Eclectic issue 5 Part Two

All Hail Saint Tommy!

Culture Schedule: Music Festivals The Gospel According to Jenny Eclectic Selects Redemption of DIIV One to Watch Girli Love and the Human Spirit with Savages Sunn O))) Canons of Kannon Wanderings with Andrey Bartenev Come Sunday An Artist Soul: A Mass Dissection of Jan Fabre Igor Samolet Photography London Faye The Cult of the King 2016 Films The Great Fruit

6 16 18 23 24 29 30 34 40 50 61 68 78 80 82 86

8 Passage du Grand Cerf | 75002 Paris | info@les-cinq.com

5 39

Side Music Culture

B

les-cinq.com

Music

5

Real professional rap superstar Tommy Cash, became really famous in 90s, I see them the jewel of Estonia, a holy Soviet shroom, an as modern day Warhols. I love when an Eastern hybrid, has come into our era to save artist have this juicy line in their artworks, us. Arriving on a majestic horse, donned in I don’t like banal scribbles. I do love more adidas rising from the hood in Tallin, we got cartoonish art, where the outlines are fat a bit closer to heaven as we journey through and the colors are bright, on the other hand the mind of Tommy Cash. Today is the day I love Dali and all the classics. that professional rap superstardom is born.

Now I understand your moustache!

Oh Lord, enjoy!

Yeah, you got me!

Can you describe your journey to become Tommy Cash — a real What was the craziest thing to happen to you during night? professional rap superstar?

That’s a hard one, I can’t remember.

In the beginning, when I was fifteen, when I discovered dance and the art of When you’re a crazy person everything is expression. I started to spend more time crazy, even drinking coffee is crazy. alone, isolating myself more from other people and giving priority to my own How do you feel about supernatural thoughts and energy. Later I slightly moved Baba Yaga? Do you think she’s a into painting, everyday I would go practice raver?

Yeah man I do! That’s so funny, last with the b-boys until very late and the day after arrive to school late, not to study but night I spent the whole night at the studio to draw during classes with my headphones rapping with my homies and at some point on. That was my circle of life while I was we started to make rhymes with Baba Yaga. I trying to find myself; maybe you can call think she was a mad junkie, I mean she had me egomaniac or something. At some an izba (Russian countryside dwelling) with point I started to write lyrics, trying to chicken legs, what the fuck is that? That girl bring into them my life experiences and my was on some heavy acid, I don’t know if it art, I think lyrics are the highest point of was Ketamine or LSD, but she was definitely expression. One thing is being able to see a on some really fucked up shit. I think she moment, remember the colors of it another was the first person who did witch-house is to translate that moment into sounds and in Russia you know, even before it was rhythms. Why professional? Because I’m invented, it all comes from Baba Yaga. a professional, I’m a really fucking good dancer and I’ve been working hard on my That girl was on some heavy acid, I don’t know if it was Ketamine or LSD, but she was craft since I started. definitely on some really fucked up shit.

When you talk about dance and art and knowing that what you do Remember that cartoon when she today is quiet singular. What else was doing some crazy dancing with influences you besides hip-hop and her izba?

Man that was fucked up! I think all the street culture?

Listen, I was making stencils and getting Eastern European kids have this very bad adrenaline shots by running from the police. feeling about Baba Yaga, she’s that scary I love Takashi Murakami and Kaws they woman who lives in the woods in this

All Hail Saint Tommy!

7

Interview: Andrei Zozulya-Davidov Photography: Renee Altrov Art Direction/Set Design: Anna-Lisa Himma & Tomas Tammemets Styling: Paula Stina Tasane Tattoos: Martin Jürman Religious Icon Design: Norman Orro

weird-ass house, but someone should make a remake of her. Coz I think Baba Yaga could totally be a party girl from Moscow, one of these girls going to witch-house parties you know?

Do you own a horse?

Yeah I do.

the rider’s life, and so we kept on doing it.

I remember the first time was really weird, because I never rode a horse in my life before and I started to gallop naturally. It’s not common at all; people who never rode a horse simply can’t do it. I felt the wind on my face, I felt free, when I call myself Freak of Nature, I really mean it, I’m really becoming one you know? One day I wanna be like this Arabic prince with little tigers, so I could feed them and stuff like that.

Normal rappers usually show off their cars, but not you…

Oh, I see. So freak of nature is more The truth is and that goes to all the about a spiritual connection to fucking rappers out there, my horses are Nature? more expensive than their cars so…they can In a certain way yes, it’s about being fuck themselves with their Lamborghinis. connected with all the living and dead things.

We have two horses, the one that I drive is It’s about the power of Nature and things Shoushou he’s a veteran, he’s old but has a she can do with you, it’s a very powerful and I would even say epic feeling. young soul, and he looks like he’s three years old. The other horse is called RESPECT; I If you were a pope, what would be never saw a horse in my life that has this your message to the believers on ghetto-ass name. They always called them Sunday?

I think you would say something like shit like Pink Butterfly, Rihanna or Umbrella ‘’Riders Never Dies’’ or something like you know or Madonna, Britney but they ‘’Follow your dreams, my children!’’ I don’t never call them RESPECT. That horse is know something very strong I don’t want to huge as fuck you know, that’s really dope. take this responsibility right now.

The truth is and that goes to all the fucking rappers out there, my horses are more expensive than their cars so…they can fuck themselves with their Lamborginis.

Or you could freestyle to them…

If you got some Coldrex and some Aspirin, Lay on your Russian carpet. You’re like Aladdin.

You know in Western culture rappers drink syrup, the codeine one, the cough syrup. In East we don’t have it, but we do have Coldrex and Aspirine. It could be a new thing.

How did you get these horses?

It’s funny you know, I’m a city boy. I grew up in suburbs and my family never had a country house to go on the weekends. I was stuck in the city; I was always around my Yo bitches, fuck codeine do aspirin.

Yeah man, you killed it! house because it was the furthest I could go. About a year ago I met this girl, she was How do you support your local working with me on Euroz, Dollaz, Yeniz, dealers? her name is Anna and she took me to ride Man, I show them love. I always support her horse, that’s it! I kinda fell in love with them.

Do they have promos and shit for you?

I don’t know if I wanna talk about it. One day I was with my girlfriend and we were talking about the weed business, Europe is really trying to be like America in that sense.

Part of America already legalized weed and that topic is very common in Estonia, I don’t think it’s possible but if it happens someday, there will be a Tommy Cash Weed shop in no time. I would invest in that shit and people would drive straight from Moscow and Ufa to smoke my weed.

What’s your opinion about the fashion industry and what role adidas plays in it?

The stripes will never die, it’s a classic and I really went hard on it, it’s very popular in Russian culture. Back in the 90s the Russian Olympic team had adidas suits on, so because of the Olympic team people started to score stripes in Russia and all over former USSR. I really fucking love it, but I don’t think the Yeezy shoes will be iconic, I don’t like them, it’s hype. I really loved the stuff he did with Nike and that shit still dope; if I look at them today I still want them! But Yeezys look like fucking socks my grandma made for me, eight hundred dollars socks. This man preaches one thing about accessible clothes and sneakers for everyone and sells all those sweaters for two thousand euros, its such shit, such a joke, people are buying it and they don’t know what they’re buying.

Democratic fashion they say…

Absolutely! All bullshit man, and I love Kanye, I’m here because of him, when I was young I listened to a lot of his shit and he’s an inspiration to me, but…

Not with the Yeezys…

Not with the Yeezys.

I’m going to ask something that you’re certainly expect me to, do you see a carpet as an art object?

Of course! I really see it as a trademark for myself. With Tommy I want to break boundaries and for many people. Carpets are the synonym of being poor and trashy, you know this whole visual Soviet heritage.

So with Tommy I take the carpet and I flip the meaning of it, I put it under a different prism and for me it’s definitely an art object.

The funny thing is that these carpets are not Russian but Persian. I don’t know why we call it Russian carpet, many people know that it’s Persian but no one calls it that way.

It’s about general knowledge and culture. Persian carpets are fucking expensive they’re a luxury object.

Absolutely, they’re fucking expensive.

I think carpets are dope. Everywhere you see a carpet today, you know it’s coming from Tommy Cash no one else. Little Big last video, they used carpets because of me so everywhere I see a carpet I see me.

Everywhere you see a carpet today, you know it’s coming from Tommy Cash and no one else.

You should make a limited edition carpet with Murakami!

That would be dope as hell. I still have some time, remember when Murakami made the Graduation album cover for Kanye?

ommy

Download the album EUROZ DOLLAZ YENIZ at: www.tommycashworld.com

ll H

Where is Tommy Cash now and what are his plans for the future?

Tommy Cash is now in his bed, but in the future he will put on his fur coat and go straight to the studio to Photoshop one of his new pics and then go to another studio to make music. Right now I’m constantly working, it’s crazy but we made three photoshoots in one month, so I’m kinda getting this feeling of being Dave LaChapelle. I think out my concepts and they’re getting stronger and more difficult, I love to share my vision with people. I’m working on the new sounds; I’m not a fan of microwave, fast music especially in rap. People are constantly throwing out music, it’s quantity over quality these days, it’s happening in every creative industry and it shouldn’t be like that. People should hold to their music, let it, grow because no one knows your new shit to sound or look like your previous shit, people should spend time working on improving their craft.

aint

Do you think Tommy Cash should be sanctified?

Yes he should be. My saint name would be… my orthodox name is Timofey. So it should be something like Max Fey or Clean Boy. I have to think about it...

Photo Credit: Burning Man by Philip Volkers

Eclectic Selects: The Great Escape 19-21 May 2016 Brighton, UK Oh Wonder, Shura and Mura Masa play at the first Spotlight Show at All Saints Church. TGE’s constant evolution continues with a fresh visual revamp in the form of new branding, partially inspired by 1960s Japanese Yokoo style pop-art to express the core experience and festival theme; discovery of new music, new talent and new sounds.

Snowbombing 4 – 9 April 2016 Mayrhofen, Austria Netsky, Andy C and Jamie Jones at the world’s No.1 music festival in the snow.

Sasquatch!

27 – 30 May 2016 Gorge Amphitheatre, Washington Sasquatch! emphasizes indie rock along with the summer’s biggest headliners and is becoming a dominant force in the music landscape. Set in the most scenic concert location in the world.

Electric Elephant 7 – 11 July 2016 Tisno, Croatia One of Resident Advisor’s favourite summer festivals, it is dubbed as one big beach party than a festival with an average size of around 3000. Expect to make many friends.

Sziget 10 – 17 August 2016 Budapest, Hungary From gypsy folk to indie, Sziget has a reputation for one of the broadest tastes of music on the festival circuit. The festival started when the communists discouraged rock and to this day it is the ultimate music celebration.

Exit Festival 7 – 10 July 2016 Petrovaradin Fortress , Novi Sad, Serbia Exit started as a student movement fighting for freedom and democracy in Serbia. With emotions of love for music and freedom that can change the world for the better, it brings together fans EDM, techno, bass, hip-hop and even hard-core.

Rock en Seine 16 – 28 August 2016 Saint Cloud, France The appeal of a rock festival right outside of one of the most beautiful cities in the world is a good excuse enough. Get ready for some people watching full of Parisian cool.

Sea Dance 14 – 16 July 2016 Jaz Beach, Montenegro Exit’s sister festival has become the most talked-about boutique electronic festival holiday on the planet set on Europe’s most beautiful beach.

Mysteryland 27 – 28 August 2016 Haarlemmermeer, Netherlands Make your way to the iconic longest running electronic festival in the world which additionally boasts an industry green certificate. Get ready to get smashed on techno.

NorthSide 17 – 19 June 2016 Aarhus, Denmark What a better place to rock out with the Danes than the country’s student city?

Positivus 15 – 17 July 2016 Salacgriva, Latvia Mixture of global and emerging acts located in a beach area and loved for its unique vibe and eclectic line-ups.

Balaton Sound 6 – 10 July 2016 Zamardi, Hungary Hungary’s largest dance festival with the most picturesque backdrop, against Central Europe’s largest lake.

Off Festival 5 – 7 August 2016 Three Lake Valley, Katowice, Poland Expect acts from Poland’s vibrant underground scene with cutting-edge labels and international icons.

16 Culture Schedule: Coexist with a Season of Festivals

Burning Man 28 August – 5 September 2016 Black Rock Desert, Nevada A pilgrimage to Burning Man is mandatory for any festival follower at least once in their lifetime. Tens of thousands of people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. In this crucible of creativity, all are welcome.

Interview and Photography

by Andrei Zozulya-Davidov

Listening to Jenny Hval is like taking hallucinogens while being served up a Norwegian blend of jazz and slam poetry. Jenny is no ordinary singer-songwriter, with a background in gothic metal and gospel, her world lies in the boundaries of fiction and reality. Her abstract melodies are provocative and certainly not for the mundane, as heard in her third self-titled album, Apocalypse Girl where her cryptic experimental sounds place you at a crossroads of spiritual self-discovery.

I heard you used to sing in a gospel choir?

I did sing in a gospel choir for a few months when I was thirteen. I was just curious - I have never been religious and I don’t come from a Christian family - I just wanted to sing. After a while, I realized that the break we had in the middle of rehearsals was for a lot of people the main part. It was a sermon and I was the one going out with a few others who weren’t religious to smoke or something, I was busy being bad while the other people were busy being good. I remember at some point we went to church for a concert and there was a pastor who was giving a very direct sermon telling everybody who felt Jesus to stand up and I was the only person sitting. I thought, “I’m not gonna stand up, this is bullshit!’’ That’s when I quit the choir because I realized that I couldn’t sing without actually being religious. I also knew that some of the boys and girls didn’t want to stand up, but they did it and I was disappointed. I didn’t want to feel that way about other people. It was super frightening hearing someone screaming.

“DO YOU FEEL JESUS? STAND UP!” Yeah, go on stand up! Be a hard cock! I was the only soft dick in that place, quietly lying there in my underwear…

` question, what Moving to a cliched are your influences when you write your lyrics? How hard is to avoid your references?

I don’t try to avoid them. I wish I could steal a lot more. Copyright issues pop up very quickly and I find music to be very limiting in that sense. I’m used to the kind of writing where you can just quote, you know? You tell people where it’s from and to me it’s a very natural part of cognitive and oral processes. For me, coming into music and having to pay for everything you borrow is very frustrating, because it creates obstacles to your creative freedom. In terms of words, it’s a little bit easier because you can steal some quotes from a poet for example, it’s not that strict, and so I steal a lot.

Everything people do or say at some point becomes part of our conversations and I take these phrases from everywhere, it’s not only about literature. It’s everything that has a rhythm and that I enjoy. Obviously, I don’t go out and listen to my friends and then just transcribe everything they say into lyrics, it’s more about questioning myself about how the phrases I hear will flow into my work.

It’s like when you’re on a plane and you join a Jet stream, which takes you faster to your destination.

You use these influences as a trampoline to your lyrics?

I don’t necessarily think they are influences, what is an influence? It sounds like a drug to me, which is probably a better way to describe it. It’s so boring to think of it as something you read and that this something ends up having some kind of mystical impact on you and changes you.

I think it’s more like the idea of living, the energy of life.

The Gospel According to Jenny 18

While reading your lyrics I felt like I was back to my lectures in university…

You think so? I’ve been away from university long enough to feel a bit cheeky about it. I find it very sad that people find it impertinent to deliberate on academic subjects in their daily lives, to me it’s all part of the same world.

That’s the problem of many educational systems; they are unable to tell you what to do with the acquired knowledge once you leave the class.

That’s a problem. I guess I can use my knowledge. As soon as you use it, it becomes a living thing. I also find it sad when people say that if you have a certain political affiliation or if you are a feminist then you prioritize the ideology over your experience.

I consider that it’s simply impossible to separate one thing from another.

I presume you were a challenge to your professors back in the university?

I was hell! But most of the people liked it (laughs).

And your professors were they surprised?

It’s possible. Part of my studies were in Australia and when I came back to Norway with this radical experience – I first did creative studies and then switched back to more academic studies – I responded like I used to respond back in Australia. It was a small class full of artists, painters and filmmakers, people with whom I got used to speaking out and getting furious at the

theorists. We were making t-shirts for every class, taking a pertinent and provocative quote from a philosopher and making t-shirts out of it. After Australia, I ended up in a place where people kept their mouth shut and took notes the whole time and I wasn’t used to thinking so much without opening my mouth.

“We don’t have to fuck; can we just lie here being? I give you this hand.

I give you this hand.” These are the closing lines of “Take Care of Yourself’’ from your latest album; do you think sometimes sex can destroy the spiritual side of love?

I definitely think it can become something that comes instead of intimacy.

In a relationship, sex can become very mechanical and instead of actually being intimate, you just fuck. It depends; sex can also be extremely intimate, it can be anything basically, depending on whom you are doing it with and for what reason. Speaking of inspirations, I was watching one of Pasolini’s films, Arabian Nights, I think. There was this very innocent scene of a young couple who just had sex and they wake up the next morning with the girl holding his dick in her hand. I thought it was very beautiful, they were just sleeping and to me, that moment was more intimate than the sex itself. These lyrics also came from conversations I had with a group of guys about male fragility, softness and sexuality in the context of a project I was part of. That experience was a very long journey into the worlds inside people and I was able to see male sexuality represented by all kinds of guys, because it’s something we lack sometimes. Sexuality is mainly a woman. It’s so weird… We were

talking about things like choosing clothes, losing your hair, becoming older. It was interesting to discover things that I’m very used not being bothered with in a female body are such a bombardment to males.

I find it beautiful the way you express your admiration for both sexes through your lyrics and how you try to correlate them, it’s very neutral and unbiased.

I’m honoured if it’s something that people think; others think that I put people down. It’s very important for people to discuss and disagree with each other and I need to be open because I’m taking a risk by saying stuff about gender, I know it. By taking that risk, I also must be ready to take criticism. If I hear people on Twitter saying that some of my lyrics are transphobic, I try to take it seriously because sometimes it’s also about the language, English is my second language and some things might have a very specific meaning. People think that the song “Take Care of Yourself ” is about masturbation because it’s actually a synonym for masturbation. I knew it, but I wasn’t thinking so much about it when I wrote the song. That came as a surprise to me later.

between two parts of the record. I don’t remember where it comes from, you just take something, process it and it becomes its own thing.

Going back to your album, what’s the story behind “Sabbath’’?

I don’t have stories behind my songs.

I just write the lyrics, “I’m six or seven, dreaming that I’m a boy” and that’s the story. My lyrics are very straightforward; maybe they are shallow in that way. One of the greatest compliments anyone ever gave me was when one person said, “People use metaphors. You just say it!” and I was very moved by that. That’s my mode of writing, when I write I’m not thinking that I should feel something or write about a certain subject. Especially with this album, I don’t try to camouflage or create a story, obviously I do anyway, but I’m not trying to write something autobiographical.

It clashes with Freudian psychoanalysis anyway…

There was definitely a feeling that motivated me to write those verses and that feeling of awakening after a dream where you had a different sex. I was growing up in the 80’s and I watched several films as a kid, where people switch bodies or all of a Do you consider yourself a fatalist?

It’s just me being funny (laughs). I have a sudden become older. You know all these pitch-black sense of humour but I also have comedies and that was probably part of the dream too, like the film Big with Tom Hanks hope. for example. Those were dumb Hollywood versions of something universal, the The song “White Underground’’ experience of otherness. I also remember sounds like a mantra to me, what are you saying exactly cause I wasn’t having multiple experiences of otherness growing up, like when I was saying able to understand a thing?

That’s normal, the lyrics are backwards. something and feeling I was saying it with They’re mostly taken from other things; I my mother’s voice or with my teacher’s voice, think you can see it as a transition maybe things like that happen to me all the time.

“Apocalypse, girl” is out now on Sacred Bones Records

Same thing with the music I was listening to, I could feel this other voice coming from my throat and at the time, there was so much music sung by androgynous voices.

After the punk movement and the gender bending of the 70’s, everything became very commercialized so even a six years old kid could listen to music sung by very, very high male voices, very androgynous female voices. The hallucination of the 80’s was a wonderful openness to otherness and even within the mainstream layer of the entertainment industry. So the song was about bringing that feeling back and at some point it becomes a sexual awakening that later transforms into animals, other beings and other things, almost like a fantasy world meeting childhood and sexuality.

“When I went to America I found myself to be not myself. I could not align with the landscape. It reminded me, my body, of being newborn. I understand why people want to be reborn; I understand why people speak in tongues. I understand why people want to feel newborn. I understand that it’s the same as feeling unborn. I understand that we all want to feel unborn. I understand it in America.”

That’s “Holy Land”; I don’t think America inspired me that much on the song. What happened is that I spent quiet a lot of time in the US over the past two years and I kept meeting people from the South, where I actually didn’t go until about one month ago. All those people I kept bumping into had experiences of growing up in the South, which is obviously the Bible belt of America.

These encounters made me remember that I also went to the high school in a small village

of the Bible belt in Norway, which is not a very religious country but there are pockets of charismatic Christianity. Where I went to high school, we had American missionaries coming in there at some point…

What a surprise… ...So I was reconnected with these memories a little bit and writing about that because I had almost forgotten all of it. I wanted to be as far away as possible from my memories of being young and going to school even if I enjoyed knowing many religious people. We used to hang out and we were friends anyway, but we came from such different families, we had different aspirations for our lives and most important we had different reasons to make music.

I went to the music high school because I wanted to be an artist, but a lot of people in my class wanted to... worship. It was a reconnection with my childhood and those memories. If my music is a journey where I can return and understand all of that religious influence, there are little parts of it through the album, but this song is the “Apocalypse.”

Charin’s Pick: Animal by Fakear One of the most anticipated album’s in the electronic sphere, Animal is young French producer Fakear’s debut freshly served by Ninjatunes this March. His distinct brand of music intricately weaves sketchy electronic beats and exotic, otherworldly chants for a masterful fusion of organic and synthetic textures that have been making waves on the club circuit.

Anna Selects: Homieland Vol.2 on Bromance Records Brodinski and his label mates including Sam Tiba, Louisahhh!!!, Myd, Panteros666 and many more take us on an eclectic musical journey sure to make you party this summer with their second label compilation. Already dubbed “the city’s coolest kids” nothing compare to their fans who finish the party that they started.

cruise on the Mediterranean, while listening to it you can clearly feel the warmth of the sun and smell of the olive trees. Grasque weirdness is infectiously epic, so let yourself get drown in the summer by this man with Sade’s voice.

Carolina Selects: Mutant by Arca Arca’s identity is already well known for its peculiar yet avant-gardist imagery and musicality. His new album Mutant is a reflection of his personal life as it depicts family and friends delivering once again his trademark of excellence: enigmatic sensual tunes.

Pete Selects: Of The New World by Sarah Williams White Rarely does a multi-instrumentalist manage to build a swirling backdrop of karmic soul. Sarah Williams White is the rare talent that does. The patchwork grooves suspending disbelief are stewed by Sarah’s melodic, layered vocals on ‘Of the New World’ that permit her to tell tall tales in a climate warming between the realms of Portishead and Jill Scott.

Andrei Selects: Grasque by Choir of Young Believers Jannis Noya Makrigiannis is the mastermind behind this musically and culturally rich project that takes you through mindblowing soundscapes and places you’ve never been before. The album sounds like a

Eclectic Selects: 23 Albums We Carry into Summer

Animal by Fakear

Homieland Vol.2 on Bromance Records

Of The New World by Sarah Williams White

Of The New World by Sarah Williams White

Mutant by Arca

On a rainy afternoon in Paris, we met up with Zachary Cole Smith and Colin Caulfield from DIIV at the Walrus record store. DIIV’s new album Is the Is Are out earlier this year was one of the most anticipated of 2016. After looking at all the fascinating and peculiar vinyls and even finding Oshin and Beach Fossils in the mix, we asked the boys about their new album, Brooklyn, Hedi Slimane and their music hiatus. Fans, followers and the music industry have been waiting for a while now but we can positively say that they once again successfully delivered music for the flawed yet resilient DIIV tribe. Just as Molière once said, “Trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.”

What can you tell us about your longawaited new album Is the Is Are? Zachary Cole: It’s definitely a DIIV record but if people are expecting us to do our first record again that’s not what it is. It’s very different but after hearing every single song for five seconds, you can know it’s us.

The subject matter is more serious, more intense. It’s a very exposed, raw and naked album.

What’s the meaning behind the title?

ZС: I wanted something that felt profound and at the same time a maxim that felt also meaningless. I had a French poet/artist who I gave directions to, I wrote five sample poems and told him, “I want you to write 50 poems like this,” and he did. I picked about 20 that I liked and that I wanted to include with the album.

There are four that I included in the album art and then used one for the title. It’s the last line of a poem and when you open the album, the four poems are on the first vinyl so you can see its context. I wanted

The Redemption of DIIV

24

something that felt almost silly, something that could be mocked, and something very human, flawed. The record is about my own flaws. I wanted to communicate the feeling of being misunderstood and alienated. No matter whom you are, when you read the album title you probably assume that you’re misunderstanding the intentions, it’s meant to be disorienting.

What changed since Oshin? I know some personal adventures or misadventures have struck the band.

ZC: I don’t feel like I’m the same person that I was then. The first album was innocent and wide eyed, wanting to break into the music world, and this record came from a period of hard living through lots of intense things.

Would you say overcoming that pushed DIIV to create a new album?

ZC: Going through something and afterwards thinking, “What the fuck just happened?” is like trying to work through your own thoughts. I was worried that people weren’t going to take us seriously as a band. The first album did well, but when people start talking about you because you’re a fucking punch line, that doesn’t feel good. I wanted to go back to how things used to be, but I knew that the only way to do that was to make something much better than last time. I didn’t think I could do it again, I had no faith in myself or my own abilities but I just worked really hard at it.

You came to terms with yourself by showing people that you are more than these labels you’re surrounded with.

ZC: Being defined by your past is one of the hardest things to deal with because you can’t change it no matter what, but you can come to terms with it and help others come to terms with it. I want to convey with this record is that I’m a human and deeply flawed, like everybody. I never finished or completed anything in my life, I’d start things but never finish them, but here I finished a record.

How did the opportunity modelling for Saint Laurent come along?

ZC: Sky (Ferreira) and Hedi had been working for a long time, so I met Hedi and we went out for dinner, later I got a call asking if I’d be available to do a campaign and a couple of shows. I think Hedi made fashion cool again. I saw Kanye West at Madison Square Garden and he was on this long rant about how Hedi Slimane wouldn’t let him into his fashion show and I feel that it made young kids feel that fashion was cool again. Hedi made a connection between fashion and rock ‘n roll that was lost over the years.

I’ve read that you worked in several places, like a restaurant where you met some musicians. When did music become a priority to you?

ZC: I was doing odd jobs then I moved to New York. I met this girl on New Year’s Eve and went home with her and it turned out she was moving the next day and I decided to help her with my car. I helped her move and it felt like our house, so I stayed there for about six months. After a while I thought I should probably get a job so I started selling weed and then I got a bit stir crazy with the relationship. It wasn’t a real relationship we were like roommates that

Interview by Carolina de Medeiros Cosme Photography shot on film by Hubert Crabières

shared a bed, so I said “Fuck this” and I left.

I lived in my car driving around the country, travelling, visiting friends, doing random stuff with the money I saved up from selling weed. I drove out to California to get weed and bring it back but I ended up taking six months. I got back, sold the weed and after a while I applied for a job at a restaurant. I walked to the front and asked, “Hey are you guys hiring?” The guy was like, “No, but do you play bass?” So I started playing in his band and with everyone that had a band in the restaurant I played in. At the end I was playing in four bands and then started playing in Beach Fossils. I toured with two bands from the restaurant and Beach Fossils for a couple of years. Then I thought, “I can do this myself, I can definitely start a band.”

I just realized it was something that could be done, it was never a goal of mine but I just saw an opening in New York.

Speaking about New York, what do you think of the changes in Brooklyn? Is it really that gentrified as people make it seem?

ZС: I It depends where you’re at, but the fact that me and Sky got forced out of our apartment by the price rise (Sky does pretty ok) was just like, “God this shit is out of control.” My sister and her boyfriend are both accountants, they do well and they moved directly across the street from our old apartment. They are the type of people who are moving in, young urban professional couples who are probably either about to have kids or already have kids.

So they want “proper families” or “stable families” to move in?

ZC: The infrastructure of the neighbourhood can’t handle it. The trains are bloated, they can’t handle this many

people. When you build a high-rise, the area can’t handle that influx. It’s funny when you think what made Williamsburg cool; all the underground music and the cool shit that was there so all the influx people went there because it’s cool. Because of that, they end up pricing out all the venues and the cool stuff that made the neighbourhood in the first place. Now all of these amazing venues like Death by Audio, 285 Kent, Glasslands are literally all gone.

Colin Caulfield: Gentrification has been happening for a while, neighbourhoods are constantly changing but Williamsburg was the epitome of the artist scene in a cool city, it was the scene in New York. Everyone that played music went there, it was what you did, and I wasn’t even living in New York at the time. It was an area dedicated to creative people.

ZC: They had a built-in audience and that’s who we owe our success to. We started playing shows and didn’t have to get out there and put flyers up to get people to come to our shows because the audience was already there. If they hadn’t heard of the band, they were happy because they got to check out something new. There were hundreds of kids who would go to shows every night and party. It was an actual scene, a real community. It wasn’t a scene in the sense of the New York scene or the Kitchen scene in the 70s, where there were musicians making similar music.

A lot of places where you used to play at have closed.

ZC: Yeah everything.

Would say it’s because of gentrification or do you think it’s a part of, let’s say, “natural selection”?

ZC: What those clubs were, the DIY

mentality, they were transient by nature, they weren’t made to last. If they wanted to last they would have got permits or what they needed. It’s like a slash-and-burn, you build something, let it rise and then one day a cop can bust it down, it’s gone and on to the next thing. It was never about the physical spaces, more about the community and availability of various spaces. There were so many empty warehouses in that area that you could just do a show here or there, and all along the waterfront which is now turning into the most valuable real estate in the entire city. It was empty warehouses and in one street, Death By Audio, 285 Kent, Glasslands, Secret Project Robot they were literally seven blocks in the same stretch of street and if one was closed then you’d just go to the next one and so on. Then the neighbourhood just took gasoline and dumped it down and burnt the whole thing up and now it’s just gone.

CC: It was gone in almost a flash and it’s really recent. I think it’s really discouraging for artists and a community of creative people to see this thing that you felt you could give your life to and felt confident about doing, and now it’s gone.

They felt at home. СС: Because now people are less willing to commit themselves fully, there isn’t a platform or security.

Let’s talk about Nirvana and music.

Which other bands do you admire as a musician yourself?

ZC: Nirvana is not so much an influence just kind of a touchstone. I feel that early on I wanted to put our music in context. If you listen to our first record, sometimes it’s hard to pick up on the punk energy behind it, so I wanted to cite Nirvana to point out the angst

Girli

One to Watch:

beneath the first record. I read Kurt Cobain’s journals and it was like reading a “How to start a band” book. He was writing letters to his drummer, telling him that they had to practice six days a week, planning out the artwork, the songs, his lyrics, it’s all in there so when I started the band that was a big touchstone for me. I got the name DIIV from his journals because there is this page where he wrote “dive, dive, dive” and it was pretty cool. As for other bands, a big influence on this new album is Sonic Youth and their record Bad Moon Rising. I sent it to our engineer and told him that this was the sound I want to capture.

CC: Sunflower Bean, they’re a really young band. We share a lot of sensibilities with them but we have different reference points. They’re a bit more like Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin.

ZC: They’re also Saint Laurent models.

Would you say that Is the Is Are is redemption, a fresh start?

ZC: It’s meant to be a redemptive record for sure. Hopefully I’ll move the conversation back to music and not about other bullshit.

The newest kid on the block to emerge from London is GIRLI, who infiltrated the music world with her debut single “So You Think You Can Fuck With Me Do Ya”. Her flurry of urban cyber-electronic brings a new millennial wave of girl power. The rapidly rising icon is one to listen to in 2016, but her punk-like attitude sees her keeping with her do-it-yourself ethos; she may be young, but she’s in control. Catch her hyperactive live sets across London, showcasing her unique brand of anarchic pop anthems from coffee shops and seedy open mic nights to supporting slots for Wet and Baio.

Equal parts exciting and chaotic, there’s only one thing guaranteed this year, and that is there will be nothing quite like GIRLI. Stay tuned to GIRLI’s socials for upcoming live dates. @girlimusic

29

There is a transcendental moment that music can bring of unification and true love, as Interview by Anna Barr and creating music means living for others, giving without thought of a return. London based postAndrei Zozulya-Davidov punk rock band Savages strung this chord with us. Made up of Jehnny Beth (vocals), Gemma Thompson (guitar), Ayse Hassan (bass), and Fay Milton (drums).

Photography by TIM

In your new album Adore Life, you bring up several times the urge of change and the importance of having the power to change. What do you intend by change?

Gemma Thompson: Jehnny had these lyrics written about love and how love fits into Savages in a way, not the generic clichés, she was trying to figure out how to make it work together. It’s more about universal love and the idea of the negative side of love, the risks it entails and the changes that you need to go through to reach what you’re after.

Love is the answer.

So the main theme of the album ends up being about love?

GT: Our first album Silence Yourself was more kind of a question and Adore Life is more of an answer. The first record is more about how we do not compromise on the ideas behind the band and how we think of ourselves as a unit. The second record is about exploring and understanding all of that, so the whole theme is about love and change through love and about realizing the risks it takes to find and understand yourself a little bit more.

Fay Milton: And embracing life by not fearing change as well.

to the audience. Have you ever had an awakening moment when you kind of thought, “Art is Love?”

GT: There was this moment when we saw Swans at a festival, and Michael Gira starts saying LOVE! LOVE! LOVE! But with the power of Michael Gira, you know, it wasn’t a cliché love; it was something bigger, something universal. It was the love As a musician and performer, between you and the audience because you you’re giving a lot of yourself to need each other right there.

Love and the Human Spirit with Savages

30

You felt inspired by Michael’s vision of love?

FM: It was a big exchange of love, one of the triggers for exploring that kind of love was the fact of having new audiences and playing in places we’ve never been to. People frequently don’t know the words and are just expelling all of their emotions on us, we give them back and they’re pushing us to give them something even stronger next time.

When you play new places, do you get inspired by the human?

FM: Definitely, but sometimes you have to really initiate it and push it as well. You can take inspiration from anywhere for that, when we’re on tour, we go to galleries. We were in Spain the other day and went to the Guggenheim before the show, one always need to absorb art and creativity, human

contact, literature, all of that.

Now that you brought up art to the conversation, I remember a performance you did with the choreographer and dance artist Fernanda Muñoz at Barbican exploring the interplay between light and darkness. How did that happen?

GT: It was a piece we worked together with the band A Dead Forest Index called In What I’m Seeing; The Sun and it was part of Station to Station, a series of creative events happening at Barbican at the time.

Adam the band’s singer asked us to do a couple of nights for it, he showed us the space and said, “This is the space you can perform in, you can do whatever you want.”

But it wasn’t really a space conducive for loud noise. It was a challenge. When we

Savages saw the space with its Brutalist architecture and in the centre there was this big concrete pillar and a concrete balcony on it. I was mesmerized by the power of that space and we asked if we could black out the space as much as we could so only the energy of the building remained. I remember we only had about a week to write this piece together and compose the songs. Adam took a lot of inspiration from the poet Octavio Paz in terms of lyrics and it was all about drying the energy from the building. .

were five dancers dragging themselves across the floor, but right in the beginning so the audience could start to witness the building in a different way. Back at Barbican, it was very interesting to observe from the balcony the interaction between the audience and the dancers. I think we were always interested in certain venues to explore the reaction of people going into a building expecting to see a rock gig and have a different experience. Maybe they will see the show in a different light. There’s also this project we did with the Japanese band What about Fernanda’s choreo- Bo Ningen called Words to the Blind and the idea was to play in a new shape with graphy?

GT: The idea behind the dance piece the audience trapped inside of a circle of developed around the South-American musicians, like in the middle of a battle with Aymara tribe, they have an entirely us forming a piece of music in the end. different concept of time; they witness time backwards. Fernanda tried to explore this When touring, has there been any idea with movements, music and space places that particularly stood out?

FM: I always remember going to Denver, pushing the viewer to experience the time backwards and exploring the energy of the there was a particular atmosphere in Denver, like the 90s never left. Japan is amazing to space. play and place to be, we get very inspired But the idea about drying energy there.

GT: Mexico City is mind-blowing. I from the building, is that something remember being initially paranoid about that happens quiet regularly?

GT: When we did a set at the Electric it because I heard all these morbid stories, Ballroom in London we commissioned I had no idea what to expect. When I got Fernanda to choreograph a dance piece for there and spent a little time there I got the occasion. She agreed and performed it calmer, I started to listen to music and as the crowd was coming into the venue, in walk in parks with my headphones on. One the space where the audience stands. There day, I was walking through the park with

all these trees and I come across this little circle with a real bullfighter practising with his companion. His companion was holding real horns and was dressed in this red sports outfit and they were practising Corrida in a little arena in the woods. I was listening to something really heavy and the whole situation felt surrealistic. I kept walking around watching their mock bullfight for hours and it was the strangest moment ever.

On a personal note, listening to Adore Life was like visiting a very rude, violent but at the same time very honest and sincere shrink!

There are no euphemisms, it’s very strong. Was that your goal?

FM: Definitely, that was the intention, to be direct with the lyrics. Jehnny wanted to speak more clearly about certain topics.

GT: For example, when you look at Adore lyrics, there’s this part that says “Is it human to ask for more, is it human to adore life?” It was influenced by the poet Minnie Bruce Pratt. Minnie was married and she had a family, but she was a lesbian. She fell in love with a woman and she gave up on everything to follow her love and that creates all these risks

and sometimes risks can lead to loneliness and many other things. In the end, it’s about searching for what you really need to enjoy life and not feel guilt, because there are so many situations when you search for something you want but you always feel guilty for doing it, you feel guilt for being happy.

In your opinion, is love about egoism or altruism? “If you don’t love me, don’t love anybody” sounds kind of possessive.

GT: Yeah, pretty much every aspect of it, even the negative sides of it. Finding love is trying to understand someone or something else completely, to the point when you integrate this understanding into yourself.

One last question about your producer Johnny Hostile, is he more like a spiritual guru to you or just a dude producing you in the studio?

GT: He’s both. It’s very instinctive, he understands us very much, he understands the band, he understands the instruments, and he sees all the four components of Savages as one.

Interview by Carolina de Medeiros Cosme

Deep listening is rare these days. Music has become too immediate but there are bands that still preserve this unique ability to take us into a drug-free trip. Sunn O))) does exactly that by always accomplishing flawless compositions. Stephen O’Malley talks about their new album Kannon, the music scene in Seattle and performing with robes among other curiosities.

After listening to Kannon I was in an absolute trance. Can you tell us a bit more about the concept of drone metal, or better, the concept of Sunn O)))?

The frame around it can be quite different and on this record we wanted to present things slightly differently than we had in the past. We’ve never taken the opportunity to form the full frequency of what’s possible with this music, it was a liberating, blissful, positive and bright type of experience as far as the intensity of heavy goes. There are other elements, a broader spectrum not just sonically but with ideas around it. There are plenty of impressions of it being dark, claustrophobic or overwhelming but there is another side to it that is liberating and ecstatic.

Some people put you in this “occult” category but there is certainly much more to it. When I listen to Sunn O))) there is this transportation, you make us mind travel.

If you have an active imagination and love listening to music and go deeply into listening like we do, there’s a lot to offer there. It’s extremely detailed and precise and there’s a lot of depth to it and that’s a big pleasure for a music listener.

Drone metal isn’t the only aspect of Sunn O))), let’s talk about music and deep listening.

Greg Anderson and I built our lives around music. He built his record label so he could present music and I built up my artistic life so I could do projects and meet musicians and artists that I could work with.

There’s something about this repetition, of listening on repeat. You get a lot more out of the structure if you listen on repeat multiple times and not just pass through on your headphones or Spotify list. The album is written as an album and if you come back to it several times, you’ll see these more overarching and thematic details in the composition and you’ll learn more about the arrangement and intent of the music. If you are listening in that process, you will soon hear a lot more; it gives more of the mantra. The cycling part of the repetition gives a connection between Kannon III and Kannon I. It goes full circle.

If you’re a deep listener, you’ll notice a lot more of the overall composition. The tracks are related in a different way than our other records and they are composed together as phases. They’re different tracks but they’re also related to each other musically speaking.

It’s a symphony, a classical durational thing actually.

You’ve made some pretty interesting collaborations, Attila Csihar being one of them. Who would you like to include in a future project?

That’s a question we are always asked but I don’t really like to talk about it. There’s something about not revealing collaborations

Sunn O))) Canons of Kannon

34

Your music style is known for several reasons, one of them for your ability to make the crowd fall into a deep listening mode. What is the recipe for crafting enchantingly long songs?

You need a lot of patience, that’s the first part. Our recipe has been playing a lot of concerts for a long time and being very stubborn about what we do. We never had a big desire to please the audience or entertain the public. It’s a miracle that we’ve come as far as we have with the music and this attitude. Of course we respect the audience and are pleased that they are interested. As an audience member you can immediately tell how real the intent of the music is. It’s very obvious right?

Absolutely.

You go to a concert, watch a band and it’s like instinct or sixth sense or empathy. It’s telepathic and you can immediately sense that.

You have a very eerie aura on stage.

How did you come up with this dark holistic identity? Did your experience

Canons of Kannon

S u n n O )))

or even revealing the aspirations until it actually happens. Maybe I’m superstitious.

We’ve been really fortunate and have had some amazing opportunities to work with incredible people like Scott Walker, Atilla Csihar, Oren Ambarchi, Eyvind Kang. There are a lot of people but it’s not like I’m going to say, “Oh, I want to work with Ice-T on the next record,” but then again who knows how things can transform in the next period.

There’s a lot of flexibility between the players and who is involved and that’s one of our strengths and if we change that it could turn out to be counterintuitive and restrictive.

with design help you define Sunn O)))’s identity?

Absolutely, I was always very interested and involved with aesthetics. I worked as an art director and creative director in advertising companies, and the group started in 1998 so we had a lot of time to work on ideas. What we are doing is not an occult or a ritual, but we decided to make robes which makes the audience wonder, “Why the fuck are these guys wearing these robes?” We also started using other tools and made it more ambiguous visually speaking, we can do these artistic things with lights, shadows, smoke and mirrors. All this elevates the experience and the audience is focusing on the overall experience of the group.

Your live shows definitely make us feel like we belong to something, this immersion happens.

It’s pretty amazing to see that people are willing to be so generous by coming to the concert and being so interested. Closing their eyes, lying on the floor, meditating, whatever they do to keep it going and take advantage of the situation. We also see in a more humorous note, hundreds of people in fog and it looks like a zombie film or a voodoo ceremony, I love that kind of image.

There’s a core necessity for this kind of ritualistic or ceremonial experience in the human DNA, it’s always been there.

I guess your live performance reaches its full potential in a smaller venue.

Do you prefer smaller concerts or bigger ones? How do you adapt?

It’s a challenge to play in any kind of venue.

We did two festival tours in the summer and there’s a debate between the people in the

nonnaK fo snonaC

band whether they like this outdoor thing.

You have to prepare months in advance and it’s definitely different playing on an outdoor stage than an indoor stage primarily because of acoustics. I think with Sunn O))) it’s more about the space because we take a lot of care with the technical side of things, and we take advantage of the situation too. When we play in a cathedral, which has happened, it’s a big space and generally we can’t play in small spaces anymore because we have too many amplifiers, so the stage needs to be a certain size which dictates the size of the space itself. We try not to be too far away from the audience, we try to stay connected.

Coming from the city of Alice in Chains, Nirvana, Metal Church and so on, how was it growing up in Seattle?

As a teenager, I was really into hardcore music and straight music. Most concerts in Seattle were happening in bars, still today, the US has really strict alcohol laws; yet another US paradox. You had to be 21 years old to go into a venue that had alcohol so I couldn’t go to shows like Nirvana or Soundgarden unless it was venue that had an all age policy.

I did get to see all of those bands; I saw Nirvana’s Nevermind record release show in a record store and Soundgarden’s Bad Motor Finger release show in a beautiful theatre in Olympia, Washington.

Seattle with Sunn O))). It blows my mind what’s been happening there musically; the underground scene is fucking strong. From September to March it rains nonstop and everyone has a house with a basement so what else are you supposed to do? Play music and it’s something you can do with friends when you are trapped inside. That’s probably why Scandinavia has so many metal bands.

Your background was more death metal so how did you get to know all these bands when you were younger?

Taking in account the Seattle scene was not the same as in Europe back in the day.

At that time there was something called tape trading and fanzines. I used to do a fanzine that was a big tool for me between ’93 and ’99 and I discovered so much music through that tool. There was one guy in Seattle who had a distro called Moribund Records and he would license demo tapes from bands in Europe that he heard about through the same way. He was always about a month or two ahead of me as far as discovering stuff. The bands would send him copies in a master cassette and he would dub all the cassettes on his stereo to sell. There was a lot more activity around the post office those days.

Our Editor in Chief, Anna Barr is from Seattle and she keeps telling me the same thing.

It’s been like that since the 50s, since rock and roll. I moved from Seattle in ’97 so I haven’t lived there for a long time but we continued to work and produce in

Culture

39

Love is a source of creation sets the foundation of Andrey Bartenev, making up the fate (or failure) of the Russian contemporary art scene.

Photography: With impatience surrounding resolutions of Danil Golovkin human destiny and struggling to find peace within himself, he has opened a getaway in Art Director: Andrey Bartenev creation with his shape-shifting colourful dream-like spacesuits which the wearer Make-up: can find themselves at time experiencing Andre Drykin@TheAgent.ru misery and existentialism; loneliness and for M.A.C. madness. At a lost, performers see themselves wandering, misplaced but at the same time Photography assistant: Michael Kovynev they are here, reflective of us scared, curious, shy and lost. With a interplanetary futuristic Producer: dream state vision, he furthers the message of Katya Mikhaleva peace on Earth, linking economic, financial and religious problems with the human deconstruction of nature.

The grim Soviet land of the Siberian Arctic Circle raised him with an intuitive understanding of unity by surrounding himself with sun roaming around his little town Norilsk for half of a year. The same Soviet land fed him 5 subjects on state ideology as a part of scenography BA. A performance artist and a sculptor, a lecturer at Ostfold University College and a nourisher of artistic youth at his School of Happiness, upon closer examination of Bartenev’s work we see a journey of exploration into future social structuring with shining optimism with projects like the Watermill Center.

Bartenev’s work intimately invites us to join him on the surrealistic journey of the life, full of expansions and surprises, the journey never finishes when we participate to reflect and allow ourselves to be surprised at how life unfolds while we survive together and as individuals at the same time. He offers up hope and reminds us that art is love.

Interview by Nadoukka Divin

Wanderings with Andrey Bartenev

On Life Choices

1

What element of life do you entrust to stimulate your journey?

The source of all my movement is passionate curiosity.

You say you are an emotional person.

How do you envision emotion in future humans?

Either by the end of the XXI century our planet will become ecologically inhabitable or we will become more responsible and improve the state of our ecosystem. Why am I bringing up this issue? A healthy ecology is the basic resource of the human kind – it’s its future. For example, if the environment gets worse, people will become more aggressive and militant – we’re observing something very similar on the Middle East today. That said all the sensitive and peaceful people like me will parish quickly.

In other words, they might live up to sixteen years and fade away because emotionally they will no longer be able to withstand the social aggression and propaganda against them. Only soldiers, one may say, soldiers and medics will survive. Humanism will be replaced by aggressive theocratic and political systems. The humanists will be put to sleep forever – an ecological disaster will occur accompanied by a collective cognition misbalance. The predominance of a destructive philosophy will quickly annihilate the carriers of peaceful ideologies and later the earth along with its live forms.

All this destruction will develop under super-righteous mottos and messages, but the goal is solely the conquering of new territories in order to satisfy a few people’s constantly inflating greed.

40

Styling: Kate Troshko Full look: HUGO by Hugo Boss

2

On Russia and the Western World

Are there any reasons for the underdevelopment of performative art in Russia?

After the commercialization of Russian contemporary art in the end of the 90s, it was necessary to destroy all the rudiments of any existing contemporary Russian culture in order to strengthen the connection between the Euro-American artists and their artificially created Russian imitators.

This process was lobbied by curators who actively promoted the so-called Moscow Conceptualist movement, which was spiritually close to the German school of Joseph Beuys. It was hard to make it popular, but the movement was convincing enough for Russian intelligentsia since it was copying established European models and had commercial value there. We have a saying “Monkey sees, Monkey does” and art has gone through the same process here. The goal of this Euro-American art strategy was to empty the Russian art market, to inhibit the creation of any national singularities and art concurrency, funny enough they managed to succeed in their mission through the hands of Russian curators.

Until today we never managed to create a strong, convincing and distinguished Russian visual expression. The country who offered the world the ideas of constructivism and Black Square finds itself among the ruins of show-off consumerism; drown in the European art sales swamp. The worst consequence of this process is the hatred of the masses towards the experiments of the modern artists and the aggressive actionism of the artists towards the masses. As a result, we have millions of suspicious and indifferent towards any form of humanistic manifestation young Russians. Yes, the

Europeans managed to create a new market, but what are you going to do with millions of fucktards that you raised with your greed?

How do you come to accept the household aspect of art making?

I’ve been working with my producer Alexander Khromov for twenty-five years and there’s a very strong level of humanism present to everything we do. I don’t chase profit or a career; I don’t see interest in that. What really matters is simply to live my life as a miracle. We tried to work with large commercial European galleries and to be honest it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience. I don’t want to be part of the art industry, it’s a specific sphere that lacks genuineness and it’s full of tired grown-ups able to successfully sell both pipelines and paintings. All their passion explosions are mostly triggered by cocaine or lack of it.

I don’t want to be part of the art industry, it’s a specific sphere that lacks genuineness and it’s full of tired grown-ups able to successfully sell both pipelines and paintings. All their passion explosions are mostly triggered by cocaine or lack of it.

Are there any reasons why contemporary Russian art chooses to survive through communicating about politics, sex and religion?

All the galleries seem to have a busy schedule – nothing but an illusion unfortunately there is no evolution observed. New artists come, enjoy some hype and disappear. There is no observed evolution of artistic personalities or artistic processes. Therefore there is no example that could guide the younger generation, proving them that one can be an artist for a lifetime. Modern day artists became an

analogy to creative directors of big fashion houses. This phenomenon did not exist before. Nowadays an artist is like a fashion brand. He must set up two exhibitions per season, work with clients; make the length of trousers and sleeves fit. Previously, this work was done mainly by dealers, but in Russia artists became immediately part of that dealer-management process.

One of the processes that have been developing for the past fifteen years observes the artist becoming seasonal merchandise. There is a set of names that live for one season, and are gone by the next. One brand might last for three, four, or even five or six seasons, but then it’s gone anyways. If you look Russian art market, all the commercially successful artists are those formed either in the nineties or early noughties. Take a gallery owner or a curator as an example – they will obviously prefer to work with an artist who already has its reputation formed in the 90s or early 00s and can be easily sold rather than a new name in need of another ten years to build up its recognition and price. Seasonal artists are a new trend in the Russian culture in general, it never happened before and it plays a negative role harmful to the entire art community.

In the art world, what do you consider to be the role of the Russian emigre collecting Russian contemporary art in attempt to promote and sell it?

I think it’s a utopia. American and European contemporary art is far more powerful than anything the National Russian Art Production could possibly offer. Russian people and especially Russian artists have quite emotional personalities, and tend to quickly dissolve in values that define

European and American society. They quickly start to imitate and thus very easily lose their identity and eventually become very average European or American artists. There is no other Russian artist as successful as Ilya Kabakov, this fact reveals how inefficient and complex the process is - there should be a certain management component. In Kabakov’s case it’s his wife Emilia, who is an astonishingly wise and competent manager. Honestly I don’t have knowledge of any other unions as fruitful as theirs. Certainly, we can now say that all the great artists had Russian wives or Russian mistresses or Russian muses. Well, yes, Russians succeed most in being muses, lovers and wives, which is not a bad thing too. Take Chagall, Kandinsky or Kabakov, how many more names can you think of who made it big in Europe or America? The rest succeeded because they managed to enter certain art movements that suddenly became a trend – like Russian constructivism but these are not lifelong examples.

Personally I would still be glad to practice in Europe, because the life itself is much more interesting than the process of art making. In Russia is the opposite, creativity is stimulated by the boredom. In order to balance this emotional lack, you draw, you make up stories, you develop a structure, you invent, you design, you make sculptures or come up with a spacesuit - anything that you want you have to imagine it and this is a genuine kind of creative impulse.

3

On Future Social Structuring and London

Can human development be attached to any particular geography or society?

There is no center. There are only few examples like Burning Man, Slava Polunin’s

Andrey is wearing Disc Blaze Bright Puma The team is wearing Air Huarache Nike Shoes provided by street-beat.ru

Yellow Mill or Wilson’s Watermill Center...

These are places, where you can come and see the shining of optimism. You can learn from that shining, process it and return back to your cocoon.

70s England had this very positive energy coming from the glam rock and the Sexual Revolution. Lots of my friends, who were in their twenties back then said that «70s London was an enchanting place to be» and it was never the same again. When we go to London now, we witness a center of multiple layers, each one composed by different social niches. Fashion and art are developing in accordance with the service certain niches receive. These niches stick to each other to form crystals, the crystals are placed one on top of another to form a high tower and you can travel from one crystal tower to the other to understand what the purpose of that distance is. How the loss or the acquisition of the distance determines the progress of a metropole.

Do you see yourself involved in the proliferation of art that removes the emotion from the artist?

No. Creativity is based on emotional experiences. Creativity is based on the artist’s experience of interaction with the environment; processed information is later transported to the DNA. The most important element that affects creativity is love. Love is an external essence. Love is faster than anything and it quickly penetrates the chromosome enhancing it.

Love is everything for Art… Everything is done for the sake of love; everything can be done with love. Even when there’s no love, the artist reflects on the quest for love.

What do you think about a society where individuals’ DNA is analyzed at birth and for a pre-selected position in society?

It’s DNA-fascism. In a normal civilization it’s unacceptable because free will cannot be taken into account. One can read DNA’s information code and draw conclusions on its basis, but it’s not a reason strong enough to correct one’s orientation. There are plenty external factors susceptible to affect the DNA. For example, a single element of DNA can be taken out and either enhanced or weakened and thus able to convert an entire society to absolute heterosexuality. Then what are we going to do about the lack of bisexual and homosexual experience? Let all these systems and emotional experiences must hold equal rights, because it’s clear that homosexual and bisexual manifestation relates to Nature’s population program.

Nature itself has planned out how many people may inhabit its territory. I mean our DNA holds information that will guarantee our survival in 4200 but today we seem obsessed to destroy our salvation in future.

70s England had this very positive energy coming from the glam rock and the Sexual Revolution. Lots of my friends, who were in their twenties back then said that «70s London was an enchanting place to be» and it was never the same again. When we go to London now, we witness a center of multiple layers, each one composed by different social niches. Fashion and art are developing in accordance with the service certain niches receive. These niches stick to each other to form crystals, the crystals are placed one on top of another to form a high tower and you can travel from one crystal tower to the other to understand what the

purpose of that distance is. How the loss or the acquisition of the distance determines the progress of a metropole.

Do you see yourself involved in the proliferation of art that removes the emotion from the artist?

No. Creativity is based on emotional experiences. Creativity is based on the artist’s experience of interaction with the environment; processed information is later transported to the DNA. The most important element that affects creativity is love. Love is an external essence. Love is faster than anything and it quickly penetrates the chromosome enhancing it.

Love is everything for Art… Everything is done for the sake of love; everything can be done with love. Even when there’s no love, the artist reflects on the quest for love.

What do you think about a society where individuals’ DNA is analyzed at birth and for a pre-selected position in society?

It’s DNA-fascism. In a normal civilization it’s unacceptable because free will cannot be taken into account. One can read DNA’s information code and draw conclusions on its basis, but it’s not a reason strong enough to correct one’s orientation. There are plenty external factors susceptible to affect the DNA. For example, a single element of DNA can be taken out and either enhanced or weakened and thus able to convert an entire society to absolute heterosexuality. Then what are we going to do about the lack of bisexual and homosexual experience? Let all these systems and emotional experiences must hold equal rights, because it’s clear that homosexual and bisexual manifestation

relates to Nature’s population program.

Nature itself has planned out how many people may inhabit its territory. I mean our DNA holds information that will guarantee our survival in 4200 but today we seem obsessed to destroy our salvation in future.

Nowadays an artist is like a fashion brand.

He must set up two exhibitions per season, work with clients; make the length of trousers and sleeves fit. Previously, this work was done mainly by dealers, but in Russia artists became immediately part of that dealermanagement process.

What about sex?

Intercourse is necessary. The question is how much longer Earth can endure it?

The planet is a reasonable being, just like everything else. Just imagine what a miracle it is when you take a grain, plant it in the ground, and pour magic water on it and it sprouts. It’s magic, divine magic. In the meantime, humanity is fighting for the denial of this magical element. There’s sex happening between the grain, water and earth.

discover some optimistic and creative ideas. Creativity as a process has become an exception, but it still exists. The more people realize that there’s a place for their passions, desires and statements - the more this idea will be transmitted to the future generations.

In which way is it important for an aspiring artist to have a mentor?

There are two ways. You can have a living mentor that you trust, and then everything is easier. If you don’t have a mentor, you have to imagine one for yourself. It can be What functions does morality play in anyone you like. It can be a writer who has long been dead. It may be a film director, its interaction with the artist?

It depends on what the soul of a human who is still alive or already perished. You being is. European democracy has been make the comparison between yourself and developed up to present day in accordance between his/her emotional findings. This is with a postulate that every person is an the training, which forms you. This search individual. Meaning there is no one moral forms your character, and your discipline. vector. This gives a huge number of solutions At various moments of my life my teachers and knowledge. A person has the right to were either literary or historical figures, or choose by his own will to be a terrorist or just real people who I met. Each one of them victim of terror. The lacuna of European contributed to the mosaic of my personality. democracy is the absence of support to the life-affirming ideas and life-affirming flows. On conscious and subconscious A democratic society says that everyone should live in peace and at the same time In your body of work performance and sculpture are inherent to each cuts down all the trees or dries up lakes. If other. How did you choose these two we constantly preach peace, but at the same Medias? time kill homeless dogs and cats, it means Objects are in a way inheritance from that there’re variations and exceptions to my space travels. All the objects that are put the “living in peace” scheme. When such on people are suits for space travel. They variation takes place, people use it and are different because space can be tight, conclude that creation may only happen honeycombed, rarefied and charged. Each through destruction. If society decided the form corresponds to different emotional route of creation, let’s be convincing in each goals. When you are involved in such shapes element of this statement: earth, people and from the inside, where the core is a very animals. Let’s transmit this peace and this fragile human body, during the flight it is love to the planet, humans and animals. easy for you to switch to an object, which Give equal rights to everything — that’s will contain a set of these spacesuits of fucking democracy. different shapes. Exactly like a Matryoshka.

You either create spacesuits, and then a On Youth spaceship to carry them or you make a slice of the space within this story can happen.

Was the creation of your educational projects a move towards the Is there any place or time where you development of local youth? would travel with a one-way ticket?

Yes there is.

The program’s slogan was: «Let’s save those, who can still be saved». The intention was to show them that creativity is possible What is it?

It’s a place. It’s a secret place. even in a doomed world and possibly

Snowberry, 2015

5

4

Come Sunday

On Sunday you would see peanuts in By Sergey Neamoscou bottles, simple meals, and sweet potatoes at the gathering of a community that is emerging with a new agenda to raise consciousness. We went to the Ivory Coast and became acquainted with the sex workers many of whom are LGBT and HIV positive who are involved with the villagers through their grassroots Sunday meals where they sensitize local communities to their problems. They introduce their whole family, ask about your family, distribute condoms, and show how to put them on. It is about raising awareness, but through an African mentality. “Life is tough, but we should still be proud and happy, life is worth living.�

We still have the same issues in Europe as the Africans, which is why we should care about Africa. Because of the Vatican, we are the ones that preached to practice without protection, so we are still quite responsible. We are also the ones pumping the money out of African countries and we need to give something in exchange.

It is very hard to combine economic and social issues together, but they depend on each other. I was expecting to see quite a bit of misery, desperation, but I found myself around happy people. They wanted to have fun, to show others that they exist, that they are kind and funny.

Shooting on the beach, capturing these emerging activists on my Mamiya 7 with expired 120 film was one of the happiest moments of my life. It was also one the most emotional moments of my life; it was something stronger than myself.

53

Photo by eroen Mantel Š Angelos bvba Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

An Artist Soul: A Mass Dissection of Jan Fabre

61

By Andrei Zozulya-Davidov

Over the past thirty years, Belgian multidisciplinary artist Jan Fabre expands the horizons of every genre he applies his artistic vision dealing with such themes as lust, beauty, erotica and the body; alongside age-old rituals and philosophical questions.

With works as diverse as his The Angel of Metamorphosis exhibition held at the Louvre Museum in 2008 and his decoration of the ceiling of the Royal Palace in Brussels Heaven of Delight (made out of one million six hundred thousand jewel-scarab wing cases), his works have been praised on wide eclectic spectrum. He is an artist that fights for daily reflections.

That’s very interesting; I thought Troubleyn was more related to trouble, because your performances were very provocative and unusual, now I see it has a more personal meaning.

No, not at all, it’s my mother’s maiden name (laughs).

Jan, insects are one of the core components of your work, was this fascination inherited from one of the greatest entomologists in history, Jan, your creative activity can be your great-grandfather Jean-Henri found in both Angelos — representing Fabre?

Yes, I must thank my family members you as a visual artist and Troubleyn for that. They had a lot of old publications, —representing you as a theatre artist.

I’m curious about the etymology of manuscripts, drawings. I remember the first these words in the context of your time I saw them, I was 17 or 18 years old and art. Do they serve to distinguish two it influenced me a lot. Later, I built my first laboratorium, The Nose/Noselaboratory different creative personas?

(1978 - 1979), in my parent’s garden and I Etymologically, the word Troubleyn — was sitting inside at a small table drawing, which is actually my mother’s family name using my microscope, digging up worms, — comes from old Flemish and it means stay faithful. Twenty-five years ago, I made an catching flies; ripping off wings of flies and trying them on the worms. I felt like Dr. opera trilogy called The Minds of Helena Frankenstein doing these experiments.

Troubleyn and it was exactly at that moment that I decided to call my theatre company Do you have any favourite insects? and my office Troubleyn. Troubleyn is a I do. The Scarabaeus, it’s my favourite one. very special name in Belgium, there’s only like five of them and they are all my family. One can find it in many of your In the context of my work, Troubleyn sculptures. is more like stay faithful to beauty and Yes, because in many of these sculptures Angelos comes from the words angels and the Scarabaeus symbolizes the bridge messengers, so my visual artworks are sent between life and death, that symbolism is out like messengers of beauty. also present in traditional Flemish paintings.

Installation view of Ilad of the Bic The Bic Art Room 1981 Wax, metal, granite.

55 x 50 x 60 cm Photo by Fred Balhuizen © Angelos bvbva Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Ilad of the Bic Art (self-portrait) 1980 – 2007 Black-and-white photo, HB pencil, Bic-ink 18 x 24 cm Photo by Lieven Herreman © Angelos bvba Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

«Do we feel with our brain and think with our heart» 2013 Silicone, paint, fabric, hair, polymer.

34.5 x 29 x 24 cm Photo by Lieven Herreman © Angelos bvba

Why is the Scarabaeus your favourite insect? For aesthetic reasons or something more personal?

Both, for ethical and aesthetic reasons.

A significant part of my creations from the nineties are research about the exoskeleton and the endoskeleton. We humans have an inner skeletons, Scarabaeus have an outer skeleton. That’s the reason why this insect survived a couple of million years and of course thinking about exoskeleton is thinking about creating a new skin, a new armour for humans… creating a new kind of protection. From the moment humans have an outer skeleton, you can’t hurt them anymore, you can’t wound them and you go away from the stigmatas of Christ.

experiment with drawing, to feel what it is like to become kind of a drawing machine.

I also wanted to explore the idea of being locked in a jail and out of boredom start drawing. Later came the pleasure and consequently more drawings. I started to draw on my body, on my clothes, on the white sheets, on the walls. In the end I was more like a drawing machine than an artist because I managed to stay awake during the whole performance and at some point, I started to act in a different way and became more lucid. It was all these questions about being human, being an artist, staying awake for many days, being locked in jail, those were the reasons I did the performance.

Going back to the antipodes of your career in the late 70s and early 80s, could you tell me more about the influence of those iconic performances, like Bic Art Room for example?

There’s a big exhibition touring in Europe curated by Germano Celant — also the inventor of Arte Povera — called Stigmata.

Actions & Performances 1976 - 2013 about my solo performances from 1976 until now. The knowledge of the experience, the mental and physical experience of a solo performance influences my work very much.

You can see this clearly in this exhibition.

«Homage to Jacques Mesrine» (Bust) 2013 Wax, metal, granite.

55 x 50 x 60 cm Photo by Mario Gastinger © Angelos bvba Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

What was the first thing you did when you left the room?

I was a young guy in my twenties. When I came out I went to dance (laughs)! That’s a nice thing to do after being released. One of your latest exhibitions, Sacrum Cerebrum celebrates the human brain, can you tell me more about it?

It’s a series of new works based on the motif of the holy heart. It’s kind of a research around artists and paintings from different countries representing Mary and Jesus Christ. In two words, the exhibition is basically a combination of science and religion; a consilience between visual art, science and religion. The scientific part I’m particularly thinking about the was influenced by Giacomo Rizzolatti, a Bic Art Room performance when you well known Italian neurophysiologist who isolated yourself during many days discovered mirror neurons, with whom I in the room. Was it a process of selfmade a performance film in 2013 called Do discovery? What were the reasons we feel with our brain and think with our that led you into that experience? heart? It’s because of mirror neurons that you There were different reasons, to be know imitation, empathy and compassion; honest. I lived for three days and three it’s all a construction of our brain. And nights in a white room, there was no we all know the brain is the sexiest part of difference between day and night. I wanted the body. Without imagination, there’s no to go through a series of mental and erection. physical experiments, but I also wanted to

A Mass Dissection

Merciful Dream (Pietà V) 2011

So basically, the idea was to take the sacred heart imagery and reinterpret it through science?

Yes, the idea was to reinterpret the sacred imagery and the religious elements through science. The exhibition has various drawings and collages, but also small brain models made from the purest Carrara white marble. I find them very erotic and sensual.

your body. What is the purpose of these homages?

You have to understand that I’m a dwarf born in the country of giants. My father introduced me to Rubens when I was five.

Seeing the genius of Rubens had a huge impact. Then I saw paintings of Hieronymus Bosch in a museum. Later van Eyck and van Dyck, the whole Flemish school was closeby, and these are my roots. These artists are Have you ever been through a life- so brilliant, so imaginative, very daring and changing situation? subversive. When you see a Hieronymus I think I had two moments in my life that Bosch painting or a van Eyck painting it’s were very important. Twice I was in coma incredibly much more imaginative and and as an artist all my work is essentially subversive than any contemporary art today. about the post-mortem stage of life.

So I steal a lot from these artists, and when I do these homages, it’s a way to pay my Can you tell more about the sculpture, respects to tradition.

The man who bears the cross that is now part of the patrimony of the I remember the famous busts you did in homage to famous French Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp?

What happened was two years ago, I made gangster Jacques Mesrine. What this sculpture that was shown in Antwerp. A were the reasons back then?

It happened for different reasons, I was sculpture of myself balancing a huge cross raised in the streets of Antwerp and I was a on my hand and it was made of wax. Then the priest Bart Paepe came to the exhibition good street fighter, so I was always busy in and decided to buy it. That sculpture was the nightlife with gangsters. At some point the base of the bronze sculpture The man back then I made a performance in New who bears the cross which was recently York called Art Kept Me Out Of Jail and that inaugurated as a permanent artwork at the idea stayed with me, art and beauty saved Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp and me. I still have a lot of respect for gangsters placed right in front of Ruben’s Descent of and it was through befriending artists that I discovered Jacques Mesrine. I started to read the Cross. his biography, all the books on the subject While observing your extensive and for my exhibition at Louvre, L’ange de la metamorphose (2008) – I was the first living oeuvre we can find a few homages artist to stage a solo show there – they asked to artists like Hieronymus Bosch, me to do a performance as well. I saw the Joseph Beuys and even Michelangelo Louvre as a jail, so the whole performance with your famous Pieta sculpture was about an artist who wants to escape where Death instead of Mary carries from the museum; it was a reference to

o f Jan Fabre

Installation view of PIETAS White Carrara marble 190 x 195 x 110 cm Photo by Pat Verbruggen © Angelos bvba Courtesy the artist and Ronchini Gallery

Mesrine because he was well-known for his brilliantly orchestrated escapes, using masks, beards and costumes, basically metamorphosing himself. Transformation and metamorphosis are very important topics in my work and these two elements were crucial for my solo performance which was also about the passion for love and for anarchy.

Some people describe you as a multimedia artist, how do you see yourself?

I’m a consilience artist; the term was reintroduced by biologist, philosopher and

entomologist Edward O. Wilson. In brief, consilience is about combining facts and ideas across disciplines, so you can find links and give them new interpretations.

I’ve been doing this for thirty years, my theatre writing influences my visual arts and vice versa. It’s not about being multimedia or hybrid, it’s about consilience and keeping the experimentation.

The Bashkirs Diary, July at the Magical Miner Summits of the Urals Observations, details, reflections, accounts of dreams, and ideas by Igor Samolet Urals are the oldest mountains in the world.

Such places make you think over and over again about your life and gained experience. Climbing to the top of the mountain was identical to author’s travelling inside himself

The Bashkirs Diary

by Igor Samolet

68

By Damilola Oshilaja

For many, pilgrimage is a word that is associated with a kind of spiritual journey, mostly in the realm of religion — a visit to a place where something happened or where something is. Lumbini in Nepal is a place journeyed to, for it is known as the birthplace of Buddha; other places like Mecca and Jerusalem, to name a few, are journeyed to for the sake of pilgrimage as well.

Art indeed has a spiritual reflection, after all most art is mined from the soul and through the mechanics of the body. History has blessed the earth with a wealth of pilgrimage sites in the Arts. From the cave dwellings of early artists to the homes of notable proponents of fine art, pilgrimage is seen in the relationship between the maker and the audience because of the significance that both place on the work — as something to be enjoyed; as something that can reflect; as something that can be experienced; or as something that ultimately provides meaning.

To embark on a pilgrimage is to get closer to an event in time through the tangible residue of a most important moment.

Pilgrimage, indeed reinforces a state of consciousness of compound reality, where the material experience is connected to an intangible unknowing. Art as a phenomenon offers this much; that intersection of connectivity to an energy that’s magnetic, sometimes magical. However, it is not merely about seeing the products of Art. The journey matters, preparation and arrival are key. The departure is forgotten. Talk is only ever about the journey, and the experience.

London in recent years has quickly evolved into being a cultural centre of the world, a Mecca for fine art. In a calendar year, the city plays host to tens of thousands

London Fayres

of pilgrims, and a number of sites that all celebrate art. There are between 15 and 20 fairs taking place in the capital annually, hence I see London as a place of pilgrimage in the name of art.

Amongst all this activity, I want to point out three fairs of note: Frieze, Art16 and 1:54.

1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair is about 4 years old, and has already solidified itself as the vista of contemporary art from Africa (through the land and its diasporas) in London, held at Somerset House.

Art16, still relatively young, is a fair specializing in showcasing work from galleries around the world, shy of the mainstream. With a slight adjustment to its name (last year it was Art15), and evolving with every edition, it is held at the historic London Olympia.

Frieze (including its Masters edition) is arguably the most renowned 21st century art fair in the world. Conceived in London, it is the one all fairs are measured by, the first to lay claim to London’s Wild West art celebration. Pitching up tent in the woodland area of Regents Park in London, it is quite the emerald of fairs.

Art16 comes alive in May, while Frieze and 1:54 appear in October.

78

Installation Image, Marlborough Fine Art Frank Auerbach solo booth at Frieze Masters Art Brussels Creative Campaign 2016 ©OTTOMURA

Nicolas K Feldmeyer, courtesy of Maddox Arts, London UK, at ART15

Each year around 600,000 people visit Graceland, Elvis Presley’s former home, which has become the place of worship for the rock n’ roller’s legions of fans. All year round, Elvis’ grave is piled high with candles, letters and other offerings, items that dramatically increase during August’s Elvis Week, spreading across the estate’s white picket fences. Venerated British pop artist Sir Peter Blake has never been to Graceland, but has created his own site of pilgrimage to the star, in the form of an expansive shrine erected in Waddington Custot Galleries, London.

Elvis Shrine: Portraits, Landscapes

or Still Lifes? brings together the vast array of Elvis paraphernalia that Blake has amassed over the last twenty years, ranging from photographs to junk shop paintings and souvenirs. The artist is well known as an avid collector, but evidence of his interest in Elvis can be traced back to 1961 in his Self Portrait with Badges showing the artist proudly clutching an Elvis fanzine. The shrine is about more than just fandom, its careful curation and deliberate colour palette distances the artwork from the emotional arrangements left in Memphis.

Blake returns to one of Pop Art’s central concerns, the seductive power held by these mass-produced portraits of popular icons and the cult of consumerism. The many Elvis images and objects together contain a transcendent, holy quality, completely eclipsing the more traditional art lingering at the back of the shrine. Blake maintains a critical distance, showing how the man has been reduced to pure image, continuously reimagined to retain its everlasting appeal.

Blake more resembles the tourist, visiting Graceland to see what all the fuss is about than the devoted fan.

The caption for the work is:

Peter Blake, Elvis Shrine Portraits: Landscapes or Still Lifes?

1995 – 2015 Three wood panels and tables with household paint, found objects and tube LED lights, courtesy of the artist and Waddington Custot Galleries

80

The Cult of the King

By Sophie Balfour-Lynn

By Charin Chong and Kristopher Orr

«Swiss Army Man» Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan Award winning music video directors “The Daniels” make their feature debut with this surprisingly original take on a theme that has been visited many times before.

Hank (Paul Dano) is stranded on a desert island and has no hope of ever returning home, that is, until a dead body (Daniel Radcliffe) washes up on shore. The film chronicles this unlikely “friendship” and takes viewers through the entire spectrum of human emotion as Hank tries to escape certain death and return to the woman of his dreams. In this complete departure from their usual roles, Dano and Radcliffe seem right at home, giving honest and vulnerable performances that are sure to move critics and audiences alike. Having shown at Sundance this past January, Swiss Army Man will hopefully (fingers crossed) have a wider release later this year.

«Alias Grace» Sarah Polley Canadian actress/director Sarah Polley has returned to the director’s chair for Alias Grace, slated for release in late 2016. The film is an adaptation, based on the best selling historical fiction of the same name by acclaimed writer Margaret Atwood. Set in 1840’s Canada, the film tells the story of Grace Marks, the 16 year old housemaid who was convicted and jailed for killing a wealthy landowner and his housekeeper mistress. Polley is no stranger to adapting relationship dramas, as her 2006 adaptation Away From Her garnered an Academy Award nomination. Alias Grace seems to be the perfect setting for Polley to revisit and explore deeply human themes such as conflict, isolation, loneliness and love, something she has done with subtlety and expertise in past works.

Films to Watch in 2016

82

«The Circle» James Ponsoldt Officially, things have been relatively silent about James Ponsoldt’s (End of Watch, Smashed) upcoming film, but the internet is abuzz with speculation about his latest project The Circle. In End of Watch, author David Foster Wallace’s raw observations of human behavior left moviegoers asking why humans do the things that they do. Based on Dave Eggers science fiction novel The Circle, it explores social media, technology, big data, and how quickly people will give up individuality in the interest of convenience and security. These and other contemporary sci-fi themes are turned on their heads in most unsettling ways. As one exits the cinema after, it may be with some discomfort and reticence that he/she, as they’ve done countless times before, reaches for their smartphone to check for the latest notification.

«Freezing People is Easy» Errol Morris Director Errol Morris is an expert in documenting big events while honing in on the players and key decision makers, revealing very human, personal, and relatable characters that cause viewers to re-examine their previously held beliefs/ impressions. It won him an Oscar for the documentary The Fog of War, which detailed the career of Robert S. McNamara.

In Freezing People is Easy, Morris ventures into the world of feature films with this highly anticipated biopic. To say that people have been patiently waiting for this film would be an understatement; it’s been in production for over three years, but it’s been talked about for much longer. The film is inspired by the memoir We Froze the First

Man and it tells the true story of Bob Nelson, a TV repairman in 1960s Los Angeles.

Nelson was a pioneer in the field of human cryogenics. With a script written by Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) and leading actors Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, Kristen Wiig and Christopher Walken, moviegoers will be treated to a story that is, excuse the throwback, stranger than fiction. Even though it’s been long in production, all the signs and speculations are pointing to 2016 being the year that it finally hits cinemas.

«Holy Hell» (undisclosed) People have always been fascinated by cults and the subsequent documentaries that are made about them. Usually they follow the familiar arc of small beginnings, relative success, and then implosion around the crippling paranoia or gradual mental collapse of their charismatic leaders. It is a story that never seems to get old, no matter how many times it is examined. As outsiders looking in, it’s like watching a train wreck; you know how it ends, and unfortunately with things of this nature, it rarely ends well.

Viewers have already seen this familiar arc play itself out in classic documentaries like The Source Family and Jonestown. Holy Hell made its premier at Sundance in January and it is no exception. The documentary chronicles a young filmmaker in the 80s, just out of college, as he joins a West Hollywood cult lead by a charismatic teacher. The documentary is told through two decades of the filmmaker’s footage. With a smaller general release later this year, Holy Hell is sure to be yet another fascinating venture into why the cult narrative is so attractive, entrapping, and all too often, sadly predictable.

«The Handmaid» Park Chan-wook After bringing us his stateside dark thriller Stoker in 2013, renowned Korean director Park Chan-wook returns to his homeland with The Handmaid, based on the Victorian-set novel Fingersmith by Sarah Walters. Park’s adaptation employs some of the country’s biggest names and in takes us to the Colonial Era of 1930 Korea when the country was under Japanese occupation. The film revolves around a con-artist scheme set in the house of a rich noble (Kim Min-hee) and her uncle (Cho Jin-woong) who are the target of a charming swindler (Ha Jungwoo) and his pickpocket sidekick played by newcomer Kim Tae-Ri who beat 1500 applicants for the coveted role. We’re excited to see how Park will put his signature spin on this unconventional love story between the two female leads, a rarity in today’s Korean cinema. The buzz has been growing about a potential premiere for The Handmaid at Cannes this year which currently is looking at a mid-2016 release internationally.

horror story does not yet have a release date, but should definitely still be on your radar.

«Midnight Special» Jeff Nichols With indie megawatts like Mud and Take Shelter under his belt, Jeff Nichols takes a scifi turn with his new film, Midnight Special.

Nichols was inspired by John Carpenter’s Starman and he teams up with Michael Shannon once again, this time the actor stars as the protective father of supernatural eight-year old son played by newcomer Jaeden Lieberher, whose strange powers land them in some unfortunate situations.

With the help of a few sympathetic souls, they head for a secret location while staying on the run from religious extremists and shady government agents, which is honestly a more realistic example of what would happen today if someone suddenly showed up having super powers, unlike what we’ll see in this year’s influx of superhero movies.

The movie also stars Joel Edgerton, Kirsten Dunst, Sam Sheperd and Adam Driver, and the thriller is gearing up to be another highly anticipated feature from the compelling «The Lure» Agnieszka Smoczynska From young Polish director Agnieszka storyteller. Midnight Special premiers at this Smoczynska, this quirky, modern-day year’s Berlin Film Festival and is planned for fairytale of two mermaid sisters, played by an international release in March 2016.

Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszanska would make Hans Christian Andersen «The Neon Demon» Nicolas Winding himself blush. Set against the backdrop of Refn It wouldn’t be an Eclectic list without Warsaw in the 80s, a strange occurrence lead the sisters Silver and Gold, to become mentioning a horror movie, and this time strippers in the middle of a vibrant, our pick is the highly anticipated film from nightclub frenzy of neon lights and sequins. Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn They end up being a nightlife sensation, which stars Ella Fanning as an aspiring but that is all about the go horribly awry model who, in an age old cliché, moves to when one of them falls in love with a local Los Angeles in pursuit of jumpstarting her boy. The Lure has been chosen as one of the career. But that’s where the ciché ends as World Dramas at this year’s Sundance Film her beauty and youth quickly becomes the Festival and previously won the best debut subject of obsession of a group of women film at the Gdynia Film Festival, this musical hell-bent on getting what she has through

any means necessary. Refn has built a strong portfolio of ultra-violent films not for the faint of heart including Bronson, Valhalla Rising and his latest, Only God Forgives.

The difference this time around is that The Neon Demon is dominated by female actors, adding Christina Hendricks, Abbey Lee and Jena Malone to the cast. The story is loosely based on Countess Elizabeth Bathory, so let that serve as a warning for the film’s virgin maidens. The Neon Demon has been picked up by Amazon Studios is scheduled to be released in summer 2016.

The Great Fruit: limited 86 design & video Fresh of the Great Fruitproduction84

Photography by Pavel Kondratiev Interview by Andrei Zozulya-Davidov

В октябре 2015 года мы с Анной случайно поVB: You can understand it by watching пали на презентацию клипа Vito Ricci – I’m at our music videos and we never produced that party right now в Москве. Там мы познаvideos for those we don’t like to listen to, so комились с создателями клипа и показали его far. в онлайн версии нашего журнала. По ходу общения с парнями из GF мы узнали об их широком визуальном профиле и решили заказать у What did you do last summer?

VB: We were filming a music video for них оформление...

What is Great Fruit and how it differs from other fruits?

Valdis Bielykh: It’s almost like a grapefruit, a perky orange, but instead of juice you have our ideas coming out and instead of peel – our bodies. We’re thirtynagers – we’re all in our thirties, but our soul is that of a teenager. We do stuff for people with the same soul as ours.

You guys are involved into a diversity of visual projects, how the inspiration process for a magazine layout differs from that of creating a music video for example?

VB: It’s all the same to be honest. In the end the viewer receives a portion of greatfruit juice, either in a glass or splashed in his face.

What is the best drink to have during work?

VB: Water.

Roman Ruktansky: Kefir.

«Frosted Lakes» Manuel Gonzales aka MGUN

Vito Ricci – the father of NYC downtown music and partying with our families at Great Fruit farmhouse..

How does it feel to work in Moscow nowadays?

VB: Man you know all you see on TV is bullshit. I’m Ukrainian and I love this city, young people don’t give a fuck about politics, we love each other. Despite of everything the creative industry is very strong and you have great opportunities to meet exciting people and make friends for life. We do resist!

«I’m at that party right now» Vito Ricci

What are you working on at the moment?

RR: We’re working on a new music video for Lay-Far, he’s a house music producer from the Swedish label Lokal Talk you should check him out, really cool stuff!

The Great Fruit’s ideas are better driven by silence or by noise? If you prefer noise, what kind of noise is it?

RR: We love to swear and laugh like crazy. We have a team of music lovers, so everyone contributes with their songs.

w w w.t h e g r e a t f r u i t . c o m

«Sirenas» Lapti & Nocow

eclectic

the

m

agaz

F l

ip

i

e n

and Start reading from This Cover w w w. e c l e c t i c - m a g a z i n e . c o m