outlet. I would always share my frustrations with Jean-Marc about finding my voice and finding my place. JEAN-MARC —But now with your website Eye Swoon, you’ve really made something out of what you loved anyway. NICK —Do you inspire each other now? JEAN-MARC —Yes, very much so. We like the same food, we like to cook the same things—if you look at Eye Swoon, it’s all things that I want to eat. It’s bright, it’s beach-y, sunny—it’s all healthy and modern. NICK —And it’s timeless. ATHENA —I think so, just like how Indochine is timeless. NICK —Both of you must have amazing stories from this restaurant. ATHENA —Oh, I have a good one! All these girls were wearing flat, clunky shoes as they worked in the restaurant, and Jean-Marc wanted everyone in five-inch heels. So he would always point out my shoes in staff meetings and say how everyone should wear heels like I wore. JEAN-MARC —If Athena can do it, everyone can do it, right? NICK —I was looking at the seating chart for the 15th anniversary party of the restaurant in the Indochine 25th Anniversary book and I realized that we’ve featured almost half the people from that party in this magazine. From Glenn O’Brien to Maripol to Bethann Hardison, and on and on. Indochine is effortless in its time and style, and always attracts interesting people. It hasn’t changed very much since the eighties. It’s almost the same people! Or their children are coming now. JEAN-MARC —We just appeal to a core group of creative New Yorkers who feel comfortable here. I think part of it is the staff, who are creative in their time outside of Indochine. I think that goes a long way toward making people feel comfortable here. ATHENA —I also think that the lighting is pretty spectacular. JeanMarc is a stickler for lighting. We’ll go to a restaurant and he always comments on it—if it’s too dim. I think that it’s sexy when you walk in here. Everyone looks sexy. Everyone looks beautiful. Everyone’s glowing. Besides the energy that you and the staff have created, it’s just a sexy atmosphere to be in. JEAN-MARC —At a certain age, one has to dim the lights a little. I’m very aware that after 8:30, if you want to look a little sexy, it has to be dark. NICK —That’s your lighting philosophy? JEAN-MARC —Oh yes. Everyone looks better if it’s a little dark. And who doesn’t want to look good when they go out? It’s not just about eating; it’s about having an experience. It’s about feeling good, about feeling sexy. It’s the whole package. ATHENA —When I was 20, this is where I wanted to be, and now dear friends like Chelsea Leyland in their early twenties want to be here too. It appeals to everyone. JEAN-MARC —Which is great, because if it were just about nostalgia, it would be a bunch of sad sacks, but the vibrancy comes from the new generation who were being born when the restaurant opened. ATHENA —I wonder if Jivan, my son, will come here when he’s older.

JEAN-MARC —I hope so.

ATHENA —Me too. He already loves the spring rolls. [Laughs.]

JEAN-MARC —How does Indochine influence your interior design work, Athena? ATHENA —When I choose furnishings, I like to think about timelessness and clean lines. And Jean-Marc’s philosophy of lighting has been very important for me. Indochine is a very glamorous, vibrant space, but it also feels quiet and intimate. You can have a small moment with friends here. JEAN-MARC —It’s not a new restaurant that everyone has to go to at once because it just opened. It’s kind of like a cruise ship that just sails along. There’s something comforting about knowing what to expect, especially in New York, where everything changes so quickly. NICK —Do you have a favorite story about the restaurant? JEAN-MARC —I started here as a waiter, in ’86. Once, when I was waiting on Bianca Jagger, she shaved her armpits in the bathroom. [Laughs.] I remember one of the waitresses said during a staff meeting, “I woke up and I was really depressed. Everything was wrong in my life, but then I remembered, ‘I’m an Indochine girl,’ and felt good for the rest of the day.” ATHENA —It’s true! When I arrived in New York, Indochine set the mark for what chic was, what elegance was, what sophistication was, what great food was in this world of fashion and art. It was the starting point for my taste level. JEAN-MARC —What’s inspiring about Eye Swoon are the recipes you give that don’t play to trends, but show an evolution. The crostini you had in the last recipe with grapes, olive oil, and salt—it’s so simple and perfect you just want to eat it right away. ATHENA —Thank you! I get so excited about food. If I go out and I taste something that I love, on my way home I’ll stop and buy the ingredients and then put my own twist on it the next day. I don’t like to hoard my ideas, and I’m never afraid that someone will use them. I want to inspire other people. That’s really what Eye Swoon is for me—a sharing of information to see how people manipulate what I’ve created, which is always something visual. I think we all get pulled in by visuals, so if the photography, food styling, or environment is pretty, it’s going to spark something in someone else. NICK —What’s the most inspirational project you’ve worked on? ATHENA —I’d never picked up a camera in my life. I’m afraid of electronics, so I would always hand the camera to my husband and say, “Work this out.” I just wasn’t interested. Since I started Eye Swoon I’ve gone on a creative journey, learning Photoshop and how to work a camera, to shoot manually. I never realized I liked photographing and styling food! As far as design—my home in Montauk was an unbelievable experience—I took something that was literally caving in and elevated it. I approach design, fashion, and food in exactly the same way. I like layering textures and unexpected elements. In my home I lined the entire ceiling with rope—which you can buy at the hardware store. JEAN-MARC —It’s amazing. ATHENA —Now a lot of people are using rope, but this was four years ago. And with the crostini last week—you can find grapes anywhere, but by roasting them and adding rosemary and sea salt, you’re elevating them. NICK —What are you working on next? ATHENA —I have so many ideas—I don’t know exactly what is going to happen next, but I’d love to do a book or consider some TV. JEAN-MARC —The wallflower is definitely out of the cocoon. ATHENA —Yeah! Why not? JEAN-MARC —Amazing—of course you should be on TV. ATHENA —I’d love to give it a go. I just filmed a segment for NBC’s Open House in which I gave a tour of my house, so we’ll see… JEAN-MARC —The possibilities are open for the New Year.

ATHENA wears jacket and skirt by ALTUZARRA. Ring by JENNIFER FISHER.

social and theoretical mechanisms behind modern Western penal systems? I was used to seeing actresses in Los Angeles speak mainly about body-cleansing, breast implants, and exercise. Another sign that Valeria was different from her peers was the fact that she ate. In a city where having a healthy relationship with food was taboo, in an era when Kate Moss’ Obsession campaign glorified a skin-and-bones look, here was a woman who loved food, took second helpings with glee, and was still one of the first (gorgeous) faces to appear onscreen each time I tuned the TV to a movie channel. I was intrigued right away. Since those years, Valeria has acted in many Italian and international films, and has received several film awards including the David di Donatello Award, Silver Ribbons, Golden Ciaks, and several Italian Golden Globes. She received rave reviews for her role in Emanuele Crialese’s film Respiro—a film that “so palpably captured the down-to-earth, flesh-and-blood reality of high-spirited people living their lives without self-consciousness” as the New York Times put it. It took me a little longer to meet Francesca, but, like with Valeria, I got my first real sense of her thanks to my parents, who had been political activists with her in the seventies, and thanks to a bookshelf at home where her novels stood in order: Rules of the Wild, Casa Rossa, The End of Manners. I was excited about this and asked my parents about her. They announced: “Francesca, of course. She writes in English and Italian, lives in Kenya with elephants now, but is touring the United States with her latest novel at the moment.” Being a writer who works in two languages, I was in awe and immediately drawn to

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“When a script is strong enough, you have the liberty to turn it into a sensorial experience.” —Valeria Golino VALERIA G OLI NO A N D F R ANC E S C A MARCIAN O O N T H E I R N E W F I L M A N D L I V I N G W I T H O U T B O R D E R S. INTERVIEW BY PHOTOGRAPHY BY

MARK ABRAHAMS

CHIAR A BARZINI

FA S H I O N E D I T O R

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

H A I R S T Y L I S T: M A R C O B R AC O AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R . M A K E U P : J U N KO K I O K A AT J O E M A N AG E M E N T U S I N G M AC C O S M E T I C S . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T: A M B E R H A R R I S .

y first encounter with Valeria Golino and Francesca Marciano occurred on a bookshelf. At the time I didn’t know how connected and complimentary these women were. Both are world-traveling filmmakers, primordial beauties with intuitive and wide-ranging intellectual lives, and they both work in English and Italian. Both live multiple lives with multiple identities. Valeria was born to a Greek mother, raised between Athens and Naples, and has travelled and worked all over the world as a model, then actress and director. Francesca was born in Rome, but lived great chunks of her life in Kenya and the United States. Both these women are stunning, seductive, and curious—outspoken and unapologetic. They were a gift from my parents. I met Valeria much earlier than Francesca. It was in Los Angeles in ’94. I was a teenager and she was at the height of her American success. She had starred in Rain Man as Tom Cruise’s girlfriend and had been the female lead in the comedies Hot Shots! and Hot Shots! Part Deux. She had auditioned for the female role in Pretty Woman and was first runner-up to Julia Roberts. I was immediately drawn to her warm voice and Mediterranean eyes—so sensual and inviting. She lived in a beautiful mansion up in the hills, where you might have found any member of the Huston family swimming in her pool at a given time. I wandered into her studio one day and found an entire library filled with amazing books. I was struck by Discipline and Punish—a book by the French philosopher Michel Foucault written in ’75. Somehow I couldn’t put the pieces together. What was a successful Hollywood actress doing reading an analysis of the

Dress by PRADA. N O. 7 1

Blazer by FENDI. Shirt by GIORGIO Dress by TK. Suit and shirt by TK. ARMANI. Trousers by GUCCI. Ring model’s own.

her. Who was this adventurous character and how could she pull off living in so many different realities? The New York Times commended Francesca as “a natural-born storyteller” and I was hooked on her exotic stories from the start. I started following her screenwriter career as well: Don’t Tell (nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Foreign-Language Film), I am not Scared, and Bernardo Bertolucci’s Io e Te, to name a few. I met Francesca officially in 2012, but it felt like I had known her for years. I went to her as I was starting my first novel. I had written a short story collection in English that she had read. I had sent it to her because I knew she wrote and read in two languages. I was tempted to write my novel in English even though it was for an Italian publisher, because it was the language I felt most comfortable with. Francesca sat me down and with a serious face, she said: “Write it in English. Don’t make this mistake. You won’t regret it and you won’t have those Italian ghosts looming over your shoulder.” She smiled and handed over a galley of her upcoming short story collection, The Other Language (Pantheon) out in April 2014, which coincidentally addresses similar issues: language, identity, and cultural exploration. I devoured it. Her stories are set in suggestive and striking locales and capture the thrill and alienation of being citizens of the world, of being everywhere and nowhere at the same time, embracing and fighting off multiple personalities. As Jhumpa Lahiri says, the collection is “a vision of geography as it grounds us, as it shatters us, as it transforms the soul.” As it turned out Francesca and Valeria had more in common than I thought, including a boyfriend and the fact that they had both been baptized in the film world by the Italian director Lina Wertmüller. It wasn’t surprising, then, that their first cinematic collaboration seemed to stem from an intimate relationship between “sisters.” Miele, directed by Valeria Golino, co-written with Marciano and Valia Santella, and based on Angela Del Fabbro’s novel A Nome Tuo, deals with a female protagonist (Jasmine Trinca) whose clandestine job is to help terminally-ill people die by giving them dog poison illegally purchased in Tijuana. It was presented at the Cannes Festival in the Un Certain Regard section in 2013, received the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, and was identified unanimously by critics as “not your usual Italian project” because of the direct way in which it dealt with the taboo subject of assisted dying and the modern take on its female protagonist. It made sense that it would not be considered your usual Italian film…These are not your usual Italian women!

CHIARA — How did you create such a modern character in Miele?

FRANCESCA —We labored over the novel originally, because it was very strong. We had to tweak it a lot in order to get its essence out. It was very clear from the beginning that there was a lot of physical work the character Miele would do in order to release her tension. We were very taken by the idea that this woman spent a lot of time by herself, doing things—running, bicycling, having sex, being in control of her life as a single person. I think this is what made people think of Miele as a modern character. VALERIA— Also, besides changing a lot of the content in the book, we profoundly altered what went on inside our character. Angela Del Fabbro gave us a great starting point, and we changed the consequences of her original input. The book—which is very strong and assertive, had a lot of dialogue and we worked towards minimizing that. We almost went in the opposite direction. We took every word on the page and converted it into our own language. FRANCESCA —Assisted dying is the sort of thing everyone thinks about, but in the privacy of their bedrooms. It’s a very hidden subject. Having a whole film debate this idea so openly felt like we were addressing a very present but concealed subject matter. But then, wherever we showed the film and had Q&As with the audience, they were grateful. We had given them the chance to discuss this subject publically. I remember an audience member who obviously had lost someone, saying: “Thank you for putting this into words. Watching this movie was a relief for me.” VALERIA— I’m thinking about the relationship between the script and the actual film—the script was more solid in its descriptiveness rather than its storytelling—more focused on the details. It was a very good script to read, very complete. It brought the right people to us and it also gave me, as a director, the possibility to break it apart. When a script is strong enough, you have the liberty to turn it into a sensorial experience. I was able to play around and take off. I chiseled the main work to get something else out of it. FRANCESCA —We also knew who our characters were. We discussed their background and took out a lot of explanations we had in the first draft of the script. VALERIA— I think that’s what makes the film “contemporary.” CHIARA — In terms of Miele as a character, specifically, I loved how complex she is. I know, Francesca, you work with layering your female characters in all your fiction. Your women have a mix of

vulnerability, stoutness, irony, and sexiness, and I think there are a lot of similarities with the characters you portray, Valeria. They can be wildly sexy and at the same time completely goofy. How did you bring in the layers for the character of Miele? FRANCESCA —I’ve known Valeria for a long time—since we were both were living in the States. I think we became fast friends because we found that we’d been on a parallel path in some ways. I recognized the way she saw the world, the way she is. We like the same kind of women: unusual characters. We’re drawn to women who are smart and goofy, funny yet vulnerable, and whose primary interest is not just to fall in love or have a man. Miele is a woman whose major life themes don’t revolve around men. She’s in control. She is so young, and yet dealing with something so big. I think unconsciously we loved her from the beginning. VALERIA— The aesthetic of Miele’s character was different in the book. She was more feminine on the outside and more masculine on the inside, but she was too masculine, too promiscuous. She spoke about sex like men do, in a way that bothered me. I gave her a more masculine exterior and made her softer on the inside. There was no need to generate a woman who was fucking around all the time. Her sexuality is absolutely important, but not dominant. We made her more solitary, more of a loner. With Jasmine Trinca as an actress, it was almost like taking a veil off. CHIARA —Really, I think that’s the most amazing part of the film— how you transformed her as an actress. VALERIA— And how she transformed herself. It’s important for actors to do it. The director can only give suggestions. I couldn’t have done the same job if she hadn’t been ready for it. CHIARA —Valeria, you had this idea that you wanted to chop off all her flowing long hair, right? VALERIA— A year and half before the movie was made, I met Jasmine at a Prada fashion show. We were all there being photographed, and I turned to her and said, “Would you cut your hair for me?” She looked puzzled but she accepted. We went straight to my hairdresser and cut her hair. She suffered quite a bit in the process. CHIARA —Hair has memories, so you basically chopped off parts of

her life. It can be rejuvenating, but it can also be a melancholic experience. I’m seeing a variety of films like Blue Is the Warmest Color, that are not afraid to present the emotional evolution of a female character, to be with her step by step. Do you think this is a new trend in cinema—to see women under a magnifying glass? VALERIA— The Dardenne brothers started these types of films twenty years ago. We’re all their daughters and sons. The Dardennes and Lars von Trier are the parents of new cinema. FRANCESCA —Blue Is the Warmest Color showed that it’s possible to present a whole movie like a sort of non-story, i.e. the evolution of a relationship—as long as you’re really, really close. CHIARA —When you first met each other, what were your reciprocal impressions of one another? What was the spark of your relationship? VALERIA— Well, we liked each other right away. Also we were sharing the same boyfriend so we kind of had to be intimate! Francesca was the ex-girlfriend of my boyfriend at the time. FRANCESCA —I was with Fabrizio [Bentivoglio, the actor], then we broke up and he was with Valeria. Instead of getting into that antagonistic state of new girlfriend and ex-girlfriend, we simply connected. VALERIA— Almost without layers of complication. FRANCESCA —Because we had respect for one another. I, of course, loved her as an actress, and there was mutual interest and curiosity. VALERIA— Also, the fact that Francesca had broken Fabrizio’s heart so badly made him very interesting to me! FRANCESCA —Our meeting was completely independent from Fabrizio, though. Valeria wanted to do a film adaptation of my novel Rules of the Wild. She said, “I want to make this into a film” and we followed that by working on our own relationship. For fifteen years we shared lots of other things too. VALERIA— We share Valia for example, Miele’s third screenwriter. FRANCESCA —She is very, very important to us. It was a very healthy mix of people working on this film. Kind of miraculous. CHIARA —I really would like to speak about your multiple lives. Francesca’s upcoming book The Other Language addresses this. Sometimes a different language can give us a different persona. How does having multiple personalities—plus, you’re an actress,

“There’s nothing I’ve lived that I’d want to repeat, or that I have nostalgia for. I don’t. I just don’t. Nostalgia doesn’t belong to me. I almost remove the past now.” Valeria!—affect your art and vice versa? VALERIA— I call it ansia di molteplicità, or “multiplicity anxiety”: to want to be many different people in many different places at the same time at all costs. It’s a borderline pathology! Some of the people I transform into I don’t even know yet. It’s a contemporary virus both Francesca and I caught: being different people, speaking different languages in different places—yet wanting to be all those things at the same time. FRANCESCA —There’s an enormous richness to being able to have different lives and maintain relationships with our friends, places, and countries. Another connection between Valeria and I is that living different lives in different places makes you long for where you are not. That’s the most painful part, but even that is a richness. You always know there is “another way.” VALERIA— For me all this multiplicity is a very personal and intimate experience, but it explains my level of neurosis. In the past few years I realized that as much as I want to constantly be in different places at the same time, I never want to live in the past. FRANCESCA —Me neither. VALERIA— There’s nothing I’ve lived that I’d want to repeat, or that I have nostalgia for. I don’t. I just don’t. Nostalgia doesn’t belong to me. I almost remove the past now. CHIARA —You have that as well, Francesca. FRANCESCA —Yes and I also hate the word, “regret.” I hate to long for things in the past that I cannot have anymore. VALERIA— I don’t even want them anymore. FRANCESCA —But I also know there are other places where I could be now… VALERIA— In the past few years I’ve seen children and gotten the feeling of wanting to be back in childhood, but not to my own childhood. I don’t want to be Valeria as a child, I want to be some other child. CHIARA —You’re just ready for reincarnation! How do you know what part of yourself to access when you’re creating? VALERIA— Well, as an actress, I try to access everything I’ve lived deeply in my own life—all the pain, all the fears. I don’t talk in terms of psychoanalysis. I leave my bad emotions where they should be, so

I can use them. If I resolve all my problems with a psychiatrist what the fuck do I do when I have to act? I don’t use them in a “method” way, because that would also be abusing them, so I just wait for my feelings to hit me, suddenly. CHIARA —So it’s instinctive. VALERIA— I don’t have a technique. As a director, it’s a much more complete and rational sensation, much less emotional. FRANCESCA —For me, I would say, when I write fiction I feel freer. I can really allow myself to access my “multiple personas.” I always say: “To speak and to learn another language later in life is a betrayal of your parents, your home, your homeland. Tradurre—the Italian word for “translating”—is similar to the word tradire—the word for “betray.” At the same time, I think speaking another language frees you from certain inhibitions and restrictions, a kind of censorship you always impose on yourself. Questions like: “Who will read me?” “Who will watch my film?” “Will they judge me?” They don’t seem to emerge when you write in another language. CHIARA —Back to the “elsewhere craving” of those born into parallel lives: why do we complain about Italy so much, but in the end, we’re all living and creating in the country of La Dolce Vita and La Grande Bellezza? FRANCESCA —I think we should absolutely stop complaining. We’ve complained enough. It’s 2014. I think we’ve been complaining for four years. VALERIA— Four? Forty-four! FRANCESCA —I think we should make a movement to stop complaining. As you can see from La Grande Bellezza: it was loved everywhere, it won an Academy Award, and still Italians felt outraged because they couldn’t bear to see the mirror of our troubles. VALERIA— I would say the reason we live here is because we are accepted. It’s harder elsewhere. There’s obviously something very “sweet” about Rome. FRANCESCA —I think we forget to see its beauty and that is, in fact, the theme of The Great Beauty—that we stopped seeing it. We take it for granted. Italians tend to be self-deprecating, but that can be a poison. If we live here, we need to stop being a self-loathing nation.

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“Narcissister consumes personae and imagery and claims them as her own. Well-known pop songs become her words.” —Narcissister, in conversation with Peaches

T H E M U S I C I A N - P R OVO C AT E U R S P E A K S W I T H P E R F O R M A N C E A RT I S T P EAC HES A B O U T H OW TO T U R N A N E X P E C TAT I O N O N I T S H E A D. INTERVIEW BY PHOTOGRAPHY BY FA S H I O N E D I T O R

P E AC H E S

MARK ABRAHAMS

C AT H E R I N E N E W E L L- H A N S O N

PEACHES— I think the first time we saw each other was at the Bowery?

NARCISSISTER— I saw you. [Laughs.] I don’t think you saw me. I was in the front row, jumping up and down like everybody else. I had been wheat-pasting posters around New York and I had brought one to throw onstage. You caught it and held it up to your pelvis. I was so excited about it, because the pelvis is the site of so much life and energy and so many political questions. And your album cover, Teaches of Peaches had that amazing pelvis image. PEACHES— Actually, that picture was from a live show. I used to wear really cheap pink spandex to perform: because I was so aggressive onstage I wanted a counterbalance with little, tight pink shorts. I didn’t really do a great job shaving down there, and I noticed that when I was playing, people would point to the center of my pants, delighted and horrified at the same time. A picture taken at one of the early shows became the album cover. Actually on my first website I had an image gallery where people could send me a picture of my crotch. NARCISSISTER— I am also drawn to that site of the body: it’s an essential framing of issues related to womanhood and eroticism. I used to create images that felt feminine and put them in the rough environment of the street. Looking back, those connections just seem a little bit too facile. PEACHES— You came from a visual art and dance background, is that right? NARCISSISTER— Yes, and commercial art. I was working as a stylist for photographers and as a window display designer. I had all of those different influences—of having been a professional dancer and being a visual artist, and doing commercial work, creating tableaux and working with mannequins. PEACHES— Why did you start Narcissister? NARCISSISTER— As a commercial artist I would facilitate other people’s visions. I knew that I wanted to get paid to put my own vision out in the world, but I was also dissatisfied with my own artmaking. I was working on portraiture and I was finding it really hard to create any original imagery. Then, combining all these different things—my experience as a dancer and a commercial artist, and my art ideas—I created something more original. That was the Narcissister project. PEACHES— Was there a moment that it became yours? NARCISSISTER— It happened really fast. One of my clients was Agent Provocateur, the lingerie store in SoHo, and a lot of the women working there were in the burlesque scene. They invited me to their shows and once I saw it I realized that I wanted to do this too. I entered a burlesque contest that Murray Hill hosted and I did it as Narcissister. That was my first performance and I just started getting jobs right away. PEACHES— Sometimes it’s just a matter of finding a new way to express all the things you can put together. I had a rock background and I had a theatre background—I wanted to be a theatre director, I went to theatre school, but I wanted to make musicals. And then I went to theatre school and I realized that it just was too frustrating to get so many people together. I was thinking a lot about the energy of rock-and-roll and hip hop, then I added a riot-grrrl chorus and a chanting style. Once I brought them all together it clicked. A lot of people were interested in the result because electronic music wasn’t very popular yet. Also people didn’t understand why I didn’t have a band, why there was just this weird machine there. I knew I was doing something right because I was confusing people too. NARCISSISTER— You’ve recently returned to theatre.

H A I R : M A R C O B R AC O AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R F O R O R I B E H A I R C A R E . M A K E U P : S A M A D D I N G TO N AT K R A M E R + K R A M E R U S I N G C H A N E L S U B L I M AG E . S T Y L I S T A S S I S TA N T: A M B E R H A R R I S .

usician Peaches and performance artist Narcissister couldn’t care less whether you think their work is vulgar, revelatory or both. Both feminists in their own right, the women shock audiences with their provocative, in-your-face theatrics. The two talk about vaginas, onstage antics, and the challenges of being a woman artist.

Dress by TK. Suit and shirt by TK. Hat by ERIC JAVITS.

Gloves by CAROLINA AMATO. Briefs by DOLCE & GABBANA.

PEACHES— I just made the movie-musical Peaches Does Herself, and a theatre in Berlin asked me if I would like to do a production of it. They had no idea that I’d ever done any theatre before. I realized that I had the perfect opportunity to make the musical I’d wanted to make 20 years ago! It’s so interesting because I’m not very calculated in terms of having a career. I also got to teach, too. After I dropped out of a director program I worked in a daycare, and it was super boring so I made up this hybrid music-drama program where the kids could role-play. One of the directors saw what I was doing and hired me to teach teachers how to be creative with the kids. I did that for ten years before Peaches. And then at night I was doing music—it wasn’t Peaches, it was just exploring all kinds of music. NARCISSISTER— Have you thought about working with children again? It could be interesting to include kids in one of your theatrical productions. PEACHES— Definitely. I’m very interested in performance without professionals involved. You can see that in my movie, too. Kids taught me a lot about performance because if they don’t like what you’re doing they pull your hair, they tell you you’re boring. They’re the best punk audience ever. NARCISSISTER— I was disappointed that I missed your Peaches Does Herself show in New York. I wanted to ask you about your work being erotic, in its lyrics and energy and onstage gestures, and yet finding commercial success. PEACHES— Amazon and iTunes and Netflix won’t carry it—I think because it contains transgender nudity. I obviously have to bring up when you were on America’s Got Talent—when they realized where that other head was coming from. NARCISSISTER— Well the head comes from between my legs but I never thought of it as coming from my vagina; that’s just where it is. But that would be cool. Sort of like a birth—she’s birthing herself. But no, there’s nothing inside my body in that performance—I was more interested in creating illusions of a person composed of unimaginable, unfathomable parts, meaning that one could read legs as arms or what have you. PEACHES— I think it’s interesting that what I do with my voice, you do similarly with your body. NARCISSISTER— I think my training as a dancer really showed me

how expressive the body could be. I trained at the Ailey school and I also trained in the Graham technique. I aspire to express with my body, so when I started Narcissister I didn’t want show my face. I also use pop music for my project, to establish an era and to critique pop culture. Narcissister is a wanton, gluttonous consumer of things that are not her: she consumes personae, songs, imagery, and claims them as her own. Well-known pop songs become her words. I actually did a performance as Narcissister where I sang. I have a mask that has a microphone built into it. But it was unsuccessful because I realized that when Narcissister speaks it has to feel righteous. So I made a puppet costume that’s a woman from the back, which I wear on my head. The woman is bent over so the part of the puppet that’s right in front of my face is her vagina. I stick the microphone in the vagina and then I sing her song. You just see a microphone in a puppet vagina singing a rap. PEACHES— Lyrics have to be just right: big statements but with some humor in them. NARCISSISTER— You’re like a poet instigator through your songs. Your lyrics are a call to confession or else they feel revolutionary. They can’t be throwaway accompaniment to whatever music you’ve got. PEACHES— But you want it to be fun, too, and light. NARCISSISTER— I remember a long time ago I went to see a Violent Femmes concert. I’d always really loved their music but they were getting a bit older by that time. It ended up being comical in a way that I don’t think they intended, singing lyrics from their older songs like, “Come on, Dad, give me the car keys.” These old men were still earnest in their delivery! As artists, as we change and maybe become more mature, how can we continue to make work that’s true to our message, true to our energy, but is relevant to who we are now? Do you feel the same way about your song “Fuck The Pain Away” at this point in your life, as when you wrote it? PEACHES— It’s a lot of pressure. You have to make your own point. NARCISSISTER— There are so few women artists that have incredible longevity, like Yoko Ono or Patti Smith. Louise Bourgeois made such strong work so late in her life, and it was really erotic and it still felt so fresh and real. I’m inspired by women who bring consistent vitality to their work throughout their lives.

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The Magazine, Reconsidered ROBERT HE I NEC KE N WA S A P I O N E E R O F A P P R O P R I AT I O N A RT, A N D H I S A LT E R E D M AG A Z I N E S, C U L L E D D I R E C T LY F R O M M A S S M E D I A A N D P O R N O G R A P H Y, S E E M A S R E L E VA N T N OW A S T H E Y W E R E 4 0 Y E A R S AG O. T E X T A N D I M A G E S C U R AT E D B Y A L L I M AG E S F RO M

D R E W S AW Y E R

T H E C O L L E C T I O N O F P H I L I P F. D E N N Y, C H I C AG O & T H E R O B E RT H E I N E C K E N T RU S T

F R O M R E V I S E D M AGA Z I N E : J U N G L E P R I N T S / C U T S / P O R N O. 1 9 9 3 . I N C I S E D F O U N D M AGA Z I N E PAG E S , B O U N D A N D C O L L AT E D B Y A R T I S T, 1 0 3 /4 X 8 ” ( 2 7. 3 X 2 0. 3 C M ) .

n ’69, the Los Angeles–based artist Robert Heinecken (1931– 2006) disassembled several issues of Time magazine, lithographed a found image of a nude pin-up on every single page and, after rebinding them, slipped the manipulated periodicals back on the newsstand for unsuspecting readers. Over the next 30 years, Heinecken went on to produce several dozen of what he called “revised” or “compromised” magazines; in addition to overprinting, he collated pages from disparate sources or cut out elements from each leaf with an X-acto knife. These altered publications are meant to be flipped through—the sequential pages create new readings that often reveal and undermine the workings of editorial content, advertisements, consumption, and desire in mass media and culture at large. From March 15 through September 7, 2014, The Museum of Modern Art, New York presents the largest display to date of the artist’s magazines in the survey exhibition Robert Heinecken: Object Matter. Revised Magazine: Jungle Prints / Cuts / Porno (1993) represents the culmination of Heinecken’s incised and collated periodicals, creating raucous and disorienting photomontages with material culled from pornography, fashion magazines, and catalogues. With his signature humor and typological impulse, Heinecken commingles fashion models and centerfolds with animal print textiles to link the real and fantasy sexual encounters amongst the layered pages. The artist returned again and again to images of sex and the body during a period in which he felt daily experience was becoming increasingly mediated. Eschewing ironic distance however, Heinecken implicates himself in a vast system of sex, money, and power. After all, if there is no critical position outside one’s own culture, you might as well enjoy the ride.

Statements About Work TEXT BY

R . F. H E I N E C K E N

1. I attempt to involve myself in work and ideas that constantly challenge that which I previously understood or thought I understood. 2. I am interested in the relationships and play between an unfamiliar picture/object content and the familiar photographic image. 3. An aspect of the work has to do with altering the literal/ cultural meaning of existing public images by making minimal changes and additions. Using superimposition, juxtaposition and other contextual changes, I am functioning as a visual guerrilla. 4. I am interested in the various ways that photographic images transcend their relationship to actuality. 5. The pictures and objects are not related to direct, experiential camera vision, but represent formalized symbolic equivalents of experience. 6. The figure, because of its human, erotic, sensual and psychological connections, remains my primary subject interest and is the vehicle for the formal content of the work. 7. Often the work relates to my ongoing interest in random and aleatory occurrences and associations. The images are the result of situational rather than visualized stimuli. Synthesis rather than selection is significant. 8. Through my work, I am involved in extending the photographic medium into new processes, concepts, and areas of concern and in the utilization of new, light-sensitive materials. 9. My basic aim is to be able to relate the concept and content of the last piece to the next, so as to be involved in the constant development of individual subjective work. I value the open-ended evolution of ideas as opposed to a particularized esthetic resolution.

(Left to right, top to bottom): Time (1st Group, November 28, Raquel Welch) 1969, Periodical #1 1969, 150 Years of Photojournalism 1989–90, Periodical #3 1971, Periodical #4 1971, Revised Magazine: Cigarette Ads / Women 1993, Periodical #5 1971, Periodical #6 1971, Revised Magazine: Jungle Prints / Cuts 1993, Periodical #9 1972, Periodical #9 1972, Compromised Magazine: B+W / Cut 1994

When I visited Karlheinz Weinberger’s apartment studio in Zurich in 1999, right before the entire art world seemed to discover his vintage work, he told me that during the ’60s the Swiss police had raided his home and seized supposedly “pornographic pictures”. But right before the cops hauled the photography away as evidence, they whispered “keep the ones you like the best.” I was always amazed at this humanitarian gesture by the authorities and like to think that the touchingly innocent and sexually beautiful photographs featured here are exactly those choices. My great friend and star of many of my films, Mink Stole, recently commented after looking at old photos of herself, “I was cute then and I never even realized it.” Were any of Weinberg’s guys aware of their sexual power at the time? Can you be naive if you have a big dick? Is it possible to be intelligent while wearing a headband? Who needs intellectual stimulation when you’re getting your naked picture taken? Nobody wants to talk about abstract ideas when they’re nude. These alternative “models” must have been thrilled that Weinberger not only spotlighted their unbelievably brave fashion flair but gave them a safe house of exhibitionism to strut their stuff and feel good about themselves. Their parents certainly weren’t taking pictures of them dressed like this, much less without clothes. Imagine what the neighbors had to say! Yet nobody could have predicted that this motley gang’s sartorial splendor would inspire international fashion designers to copy Weinberger’s audacious documentation decades later. These crackpot rebels should feel proud when they look back today at their youth in these photographs. Not once do they look silly. These guys were art and they never even knew it.

D O C U M E N T N O. 9 4

Gentlemen, Watch Your Wallets JOH N WATE R S C U R AT E S —A N D C A P T I O N S — A N E V E R- B E F O R E - S E E N S E L E C T I O N O F K ARLHE I NZ W E I NBE RG E R I M AG E S. TEXT BY A L L I M AG E S ©

J O H N WAT E R S

T H E E S TAT E O F K A R L H E I N Z W E I N B E R G E R ,

C O U RT E S Y A RT I S T R E S O U R C E S M A N AG E M E N T

“

Mom, I’d like you to meet the man I’m going to marry.

”

“

Bruce Weber, eat your heart out.

”

“

I’ll bet he was one of Karlheinz’s favorites.

”

“ ”

Robert Mapplethorpe’s long-lost Swiss brother?

“ ”

Diet-pill Romeo.

“

Hippie innocence with a ‘Hollywood loaf’ (half a hard-on).

”

“ ”

If Bob Mizer only knew...

“ ”

Harry Connick Jr., is that you?

“

Nobody looks ridiculous when you’re young and appreciated.

”

“ ”

Whadda you lookin’ at? Gimme the money!

“ ”

Trouble with a capital T.

“

One of the few ‘bears’ or ‘cubs’ we see in Weinberger’s stable.

”

“

Real life or a guerilla photo shoot? Either way, the job’s getting done.

”

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 0 4

Trance Notebook #3 [a testicle descends, but a lark ascends]

afraid of Debussy and stomach flu— _____________ the relationship between early Impressionism and intestinal bugs

Wayne Koestenbaum

_____________ a foetid pool of anadyomene images— _____________ —don’t confuse selfdeprecation with “unacknowledged legislators” transport—

one becomes Mado Robin overnight, or any dead legend—

Jean Harris, who murdered the Diet Doctor, died today—

_____________

Melville’s pervy Pierre, subject of my 2001 reveries—

it O.D.s on indexicality

_____________

your naked shoulders, the girlie raw material of lieder—

guillotine revolutionaries and their quadrille-dreaming wives—not all revolutionaries are husbands—

_____________ (cave paintings and trills) _____________ arm lying dead on the wheelchair ledge— _____________ clairvoyance of our anus, its (somber) solitude, hemiola—not the children’s hospital near San Francisco State University _____________ o one becomes a German citizen because of breeze or jazz, no one becomes a German citizen overnight—no

_____________

_____________ —a nightingale without a onesie is a venereal “state of exception” _____________

no reason I shouldn’t have a crush on Jesus or picture his pierced and flayed abdomen

lollipops were de rigueur when boys’ testicles were undescended— a testicle descends, but a lark ascends

_____________

his nipples in recession

Wilhelm Reich and other radical faery technicians of the sacred perineum, the ligament between the wolf and the regurgitator—

_____________ I frequent the Tinker’s Damn, an atopical gay bar also patronized by Tiny Tim and Miss Vicky _____________ my shame is one-sizefits-all, like a white parka from Target _____________

_____________ illness alters aesthetic judgments— _____________ sunsets are sentimental propaganda tools, yet every night a sunset

makes a threepenny-opera hooker out of me— I expand like an accordion before it’s had a chance to be a scarlet pimpernel—

these sentences lead to Switzerland, the Klee institute, recovery, Ash Wednesday, plastic surgery, failed nose jobs, noses that drip

_____________

—all chapels are identical when perceived by the belly-button of the faithful—

this activity represents a symptom of neurological damage

_____________ I thought the phone call meant my mother had died, but he left no message, and if she’d died, wouldn’t he have left a message saying “she died”? _____________ the redheaded IsraeliAustrian trainer strained my neck by suggesting a perverse free-weight hamstring-glute exercise _____________ he urges me to apply for German citizenship _____________ vaginas are higher and more tilted than I’d realized _____________ the area by the bushes in elementary school (Lassen Drive?) seemed the location of a dead body _____________

_____________ Ingres painted a peacock feather, though the man who wrote the Ingres book on which I’m leaning is dead _____________ my mother (I think) telephoned, and my heart stopped— _____________ I make nonsense sounds because I pretend I live in a toaster— I pretend I’m a pop tart— _____________ —peevishness isn’t the same as a poetic credo— and yet I assert crabbiness and grandiosity as a modernist torch— _____________ my mother’s bowels are always a part of my consciousness, and that’s why I flee consciousness, because I don’t want to be a tenant of my mother’s bowels— _____________

a strange choice for Orthodox Jews in search of pomegranates _____________ like Courbet origin-of-the-world bagel-and-cream-cheese concession stands on Eighth Avenue _____________ my pockets are filled with lumpy stars— fetal constellations _____________ like Jim Nabors with a morning woody— greeting his new roommate, Jerry Seinfeld— Jerry’s wearing his “Mame” costume— _____________ I’m trying to avoid a crevice—or abyss— in the middle of my mother’s bed, where she awaits my response, though she doesn’t always remember who I am— _____________ —she always remembers that I am a cardboard doll, a St. Francis of Assisi loser fetish

Bodysuit by ANTHONY VACCARELLO.

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 0 6

“In The Language Of An Actor, To Know Is Synonymous With To Feel,” by Collier Schorr & Fashion Director James Valeri — F R O M KO N S TA N T I N S TA N I S L AV S K I ’ S C R E AT I N G A R O L E .

Watch by CHANEL. Hoisery by FALKE.

Model FREJA BEHA ERICHSEN at IMG. Hair Stylist HOLLI SMITH. Make Up by OZZY SALVATIERRA. Prop Stylist ROBERT SUMRELL. Stylist Assistants KADEEM GREAVES, LEANNE WOODLEY, LINDSEY SCHICKNER

and ALBERT HICKS IV. Special thanks to FAST ASHLEYS and GLOSS STUDIO. Fur coat by PRADA.

Sweatshirt by MARC JACOBS.

Pleated skirt by PROENZA SCHOULER.

Dress by SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI

SLIMANE. Ribbon as choker stylist’s

own.

Bustier and high waisted shorts with embroidered rhinestones by FENDI. Vintage coat by

Leather jacket and bandana by

SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE.

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 2 4

Flora & Fauna by Benjamin Alexander Huseby & Fashion Editor Jodie Barnes

Blazer by SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE. Vintage

jeans from WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Ring by CARTIER.

Model MALGOSIA BELA at NEXT NEW YORK. Hair Stylist MARK HAMPTON. Make Up by HIROMI UEDA. Casting by SAMUEL ELLIS SCHEINMAN. Stylist Assistant MANUEL ESTEVEZ. On set production JOHN O’CONNOR. Retouching TWEAK PRODUCTIONS. MALGOSIA wears shirt by THE GAP. Vintage jeans from WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Earrings model’s own. (Opposite): MALGOSIA wears blazer by SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE. Ring

MALGOSIA wears fringed

top by CALVIN KLEIN

ARRAN TURTON-PHILLIPS at SELECT

wears vintage “Alice Cooper” T-shirt from WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND.

(Opposite): MALGOSIA wears vintage T-shirt from RESURRECTION VINTAGE NYC.

MALGOSIA wears dress by BOTTEGA VENETA.

MALGOSIA wears top

and skirt by MIU MIU.

(This page): MALGOSIA wears sweater by DIOR. Jeans by

CONTEMPORARY WARDROBE

DENIM. Sneakers by CONVERSE ALL STAR. (Opposite):

MALGOSIA wears feathered dress

by JIL SANDER.

MALGOSIA wears sweater and skirt by CÉLINE.

JAKE L at TOMORROW IS

ANOTHER DAY wears a custom

wreath.

LERA TRIBEL at NEXT LONDON

wears vintage bodysuit by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD.

HARLETH KUUSIK at STORM wears necklace by VANRYCKE.

LERA wears shirt by VERONIQUE BRANQUINHO.

Ring by CARTIER.

NEELAM JOHAL at MODELS 1 wears tank-top by SONIA

RYKIEL. Ring by VANRYCKE.

BROGAN LOFTUS at M±P

wears denim shirt by

(This page): TOMMASO DE

BENEDICTIS at TOMORROW

IS ANOTHER DAY wears suit by LANVIN. Shoes by VINTAGE CONVERSE from KILIWATCH PARIS. (Opposite): HARLETH wears top and skirt by SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE.

VALTERS MEDENIS at ELITE LONDON wears denim by VINTAGE LEVI’S from KILIWATCH PARIS.

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 6 0

Peter Doig The Early Works S C OT T I S H A RT I S T P E T E R D O I G BROUGHT A NEW ROMANCE TO PA I N T I N G W H E N H E C A M E O F AG E I N T H E E I G H T I E S. M A N Y Y E A R S A N D B R O K E N AU C T I O N R E C O R D S L AT E R , T H O S E E A R LY WO R K S W I L L F I N A L LY B E S E E N AG A I N. INTERVIEW BY

PA R I N A Z M O G A DA S S I

U N T I T L E D , I N D I A I N K O N PA P E R .

B O O M , B O O M , B O O M , B O O M ( T H E S U B L I M E ) , O I L O N C A N VA S , 1 9 8 2 .

B U R G E R K I N G , O I L O N C A N VA S , 1 9 8 3 .

C H E Z PA R E E , O I L O N C A N VA S , 1 9 8 6 .

n his three-decades-long career, Peter Doig has established himself as one of the most inventive and accomplished artists working in painting today. First earning international critical recognition in the early nineties, Doig reshaped the discourse of painting at a time when many artists and critical thinkers preoccupied themselves with rumors of its death. Created shortly after the artist settled in London, these early works—which will be exhibited at Michael Werner Gallery, London, from March 20—show the young artist mining new and varied sources for inspiration and experimenting with a range of techniques. Then, as now, his singular approach to painting reimagines the medium’s transportive ability to conjure meaning and mystery. PARINAZ —These works were made when you were in your twenties. Can you tell me the context in which they were made? Would you consider it student work or not? PETER —They were made while I was in my last year at Central Saint Martins and over the next seven years, prior to returning to college in ’89. I guess some are student works, but most were made in the studio that I had after leaving Saint Martins. PARINAZ —Saint Martins in the early eighties was a hotbed for not only art but fashion as well. Do you think the convergence of those two worlds in a student environment had an impact on your work? Do you think you would have developed into a different type of

painter if you had gone to one of the other London art schools at the time, like, say, Goldsmiths? PETER —Saint Martins was certainly very different than all the other art schools. We had a very strong fashion school and also a cuttingedge graphics department. A lot of us mixed and went out together. Robin Derrick was designing the early issues of i-D as a student and the likes of John Galliano and Stephen Linard were making strong statements in the fashion department. But Saint Martins was also strongly connected with all that was happening in the London club scene of the late seventies and early eighties. We would all go out a lot. Some painting students would bring clothes to go out in, and hang them in their studio. Chris Sullivan, who ran Hell and the Wag Club, was also in the fashion department. The excitement generated by this world inside and outside of college definitely had an impact on the work we made. In ’80 there were probably only 200 or 300 “new romantics” in the world, and all were in London. The scene centered around the Blitz Club, Hell, Saint Moritz, 21 Club and lots of other small one-nighters. We had a strong contingent of some of the most interesting people, and the likes of Boy George—this was way before Culture Club—would hang out at Saint Martins, even though they were not actually students there. PARINAZ —Your imagery from that period is charged with a manic energy that is almost impossible to replicate outside the confines of youth. It’s interesting what you say about club culture, as there is

C O N T E M P L AT I N G C U LT U R E , O I L O N C A N VA S , 1 9 8 5.

direct evidence of it in your work. We see Leigh Bowery taking the form of Burger King, and exotic dancers straddling your canvases. In terms of imagery, were you pulling from your own life? From your travels? PETER —Actually I didn’t meet Leigh Bowery until after I had painted Burger King, but he identified with it because he had once almost become a manager of a Burger King. The imagery for that painting came partly from a dream and partly from visiting New York City in the early eighties. The scale of the huge heads advertising KFC and other brands in the Times Square billboards was, possibly, unique in the world at that time. PARINAZ —Your crosshatching of cities is intriguing. We see Siena and London occupy the same picture, we seem to weave between Berlin and Montreal. And then there is the American terrain, from New York City to cowboy country. How do you account for all of this? PETER —My work was influenced by my travels, and also where I hoped to travel. Rome and its ancient world mixed with the contemporary one we occupy. Back then you had to actually visit places to see things. The cowboy stuff was related to my own past (having worked in the Canadian west). Also when I visited New York City for the first time, I could not help but think of Midnight Cowboy. PARINAZ —In the pre-Internet era, when visual information was not so readily available, would you say that the act of physically seeing was more important than it is now? You often cite two key exhibi-

tions you saw while studying at Saint Martins, Who Chicago? and A New Spirit in Painting, as formative. To what extent do you think the experience of seeing these exhibitions had an influence on your work? PETER —I think it was an era of discovering things for yourself. So as an artist, one could search out imagery or source material via second-hand bookshops or by other means—one had more a sense of ownership because no one else would have access to the same source material as readily. And people could get quite possessive about their discoveries. I hadn’t yet encountered some of the artists included in the two exhibitions you mentioned—but more importantly the shows also contained types of painting that I hadn’t seen before, and subjects I hadn’t yet seen in art. The impact was thrilling and daunting. It created an ambition in us to make large works and not be afraid to use subjects from outside what was, for the most part, considered suitable for art. PARINAZ —Your scale and your commitment to a personal vision in the work is noteworthy. You weren’t afraid to go out on a limb. So often now, young artists make work that is designed to fit an aesthetic or satisfy trends in the market. It’s a shame, because the beginning of a career should be a time for experimentation. In addition to being an artist, you have taught in art schools for the past 20 or so years. PETER —Well I do think it’s a shame to see young artists just jump on market trends, no matter how seemingly cutting edge the trends are.

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We hope young artists will create new trends, rather than just finding success in today’s marketplace. Maybe the advantage of having worked in an era that had no appreciable market was that you could take risks. I just made works for myself, mainly, and my friends and a very small audience. Cities have changed so much, and this affects the way the young make work as well. It’s no longer possible to live in New York or London on the cheap. In my time, London was a place where one could live for virtually nothing—if you were prepared to duck and dive. PARINAZ —And fuck and jive. PETER —Also true. PARINAZ —You were saying, Professor Doig… PETER —My experience of teaching started in the provinces of England, and then in the nineties in London, students could still study for free. This meant that the student body was composed of an extremely diverse group—many of whom would never have had the opportunity to study art if it had been necessary to pay for it. The less diverse an environment becomes, the less creatively vital it becomes as well. Now I have a class at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, which has free tuition. The atmosphere is very similar to what I remember in the London art schools in the early eighties. PARINAZ —The art world is very aggressive about commerce, perhaps more now then ever. It seems that many art students today would rather bypass showing with their peer group in favor of representation by a blue-chip gallery. These venues, with ever-expanding square footage and a cognizance of the global marketplace, need to have a product to push. It makes young artists easy prey. Perhaps the hype and speculation you see today is not unlike London in nineties, and the Young British Artist phenomenon.

PETER —I should say that I think the difference between the early nineties and today is that the YBA artists predated the mega-galleries, and, apart from Hirst, didn’t really overproduce. Many of the shows were in modest spaces or, oftentimes, unconventional places. Their “successes” paved the way for a new kind of ambition. In many ways what’s happening now is more cynical, because there is an awareness of a precedent. PARINAZ —With that in mind, in March there will be an exhibition of your work from the eighties at Michael Werner Gallery in London. When and where were these works first exhibited? PETER —The works that I will show at Michael Werner haven’t been shown in London since the eighties (if at all) . In those days there was little to no opportunity for younger artists in London. You couldn’t be too concerned about where you showed, then, because there were very few options for young artists. At that time my work was shown in some group exhibitions in London, and then in a shop in Florence called Luisa Via Roma put together by Victoria Fernandez. It was (and still is) a fashion store, which dedicates some space once or twice a year to exhibitions of some sort. Other London-based artists like John Maybury and Trojan were also in this one. I had been staying in Rome with my friend Haydn, in a studio he had at the British School. We had limited funds, so we decided to travel up to Florence by train for the opening and return the same night. When we arrived I was told that I had sold a painting—probably only the fourth I had ever sold. I was paid on the spot, so the champagne flowed. We stayed a couple more nights and I burned through all the money that I had earned. But of course, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. PARINAZ —It was the best of times. PETER —The best of youth.

C H E Z PA R E E 1 , I N K A N D G O U AC H E O N PA P E R , 1 9 8 6 .

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U N T I T L E D , O I L O N PA P E R .

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 7 2

Grace & Discipline By Collier Schorr & Fashion Director James Valeri

STEPHEN JAMES at SUPA wears

shorts by DIOR HOMME.

(This page): STEPHEN wears pants and shoes by DIOR HOMME. Nightstick by THE LEATHERMAN. (Opposite): STEPHEN wears pants and shoes by DIOR HOMME.

Hair Stylist HOLLI SMITH. Grooming by JUNKO KIOKA. Casting by ROS OKUSANYA. Prop Stylist ROBERT SUMRELL. Manicurist DAWN STERLING. Stylist Assistants KADEEM GREAVES, LEANNE WOODLEY, JADE VALLERIO, and GINEVRA VALENTE. Special thanks to FAST ASHLEYS.

STEPHEN wears tank top and shorts by DIOR HOMME.

MATT WOODHOUSE at SOUL ARTIST

MANAGEMENT wears sleeveless shirt and shorts by DIOR HOMME. Boots by RON FRIEDSON FINE BOOTS. Gloves and nightstick by THE LEATHERMAN.

MATT wears shirt and shorts by DIOR HOMME. Gloves by THE LEATHERMAN.

(This page): MARTIN CONTE at DNA wears blazer, shirt, and pants by DIOR HOMME. (Opposite): LAURIE HARDING at FUSION wears sweater and pants by DIOR HOMME. Gloves and Nightstick by THE LEATHERMAN. Boots by RON FRIEDSON FINE BOOTS.

(This page): MARTIN wears blazer, top, and pants by DIOR HOMME. (Opposite): VICTOR NYLANDER at WILHELMINA wears sweater by DIOR HOMME.

(This page): Blazer, shirt and pants by DIOR HOMME. (Opposite): Hooded Vest and pants by DIOR HOMME.

D O C U M E N T— S / S 2 0 1 4

met Kris Van Assche, the creative director of Dior Homme, at an exhibition about the male nude largely to talk about men’s fashion. Anybody who has worked in menswear—and I edited a men’s fashion magazine, Arena Homme+, for seven years—knows that men’s fashion has as much to do with what isn’t worn as what is. Exploring ideas of masculinity through fashion has as much to do with the image-making process—the person pictured, how they look, how they might think, what they might say, who these ideal characters are—as it does with the cut of a pair of trousers. In fact, in building an idea of fashion for men—something of a dreamworld— the trousers usually come quite far down that list. At Dior Homme, Kris Van Assche has been in charge of this process, of building an idea of a man through design, clothing, and imagery, for seven years. I met him at the very beginning of his time there and have continued to know him and, on occasion, work with him ever since. Being the head of Dior Homme is one of the hardest and most demanding jobs in men’s fashion, with an impact on the way that men dress that only very few designers can achieve. We are both interested in how this dreamworld for men is built and how it has to intersect with reality; men can’t really walk around naked after all… JO-ANN —One of the reasons I have always been interested in fashion, although I did not necessarily think I would work in it, is that it is a dreamworld. I have always liked its unreality. I grew up in North

Manchester, a particularly bad part. Morrissey is quite damning about it in his autobiography—he calls it “child eating Collyhurst”! Where in Belgium did you grow up? KRIS —I would say I am not from such a horrible place, but it was a really boring, boring place! It is a small town, right in the middle between Brussels and Antwerp, called Londerzeel. It’s just a little Flemish village. It is a place that is about not getting noticed, just fading in. It was my world until I was 18—and I really did not like it. It was a place one was motivated to get out of. JO-ANN —The graphic designer Peter Saville once said to me: “When you come from one of the great cosmopolitan cities, like London, you do not have any motivation to change anything. Because it is all, really, already there.” How long have you been at Dior now? KRIS —I have been at Dior for seven years—and that has gone really, really fast. It’s a nonstop house. But for me it has been a very good evolution. Working at Dior there is always going to be pressure, but when I got here there was a lot of negative pressure. Everybody was counting the days before I would fall flat on my face! Now the pressure is different, now it is going so well—both for sales and press— there is the pressure of success. It is a positive pressure now! JO-ANN —Although it is kind of nice when people underestimate you. You can just be quite: “fuck you,” and get on with it. KRIS —There is this thing that Madonna said when I was younger, I have always remembered it: “It is good when people underestimate

D O C U M E N T N O. 1 8 8

Kris Van Assche’s Naked Truths D I O R H O M M E ’ S C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R G I V E S J O -A N N F U R N I S S H I S V I S I O N F O R M E N AT T H E M U S É E D ’O R S AY ’ S E X H I B I T I O N “ M A S C U L I N E / M A S C U L I N E .” INTERVIEW BY

J O -A N N F U R N I S S

PHOTOGRAPH BY

W I L LY VA N D E R P E R R E

you, you can keep giving them little surprises.” I love that. But I am really enjoying what I do now—and this is actually quite a new thing! I think “fun” is a big word, but I would go so far as to say I can have fun with what I do. All that negativity at the beginning has paid off. JO-ANN —Do you think it is a good time or a bad time for menswear now? KRIS —For me, in my experience now at Dior Homme, it is a good time. Of course there is an economic crisis going on, but there is a lot of attention being paid to the menswear, and that’s both internally and externally. JO-ANN —I suppose that menswear was being underestimated for quite a long time. But many of the really interesting people in fashion now came through the route of menswear, and many have also grown to dominate womenswear. Womenswear, for such a long time, had been this “closed shop” and menswear had become the way in to the fashion world, particularly for designers, photographers, and stylists. But what worries me at the moment is that the whole men’s thing seems as if it is separating itself off from the fashion world. That it is a men’s world dominated by “gentleman’s wardrobe” as opposed to fashion. KRIS —I don’t want to philosophize, I don’t think it is my place to, as a designer. I think you have to feel things. But I suppose in times that are hard, people retreat back to collective memories that are quite reassuring. People look at something traditional as safe and comforting; when people are scared they look to the past. And that is true in everything, not just fashion. It is why for Winter 2013 I did a collection about the future. It was really in my head, not to be scared of the future, to embrace it in some way. All of this is part of an economic reality. And part of that economic reality are the markets in Asia, that do seem to have a more traditionally defined idea of masculinity

through dress at times, like the image of the strong business man. At the same time I am seeing these markets embrace strong creativity too, so that is great. This is such a positive evolution. I think a lot of strategic people at other houses had underestimated the demand for creativity in Asia. I see so many of my big fashion pieces in demand there, and that’s very reassuring. JO-ANN —I think the underestimating of the Chinese market by those “strategists” in the fashion industry has been ludicrous. Don’t underestimate the Chinese ever! It annoys me that people can underestimate such a complex place and people. I went there in ’00 before many had visited. I came back saying “that place is the future,” not just for fashion, but for everything. There is an entire generation of children who have all grown up in such an entirely different way from their parents, who want something so different. And there are more men than women. It is a place of creativity and change full of bratty “only” children… I’m an only child. Are you an only child? KRIS —I am. JO-ANN —I thought as much. Many designers are. I think being an only child means that you build your own world far more readily and easily; it prepares you for being a designer. Can you imagine the most populous nation on Earth full of only children? KRIS —It is quite remarkable. I think we are responding to China quite well. Now we really push creativity. It is a combination of highend luxury with full-on creativity for China. It is a place that has evolved so rapidly, and has had such a positive evolution. JO-ANN —Has your model of masculinity changed since starting at Dior Homme? KRIS —I suppose my idea of the ideal man has grown with me as I have grown and changed. So it hasn’t changed that much. But who and what have changed are men themselves. I really believe this. Men

“You have these kids becoming billionaires by inventing something for the Internet. Or they are a music star, or a football star. I think they have changed the view of success and on how one dresses to be successful.”

are now way more open to a personal view of things. Before there was an idea of following one leader; now there is an idea of following various leaders, of different types. This is something that has been going on for many years in womenswear, but only for five or six years in menswear. Now it is more of a case of what you relate to personally. Before there might be one big show, and people would want to look like that one type of man. Now there are a few big shows and it’s about who you want to relate to. This period is more about diversity. JO-ANN —I think when you’re a woman you are used to being fed dicta—and we’re so used to it we know we can ignore them! I am not so sure that men have gotten through this. Largely because they are not used to being treated like idiots in the way that women are. Men really started being treated like idiots not that long ago, so I do sometimes feel they take what some men’s magazine might tell them at face value. And really, they just shouldn’t! When I was editing a men’s fashion magazine, men would say to me “What should I wear?” And I’d tell them, “Wear what the hell you want!” They’d often turn round and say, “That’s not an answer.” But it’s honestly the best answer I can give. You have to feel comfortable in your own skin and clothes. KRIS —Don’t you think that before, the people who would make it in life were all the same type of person, a kind of businessman. And now you have something different. You have these kids becoming billionaires by inventing something for the Internet. Or they are a music star, or a football star. I think they have changed the view of success and on how one dresses to be successful. I remember not so long ago you wouldn’t be able to get into the Ritz wearing jeans. I’m pretty sure that has changed—you’d be able to get into the Ritz naked now! That is a big, big change. JO-ANN —At the same time when it comes to doing projects with the big male stars, the way they are dressed is more tightly controlled and more conservative than ever… You must be faced with this all of

the time. And many of the most conservative stars in still images are the ones that go furthest in moving images, like Leonardo DiCaprio. I don’t think men have to be naked all of the time, but I do appreciate a “don’t care” confidence in a man. KRIS —There is no longer just one truth in fashion. There are different influential people, some can be stars, some can be fashion people, and each has their own way of doing things. There are different groups, not just one group, and you can now make your own truth in fashion. That’s why I really appreciate working in fashion at this point in time. JO-ANN —I love the honesty of fashion. The fact that fashion is about money and power and makes no bones about it—it is one of the purest forms of capitalism. Of course that can be very scary too! But it is a great leveler. It is also a place where women and gay men have power because we’re useful—and fashion doesn’t care as long as you’re useful. It doesn’t have the same prejudices as elsewhere—and that is because it is honest about its capitalist nature. We’re great consumers… KRIS —But don’t you think that we are beyond the idea of the gay man consumer… JO-ANN —Yes, I do. I think fashion really does not care if somebody is gay or straight. It goes beyond all of that. It cares if somebody is useful. It cares about beauty. It does not have the same hang ups that, say, the art world does. That world has too many hang-ups about money; it is forever pretending it is not about money when largely, it is. It even has a problematic relationship to beauty these days. But just look at this exhibition, it’s packed. And it is all about male beauty and nudity. This exhibition is much more about the world of fashion than it is about the world of art—even if the paintings are neoclassical and Bruce Weber’s Calvin Klein advertising is missing. Really, it’s the same thing.

GUTTER CREDIT GOES HERE S E L F- P O RT R A I T STA N D I N G , 1980. A L L I M AG E S C O U RT E SY © T H E E STAT E O F P E T E R H UJA R, C O U RT E SY F R A E N K E L GA L L E RY, SA N F R A N C I SC O

ost of us armor up for the camera by acting natural. Peter Hujar wasn’t particularly interested in that. But to say that he was able to get people to relax in front of his camera, that he put his sitters at ease, wouldn’t be right at all. I don’t think he was interested in those easy forms of the self. These pictures feel to me like the work of self-abnegation rather than self-affirmation. What Hujar captures is the moment of the ego’s suspension, in pleasure, through eros, via love. His pictures are filled with eyes that look into the lens of the camera, and out from the picture, and say something ineffable like: “I am not me. I am not a proper name. I am not my parent’s child. I am a form of energy currently made possible, made visible, by this encounter, right now, with you.” Peter Hujar: Love & Lust, published by Fraenkel Gallery and distributed by DAP, is out now. N O. 1 9 2

LY N N H O D E N F I E L D P R EG N A N T ( I ) , 1978 GUTTER CREDIT GOES HERE

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Eros and its Discontents P H OTO G R A P H S F R O M P ET E R H U JA R’ S N E W B O O K , S E L E C T E D BY H E L E N M O L E SWO RT H , T H E B A R B A R A L E E C H I E F C U R ATO R O F I C A / B O S TO N. TEXT BY

H E L E N M O L E SWO RT H

O RGAS M I C M A N ( I , I I & I I I ) , 19 69

DAV I D WOJ N A ROW I C Z I N B E D , 198 3

N O. 1 9 6 GUTTER CREDIT GOES HERE M E RC E C U N N I N G H A M A N D J O H N C AG E S E AT E D , 1986

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DA N I E L SC H O O K SU C K I N G TO E , 198 1 GUTTER CREDIT GOES HERE

A L L I M AG E S C O U R T E SY T H E A R T I S T A N D K A M E L M E N N O U R , PA R I S .

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Camille Henrotâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grosse Fatigue

rench artist Camille Henrot is a player of cards who does not cheat: driven by intense curiosity and with an anti-academic approach, she likes to jump from one discipline to another, through installations, videos, drawings, and photographs. Operating somewhere between anthropology and visual art, she matches images and objects like a magician. She was recently awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale for her video Grosse Fatigue. Henrot conceived this special portfolio for Document Journal, associating her own work with found images in her own unique, analogical way. ARTWORK BY TEXT BY

C A M I L L E H E N R OT

DA N I E L E B A L I C E

N O. 1 9 9

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The World of Jacquemus PHOTOGRAPHY BY STYLIST & MODEL TEXT BY

ALESSIO BONI

L I LY M C M E N A M Y

DA N I E L E B A L I C E

FA S H I O N D I R E C T O R

J A M E S VA L E R I

All clothes by JACQUEMUS. Sneakers by SPRING COURT.

Model LILY MCMENAMY at NEXT. Make Up by MARK CARRASQUILLO. Hair Stylist BRYCE SCARLETT. Casting SAMUEL ELLIS SCHEINMAN. Stylist Assistant KADEEM GREAVES.

Simon Porte Jacquemus and Lily McMenamy.

very fashion week, my apartment in Paris becomes a joyful meeting point for a group of colorful visitors. They come from all over the world for the glamorous parties—some of them are in the fashion industry and others have just come for the fun. This last year, two young Californian girls, first-time visitors to Paris hungry for fashion, had the name of just one designer in their mouths: Simon Porte Jacquemus. As a Parisian I already knew and appreciated Jacquemus, but these two girls’ obsession tickled my curiosity. How did a 23-year-old designer based in Paris, who started with very little investment money, become such a phenomenon overseas? But let’s start from the beginning. Born in the south of France in ’90, Jacquemus’ first client was his mother. Already obsessed with fashion as a child, Jacquemus made a curtain into a skirt for her. It was created with love, but it was far from perfect—in fact it didn’t even fit properly. Regardless, his proud mother wore it to pick her son up from school. They say that precocious success comes from having a loving and supporting environment during childhood. By now, years after the mix of pride and shame Jacquemus felt that afternoon, his mother has been proven right. Only a few years later, Simon came to Paris to realize his dream of becoming a designer. Quickly bored by fashion school, he dropped out after only a few months and started to work in retail, where he learned what a customer really wants. The first collection came quickly thereafter. Then only 19 years old, he worked during the day and designed at night and on weekends. He had no financial support and only one patternmaker to help him. That first collection, presented by his effortlessly chic and beautiful friend Jeanne Damas, made a strong statement right away. Like a modern Vic (the teenage heroine of the eighties French blockbuster film La Boom, played by Sophie Marceau), the Jacquemus girl made a strong impression. Short on cash but not on ideas, Jacquemus keeps presenting his collections in most unusual ways: with a group friends, he crashes a Fashion’s Night Out, walking around the Avenue Montaigne with his girlfriend wearing his clothes. He once organized a strike in front of a Dior show, with his girls, attracting the interest of the press at-

tending the event. But videos are his big passion, and with the support of French model Caroline de Maigret, he presented a collection inspired by his mother. His vision is clear, the clothes are simple but not boring, and his girls have that French nonchalance that appeals immediately to the press and—more importantly—the customers. Jacquemus’ clothes are useful, in between uniforms and must-have items. They are clothes his friends want to wear. Colorful and simple, Jacquemus’ clothes fight snobbism, they are popular but not pop: the young designer often speaks about accessibility, and dreams about reaching a wider audience. Spoiled by all kinds of social networks, Jacquemus has followers everywhere and his images are viral. His low-budget yet edgy movie presentations have invaded the web, creating an international network of fans. He received major recognition with La Piscine, a playful collection presented in a public pool in which his carefree girls wore flip flops. It referred to the eponymous film by Jacques Deray, a sensual drama played by the sexy duo Alain Delon and Romy Schneider. It takes me a long while and a meal during a break from his day job to completely understand this kid that everyone is talking about. I dare to suggest a political dimension to the anti-academic, anarchic, and revolutionary way he started his business, and I wonder aloud about his ultimate ambition. “I just want everyone to like what I do and I want to reach as many people as possible,” he tells me. But he is not interested in fame—he wants to create a modern clothing. He speaks often of uniforms, the utility of a garment, the wearability of his clothing. “Take people like Jean Paul Gaultier in the eighties,” he keeps saying, forgetting about his now-cold steak frites. “He went on TV and made fashion a popular topic, he made it accessible to the masses by making a creative product.” His passion is contagious. “I want to stay as independent as I can for as long as I can, and really focus on accessibility”. Today people wonder about this fast success. If jealousy belongs in a business where huge capital is invested every day to launch new brands and products, then fashion must still have room for honest dreamers like Jacquemus.

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D O C U M E N T— S / S 2 0 1 4

“D

raped down,” the Harlem Renaissance-era slang term meaning “to be well dressed,” is a touching title for the Studio Museum in Harlem’s spring show exploring the ways in which feminine beauty is constructed in painting and photography. The term is culled from “Story in Harlem Slang,” the 1942 short story by cultural anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston was a central figure among the artists and intellectuals who defined the New Negro Movement, or as she called then, “the Niggerati.” These luminaries were a central pillar in the Harlem Renaissance and in the conception of the exhibition. As for the term “draped down,” the expression still seems particularly apt—the alliteration suggests emphatic self-fashioning, as if every aspect of one’s attire should be distinct. As a title, contextualized by Hurston’s short story, it places Harlem as the primary source of inspiration and influence for black style around the globe. With a focus on feminine beauty, the works are non-traditional fashion presentations that lend themselves to a broader interpretation by the senses through color, tone, form, gesture and—most importantly—memory. Draped Down opens at the Studio Museum in Harlem March 27.

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Draped Down THIS SPRING, THE STUDIO M U S E U M I N H A R L E M I N V E S T I G AT E S F E M I N I N E B E AU T Y W I T H TREASURES FROM T H E I R C O L L E C T I O N. TEXT BY

MONIQUE LONG

I M AG E S C O U RT E SY

THE STUDIO

MUSEUM IN HARLEM

(Clockwise, top left): Hurvin Anderson Mrs. S. Keita- Wallpaper, 2010; Xaveria Simmons Index Three, Composition Four, 2012; Narcissister Untitled ( from Zagreb #4); Malick Sidibé Untitled, c. 1974; Nontsikelelo ‘Lolo’ Veleko from Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder series, 2003-06; Njideka Akunyili The Beautiful Ones, 2012; Willie Cole Shoonufu Female Figure, 2013.

enzel Studio, the deluxe, artisan-made rug manufacturer, thinks that you should tread on internationally-renowned artists’ work. Made from pure fibers that are a renewable resource and biodegradable, Henzel’s rugs are hand-knotted and take six months each to make. Recently, the company asked curator Joakim Andreasson to select 12 contemporary artists to provide radical new designs and change their objets from interior design into works of art. Helmut Lang, Marilyn Minter, Richard Prince, Juergen Teller, Mickalene Thomas, and Jack Pierson are among those who collaborated with the brand for this collection. Pierson’s offering, pictured here, is a unique drawing by the artist reproduced in Himalayan wool and silk. Visit byhenzel.com to see all the collaborations

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Please Tread On Me A RT I S T S A N D A RT I S A N S P U T T H E I R WA R P S A N D W E F T S TO G E T H E R FOR STUNNING SW E D I S H RU G S. TEXT BY

NICHOLAS WEIST

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STYLING BY

MARCUS HANSEN S A �S A A N T IC�

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Peter Saville’s Fashion Apocalypse Now T H E G R A P H I C A RT I S T D I S C U S S E S Y- 3’ S S P R I N G 2 0 1 4 C O L L E C T I O N, H I S R E L AT I O N S H I P S W I T H YO H J I YA M A M OTO A N D A D I DA S, A N D W H Y I T ’ S T I M E TO A S K T H E HARD QUESTIONS A B O U T T H E I N D U S T RY. TEXT BY PHOTOGRAPHY BY

H I L A RY M O S S

PAU L W E T H E R E L L

of paper and ask if it could be thread-sewn instead of stapled. The catalog was a significant piece of interface.” Yamamoto and Ascoli eventually parted ways and the designer approached Saville directly to devise a campaign for his ’91 “non-collection,” constructed from wood and tin foil. Saville recalls, “I was told, ‘Yohji would like you to do a series of communications without models, without clothes. Just look at the collection and make an abstract response to his work.’” The men’s collection proved easier to interpret. “In ’90, I was into photo libraries, so I paired statements with images of cars and swimming pools, as you might have had in a regular ad. But these indicated the ‘wrong’ things, like ‘A Guide to Never-Never Land,’ and ‘This Was Tomorrow,’ to relay the sentiment of, ‘Something’s gone awry, hasn’t it?’ And Yohji liked it.” By contrast, Saville tried multiple responses to the womenswear collection before sending Yamamoto the inspiration they eventually used—photographs of Fasching, an ancient northern European carnival. “Yohji doesn’t want to give you a brief. He does his bit and he’s gone, which, of course, is brilliant, yet is also an enormous responsibility,” Saville says. “Yohji can’t say he doesn’t like what you’ve sent him because he approaches you as an artist. He’s done his work and you’re an artist he likes, and you’ve done your work, and it’s not incorrect—but if he doesn’t feel it, doesn’t connect with it, he won’t use it.” Like Meaningless Excitement, Game Over arrived during what Saville and Yamamoto identified as a dystopian moment: “It was a questioning of what was happening.” Certain magazines refused to run the advertisements because they didn’t depict the products. “Today, a fashion ad that doesn’t show the clothes is perhaps not normal, but it’s not radical. In ’91, it was a tad progressive, a tad abstract,” Saville points out. Adidas, the parent company of Y-3, has permitted Saville a great deal of freedom. In ’05, the sports apparel manufacturer invited him to participate in the reissue of “Adicolor,” an all-white training shoe sold with tools for customization. Saville found himself interested in the brief, exclusively. “It laid out every behind-the-scenes aspect and was the real story behind these kinds of collaborations, and I said, ‘If you make me a plain white shoe, with no stripes on it, and package it with the text of the brief, I can do it.’” Adidas suggested printing words on the laces and adding gemstones, and fabricated 5,000 pairs that were each wrapped in a copy of the text of the brief. It marked the beginning of a brave relationship between Saville and Adidas: “I

“Yohji doesn’t want to give you a brief. He does his bit and he’s gone, which, of course, is brilliant, yet is also an enormous responsibility.”

( P R E V I O U S S P R E A D ) : P H OTO A S S I S TA N T C H R I S M I L L E R . D I G I TA L O P E R ATO R I VA N R U B E R TO. R E TO U C H I N G B Y TA B L E T R E TO U C H I N G. ( T H I S S P R E A D ) : A L L I M AG E S C O U R T E SY P E T E R S AV I L L E S T U D I O, Y- 3 , A N D YO H J I YA M A M OTO.

eaningless Excitement, the title of Y-3’s Spring 2014 collection, originated as a phrase printed in a newspaper review of the film Django Unchained. “The writer referred to Quentin Tarantino’s genre of ‘meaningless excitement,’ and upon reading that, I thought, ‘That’s very now,’” explains Peter Saville, who collaborated with designer Yohji Yamamoto and Adidas on the garments. “All year, when I’ve been confronted with something I couldn’t understand, I’d respond, ‘Oh, meaningless excitement,’ because there’s nothing to understand. I come from a time when there was a logic to things, an analog history, and that’s shattered now; you can reach out and grab tons of unconnected elements. It’s fascinating, but it’s weird.” Working with Y-3’s idea of dysfunctional Americana, Saville gathered evidence of, as he calls it, “the dystopian now,” from degraded video (“when the picture nearly comes through, but breaks down into an amazing color-field of pixels”) to words plucked from sources as diverse as pornography and the Financial Times. “I submitted one hundred expressions, images, tones, colors, and textures, and [Y-3] started to develop fabrics, make patterns, print creatively,” he says, scanning the Adidas showroom in September. “There’s an incredible image of water condensation that’s doubled up and repeated so it looks like an odd snakeskin.” Saville saw the progress in Paris several months prior; however, for him, it came together just ahead of the runway show. He recalls, “I walked down this long line of models and it looked great—with these things, you can easily lose confidence and wonder whether it’ll make an impact. It was a collision of Adidas sportswear and Yohji’s volume and asymmetric cuts. It was everything at once, it was a disco ball of everything.” Most importantly, Saville’s overarching message of “meaningless excitement,” which could have been received as a swipe at the fashion world, was interpreted positively. It reminds Saville of his and Yamamoto’s first joint effort, the Game Over collection for Fall/ Winter 1991. Saville had contributed to the Yohji Yamamoto Company’s messaging before then: in the eighties, he, art director Marc Ascoli, and photographer Nick Knight produced five seasons worth of women’s and menswear catalogs for the label. “Marc and Nick gave me a lot of space to operate,” Saville notes. “They let me edit and sequence the pictures, and think about the typography. In Tokyo, Yohji’s people appreciated it—they were very happy that somebody was presenting artwork to the printer. I would specify the kind

(Clockwise, top left): Y-3’s limited edition Haçienda shoe in collaboration with Peter Saville, Yohji Yamamoto’s wooden waistcoat and skirt for Fall/Winter ’91-92, Yamamoto’s Game Over campaign by Saville for Fall/Winter ’91, Saville’s album artwork for Joy Division.

learned that if they came to me and said, ‘What would you like to do,’ there was a very real chance that they’d follow through.” Still, Saville is best known not for his Adidas sneakers or Yamamoto campaigns, but his Joy Division and New Order record sleeves. “Those New Order covers in particular were like exhibitions I could curate two or three times a year,” he remarks. “It was never me claiming to have created it all myself; I sourced the components. And none of my record covers had anything to do with the music. New Order and Factory [Records] in general allowed me to share personal visual inspiration, how I would like things to be. For instance, ‘I would’ve liked a bus ticket to be like this; I would’ve liked a restaurant menu to be like that.’ I wanted everyday ephemera to be… better! I felt everything could stand to be more interesting. Fine art, and specifically contemporary fine art, wasn’t evident in British culture.” Through “Blue Monday” and Power, Corruption & Lies, Saville introduced Postmodernism to post-punk youth. “The single common experience before young people decide to become doctors or belly dancers or bus drivers is pop culture,” he says. “Neither your family nor your school nor your state tell you about it. And pop is very broad now, but in the eighties it was very narrow. A record sleeve would offer you things that nobody told you about.” Consequently, he doesn’t consider himself a traditional graphic designer. “What I’m most known for are my messages, and graphic designers are not often the authors of the message,” he says. At 18 years old, when he entered Manchester Polytechnic, he didn’t even know what graphic design really was. “I was interested in 2D fashion, an entirely different idea. It’s not art in the canonical understanding of art. It’s visual entertainment,” he says. Simultaneously, fashion also played a role in Saville’s consciousness. “During the seventies and into the eighties, clothing was empowering,” he reminisces. “You were able to use it to be who you wanted to be and go where you wanted to go. Then you get to the nineties and you have a younger generation for whom it’s all already there, it’s taken for granted. Then, in the past ten years, a dangerous situation develops because of global control in the fashion industry in which, suddenly, it’s not there for you; you’re there for it.” He compares the disparity to drugs. “LSD, like fashion used to be, is mind-expanding, and lets an individual process the world in a different way. Crack pulls you out of the world and will kill you. It just wants your money. I sense, in my slightly old-person way, this kind of thing is happening.” He couldn’t sit by for Spring 2014 without a reality check: “Seeing Meaningless Excitement should make you think, ‘Do I really need to do this?’” Saville insists. He says he would be satisfied if the response to his collection is, “Fine, I don’t need it,” or, “That’s cool, I’ll make a statement.” It’s part of an ongoing dialogue with Yamamoto and a tradition of Adidas lending him a platform. “So, I’ve said what I wanted to.” For now.

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Light, Air & Steel CHARLES RENFRO DISCUSSES H OW TO B U I L D N OT H I N G N E S S W I T H R I O’ S R I S I N G A R C H I T E C T CARLA JUA CABA. ˛ INTERVIEW BY

CHARLES RENFRO

P H OTO G R A P H E R : L E O N A R D O F I N OT T I

Carla Juaçaba and Bia Lessa’s

Humanidade Pavilion at Rio+20, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2012.

CHARLES —Brazil has been on my mind a lot—there’s so much happening there. I’ve been impressed with your work since seeing you speak at the Latitudes conference at the University of Texas in Austin. It made me think about the challenges and opportunities of working as a woman architect in Latin America, and Brazil in particular. In 2012, you won the inaugural arcVision prize, awarded annually to notable female practitioners in architecture. You were selected from an outstanding field of international applicants by an all-female jury, who applauded the courage and creativity of your work, the Pavilion Humanidade especially. The pavilion was beautifully conceived and executed—elegant and ephemeral—and reminded me of some of my studio’s temporary work, especially the Blur building in Switzerland. CARLA —I actually didn’t originally receive the commission for the Pavilion project. The site, in between the Copacabana and Ipanema beaches in Rio, is a place where they’re always building temporary structures, usually plastic tents for events. The organizers of the Rio+20 sustainability conference wanted to build something there for the convention, and invited the theater director Bia Lessa to be the designer. They invited her because of her work in exhibition design, and asked her to do that sort of thing in the interior of a temporary building—essentially just a plastic tent with an air conditioner. She said, “I’m not going to do that, because it has nothing to do with the content of the conference. I want to work on this with an architect.” The first person she called to do the project was Paulo Mendes da Rocha, who had worked with her on some theater design in the past, but he was busy with other work. So she called me—not to invite me to participate, but to ask if I knew an architect who works in sustainability. I told her that we should talk. We met at the site, where one of the plastic tent structures was starting to go up over some scaffolding. I got rid of the plastic and continued the construction of the scaffolding walls from five meters to 20 meters high—five walls, each 170 meters long. So much of the design was already there from the start—the scaffolding, the space between the walls. It was already so beautiful; you saw straight to the sea through a massive, gridded structure. We needed the ramps and exhibition rooms to complete the building and to support and strengthen the walls. CHARLES —Did you work with an engineer? CARLA —We had an engineer. But we didn’t have too much time. We kind of designed as the project was being constructed. But it worked because it was a modular structure. There was no study of form, only a proposal of how to fit everything in. The problems changed 1,000 times, but the plans adapted easily. After the project was completed and published, I received emails comparing the

project another unique architecture—to your Blur building. I think the presence of history is there, but the intentions were different. I was more fascinated by building the scaffolding—by constructing a huge wall with no physical density. CHARLES —I’m not suggesting a premeditated connection, but that’s partly what happened with Blur—space as ephemeral, architecture as atmosphere rather than object. In the case of your pavilion, the atmosphere develops from the aggregation of thousands and thousands of pieces of pre-manufactured scaffolding, an unglamorous material that you turned into something much more significant. CARLA —Were you able to see it? CHARLES —I wasn’t able to see it in person, unfortunately—only through photographs. In a way, that’s the charm of the temporary structure: it disappears into the archives of disciplinary memory and becomes something of a myth. In a way, this myth lives a fuller life than a permanent building. It informs new kinds of practice, including that of the architect who designed it—you don’t have to be exactly true to it in the end. You can carry the ideas of its conception even as your work changes, grows, and turns down unexpected paths. Sustainability is a central tenet of your practice, in particular the sensitive use of materials. You design projects to use just the right amount of material; to be just big enough to do what they need to do. This idea of judiciousness—of doing just enough—seems to have a long heritage in Brazil. I’m thinking of Lina Bo Bardi, in particular—a brilliantly judicious architect, one of the greatest architects of her generation, who also used salvaged materials in her work. This understanding of sustainability is so different than the buzzword-version that often gets talked about, “how to make your air conditioning system greener,” “tips to harvest solar energy from the 10,000 square-foot roof of your single-family home,” that sort of thing. What you’re doing, in contrast, is encouraging people to live in a sustainable way—not just consume in a “sustainable” fashion. CARLA —I think that Lina arrived as a foreigner, but was not really a foreigner. She knew how to adapt to the conditions of her work—of site, of economy. She had ideas that came from the Italian Arte Povera movement. With my work as well as hers there is a perception of economic conditions and embracing of the possibilities that I have in hand. I’m not going to think about something that I don’t have in hand. Take the Pavilion Humanidade, for example: with Copacabana as the stage of Brazil, there is constantly scaffolding being built and dismantled, so when I went to the site, I thought, “I’m going to build this out of scaffolding, of course.” With my stone houses, there was the same sense of economy—the client didn’t have any money, so we used locally-sourced stone. CHARLES —One of the things that’s beautiful about your work is the sourcing of materials from the site itself—the stone, for example. In one of your houses, the brick was made locally and the building was constructed by local craftspeople. This sensibility is at once rugged and sophisticated, an extension of Modernism but with a poetic overlay, a tectonic poetry. I find Brazil a place that is humble in spirit and deeply cosmopolitan at the same time. In some ways, your work can be read as a metaphor for this dialectical cultural condition. Your design for Casa Varanda, for example, on the outskirts of Rio: building with steel seems antithetical to building in the jungle, but in calling for the least amount of material, this choice allowed for a design that was least impactful on the site. There’s a compelling dialogue between the tectonic (the machine) and

“So much of the design was already there from the start: the scaffolding, the space between the walls.”

P H OTO G R A P H E R : N E L S O N KO N .

he world has its eye on Brazil, with the World Cup taking place there this year and the Summer Olympics arriving in 2016. The South American country has also produced a rising starchitect. Despite working in a field dominated by men, Brazilian architect Carla Juaçaba has made a name for herself through her thoughtful designs that fuse functionality, beauty, and sustainability. She recently won the inaugural arcVision Prize, for projects like the Pavilion Humanidade, which was built in 2012 in Rio de Janeiro for the United Nations sustainability conference Rio+20. Architect Charles Renfro of Diller Scofidio + Renfro chats with Juaçaba about her practice, life as a female architect, and the execution of Pavilion Humanidade.

Casa Rio Bonito, Nova Friburgo, Lumiar, 2005.

(Top): Casa Rio Bonito, Nova Friburgo, Lumiar, 2005. (Right): Humanidade Pavilion at Rio+20, Rio de Janeiro, 2012. (Bottom left): Installation LIGA, Mexico City, 2012.

“The favelas, for instance: they are constructed and dismantled, constructed and dismantled. You find something beautiful, and then next week, it’s not there anymore. You see a gorgeous staircase, and then it’s gone.” the natural (the site) that gives your work a particular position that I think is distinct from a lot of global practice. Does the idea of architecture as metaphor for country resonate with you at all? CARLA —Yes. Take the favelas, for instance: they are constructed and dismantled, constructed and dismantled. You find something beautiful, and then next week, it’s not there anymore. You see a gorgeous staircase, and then it’s gone. Maybe it’s true that design methodology is determined by the country itself—in Paraguay, for instance, the architects all work with what’s at hand. CHARLES —I want to go back to the question of women in architecture. I asked colleagues in Brazil to name a few of the most promising female architects; your name was at the top of the list, along with Marta Moreira of MMBB and Carolina Bueno of Triptyque. Are you all close as a group of female architects? Do you even consider yourselves a group? CARLA —I only just met Marta recently, at a workshop with Eduardo Souto de Moura. She works with a generation of architects who are more connected to São Paulo than to Rio. The question of women— it’s a difficult question to answer. The arcVision prize, for instance, is wonderful—a celebration and remembrance of the history of unrecognized women. But the truth is that I am always amazed by how women still hide themselves in what society expects. It is true that it is hard to find our own voice, but often times it is our own fault. We are afraid to be ignored, neglected, as I am sometimes myself. CHARLES —Maybe that was my romantic misreading—I thought there might be a greater sense of bonding, a shared dedication to advancing women in architecture, but others have also told me that this doesn’t really exist in Brazil. There are lots of female architects in the U.S., but so often they’re attached to male partners or working under all-male management. It’s encouraging that even in Brazil—a place with perceived gender inequality in the workplace—women can have thriving practices. Many of the concepts of high Modernism, itself a discourse traditionally dominated by men from the Global North, seem woven into the material and tectonic methodology of your work. Do you feel connected to the Modernist tradition? CARLA —I really like the work of the Modernist Sergio Bernardes, but he’s not very well known. He’s from an older generation of Brazilian Modernism, and his work— his houses as well as his public buildings—is very strong. There’s an environmental aspect to all of his projects: he would fabricate beams, for example, on the actual construction sites. I would consider him a Modernist, but he’s more interested in site and materials than the Rio Modernists. CHARLES —So, more of a vernacular of Modernism—something that came out of local conditions. As architects practicing within an international canon, it’s a way of understanding ourselves that reconciles the idea of working locally and sustainably with the social and formal imperatives of the discipline as a whole. I want to talk about Brazil in a broader context. The country’s middle class has been growing rapidly. In WWII, when many architects arrived from Europe, including Lina Bo Bardi, there was virtually no middle class. There was the aristocracy, and there were the people. CARLA —Yes. CHARLES —Did architecture play a role in establishing that? Your

work, for example, is relatively inexpensive but also incredibly thoughtful. It engages a new kind of client who normally wouldn’t have considered commissioning an architect. CARLA —There are some architects in São Paolo that make large, tenroom houses, working solely for the upper crust of society. I’m really glad not to be doing that. It doesn’t interest me. There was a client who tried to commission one of these architects for a project, and the architect told him, “No, no, go to Carla,” because he didn’t know how to work with less. After the Pavilion Humanidade project, I’ve been working on different types of projects—a hospice and a palliative care facility, for example. The hospice will be the first of its kind here. I had to go to England to visit similar facilities there because Brazil just doesn’t have any legislation for creating these places. It’s a well-funded project—they have the money to construct everything. But I want to have the same position on materials and the working site that I normally do in my other projects. When given money, it’s easy to build expensively, chicly, elegantly. But I don’t want it to feel as if I had too much money to construct this. I know it’s not cheap to construct a hospice, but I’m sure they’re looking for it to be simple. Maybe this is an ethical position, and the consequence is aesthetics. CHARLES —That’s a great point, to almost trick yourself into thinking you have less to work with than you do. It focuses your work on the judiciousness of the practice, on making choices that are simply executed without being devoid of poetry and design. It makes sense that you would be chosen to make a hospice because they are places where people need to feel calm, where it’s helpful to feel a connection to nature. It’s an excellent opportunity to expand the reach of your practice—to help others through the simplicity and elegance of your design work. Is your studio growing? CARLA —I have six people in my office. It’s huge. CHARLES —That’s a real office! You also have work outside your firm: you teach, you write, you curate. CARLA —And I work in exhibition design. CHARLES —Our work at DS+R is also multidisciplinary, and many of us teach, publish, and design outside of the office. Do you consider this work necessary for money, or necessary to expose yourself and others to a wide range of critical thought? CARLA —It’s necessary because building a house is never enough. I like working in exhibition design because it has the same budget and it’s faster. When I studied architecture, I never worked in an office because I hated creating CAD drawings, so I found this woman who came from a generation where she could be an artist and only work on design exhibitions. I worked with her for years. I was really happy with that. She was fascinating. I wanted to work with someone like that, outside of the office environment. I really never thought I would work in architecture—it just happened, very naturally. CHARLES —Where do you see yourself and your practice going in the next few years? CARLA —I hope that this hospice project generates similar commissions. It’s the first time I’ve worked at such a large scale. The Pavilion Humanidade was a project with no details, almost no drawings. It could have been a written project. This is the first time I’ve suffered with so many drawings and details. But I also hope to continue building houses. Any project is good, really. I just want to work.

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A Colony Apart AU T H O R C R I S B E A M REVEALS THE SECRET WO R L D O F T H E M AC D OW E L L C O L O N Y— A M E R I C A’ S O L D E S T A RT I S T R E T R E AT—W H C H H A S N O U R I S H E D TA L E N T S I N C L U D I N G W I L L A C AT H E R A N D J A M E S B A L DW I N. TEXT BY

CRIS BEAM

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

V I C TO R I A S A M B U N A R I S

n my phone, I have a picture of a tiny orange salamander, half the size of my pinkie. There’s a frog too, the color of wet sand and small as a dime. I didn’t take photos of the spiders, but they were bigger and everywhere, scurrying across screen doors with their bright red bellies and pointy origami legs. When I went to MacDowell, the famed artist’s colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, I wasn’t expecting animals. I was working on a novel about the Manhattan women’s prison—a very urban story—and my mind was tightly braided up in that. But when you’re left alone in an old stone house to look out on the dense forest that makes up MacDowell’s 450-acre property, the animals come to you. Every night in summer, the 30-odd visual artists, writers, composers, architects, filmmakers, and dancers staying at MacDowell gather in the main hall for a single meal. And we talk about the animals. Largely hailing from New York City or other urban areas where we have to prove and sell and perform and promise, we’re suddenly like wide-eyed children, waiting for the next gift. And waiting, I learned, is also a kind of work. It’s a slowing down. Bears, we agreed, were the best. These were brown bears, vegetarian amblers, though their sheer heft could be startling. Moose were more rare, almost mythic in their size and strangeness, and when someone spotted one poised like a statue at a dirt road, we were all envious. The deer were so copious they were soon not worth mentioning, though their babies, furtive and stumbling, were still cute. There were wild turkeys streaking the fields in the morning and wild boar crashing through brambles at dusk. A poet from Brooklyn was afraid of the spiders. A composer from Turkey was nervous about night animals and asked to sleep in the main hall. There was no wildlife like this in Istanbul she said, and she needed car horns to lull her to sleep. But most of us settled into the quiet, just like people have been doing here for over

a hundred years. MacDowell was established as the first U.S. artist’s colony in 1907, by the wife of composer Edward MacDowell. Though Edward lived in New York and Paris, it was in the unspoiled countryside of New Hampshire that he wrote his best work. Marian MacDowell wanted to create this same experience for other artists so she built a few cottages on the property. Today, there are 32 studios nestled in the vast woods, none within sight lines of the other. To be accepted for a residency of up to two months, artists have to submit samples of their work. But that’s the sole and final requirement. Once we set up our easels or computers in the little cottages equipped with beds and fireplaces and porches to nowhere, there’s nobody but the spiders watching us work. There is no exit interview here, no pressure to perform, nobody asking if you spent your time wisely, or slept all day, or catalogued salamanders on the path. It’s anti-capitalist in its way, anti-consumer. It’s based on an older contract that urges us to give when we can, without expectation of return. This is a world, both physical and psychological, apart. And along with the animals, come the demons. Introspection, so vital to creation and yet so hard to cull in a city that demands products and results, is furrowed with demons. Here is your mother and the death you thought you’d grieved showing up in a poem you didn’t know you had to write and which you will likely erase. Here is your cruelty, your greed, your broken heart, all typing their way into the novel about the woman in prison, and certainly they don’t belong in that storyline. And here is your kindness, arriving like a salve, and that matters too

but you can’t remember why. And suddenly you are throwing away days of work, bad writing, and bad art, and talking about the bears over dinner. People say that destruction is intrinsic to creation. Something has to die to clear the space, or light a spark, for new work to emerge. But such destruction is hard to justify when agents or editors, deadlines or debts, demand constant output. Rare is the sanctuary where you’re provided food and bed and beauty enough to kill your darlings and your demons both. One morning after I had walked the mile from the breakfast hall to my studio, I found a bird’s nest on my front porch. It had fallen from the rafters. I worried for the birds, a pair of white-throated sparrows, as I had watched them busily packing their nest with twigs and moss for days. To me, the nest looked perfectly complete. A work of art, and a shame for them to lose it. How many days or weeks would it take them to build it again? I kept that nest beside my computer as I recreated the days lost to demons. I wrote new pages, better pages, after I had the newfound freedom to throw them away. I don’t know if Aaron Copland followed this same process, or Willa Cather, or Meredith Monk, or any of the 7,000 artists who have spent time at MacDowell. But I do know that the strangely simple and generous formula of this hundred year-old residency works. James Baldwin wrote Giovanni’s Room here. Alice Walker tackled her first novel; Leonard Bernstein completed his “Mass.” And the spiders watched it all, or ignored it, either way.

on Galella invented the job we now know as “paparazzo.” And forty years later, he is still one of the most sourced photographers in the field. Hardly a month goes by without the world’s premiere magazines calling in some pictures from his vast trove, which is stored in hundreds of archival boxes in the basement of his New Jersey home. One of the last holdouts of analog photography, Galella has countless negatives of the bold-faced names of the past four decades, most notably the one he calls his “muse”: Jackie Onassis. Captured in the faraway time before celebrity publicists, Galella’s prey is shown elegant, but un-airbrushed. In New York, Galella’s new tome from Italian arthouse publisher Damiani, one bears witness to the comings and goings of the jet set, shot from behind luggage racks and across taxi queues as they arrive in New York. A testament to the city that everyone loves to hate but always comes back to, eventually. Galella captures the then-famous and our still-famous traveling into, out of, and within the Big Apple. Ron Galella: New York, out this Spring, is published by Damiani and The Row NYC.

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The Original Paparazzo W H AT T H E B E AU T I F U L PEOPLE LOOKED LIKE I N T H E DAY S B E F O R E A I R B RU S H . TEXT BY

NICHOLAS WEIST

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

RON GALELLA

D O C U M E N T N O. 2 3 6

“I don’t know what photography really is—what is its integral nature? Is it a lapse of integrity to claim you took a picture when somebody else snapped the shutter?” Nan Goldin reflects on self-portraiture, with Vince Aletti INTERVIEW BY

VINCE ALETTI

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

NAN GOLDIN

D O C U M E N T— S / S 2 0 1 4

an Goldin’s tender, frank images of her friends and family have made her one of the world’s most recognized art photographers. She is best known for her self-portraits that honestly depict domestic violence and the effects of drug use. She has shown her work in major institutions internationally, and her many books are a testament to an enduring influence. Vince Aletti was the photography critic for The Village Voice for many years, and currently writes about photography and photographers for The New Yorker, Aperture, Artforum, and other publications. He has curated shows for the International Center for Photography and other major institutions. VINCE —We wanted to talk about your self-portraits, especially the new ones in your show at Fraenkel Gallery. I know Jeffrey [Fraenkel] sent you one or two of Peter Hujar’s pictures that were going to be included in a side-by-side show. What particularly did you respond to? NAN —He sent me Peter’s self-portrait in a jock strap. I felt that the only thing to do was to respond to Peter by showing myself in the same way. I was standing in the same stance that he is. It was taken by my nephew, who’s an artist but who never touches a camera. I set pictures up and people snap them, but without any style imposed on them, so they’re mine. But my face was hard and pinched and anxious-looking, so that one didn’t work. I asked another very close friend of mine who is a photographer to take the picture that’s now being used in the show. It’s difficult sometimes to handle the complex idea of who owns the photo… I mean, is that her photo, or is that my photo, because it’s not the way I photograph. VINCE —In what way is it different? NAN —It’s sharp. VINCE —Oh! [Laughs.] NAN —It’s in real focus. It’s a bigger camera. VINCE —Have you never had someone else take a picture of you that became your picture, in the past? NAN —Yeah. I figured that if it was on my camera, it was mine. VINCE —That’s fair. [Laughs.] NAN —Every book has one or two pictures I didn’t take. You’ll have to guess them. I don’t know what photography really is—what is its integral nature? Is it a lapse of integrity to claim you took a picture when somebody else snapped the shutter? VINCE —I would say no. There are so many cases when someone else becomes part of the process of the picture, but the artist creates it: sets it up and brings it into being. NAN —There’s a question of ownership regarding self-portraits. VINCE —Have you ever confronted that before? NAN —No. Not really. Sometimes people claimed that they set up a picture and it’s theirs. I don’t make a distinction between what’s mine and what’s theirs: it’s a collaboration. Even if it’s their environment, it’s my eye and empathic connection that is most important to me. Kenny (you would have loved him) was Ivy in his life, and then he stopped doing drag and was Kenny. He used to insist the pictures were his—the early black and whites. I was living with him and Bea,

the two queens who were the major characters of the seventies. Kenny never wanted to be a woman; he just loved fashion. I’m sure it happened other times—mostly with queens, because they needed control of their femininity. I’ve always thought of them as who they are, who they live as. When people say to me, “that’s a man,” I say, “they are queens.” It has always been a third gender to me. VINCE —In a sense this becomes part of a larger work and it clearly has your stamp on it, no matter who snapped the shutter. There are all those pictures in Ballad [The Ballad Of Sexual Dependency, ’86] that you’re in, that I assume you set up in some way, automatically, and we never questioned that you were the author of those pictures. NAN —The cover for Ballad came about because there was a woman I moved to New York with, who allowed all those sexual pictures to be taken. I was photographing her extensively, and her boyfriend. Then she got married and her husband wanted the books destroyed. She was with a man who hated the photos and insisted that I take them out. Then when they broke up I was able to put them back in. At the end of our history in the nineties she had come up with a claim that I had drugged her to make the pictures. There’s been an enormous amount of revisionism on her part. She asked me to pull her pictures out of the slideshow, except for one “Couple in Bed, Chicago, ’77”. When the photos were pulled from the end of the slideshow, it felt empty. When the book was reprinted, she went to Aperture to try to get the photos removed. By ’83 I decided I couldn’t show anyone doing anything I wouldn’t show myself doing, which is what inspired the pictures of me and Brian. Those were taken with a cable release. How did Peter do it? VINCE —I don’t know. I assume he set up a cable release, or an automatic release. Especially the pictures that he did in his studio where he’s dancing around—I suspect he set the camera on automatic, put it on a tripod and worked with it. Other than that I never asked him. A lot of those pictures I’d never seen before. NAN —Peter was the one who said to me, “Blow it up, and they’ll call it art.” [Laughs.] Which is so perfect, because that’s exactly what happened to photography. VINCE —It’s funny that he anticipated that. What would he have said about Andreas Gursky, and all that happened afterwards? Let’s go back to self-portraiture, to the pictures in the show at Fraenkel: were they taken in Berlin? NAN —They were taken in Stockholm, Venice, on the train from Berlin to Paris [shows photographs to Vince]… This one “The light in my bedroom, 13th Street, NYC, ’96” was from when I lived in a beautiful apartment on 13th Street and the light is hitting my face—it’s a little much for me, it’s a little too spiritual. This I had no memory of [Untitled, Boston, 1990], but obviously I took that picture. The first time I got out of rehab, in ’89, some people that I had worked with were disappointed that I had gotten clean—assuming I’d be boring without drugs. For the first year you’re clean, you’re just shaking in your bootstraps. But I was working with Peter MacGill then and he did something wonderful for me (which is why it took me two years to decide to leave him when Matthew [Marks] came

“He gave me an assignment: to send him, by Christmas, four trays of new slides. And that was so scary…and so incredible. So I took a vast, vast number of self-portraits in the halfway house, in order to learn what I looked like— to get back into my face.”

(Previous spread): Nan and Brian having Sex, NYC 1983. (This spread): Self-portrait with Brian in hats, NYC 1983.

Nan as a Dominatrix, Boston 1978.

PRODUCED BY MAX HIRSCHBERGER

“When I started taking pictures with a flash and a wide-angle lens the queens hated them. They hated Arbus. I never asked them to do anything that they weren’t already doing.” and wanted to work with me). He had a family member who’d been through it, so he understood. So many people who have used drugs all of their creative life are lost without their drugs after getting sober. One assumes the drugs are the key to their creativity and the hardest thing is to start creating again. VINCE —And he pushed you? NAN —He gave me an assignment: to send him, by Christmas, four trays of new slides. And that was so scary… and so incredible. So I took a vast, vast number of self-portraits in the halfway house, in order to learn what I looked like—to get back into my face. It was so strange to be clean after all those years that I had no idea who I was. VINCE —Was self-portraiture a way to get back to that, to knowing who you were? NAN —Yeah—back into myself. It was a huge part of discovering a way to function without drugs. Photography was the best thing to help that process. It brought me back to myself. I had just discovered light. I had lived on the Bowery from ’78 to ’89 and there was no light there. It was completely dark except for about 20 minutes a day. This sounds faux-naïve, but it’s true; I had no idea that light affected color, I didn’t know that the day had changes of light. I thought, ‘There’s day, and they turn the lights off, and it’s night.’ That’s when I started to stop using a flash. Not with the kind of snobbery some of the photo-purist, equipment-obsessed photographers I’d known had. I just wanted to find out about light. So I took the four trays of slides and sent them to Peter. VINCE —Where were you living then? NAN —The halfway house was in Boston. When I moved in, there was a huge painting of a sunrise—incredibly badly painted. I used it for a while as a kind of a backdrop. I did some empty rooms, which I’ve always done, but otherwise I just photographed myself. David [Armstrong] was in Boston already, and he had been clean for three years but hadn’t been able to pick up a camera. That’s what happens to a lot of people. Every weekend I’d get to leave the halfway house and I’d stay at his apartment in Cambridge. I found some rolls of film in a drawer and secretly took them to a lab to get them processed. And he loved them! That got him started again. That’s what you need sometimes… outside intervention. VINCE —To remember what you do, what you’re capable of. NAN —Yeah, exactly. To give yourself the confidence to take that step back into your work. I was in a hospital for two months and I wasn’t allowed have a camera or see the Ballad, because they said it would cause sex and drug urges in the other patients. If anyone looks through the Ballad and gets a sex urge, I’m really sorry for them. [Laughs.] VINCE —What artists or photographers inspire your work? NAN —When I started photography, I literally didn’t know that art photography existed. I only knew Guy Bourdin and Helmut Newton, in the seventies. VINCE —And you knew them from looking through magazines. NAN —Yeah, through the Italian and French Vogue magazines that I stole every month. My early work was influenced by Helmut Newton, but I just wasn’t a good photographer, so it was blurry and out of focus. Eventually I went to night school and met a great teacher, Henry

Horenstein. The first thing he said when he saw my work was, “Do you know Larry Clark?” I had never heard of anyone, this was around ’72, ’73 while I was living with the queens [in Boston]. I wanted to put them on the cover of Vogue; they were more beautiful than any other women. Henry introduced me to Diane Arbus, August Sander, Larry Clark, Weegee—that was the pantheon. When I started taking pictures with a flash and a wide-angle lens the queens hated them. They hated Arbus. I never asked them to do anything that they weren’t already doing. I never pushed them. Never. They were the ones who modeled. I would get piles of drugstore prints made, and bring them back for the queens to go through. They would decide which ones I could use and which I couldn’t, depending on how they looked. They would make piles to see who had the most pictures. That’s what photography was for me. VINCE —Those pictures felt like a dialogue. You were very much a part of that moment. NAN —What they hated about Arbus is that she undressed the queens, and showed that, biologically, some were men who were tucked. And to them it was horrific. They didn’t talk about it in an analytical way, but they thought she made people look ugly. I worshiped those queens, so I didn’t go any further into Arbus’ work at that time. Henry opened a door to the fact that there was art photography in the world, but I don’t think I can name a particular influence. My biggest influences have been my friends, and film. Film is the major art form that I most respect. Do you believe in the decisive moment? VINCE —When the photographer wants to make it, yes, but that doesn’t define photography for me. How about you? NAN —For me, it’s the indecisive moment. It’s the moment between the moments that interests me. That’s why I don’t know where I stand when somebody else takes the picture of me and I call it a selfportrait. In the case of my nephew taking this picture, he knows me and I love him deeply. In The Devil’s Playground there are pictures of him having sex with his first girlfriend—now he just had a child with a wonderful woman. I feel like a grandmother. He was just using the camera the way I asked him to. He has no relationship to photography whatsoever. VINCE —So he’s an extension of you in that way, which I think is legitimate. NAN —I only worry about pictures where the fingerprint of the other photographer is as strong as my presence is in the picture. I don’t think I’m going to let other people snap shutters anymore—I’m going back to the cable release. I take a lot of pictures in mirrors and I sometimes can manage to use the camera in such a way that it doesn’t show up. I have this old philosophy that cameras shouldn’t show up in photographs. VINCE —People talk about portraiture as an extension of themselves—how portraiture becomes self-portraiture because of the investment of the artist. I discuss this in the catalog for the Peter Hujar show at Fraenkel Gallery, because the pictures Peter took of Manny were so revealing of both of them. I really felt Peter’s presence there. NAN —What do you think those photos of Manny revealed about

Peter as a photographer? VINCE —That the kind of connection he yearned to make with people—he didn’t always make it because it wasn’t always possible—but when it happened, it was something really powerful, incandescent. I didn’t really think about that until I sat down to write that piece. He made four pictures from that one session, which didn’t always happen with him. Often there was only one picture he was happy with. I wasn’t sure if they would even be able to connect. The fact that they did, I thought, said something interesting to me about both of them, because Manny was a really damaged kid at that point. I never asked Peter about what happened. I could just see the results; there was a connection that was surprising and pleasing to me. NAN —Do you think at this point in time that you would ask a photographer to photograph your lover? VINCE —Yeah, totally. NAN —I love that you asked Peter to do that for you. VINCE —What other photographic self-portraits do you think are powerful? NAN —Claude Cahun’s work is very powerful. Peter Hujar took incredible self-portraits. Gorgeous. He’s one of the only photographers I ever tried to emulate. I wanted to take pictures like Peter’s pictures and according to Gary Schneider, at a certain point he wanted to take mine! But both of us failed, I think. I was very influenced by Larry Clark: he made a book about his own life and the lives of his friends that preceded the Ballad by 15 years. This was the first thing I learned from Henry Horenstein—that the subjects of my own work were as valid as any other. I got a lot of shit through the years, especially from men. VINCE —Especially from men? NAN —People said that I didn’t take real photographs. There was a lot of hostility, especially at those photo fests I would go to once in a while, that I had any success with pictures like mine. Even when I was at school with Philip-Lorca diCorcia, he said something to me like “Well people like your work just because you have strange characters in your pictures.” [Laughs.] And the first person he published a photograph of was Bruce, who I had been photographing! I have a great respect for PL and his work, so I’m not saying that his first work was copying me, I’m just saying that even he tried to diminish my talent. That was in the seventies, and throughout the eighties, when I’d been given so much shit about the “freaky” subjects I was interested in. VINCE —You have frequently been cited as a main influence for young photographers. And I think that in some ways that’s dangerous, because people thought they could get away with anything. It made me realize how distinct your work was. It wasn’t just the subject, or the setting; it was the light—there were so many things that you did instinctively, which it seemed that no one else could do. NAN —That was my own way of seeing. VINCE —Yeah, that were yours and that were unable to be copied. There was a level of beauty that you achieved in picture after picture that wasn’t the first thing you thought about, but it was the thing that made them distinctive. NAN —That was the first thing I thought about: the person’s beauty. VINCE —I mean, the whole frame. The beauty of the picture itself. NAN —No, I didn’t think of that. VINCE —The lighting, the composition, everything that felt completely right, but they were... NAN —Instinctive. They certainly weren’t thought about. I had such a strong sense of the integrity of my photographs, that nothing could be moved. VINCE —Within the frame? NAN —That’s what I mean. I felt guilty when I moved something out of the way. I felt so guilty…as if I was betraying myself. I decided I would never move even a beer bottle out of the way. It was always exactly what was in front of me.

VINCE —Did you get over that?

NAN —Yeah, I have. The Ballad had a huge influence on people. They tell me that they came to New York because of it, or left home because of it, or became gay because of it—that was more about [another of my books,] The Other Side, that people came out because of it. The Ballad changed peoples’ lives in a more drastic way, maybe. VINCE —Why do you think that is? NAN —There was a German man who wanted to leave me all his money, but I was too scared to call him. I have a feeling that he had been a repressed homosexual all his life and the book gave him permission to come out. VINCE —How peculiar… NAN —I wouldn’t be scared now! If you’re out there, please call me. VINCE —I know you’ve moved around a lot in the past few years. NAN —I have real estate in Europe, but I’m completely broke. VINCE —I was curious about your relationship to Europe and the US at this point. It seems like you’ve been living in Europe for a long time, but traveling back and forth? NAN —When people ask me where I’m from, I say “the airport,” because I literally have gotten lost in airports and spent a couple of days in them. I’m not very functional in airports. But I left when Bush stole the election. VINCE —You left the US, you mean? NAN —I said, “If Bush steals the election, I’m leaving,” and I did. It had absolutely no effect on anything, but I left. I was just tired of saying, “If this happens, I’ll do this,” and listening to other people say it. I felt like things were kind of falling apart for me here, so with the help of my French dealer and Matthew Marks, I bought an apartment in Paris and had some good years there. Then I basically went into complete isolation. VINCE —Isolation? Why? Were you not working? NAN —Working, somewhat. Just not having much contact with other people. VINCE —What kind of pictures did you take? NAN —A lot of empty pictures. VINCE —But were there some self-portraits during that period too? NAN —I don’t remember that much. Here, it’s this kind of work. [Shows a photograph from her ’07 book The Beautiful Smile.] It’s these sort of dark suicide notes. VINCE —What’s your feeling about America now? NAN —When I would visit in the years I was living full-time in Europe, I found it unbelievably stupid. VINCE —Do you feel differently now? Do you think that Obama has made a difference? NAN —I think more personally than that. I think what’s happened to New York is horrible. New York used to be a way to get away from America; now New York is America. New York was made of people who escaped America. As Berlin was comprised of people who escaped Germany, and now it’s Germany. It’s a real tragedy, what’s happened to New York. Having come here in ’78 in the golden period, I find the current real estate boom horrendous. But I’m beginning to reconnect with some of my really close friends. VINCE —Do you still have a place in Paris? NAN —Yeah, that’s where my collection is. That’s why it would be as hard as you, Vince, to move! Well, not quite as hard. My collection is more taxidermy. I was very involved in my collection during the years I cut myself off from people. VINCE —In building it? NAN —In moving it around all night long. You don’t do that? VINCE —Of course! I smoke a joint and I change all the pictures. NAN —That’s the main thing I was doing, and then the woman from downstairs, very sweetly, said, “I have a baby who’s waking up because you’re walking around all night. Do you think you could redecorate earlier than 2am?” …So I did.

Self-portrait with the bird, Stockholm, 2013.

(Previous spread): Self-portrait, Inside Outside, undated. (Above): Nan and Dickie in the York Motel, New Jersey 1980. (Opposite): Venice, 2013.

(Above): Self-portrait in blue bathroom, London 1980. (Opposite): Self-portrait in green, Sweden 2013.

Somewhere in the world of Rembrandt and Hopper, I feel this is where Michae¨ l Borremans’ paintings are conjured. Such a skilled painter he is who creates paintings which are far more than the sum of the parts. There is in his work the magic to make us dream. The Angel, for example, which is so beautifully painted, brings out to the viewer such a dream. Thoughts and questions begin to erupt like electrical sparks, kicking in words like sadness—unity—diversity—the time that we live in—the mixing of cultures, peoples, ages and sexes. And throughout, soaring out through this painting, a feeling of selflessly taking on burdens—love—and compassion.

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The Quiet World of Michae¨ l Borremans

A P O RT F O L I O F R O M T H E B E L G I A N A RT I S T A N D F I L M M A K E R’ S N E W M O N O G R A P H , “A S SW E E T A S I T G E T S,” P U B L I S H E D BY H AT J E C A N T Z , O U T T H I S M AY. TEXT BY I M AG E S C O U RT E SY

DAV I D LY N C H

Z E N O X G A L L E RY A N T W E R P

“ T H E A N G E L ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , 2 0 1 3 . P H OTO G R A P H Y: D I R K PA U W E L S .

L E F T: “ M AG N O L I A S ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , 2 0 1 3 . R I G H T: “ T H E A N G E L ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , 2 0 1 3 . P H OTO G R A P H Y: P E T E R C OX .

L E F T: “S H I T B E A R D,” O I L O N C A N VA S , 2 0 1 3 . R I G H T: “ N U D E W I T H C H E E S E ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , 2 0 1 3 . P H OTO G R A P H Y: P E T E R C OX .

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OBJECT OF DESIRE

In Motion by Andy Bettles & Editor Ronald Burton

PROFILE OF PERFECTION

Discover a Surrealist streak with this ANDRE WALKER bag.

ON THE DOT

Embellished with circles inspired by monocles, this BOTTEGA VENETA necklace gives one a view into another realm. Retouching by BLANK DIGITAL.

HARD EDGE

Made entirely of metal, this PROENZA SCHOULER clutch adds a tough touch of class.

WILD STYLE

Emerald-eyed diamond and onyx panthers crouch over elegant chalcedony stones on these CARTIER earrings.

PUMP IT UP

The stars of this luxe-meets-pop CHANEL headphone necklace are giant pearls that illuminate the face.

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Apple Of My Eye by Alex Olson & Fashion Editor Stevie Dance

Model AMANDA WELLSH at

IMG wears boots by HERMÈS.

Jumpsuit by VALENTINO. Cuff by CHANEL.

Hair by PETER GRAY for L’OREAL PARIS HAIR

EXPERTISE UK. Make Up JUNKO KIOKA for MAC.

Stylist Assistant LAIA GARCIA. Production by HOME AGENCY/ LISA WEATHERBY. Retouching 44 STUDIO.

(This page): Dress by NARCISO RODRIGUEZ. (Opposite Page): Tunic by CÉLINE.

Top and peplum pants by BALENCIAGA.

(Top): Shirt by TOPSHOP. Jeans by DIESEL. SHAWN JOSWICK wears oversized jeans by SHAWN JOSWICK. (Bottom, left): AMANDA wears dress by STELLA MCCARTNEY. ALEX OLSON wears top by ALEXANDER WANG. Dress by YOHJI YAMAMOTO. (Bottom, right): Top by NARCISO RODRIGUEZ. Pants by PRABAL GURUNG.

(This page): Vest and dress by CHANEL. (Opposite): Bustier and skirt by JIL SANDER. WILLIAM STROBECK wearing his own clothes.

Suit by MOSCHINO.

n 1947 Manhattan was coming into its own as a wellspring of new painting, with Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Mark Rothko at the helm of history. That oft-repeated narrative hinges on the often-overlooked reality that many important thinkers had emigrated to the United States from Europe, in the years prior to WWII. That migration helped to swing an important aesthetic pendulum from the east to the west side of the Atlantic, but many artists remained in Europe and made headway into similar methods of abstraction. This was no aping of American styles, but rather a simultaneous development, often with the same influences. In April ’14, fittingly on both sides of the Atlantic, Dominique Lévy Gallery and Galerie Perrotin will together present the work of the most prominent member of this European set, Pierre Soulages. The esteemed French painter’s career tells the collective story of these Old World masters and their participation in the development of postwar abstraction. In ’47, Soulages was crystallizing his signature abstract styles through experimentation with the dark hues of walnut stains and fat brushes. By ’55 he had developed relationships with his colleagues in New York, leading to an extensive exhibition record in the sixties, both in Europe and America. As his work matured, he left gesture behind and focused instead on surface texture, as seen most clearly in his solidly black paintings. He migrated toward black not for its macabre qualities, but for its ability to reflect. The glossy surfaces present the nuanced details of raking brushstrokes as well as a subtle reflection of the viewer, two ideas with which Soulages specifically, and postwar painting more generally, have continued to engage. The dual exhibitions presents the artist as he readies for the opening of Musée Soulages, in Rodez, France, and the forthcoming publication of Soulages in America.

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Reflections in Black V V, O N E O F T H E M O S T W E L L REGARDED F R E N C H A RT I S T S, S TAG E S H I S F I R S T S TAT E - S I D E RETROSPECTIVE THIS SPRING. TEXT BY

CHRIS STIEGLER

ARTWORK BY

P I E R R E S O U L AG E S

N O. 2 7 3

A L L I M AG E S C O U R T E SY D O M I N I Q U E L É V Y GA L L E R Y. “ P E I N T U R E 1 4 7 X 1 3 7 C M ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , O C TO B E R 3 , 2 0 1 3 .

“ P E I N T U R E 9 9 X 1 5 9 C M ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , O C TO B E R 1 1 , 2 0 1 3 .

“ P E I N T U R E 2 0 2 X 1 5 9 C M ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , O C TO B R E 2 8 , 2 0 1 3 .

“ P E I N T U R E 2 0 2 X 1 5 9 C M ,” O I L O N C A N VA S , O C TO B E R 1 7, 2 0 1 3 .

(This page): Rainhat from BELGIAN PHARMACY.

Coat by MARNI. Skirt by MARC JACOBS. Stockings by FALKE. (Opposite): Vintage bandana.

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Hanne Gaby Odiele D O C U ME N T E N LIST ED A TRIF ECTA OF PHOTOG R A PHERS TO CA P TURE T H E MAN Y SID ES OF HA NNE—F ROM S ELF - ST YLED P ORTR A ITS BY P IE R R E D EB US S CHERE, TO A DAY IN THE LIF E WITH P H OTO BLO GGE R DAN IE L A RNOLD, A ND CA P TURED IN CONVERSATION F ROM MILAN WIT H ST YLE .COM ’S CHIEF STREET PHOTOG R A PHER, TOM M Y TON . PHOTOGRAPHY BY STREET PHOTOGRAPHY BY

PIERRE DEBUSSCHERE

DA N I E L A R N O L D

INTERVIEW BY

TO M M Y TO N

Make Up by ADRIEN PINAULT. Photo Assistant ISMAEL MOUMIN.

(Opposite): ACE bandage warn as top. Vintage shorts by LEVI’S. Vintage pants. (This page): Maasai blanket. Necklace by ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER COUTURE. Shorts and shoes by

ULYANA SERGEENKO COUTURE.

(Opposite): Vintage cape by BALENCIAGA. (This page): Vintage top by RAF SIMONS. Skirt by ACNE.

odel Hanne Gaby Odiel has been known as much for her striking features as for her own personal style over the past nine years—rare in an industry that cycles through models in a matter of seasons at most. Which is perhaps the reason so many photographers gravitate towards her, capturing her running from one show to the next, or hanging out at home in Williamsburg, or within the safety of a photo studio. Tommy Ton sat down with Hanne after a busy day of shows in Milan, tucked away in the back of a hotel, still in makeup fresh from the Versace show. TOMMY —I love your walk.

HANNE —I think my walk always changes depending on the show. Maybe there’s some arms going around. TOMMY —The arm thing, yeah. But you always walk to the music and I like that. That’s why when I listen to music I walk either like Hanne or Kasia [Struss, another model and a good friend of Hanne Gaby]. It’s just between you two. HANNE —Oh, yes. And her turn—her turn is the best. TOMMY —Do you remember the first time we met? HANNE —When was that? TOMMY —You don’t remember because I was no one, then. [Laughs.] You looked like you were a student because you had bangs and a beret. It was in London—Brick Lane in the East End, I think. This is about ’07. HANNE —Oh, yes! TOMMY —You were wearing more vintage than designer clothes back then. When you started doing Balenciaga and Dries Van Noten, that’s when things really got big and we started noticing. Designers began to want to dress you, because you could wear anything and look great! HANNE —No one’s dressing me, though. TOMMY —Well now you dress yourself. Because you have so many clothes! [Laughs.] From what I’ve heard. there’s just so much to choose from. HANNE —Well sometimes when you’ve been there for hours and hours, as a thank you the designers will let you go pick some clothes you like from their archives. I dress for myself mostly, I have fun with it. And I like to shock people a little bit. [Laughs.] TOMMY —Yeah, you wore a Hooters sweater once! [Laughs.] You have the most amazing collection of Nicolas Ghesquière for Balenciaga and Dries Van Noten because you pick the most interesting pieces that none of the other girls like. I was going to ask how you got that sweater? HANNE —It was a birthday party. We all got T-shirts and I got a sweater. TOMMY —Did you enjoy the experience? HANNE —I loved it. I didn’t eat the chicken but they had great pickles. TOMMY —Fried pickles or regular pickles? HANNE —Fried pickles!

TOMMY —Oh, I love fried pickles. It’s always my mission to get a photograph of you during the shows, since you’re always in a hurry to run to them. HANNE —People sometimes think, ‘Oh, she just wants to be photographed.’ But, no! I’m a model, and I’m there to work. I need to be on time. Sometimes my schedule can be packed with three or four shows a day, and sometimes even an unpredictable fitting in between. Editors go from show to show too, but it’s my job to get there before they do and be done with hair and make up on top of that! I’m very punctual that way: I’ll do whatever I have to do to get there before other girls who are running from the same show to the next. I don’t want people to think I’m just there for the show outside. TOMMY —I remember last year I was coming out of my favorite restaurant in Milan and I saw you and your driver pushing a car. HANNE —[Laughs.] I remember that. I was coming out of a fitting, and the car broke down so we had to push it because I had to run to another fitting. I was pretty dressed up to be pushing a car, and there was a photographer there who captured the whole thing! That’s probably one of the first times we really talked. TOMMY —No, no, no, the first time we really talked was when we actually worked together on a shoot. A story for Harper’s Bazaar. I was really excited about it. HANNE —Yes, yes! Was that one of your first shoots? TOMMY —It was my second shoot. Working with you was almost exactly like shooting you outside your shows. You’re all over the place in the best way possible. You just do you and a photographer can get a million expressions within two seconds. HANNE —Oh thanks! TOMMY —One never knows what to expect from you: you’re either wearing a bandana or a ski mask or ski goggles or… HANNE —Oh, I haven’t showed you my Belgian rain hat. When it rains, it’s functional! TOMMY —Oh, I see? HANNE —Well my looks are not always functional. Although being backstage you have to think about a few things, like: ‘Can I sit in hair and make up for a few hours in this outfit? Will I be able to get out of the outfit afterward without destroying the hair and make up?’ Also if you have to take off your shoes again and again in castings and fittings and shows, you want a pair that’s easy to get into and out of. I guess my outfits are very backstage-functional. When we are on the catwalk our stuff is usually on the floor somewhere, you can’t be too particular about damaging or wrinkling your stuff, also makeup stains are inevitable, it kind of became part of my style. I do like to take some risks sometimes. TOMMY —Oh yes, I remember when you were outside Balenciaga a couple years ago in the freezing cold, wearing short shorts, a crop top, and some kimono wrap. You looked great! HANNE —Today’s a bit crazy…there are so many photographers. TOMMY —Well, before it was just a few people but now there are dozens and dozens. Do you ever fear for your safety?

(Opposite): Necklace by

ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER COUTURE. (This page):

Vintage fur scarf cap by MARNI. Vintage silver jacket by MIU MIU. Vintage chaps by JUNYA WATANABE. Vintage pants by BALENCIAGA. Vintage shoes by NIKE AIR MAX.

HANNE —Oh, no.

TOMMY —I think I fear for our safety. [Laughs.]

HANNE —It has gotten out of control. Sometimes there are hundreds of photographers and bloggers outside of the shows, running around chasing people. It’s chaos! TOMMY —Because we’re fighting over the same picture. You never look at traffic when you run to get a picture. HANNE —Today, almost ten people got killed. Literally! They would throw themselves right in front of traffic to get a shot—it’s dangerous. TOMMY —Sometimes we run into people, too, because we’re running and not even looking. HANNE —The other day I was being chased by photographers and had to run to a show, and I almost pushed someone over by accident! It wasn’t my fault necessarily but it’s not a good look, you know? TOMMY —I think if people just asked you to take your photo you’d be okay with it. It’d be a lot easier than chasing you. HANNE —I guess. TOMMY —But it wouldn’t be as fun. [Laughs.] TOMMY —I’m really surprised how calm you are because if anybody were to receive the attention that you get I think they’d probably ask for a bodyguard. Does your agent see the benefits of your personal style being photographed outside of shows? HANNE —Yes, they know it’s a part of who I am. TOMMY —I think it’s helped your career. HANNE —It’s helped me to prolong it. And yes, designers love it. TOMMY —Designers are very loyal to you. Alexander Wang for instance… HANNE —I know Alex from before, though, from the very beginning! We kind of grew together. He’s a very good friend. TOMMY —Well, regardless of knowing someone, designers love you and what you bring to clothes. I know a lot of editors, like Derek Blasberg for instance, smile when they see you on the runway. HANNE —He was trying to make me laugh at Prada. I saw him from miles away, too. TOMMY —When did you start modeling? HANNE —Nine years ago, almost. Spring/Summer ’06 was my first season. TOMMY —And you’re from Belgium? HANNE —I’m from a tiny, tiny village. It has only a few hundred people and there’s not even a store or a restaurant—there’s just countryside. My love for fashion came later, when I began to travel. I always loved style, it doesn’t have to be expensive for me to wear it and love it. I’m not going shopping every day. It’s about style. TOMMY —You work very hard. How do you survive the month? What keeps you grounded? HANNE —Oh, I don’t know. I have a lot of friends. There’s always Kasia and Tilda [Lindstam, another model]. And I have made new friends with some of the younger models. I feel like their big sister

or something. After a long day of work we all try to have dinners and maybe some wine. TOMMY —What’s your favorite place to travel to, do you think? HANNE —Everywhere I go I find something I like. I don’t really have a favorite place. There’s always something special everywhere, you just have to discover it. TOMMY —Really? Mine’s Japan. HANNE —Where in Japan? TOMMY —Tokyo. I mean, I like to go outside the city but for me Tokyo’s my favorite. What’s been your favorite fashion show that you can remember? Nine years is a long time. HANNE —I enjoy all the shows, each one has its own special thing. But I never see them—I’m always backstage. TOMMY —You’ve never watched a show? Really? I think you deserve to see one. You’ve worked with almost every notable photographer. Do you have any favorite memories of photo shoots? HANNE —I don’t have a favorite anything, but maybe when I get to travel and meet new people and cultures. TOMMY —I think you just enjoy life as a whole. Were you a tomboy? HANNE —Yeah. I had never walked in heels before I did this. Never. I’d never even worn mascara or had my hair done! TOMMY —Are you used to it by now or do you still find it kind of tricky? HANNE —No, I’m good by now. I think. When I started, Russian girls were dominating the catwalks, and they can pretty much walk in any shoe. I do think heels have gone down a few inches over the past few years—or mabye I’m just more confident on them. TOMMY —Do you think you want to continue working in fashion? Maybe as a stylist? HANNE —Maybe. I think I’d want to do consulting. I like style. And as I said, clothes don’t have to be expensive. Beauty can be found in different things and levels. TOMMY —Haven’t you styled a photo shoot before? HANNE —Yes! For the first issue of Document! It was with the legendary Maripol. That was an interesting moment because I had just had an accident and was in a wheelchair and on morphine. I was styling from a rolling chair. Then that same day Edward Enninful called me and wanted me to do a fitting for a W story photographed by Steven Meisel. I had to leave and wheel myself to a cab, then back as soon as I was finished with the fitting. TOMMY —Do you think you want to stay in New York? HANNE —I just bought a place! I think I’ll stick around for a while. I do love the city so much. TOMMY —Do you get to go home often? HANNE —Not so much. My parents come here sometimes, and I see them in Paris when I’m there. TOMMY —Oh, they come visit? You should bring them to a show! HANNE —They did once, but they didn’t even recognize me. [Laughs.]

Though his work is characterized by a strong formal sensibility, Brusselsbased artist Pierre Bismuth consistently disrupts narrative and visual expectations with his investigations of the distance between a word and a thing. Bismuth’s pieces are frequently oriented around concepts of cinematic narrative (the artist is, not coincidentally, the recipient of a 2005 Academy Award for best screenplay), although he also interrogates tabloid journalism, music, and other forms of media. The artist disrupts a fragile framework with intentional misuse of information or symbols, the meanings of which one typically takes for granted. ¶ In his ongoing series “Following the Right Hand of...,” Bismuth maps the gestures of various instantly-recognizable actresses by projecting iconic films onto sheets of Plexiglas and tracing the movements of his subjects’ hands with a black marker. He derails concepts of authorship: do the marks belong to the film’s director, the actresses, or to the artist himself? Bismuth becomes the vehicle through which Marlene Dietrich, Louise Brooks, Joan Crawford, and Marilyn Monroe’s ephemeral gestures are literalized, brought forth, and left to linger.

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Following the Right Hand of Pierre Bismuth TEXT BY

ALISSA BENNETT

A RT WO R K C O U RT E SY

PIERRE BISMUTH

F O L LO W I N G T H E R I G H T H A N D O F LO U I S E B R O O K S I N PA N D O R A S B OX

F O L LO W I N G T H E R I G H T H A N D O F G R E TA G A R B O I N M Y ST E R I O U S L A DY

F O L LO W I N G T H E R I G H T H A N D O F J O A N C R AW F O R D I N D A N C I N G L A DY

F O L LO W I N G T H E R I G H T H A N D O F I N G R I D B E R G M A N I N I N T E R M E Z ZO , A LOV E ST O RY

F O L LO W I N G T H E R I G H T H A D N O F L AU R E N B AC A L L I N T H E B I G S L E E P

(This page, left to right): EHREN DORSEY at NEXT wears faux fur coat by NO. 21 Pre-Fall collection. T-Shirt by EDITH MILLER. Shorts and pants by Y-3. Sandals by MARC JACOBS. Beanie by AMERICAN APPAREL. Choker by BESS NYC. GRYPHON O’SHEA at NEW YORK MODELS wears suit by MARNI. Turtleneck by JIL SANDER NAVY. Shoes by PUBLIC SCHOOL. Lamb fur scarf by POLOGEORGIS. MAJA SALAMON at NEXT wears top and skirt by MARNI. Mink fur belt worn as scarf by POLOGEORGIS. Bag by A.P.C. Boots by EMANUEL UNGARO Pre-Fall collection. HOLLIE-MAY SAKER at TRUMP wears bandeau and skirt by MARNI. Hat by EUGENIA KIM. Sandals by OPENING CEREMONY. ANDREAS LINDQUIST at

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Together by Christian MacDonald & Fashion Director James Valeri

Hair Stylist DENNIS DEVOY. Make Up by JUSTINE PURDUE. Casting by SAMUEL ELLIS SCHEINMAN.

Prop Stylist DANIEL GRAFF at MARY HOWARD STUDIO. Production MATTHEW YOUMANS/ CAT LEWIS for M.A.P. Stylist Assistants KADEEM GREAVES, KENNY PAUL, GINEVRA VALENTE, JADE VALLARIO, MAX HIRSCHBERGER, and ALBERT HICKS IV. JACOB MORTON at DNA wears jacket by Z ZEGNA. Fur belt (worn as scarf ) by

(Opposite, left): MATT ARDELL at DNA wears track jacket by ADIDAS ORIGINALS. Wide leg trousers by MICHAEL KORS. Hat by A.P.C. Leather slippers by GIORGIO ARMANI. EHREN wears fur coat by POLOGEORGIS. Sweatshirt by OPENING CEREMONY. Jodhpurs stylist’s own. Choker by BESS NYC. Shoes by JUNYA WATANABE. (This page): KATE GOODLING at FORD wears blazer with origami ribbons by BOTTEGA VENETA.

MAJA wears lamb fur coat with mongolia sleeves by MICHAEL KORS from POLOGEORGIS. Dress and necklace by RODARTE. Ankle boots by JUNYA WATANABE.

(Opposite): GRYPHON wears blazer, shirt, and layered pants by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD. MAJA wears jacket and dress (worn as shirt) by STELLA MCCARTNEY. Pants by DEREK LAM. (This page): ANDREAS

(This page, above): HOLLIE-MAY wears dress by STELLA MCCARTNEY. Hat by NEW YORK VINTAGE. (Opposite, left to right): EHREN wears mink fur cape by POLOGEORGIS. Tweed shorts by CHANEL. FELIX HERMANS at DNA wears short boiler suit by BESS NYC. Leggings by Y-3. Shoes by DRIES VAN NOTEN. GRYPHON wears boiler suit by BESS NYC. ANDREAS wears lace top and neoprene pants by BESS NYC.

(This page): ANDREAS wears knit sweater by GUCCI. (Opposite): ANTONINA PETKOVIC at THE SOCIETY wears metallic draped top and leather pants by VERSACE. FELIX wears leather jacket and pants by VERSACE.

(This page): MATT wears jacket by BESS NYC. Dress (worn underneath) by JASON WU. (Opposite): GRYPHON wears dress by BLUMARINE. Hat by SELIMA HATS. Shorts by MARC JACOBS.

(This page, below): FELIX wears blazer and pants by GIORGIO ARMANI. Turtleneck and leather gloves vintage GIORGIO ARMANI. Hat stylistâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own. (Opposite, left to right): ANDREAS wears jacket, vest, shirt, and pants by BERLUTI. ANTONINA wears dress by EMILIO PUCCI Resort collection. Feathered bracelet by PRADA. EHREN wears sleeveless top (over turtleneck) by JIL SANDER NAVY. High

(Opposite): ZLATA MANGAFIC at IMG wears fur coat and scarf by POLOGEORGIS. Shirt and pants by EMANUEL UNGARO Pre-Fall collection. Jewelry by AURÉLIE BIDERMANN. Shoes by NICHOLAS KIRKWOOD. (This page): NEMANJA MAKSIC at DNA wears vest,

(This page, left to right): ZLATA wears dress by MARC JACOBS. NEMANJA wears hooded parka by SACAI. Briefs by RUFSKIN. JOSEPH MATONE at REQUEST wears jacket by DRIES VAN NOTEN. T-shirt by BESS NYC. Track pants by ADIDAS ORIGINALS. ANTONINA wears dress by MARC JACOBS. Beanie by BAILEY OF HOLLYWOOD. (Opposite): KATE wears jacket and embroidered tights by LOUIS VUITTON. Beanie by BAILEY OF HOLLYWOOD.

(Opposite, left to right): CHARLOTTE CARDIN at THE SOCIETY wears dress by PRADA. GRYPHON and FELIX wear suit and shirt by PRADA. EHREN wears embellished coat by PRADA. T-shirt by EDITH MILLER. Leather G-string and choker by BESS NYC. Track pants by ADIDAS ORIGINALS. FRANCISKA GALL at IMG wears neoprene body suit by LISA MARIE FERNANDEZ. Shoes by PACO RABANNE. (This page, above): EHREN wears Mongolia fur coat by POLOGEORGIS. Sleeveless top by DIOR.

(This page): HOLLIE-MAY wears suede short dress by VALENTINO. Necklace by AESA. JACOB wears jean vest, stylist’s own. Blazer and shirt by VALENTINO. Tie by EMPORIO ARMANI. Hat by NY VINTAGE. (Opposite): BETTY ADEWOLE at ONE wears bolero fur, and pants by TOM FORD. Beanie by BAILEY OF HOLLYWOOD. Earrings model’s own. Rings by MEGA MEGA. Bracelet by AESA.

(This page): GRYPHON wears jacket and leather apron by COMME DES GARÇONS HOMME PLUS. (Opposite): HOLLIE-MAY wears dress by SONIA RYKIEL. Hat by NEW YORK VINTAGE. MAJA wears cardigan and dress by SONIA RYKIEL. Hat by NEW YORK VINTAGE.

(This page): ZLATA wears sequin dress by GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI. Fedora by GREG MILLS. Fur jacket by CÉLINE Resort. (Opposite:) HARLETH KUUSIK at THE SOCIETY wears knit top and shorts by MICHAEL KORS. Hat by NY VINTAGE.

(This page): MAGGIE JABLONSKI at MAJOR wears shirt, bustier bra, cap, suspenders, and belt by RODARTE. Nightgown with marabou feathers (worn off the shoulder) by LA PERLA. (Opposite): ANTONINA wears dress

In the Details by Dan Tobin Smith & Editor Ronald Burton

OBJECT OF DESIRE

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COLOR BLOCK

Citrus hues and a geometric metallic handle liven up this CĂ&#x2030;LINE bag.

WORK OF ART

A sculptural block heel and a circular buckle add depth to this CĂ&#x2030;LINE bootie.

PRECIOUS, YET PUNK

VIKTOR & ROLF elevate rebellious safety pins

as elegant earrings.

CRYSTAL DELIGHT

Sparkling Swarovski crystals accentuate chunky, patent-leather MIU MIU heels.

COLORED REFLECTIONS

More than 5,000 broken jewel-toned mirrors create a mosaic masterpiece laid out on leather in these TOM FORD over-the-knee boots.

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Beauty School by Brett Lloyd & Fashion Editor Tom Guinness

ROBERTO SIPOS at SOUL ARTIST MANAGEMENT

wears jacket, shirt, and waistcoat by JIL SANDER.

Casting by BARBARA PFISTER. Hair Stylist MARKI SHKRELI. Grooming by JOHN MCKAY. Stylist Assistant MARCELA JACOBINA. Location BATH HOUSE STUDIOS. Special Thanks to BRYCE EBEL. (This page): BAPTISTE RADUFE at

VNY wears shirt by LOUIS VUITTON.

Hat (used throughout) by TOM

GUINNESS in collaboration with

THOMAS ENGELHART. (Opposite): MARTIN CONTE at DNA wears shirt

by DRIES VAN NOTEN. Shirt (worn underneath) stylist’s own. Silk scarf by HERMÈS. Jeans by ACNE. Belt by SAINT

BERTOLD at SOUL ARTIST MANAGEMENT wears jacket by WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Suit (worn underneath) by ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA.

(This page): BAPTISTE wears jacket, waistcoat, and shirt by JOHN VARVATOS. Pants by JIL SANDER. Scarf by HERMÈS. Ribbon stylist’s own. Socks by FALKE. Sneakers by ADIDAS STAN SMITH. (Opposite): MARTIN wears jacket and shirt by SAINT LAURENT BY

ARTHUR GOSSE at VNY wears sweatshirt by PATRIK ERVELL. Jeans by WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Necklace by LANVIN.

ARTHUR wears vest by CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION. Jeans by WHAT GOES AROUND COMES

AROUND. Scarf by LOUIS VUITTON. Necklace by LANVIN.

(This page): KYLE MASKELL at

IMG wears sweater and shorts by ALEXANDER MCQUEEN. Socks

by FALKE. Shoes by BELGIAN SHOES. (Opposite): JOEL MEACOCK at IMG wears jacket by COMME DES GARÇONS HOMME PLUS.

VICTOR NORLANDER at FORD wears jacket by BRIONI. Jeans by WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND. Scarf stylist’s own. Belt by SAINT LAURENT BY HEDI SLIMANE.

TRAVIS SMITH at DNA wears jeans by TOMMY

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A Brutal Landscape S T I L L- L I F E P H OTO G R A P H E R DA N TO B I N SMITH E X P L O R E S AN ARCHITECTUR AL LANDSCAPE, R E D U C I N G O B J E C T S TO C O L O R A N D T E X T U R E , L I K E A FA I L E D WO R K O F B RU TA L I S M : “ R AT H E R T H A N C E L E B R AT I O N S O F N AT U R E O R S Y M B O L S O F V I RT U R E , H E R E T H E Y A R E J U S T A N OT H E R C O N S T RU C T I O N.” PHOTOGRAPHY BY

DA N TO B I N S M I T H

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Retroflex by Camilla Akrans & Fashion Editor Ludivine Poiblanc

Dress by CÉLINE.

Model MISSY RAYDER at IMG. Hair Stylist FRANCO GOBBI. Make Up by YUMI. Prop Stylist COLIN DONAHUE. Manicurist MARISA CARMICHAEL. Photography assitant JOHNNY KANGASNIEMI. Digital Tech ANTON OLIN. Stylist Assistant COQUITO CASSIBBA. Hair Stylist Assistant ANNA LYLES.

Jacket and top by DIOR.

Shirt dress by CHLOÉ. Vintage sunglasses by GIANFRANCO FERRÉ from SILVER LINING

(Opposite): Top and pants by CALVIN KLEIN COLLECTION. Sandals by

GIVENCHY BY RICCARDO TISCI.

Fringed top by DOLCE &

GABBANA. Vintage sunglasses by

GIANFRANCO FERRÉ from SILVER

Dress by LOUIS VUITTON. (Opposite): Dress by PHILIPP PLEIN.

Dress and pleated silk kilt by SALVATORE FERRAGAMO. Sandals by GIVENCHY BY

(This page): Top by FENDI. Skirt by DIOR. (Opposite): Dress by

Trench coat by GUCCI. Shorts by LA PERLA. Sandals by CÉLINE.

hrough his roommate who worked in a Manhattan bookstore, Denny met best-selling author Glenway Wescott, who frequented the shop. Thirty-three-year-old Wescott, who had traveled widely and been part of the young generation of expatriates living in Europe after WW1, knew just about every poet, writer, and artist of his day, and at that time, for winning the prestigious Harper Prize with the publication in ’27 of his novel The Grandmothers, was himself as famous as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He projected worldliness and the understanding of an older friend who could look deep into Denny’s soul and know just what he was thinking. Denny had snagged his first celebrity and found his first mentor. It was the spring of ’34. Denny, Wescott remembered, “would call on me—I was living on Murray Hill—whenever he was hungry or felt like asking questions about how to get on in the world, which I would answer, all purely Socratic.” Wescott warmed to the topic and this Socratic dialogue went on for a number of sessions. “Now, Glenway,” Denny would say in his deep, seductive Southern drawl, “you know everything. I want you to tell me: how does one manage to get kept?” Wescott found his naiveté amusing. He laughed. “To begin with,” he explained to his attentive student, “you must never use that word—‘kept.’ Think of something you want to do that takes money to learn. Then ask someone for help and guidance. You’ll get much more money that way than by coming at it straight on.” Denny was a quick study. He was perfecting the art of opening doors with his looks, and was, with his charm and intelligence, mingling easily with the city’s upper crust. It wasn’t long before the handsome, suddenly sophisticated 20-year-old from a middle-class background in Jacksonville was accompanying a German baron to Europe. Denny still had much to learn. In Berlin, he and the baron fought.

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The Most Expensive Male Prostitute in the World S O - C A L L E D BY C H R I S TO P H E R I S H E RWO O D, D E N H A M F OUT S WA S P U R S U E D BY A G R E E K K I N G , A G E R M A N B A R O N, A B R I T I S H V I S C O U N T, A N D M A N Y, M A N Y M O R E . I N T H I S E XC U L S I V E E XC E R P T, A RT H U R VA N D E R B I LT T E L L S T H E TA L E . TEXT BY

A RT H U R VA N D E R B I LT

PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE ARCHIVE OF

G E O R G E P L AT T LY N E S

Denny packed and started hitchhiking to Venice. On his way, the limousine of an old Greek shipping magnate pulled over, picked him up, and headed on to Venice where they boarded the tycoon’s yacht. Again, Denny hadn’t yet mastered all the rules of engagement, and fell in love with one of the sailors on the yacht. After the two stole as much money as they could—several thousand dollars—they jumped ship and took a suite at the Quisisana Hotel on Capri. The sailor left when the money ran out, but Denny continued to dress for dinner each evening in his new formal wear, hoping to be seen. When at last it became apparent that he could not pay his bills at the Quisisana, the police were summoned and Denny was escorted out through the lobby. It was at that very moment that Evan Morgan, the last Lord Tredegar, walking through the lobby with his wife, trailed by a retinue of retainers, spotted Denny and commanded the authorities: “Unhand that handsome youth, he is mine.”

as Evan’s wife concerned about her husband’s new friend, who was now part of their entourage as they continued the Grand Tour? Or did she consider this just another manifestation of Evan’s charming eccentricities, another addition to his unusual collection of acquaintances? In China, they visited the opium dens, where Denny sampled the wares and developed an addiction. When Evan’s father died, Evan became Lord Tredegar, a viscount and baron, and lord of 500-year-old Tredegar House. And then the fun began. The glitterati, along with the beautiful and the handsome unknowns, all made their way to Evan’s infamous weekend garden parties at Tredegar Park: H.G. Wells, Marchesa Luisa Casati, Aleister Crowley, Lord Alfred Douglas, Lady Nancy Cunard, the painter Augustus John, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats, G.K. Chesterton, Aldous Huxley. Denny was right at home in this glamorous party world and became a part of it: from Jacksonville, Florida, to

one of the grandest manors of the English-speaking world. Drink and drugs fueled these circus-like gatherings. “He’s one of the very few people I know who can throw a party,” one of the guests, Aleister Crowley, recorded with admiration in his diary. Another guest, the socialite Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, MP, wrote in his diary that Tredegar House had “the feel and even smell of decay, of aristocracy in extremis, the sinister and the trivial, crucifixes and crocodiles.…” Among the guests at Evan’s weekend parties was Crown Prince Paul of Greece, living in exile in England since ’24 when the Greek Assembly had abolished the monarchy and declared Greece a republic. From that time, members of the royal family were forbidden to live in Greece, and 23-year-old Paul and his older brother, King George II, had sought refuge in London. Paul, an athletic man, tall, broad-shouldered, with a jovial laugh and ready smile, on a lark had assumed an alias and found a job in a London factory constructing airplanes, though most of his time was spent moving in the upper social circles. One weekend, at a party at Tredegar House, the Prince met Denham Fouts. As captivated as Lord Tredegar was by Denny, Prince Paul took the latter with him on a cruise around the Mediterranean. “We had some great times together on a yacht,” Denny always would remember as he took out photograph albums to show his friends. And there he was, looking “very glamorous in belted white swimming trunks, leaning with merited narcissism against a lifebelt, upon some swaying Aegean deck.” Back in Jacksonville, Denny’s mother worried about her son. According to one of Denny’s cousins, “he sent continual postcards from all over the world. Sometimes he would send photos of himself with a glamorous woman or a handsome man: ‘Traveling here with Lady So-and-So in Malay. She thinks she’s Marlene Dietrich and so do I.’ But he never would give anybody an address to write back.”

baron. A shipping tycoon. A lord. A prince. Denny had mastered Glenway Wescott’s lessons very well indeed, and was prepared for his next conquest. To be young, handsome, bright, and rich were the blessings bestowed upon Peter Watson, and he wore those blessings lightly, with grace and style. He was the youngest child of Sir George Watson, Lord of the Manor of Sulhamstead Abbotts, who had invented margarine and made a fortune when butter was rationed in Great Britain during WW1. Peter was educated at Eton and Oxford and studied in Munich, where his interest in modern art was awakened and where he purchased his first Picasso drawing. When his father died in ’30, Peter, at 22, was the beneficiary of trusts that gave him the wealth to be a gentleman of leisure and to pursue his passion for art. The world became his playground. Letters written on stationery of the finest hotels and postcards from the best resorts spewed forth to his friends, and if, for instance, it happened to be raining when he was in Salzburg, he simply packed up and headed off to Venice. Everyone who became his friend considered themselves fortunate. Alan Pryce-Jones, a classmate from his Eton days, described Peter as

“slow-speaking, irresistibly beguiling…from 14 or so onwards, one of the most sophisticated beings I ever knew: rich, funny, and wise…” Cecil Beaton found that Peter’s “wry sense of humor and mysterious qualities of charm made him unlike anyone I had known,” that he was “an independent, courageous person, on terms of absolute honesty with himself, with the world and with everybody he talks to.”

eter was tall, imperially slim, debonair, and had a smile that “was so disarming that people could not but like him,” as Cecil Beaton described it. Beaton called him “the best person at the art of living I know.” He was, in Beaton’s judgment, “a completely fulfilled, integrated person; someone who has been through many vicissitudes and has now discovered himself.” Beaton also described Peter’s thick brown hair as being “sexily lotioned” with brilliantine, a choice of words that pretty much summed up the problem: Peter was so perfect that woman, and men, kept weaving their fantasies around him and falling in love with him. And Beaton, who would become a famed society photographer, fell very hard indeed. Beaton knew exactly the moment it happened. It was late summer of ’30. Cecil was 26, four years older than Peter. They were in Vienna, each with his own friends, when they met. Peter went with Cecil to antique shops to help him select furnishings for Ashcombe, his new country estate. Cecil could not understand why his friends were making such a fuss about this young man until several days later, as they went down on the same elevator from their hotel rooms, “he shot me a glance of sympathy, of amusement—it may have been a wink—but it did its work—it went straight to my heart—and from that moment I was hypnotized by him: watching every gesture of his heavy hands, the casual languid way he walked.” As they got out of the elevator, “we burst into laughter, and arm-in-arm walked off into the Vienna side-streets to become the greatest of friends.” Truman Capote knew both Watson and Beaton. He and Cecil were lifelong friends, but Capote was one of the very few who had no use for Peter. Capote felt Watson had a sadistic streak, and brutally portrayed this voyage [sharing a cabin with Beaton] aboard the Aquitania in “Unspoiled Monsters,” a chapter of his never-completed, long-anticipated novel, Answered Prayers. “Once,” Capote wrote in a parenthetical remark in this chapter, “Watson deliberately set forth on a sea voyage halfway round the world with an aristocratic, love-besotted young man whom he punished by never permitting a kiss or caress, though night after night they slept in the same narrow bed—that is, Mr. Watson slept while his perfectly decent but disintegrating friend twitched with insomnia and an aching scrotum.” n May of ’35, Peter and Cecil both happened to be in Paris and made plans to meet for dinner, but Peter did not appear at the agreed-upon time. Cecil later learned that Peter had met a young American in a nightclub that night, named Denham Fouts. As Peter recalled the moment: “He took me back to his hotel where he gave himself cocaine injections.” And there, in Denny’s hotel room, Peter stayed.

Cecil was devastated when he learned of Peter’s feelings for Denny, “again conscious of my failure,” as he wrote in his diary, “that my beloved will never be in love with me and will always fall for strumpets, and that continuously I am going to be miserable through each intrigue.” He no longer could deal with this unrequited love, and drafted a letter to Peter: My dearest Darling, this is so much the saddest thing that happened in my life. It is so serious for me to make the painful wrench but I cannot continue being made miserably unhappy constantly by your peculiar vagaries…I cannot weep any more, my eyes are swollen and my face unrecognizable from so many tears and so much hysteria. Cecil never mailed his letter, but read it to Peter, who tried to heal their friendship and urged that they remain “sane and friends again.” Just as Cecil Beaton’s life changed forever when he met Peter Watson—and, to the end of his life, even after many other affairs, including one with Greta Garbo, considered Peter “the love of his life” and still was “sad and sore that it was never a mutual love affair, a friendship only for him”—so Peter Watson’s life was to change forever that evening he met Denham Fouts. A friend of both Peter and Denny would call Denny “the great, destructive, love” of Peter’s life.

eaton, of course, hated Denny with “an unconsumed passion,” and when [years later] he heard through his friends of “the appalling dogfights that Denham had with Peter,” he noted with delight in his diary, “they were just what Peter needed.” The dogfights typically began with Peter’s concern about Denny’s opium habit. Peter always had been frightened of drugs and was distressed at what he saw them doing to Denny. He tried every stratagem to get him to quit—love, reasoning, nagging, threats— nothing, of course, worked against the power of Denny’s addiction. Every once in a while, Peter was able to get Denny into a rehabilitation clinic but those “cures” proved temporary, very temporary, at best. And so their fighting continued. ther times after Peter and Denny fought, Denny would go back to Prince Paul, but now, after the national plebiscite in Greece of ’35 that had called for a return of the monarchy, Crown Prince Paul was no longer in London; he had joined in his brother’s triumphant return to Greece, and there, in Athens, obtained for Denny a suite of rooms in the Grande Bretagne Hotel. Denny was well aware of the power he held there, even after Prince Paul, on January 8, ’38 married Princess Frederica of Hanover, a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and the granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. In the bar in the Grande Bretagne Hotel, Denny in ’38 had met 22-year-old artist Brion Gysin, whose acquaintances, including Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein, and Alice B. Toklas, all agreed he looked like a young Greek god, perhaps Apollo, maybe Dionysus or Narcissus. Denny spotted this classically handsome young man sitting at the bar and took him up to his rooms. There, he picked up the telephone, called the front desk, and asked to be put through to the Royal Palace. When Prince Paul was given the telephone, Denny asked that he immediately send over “one of those royal guards in ballet skirts with something for us to smoke.” The Prince did, Denny and Brion did, and as Brion recalled, “we got royally stoned.” Brion Gysin was fascinated by everything about Denny, from the suitcases that Salvador Dalí had decorated for him with labels like “Hotel Sordide” and “Midnight Motel,” to the expensive sports jackets Peter had brought for him, which appeared to be “itchy tweed but felt like cat’s fur woven into cashmere.” For a while they enjoyed each other’s company and together migrated back to Paris. The two were

like brothers in their desire to live well, and in their ability, through the largesse of admirers, to live well without working.

hristopher Isherwood once described Denny in his diary as looking like “Dorian Gray emerging from the tomb—deathpale and very slim in his dark elegant suit, with black hat and umbrella. He looks like the Necropolitan ambassador.” [One night as they sat down to dinner with some friends,] Denny asked Bill Caskey to take some money and get a package of opium from a “connection” who was waiting outside the restaurant. Isherwood thought this request outrageous and refused to let Caskey go, afraid the police could be watching the pusher and that Caskey would be arrested. He felt that Denny’s suggestion “was an entirely characteristic act of aggression.” (After Christopher left Paris at the end of April, Denny sent him a letter: “I hope you and Billy will go on being as happy as you seem to be.” Isherwood noted, “Denny obviously didn’t hope it.”) Isherwood found that Denny seemed to be quite himself, not in the least “depressed or debauched or down-at-hell” (sic). But his stomach cramps may have been acting up that evening for he merely picked at the caviar and watched the others eat “with an air of controlled distaste, as though our addiction to solid food were a far more squalid vice than his. Now and then, his manner became a trifle vague, but his wit was as sharp as ever.” (This dinner found its way into “Paul,” Isherwood’s chapter about Denny in Down There on a Visit. In “Paul,” Christopher, the narrator, goes to visit Paul in Paris at his apartment on the Rue du Bac. Propped up in bed, “he was corpse-white, and his face looked as though it had the firmness of hard wax and was semitransparent. There was an air about him of being somehow preserved and, at the same time, purified: his skin seemed to be absolutely without blemish. Indeed, he was marvelously, uncannily beautiful. He wore a heavy skiing sweater over pajamas. Gigi lay on the bed at his feet.” Paul tells Christopher that he uses opium and says, “I hear you’ve been working in the movies a lot lately, so perhaps you can give me some money?” Paul proposes that they go for dinner at the Ritz. “The Paul who appeared that evening had a sinister, sepulchral elegance; Dorian Gray arisen from the tomb. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit with a black hat and a neatly rolled umbrella. Gigi was at his heels.” He eats only caviar. Again, he asks Christopher for money to buy opium, and Christopher gives him 30,000 francs.) Gore Vidal had read in that day’s paper that King Paul of Greece had pneumonia, and as the evening wore down, he mentioned this to Denny. “I must send him a telegram,” Denny said, and together, Gore and Denny located on Saint Germain a Western Union office still open, and Denny sent the telegram. The day after the telegram was sent, Denny showed Gore the reply telegram he received from King Paul: Darling Denham, so wonderful to hear from you. Why haven’t I heard from you before? Much exaggerated about my illness…Love, Paul. By then, Vidal was visiting Denny regularly. (Isherwood wrote in his memoirs, “Denny treats Gore with the slightly sarcastic tolerance of an elder uncle.”) “At sundown,” Vidal recalled, “like Dracula, Denham would appear in the streets leading his dog down SaintGermain-des-Prés.” Here, certainly, was a character in search of an author, and Vidal, consciously or not, filed in his memory-bank his encounters with Denny. It was not long, just two years, before Denny appeared in his fiction. The Best-Kept Boy in the World by Arthur Vanderbilt will be published this Fall by Magnus Books.

Metamorphosis, an HermĂ¨s story

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