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frequency - 2 FOU N DER S Editor in Chief ALAN VINOGRADOV Creative Director MATT FRIED Production Director BARRIS VINOGRADOV

STA FF Fashion Director ALAN ECKSTEIN Assistant Fashion Editor DONNA KANG Assistant Editor in Chief CALEB CLARK Contributing Editor CHASE STOGEL Culinar y Editor ADAM BEN’OUS Public Relations KRISTIAN LALIBERTE , TIMO WEILAND & RICHARD BASSETT Copy Editor ANGEL GARCIA Translator WILLIAM DEBORD

PHOTO GR A PH ER S BRYAN GURSKY LEXI LAMBROS

W R I TER S REMY MELINA JOHN FAVREAU NATE HURWITZ ERIC LAGASPI SHARON CLOTT MEGAN PFAUTZ MIRANDA LEVITT ANDREW MAROTTA

CON TR I BUTOR S ANASTASIA ARIANAS, CASEY FREEMAN, TAKASHI MATONA , VINCENT OQUENDO, HAYLEY LOEWENTHAL , YUSA , KATRINA VROOMAN, YAS KOSAK A

I NQUI R I ES

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contents frequency - 2 The Art Of Achievement 8

MEUBLES

Find Your Comfort Zone. The Nolen Niu collection is dually curious and inspiring.

ILLUMINATED

FUTURIST

GALLAREI

What Turns You On? Lighting with Owindo from Hong Kong.

Future’s History, an interview with Syd Mead.

Gradient Magazine presents Emmett Shine, Matt Siren, Gary Wenc & Lucien Dulfan in Gradient Frequency-2 “Art of Achievement.”

PALATABLE

THE REACTABLES

PICTURESQUE

Spicy Coconut Soup Served In a Young Coconut Shell. A timeless dish by private chef Adam Ben’Ous.

PRINCE ALL LINED UP

What is a cooking line and how does it work? An insightful look into Nikki Cascone’s cooking line.

Sugar Cubes. “ReacTable, a tabletop musical instrument based on human computer interaction.”

Below Fade Street. A journey through the city with DJ DL, DJ Make a Mess Kid & DJ Nick Cohen.

86 Gradient Magazine is a publication bent on connecting the creative vectors of popular culture . Unifying the diverse tastes of an actively engaged generation coming of age in a millennium of phantasmagorical information. The urge to absorb it all is great, yet with all that is out there it can be difficult to navigate through the hype. We at Gradient have reached out to some of the most inventive and creative young minds in each of their fields to bring you the scoop on the cutting edge and the innovative. Gradient is opening a new frontier of exploration; into the imagination of the artist. Whether they be sculptors, musicians, writers, street performers, or designers, we seek to bring you the unique beauty found in each of their mediums. It is an idealist articulation and a realist exposition. Elevate your Gradient. 6

MUEBLES

seating Written by ANDREW MAROTTA

WRITTEN BY MIRANDA LEVITT Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s that, you say? Just M.C. Escher turning over in his grave as someone flicks the switch on this new form of lighting up a room. And no, your eyes are not playing tricks on you; Those are chandeliers from the new Owindo Collection. Not your typical table lamp, the industrial pieces of genius featured are conversations starters, both on and off. Falling somewhere between a kaleidoscope and a molecular breakdown, these beauties are born in Hong Kong from the mind of Max Lam, who tends to feature natural elements in his designs. The heart behind his work comes from a lack of a fancy art/design school education and a passion for creating practical works of art. The outcome? Lamps that look like celestial bodies, chandeliers that mimic pages of a high school chemistry book and a collection of lighting that has an almost skeletal backbone. No pun intended.

I LLUM I NATED

This takes you back to 10th grade chem. labs, replicating a text book image of elementary particles and the breakdown of protons, neutrons and electrons. Talk about too cool for school, these fixtures also feature multiple bulbs, which is sure to brighten even the darkest of foyers.

Teetering on the border of sculpture, the wind design featured with this lamp reflects patterns onto the wall when the light bounces off of the gold or chromeplated arms. This new-age disco ball would look perfect in any living room, giving just the right amount of light.

D.M. WEIL X JOHN ALLAN’S MEN’S GROOMING PRODUCTS

Phoenix Rising is a painting created by D.M. Weil using some of Gradient Magazines favorite John Allen’s grooming products. Face 15, Smoothe, Mint, Thick, Ocean, Bodywash, Sport & Scrub were all used as mediums for Phoenix Rising.

1.FACE 15 - Vitamin rich sun protection 2.SMOOTHE - Conditioning styling cream 3.SPORT - Conditioning shampoo 4.OCEAN - Daily nourishing shampoo 5.BODY WASH - Moisturizing cleansing gel 6.THICK - Deep cleansing volumizing shampoo 7.MINT - Invigorating hydrating conditioner 8. SCRUB - Exfoliating face cleanser

Shit Is Coming Aiming to challenge taboos and confront the american mainstream, Andres Serrano photographed different kinds of shit for his current exhibition at the yvon lambert gallery. And from the man who gave the world a shit storm twenty years ago with piss christ, he attacked a whole new set of mainstream conventions with his latest work and, letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just say, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more than just a shit show. Here, he tells us why. Interview by SHARON CLOTT and Photography by MATT FRIED

ometimes, the creative process takes you to unexpected places. I was once asked what my limits were and I said I wouldn’t do anything with children and sex. I also said I wouldn’t do anything with shit either because I found it disturbing, but I’ve also said things like “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with provocative art or challenging work and I look forward to the day when I can do something that even disturbs me.” That day arrived with Shit. Once I decided I was going to do Shit--something I never thought I’d do--I realized that I was the guy to do it. I’m always asking the audience to go the extra mile and push their limits and I decided it was time I push my own. I created Shit in a studio like most of my work. In this case, much of the work was done in a “studio” at a zoo in Ecuador. There, I had access to lion, jaguar, wolf, rabbit, turtle, tapir, cuchucho, chicken, sheep, horse, burro and all kinds of animal’s shit. I was given a room which we set up as a studio and I had access to all the shit I wanted. The first animal shit I shot in Ecuador was not at the zoo, though. The first shit I shot, Bull Shit, the most prevalent or prominent shit of all, was done on a farm. One of my contacts in Ecuador was a woman by the name of Mariela Garcia, and her friend, Monica Teran. Monica’s family is one of the biggest growers of fine roses in Ecuador. I had never met Mariela but had been put in contact with her through Esteban Mauchi, my printer. Esteban did not know Mariela either but was good friends with her brother, Aresenio Garcia. Monica and Mariela assumed that I had come to photograph animals because that’s what I had told everyone. I went with my assistant, Matt Alcock and my girlfriend, Irina Movmyga, and Monica and Mariela and drove a couple of hours north of Quito to Monica’s farm. When we got there, I said to her that I wanted to see the animals. I told her I wanted to see the bulls specifically and she took us to where the bulls were. I got out of the car and I said to her, “Monica, I’m going to tell you something that they,” meaning the people in the car, “don’t even know. I didn’t come here to photograph the animals. I came here to photograph the animals’ shit.” And she looked at me like, “Are you crazy?” When she realized that, one, I was crazy, and two, I was serious, she said to me, “OK, this is not the place. I’ll take you where we have to go for that.” At some point I realized, these shit pictures were portraits like most of my work. My portraits are often pictures of individuals and of symbols and archetypes, too. Portraits of the homeless, portraits of the dead, portraits of the Klan, portraits of America, portraits of plants, and now portraits of shit. I’ve used portraiture in my work as a means of exploring universal themes such as race, sex, religion, and death. In Shit, I saw heads, figures, faces, devils, and creatures from an underworld not unlike some of the fantastic figures and creatures in Goya’s Caprichos; a kind of Dante’s Inferno. Sometimes, you see a face, like in Dog Shit and Self-portrait, or a figure, such as in Hieronymus Bosch Shit, where you see a Bosch-like figure standing with a crown around its head. Like in Goya’s work, dark and mysterious shapes and forms inhabit an unimaginable world of darkness and madness. At first, some people may be horrified at the thought of shit. It may make them uncomfortable. But like most of my work, the words used to describe it are filled with more tension and fear than the work itself. I think most people would be surprised at how

beautiful and easy to look at this work actually is. Some may be a little shy or nervous about seeing the exhibition, but I think this work is going to win people over very quickly. I was certainly impressed when I saw the work printed. When I saw the large prints, I was amazed at how striking and beautiful they are. I have no doubt that most of the audience is going to be seduced and moved by the pieces. This show is the kind of show people expect from me: Big, brash, and daring; a complete surprise and a crowd pleaser. They expect more from me, and with Shit, I delivered. I don’t think my critics, collectors, fans, or the public will be disappointed. I believe this will be my most heavily attended show ever! My work pushes boundaries and sometimes the titles and subjects are more provocative than the images themselves. Evil Shit? Dog Shit? Good Shit? These are the titles of the pieces. I call them pieces, rather than photographs, because I’m a conceptual artist and the titles are part of the work. People are going to be talking about Shit, debasing high art and culture and elevating it at the same time. Like by using the word shit itself. The New York Post can’t write shit. Probably the New York Times can’t write shit, either. It’s taken almost 20 years for the Times to able to print the words Piss Christ, but I think it’s thanks to artists like me that boundaries are stretched and broken. I think America would freak out if they were exposed to most contemporary art. It’s new to them. To us, it’s old hat; we see it all the time. One thing the art world forgets is how very few people go to galleries and museums compared to how many people find amusement in movies, concerts, theaters, sports events, boxing matches, baseball games, football games, basketball games, wrestling matches, hockey rinks, racecar driving events, television, the Internet, and other forms of entertainment. I’ve always seen myself as a popular artist. I’d like my work to reach beyond the art world. The language I use in my titles is everyday language. The language is the language of the vernacular, not art. I always call myself an artist of the people, and when some blogs came out recently, after my show was announced, what the “people” said about my current work was not so endearing. Comments like “Serrano thinks his shit don’t stink” or “I hope he has a big opening” are quite funny, but the fact that these people are saying something about a show that has not even opened yet confirmed what I believe about my work. It has the power to reach out to people who normally do not go to art exhibitions or museums, but come to mine. I’ve given my audience food for thought and plenty of ammunition for the pundits. Some of the pieces I made, “Dumb Shit,” “Stupid Shit,” “Evil Shit,” and “Bull Shit” are all words that can be thrown back at me by my critics, so there’s a lot of self-irony in the work. I’m probably one of the few people in the world who can speak about my Shit and mean it literally. After people look at Shit, they’ll never look at their own shit (or art) the same way again.

People are going to be talking about Shit, debasing high art and culture and elevating it at the same time.

“Après mois, le deluge.” Sept. 4 to Oct. 4 at Yvon Lambert Gallery, 550 W. 21st St., New York, New York; 212-242-3611; www.yvonlambert.com.

--as told to Sharon Clott

FUTURe

HISTORY

DO YOU EVER WONDER WHERE THE FUTURE IS? WHERE ARE THE FLYING CARS, SELF-HYDRATING FOOD, JET PACKS, AND HOLOGRAM COMMUNICATORS? MOST IMPORTANTLY, WHERE IS THE HOVER-BOARD I HAVE BEEN DREAMING ABOUT SINCE THE LATE EIGHTIES? I GREW UP ON COMIC BOOKS AND SCI-FI MOVIES THAT PAINTED THE YEAR 2000 AS THIS MAGICAL GADGET-FILLED UTOPIA……AND WHAT DO WE HAVE TO SHOW FOR IT: HALF-ASSED HYBRID VEHICLES, RAZOR SCOOTERS, AND SNEAKERS WITH WHEELS ON THE HEEL. I MEAN, IT SEEMS LIKE THE MAJOR COMPANIES IN THE WORLD HAVE THE CAPABILITIES TO BLOW OUR MINDS WITH LIFE CHANGING INVENTIONS, SO WHAT IS THE PROBLEM? IS IT THAT MAJOR CORPORATIONS’ CREATIVE THINKING-TANKS ARE STAFFED WITH THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST THAT OUR UNIVERSITIES HAVE TO OFFER? OR IS IT THAT THESE BEST AND BRIGHTEST DON’T HOLD A CANDLE TO A 75 YEAR-OLD MAN THAT LIVES IN PASADENA, CALIFORNIA?

INSTEAD OF BORING YOU WITH FACTS THAT YOU CAN FIND WITH ANY ONLINE SEARCH ENGINE, WE DECIDED TO MAKE THE TRIP OUT TO THE WEST COAST AND SPEND SOME TIME WITH ONE OF THE MOST INNOVATIVE MINDS IN THE WORLD: SYD MEAD, THE FUTURIST. WRITTEN BY CALEB CLARK & PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATT FRIED

What are you currently inspired by? I am inspired by seeing a brilliant flower, by the fall of light on foliage outside my studio windows, by the chance of a visual sign, the alignment of things in my field of view. My imagination is triggered by client challenge, usually. I read enough to keep up with current trends in technology and a peripheral awareness of ‘‘style’ across the board: architecture, fashion, typography, media graphics, and object design. Automotive is such a sad display of cliché that I don’t even go to auto shows anymore.

What can you not live without? I cannot live without my computer setup; a G4 tower model, a G4 laptop, 1.87g, 2gigRAM, and a lumbering G3 for printing and scanning large format artwork and sketches. I also cannot live without the frequent stimulation of hanging out with friends, usually in associated professional fields, and emerging students.

Can you tell us about any of your current or future projects? Currently I am working on two professional projects, which I cannot identify. One is an interior design contract and the other is the pre-production on a movie. Future? My partner, Roger and I will be doing presentations in Vancouver, B.C., Montreal and San Francisco before the year is out. Next January we will do a professional visibility tour of Tokyo, Singapore and Mumbai, all by invitation.

Are you disappointed with this society? Did you expect us to be a lot more advanced than we are today? I am disappointed by the retro-social phenomenon propelled by ancient myth and rule systems that imprison the intellect and punish people in those societies for simply wanting to express human ambitions. The world is actually getting better, overall, in terms of per capita income, accessibility to food sources, and the benefits of technology. The trouble spots are exclusively due to regimes that impose restrictions, top down, that violate the complete array of the socio-economic process. The victims are other human beings, so that is sad. The political machinery that imprisons them is powerful and difficult to confront.

Have you adapted your skill set to include computer design? I use my computers to store graphical and image information, to scan for archiving, and for presentations to clients and to create graphics. I am not a ‘power’ user. The only 3-D software I use is Google’s SKETCHUP for visualizing architectural spaces. The computer, for me, is a sometimes quirky tool; valuable in its own right, but completely outside the skill set that allows me to draw, to paint, and to sketch ideas.

Before becoming Syd Mead, the world-renowned futurist, what did you do for work? My first professional job was right out of high school at 19, doing cell animation, background and character origination for a studio in my hometown at the time, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Then, after three years in the army and two and a half years at the Art Center School in Los Angeles (now in Pasadena), I spent 26 months at Ford’’s advanced studio in Dearborn, Michigan, than the next seven years working out of my home studio in Detroit. I moved to Southern California in 1975. I have worked at home since 1961, when I quit Ford.

Being a ““visual concept artist,” what is your day-today work schedule like? The day usually begins about six thirty. On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday I’m at the cardiac rehab gym for about an 24

hour from eight to about nine. Then, it’’s back to the house to draw, scan, and sketch the job at hand. I eat a small lunch and we have dinner at about six. Then, after doing a check for e-mails and reviewing my day’s work, we watch “The Simpsons” and a movie in our media room. Then, it’s to bed about ten-thirty (on nights before the gym) or eleven.

As one of the most admired designers around, what designers, architects, or artists do you like? I admire, for their remarkable illustration skills and artwork, John Berkey, who just passed away, Leindecker, Maxfield Parish, and the classic Caravaggio for his mastery of light and shade; for automotive design, the brilliant designer(s) at Aston Martin; for architects, Sir Foster; and for entertainment, we have to shovel kudos to Madonna, a remarkable ‘brand’ who keeps re-inventing herself as a pop icon. She deserves large credit for, essentially, inventing her performance persona over and over.

What would your dream project be? My dream project would be to design ‘MEADWORLD.’ I have worked on several theme area master plans for promotional and, in one case, political purposes. I would create a ‘dream land’ where the entire ‘world’’ would shift constantly, adding new vistas, new constructs, and new ambience continuously, much like dreams where relative scale, situation, and sequence change. The other major dream would be to finally have a yacht I designed in the water. I’ve worked on the design of megayachts for Kasoggi, for Donald Trump’s organization, for several Middle Eastern accounts, and all of them aborted due to financial interruption.

When Syd Mead the Futurist closes his eyes, what does he see? When I close my eyes, I see some of the stuff I’ve been working on. I imagine a new treatment for a stairwell idea, for a vehicle for a movie, for some crazy imaginative vehicle and then I fall asleep. I have experienced dreams where I actually solved a problem by visualizing from a different perspective than when I was awake.

What is the greatest invention of this century? The greatest invention of the 2Oth century was the automobile, employing more people than any other, worldwide. The greatest invention of the 21st century is still being worked on, but it will be the complete unraveling of the human organic reality, enabling what may be considered ‘eternal’ life. The biosciences will be, without any doubt whatsoever, the most stupendous technological accomplishment of human intelligence in history.

In closing, what is the plan for Syd Mead, the futurist, in the next 5 years? For the next five years, I intend to continue presentation visits to universities, to genre festivals including film and design, and the continuing creation of my own artwork, parallel to premium accounts that will have to compete for my time. My advice to young people (from the perspective of 75 years...well, shave off the first twelve) is learn about yourself before you impose yourself on others, through marriage, through intimate association. You can’t possibly ‘get along’ with someone else if you don’t know what you want. Secondly, learn to notice...everything. The highest order of creativity is to have a vast catalogue of ‘noticed’ phenomenon. For more info on Syd Mead check out www.SydMead.com. Gradient magazine recommends checking out Syd Mead’s documentary, “VISUAL FUTURIST”.

G allerei is the terminal for distinctive artists whose full flight to discovery is about to take off. Of the abundance of artists who fall under that category, four are displayed in the following pages: Emmet Shine, Matt Siren, Gary Wenc, and Lucien Dulfan.This presentation of their work epitomizes the diverse essence that is Gallerei. T he mere name of the Hamptons has been synonymous with a glamour that is recognized throughout the nation, but Emmet Shine is giving light to the kids that dwell behind the enchantment. From the Native American Reservation in South Hampton to the back parking lots of Sag Harbor, Shine is photographing Hampton’s Youth; those that are aware of the duality of growing up amongst, although not a part of, the excessive luxury, wealth, and opportunity that is the Hamptons.

M att Siren is an ever-growing, popular New York street artist who can be

recognized primarily by his wheat paste posters and stickers that are visible all over the city. He has also been able to combine his skills in graphic design with the aforementioned medium, tackling signature images for his work. His collaboration with other street artists, including Darkcloud who is known to manipulate street signs, has scored him gallery status.

With a motto like “to tile the unusual,” it comes as no surprise that Gary

Wenc’s work can be viewed humorously in all it’s inventiveness. Nothing is safe from this mosaic madman; guitars, Styrofoam heads, vintage memorabilia, no object can escape Wenc’s “tile-one-on” motif. This self proclaimed accidental artist takes mosaics to a whole new level, using glass as his main medium and giving the viewer a versatile take on how to perceive his work (whether it be an accent piece or eye catching tile-and-paint décor). L ucien Dulfan has been a member of the Union of Soviet Artists since 1973 and has participated in over 100 international exhibitions. His renowned paintings are mainly oil on canvas that are splashed with fantastical colors and motion that reveal a dazzling aesthetic quality, leaving viewers in a dream. Dulfan often dominates a theme and pulls it in directions that shouldn’t work, only to have it transformed into fantastical beauty under his deft hand. 26

GALLAREI FREQUENCY

EMMETT SHINE • MATT SIREN • GARY WENC • LUCIEN DULFAN

DARIA Emmett Shine (2008) ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

SHAWN Emmett Shine (2008) ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

SARAH Emmett Shine (2008) ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

TYLIK Emmett Shine (2008) ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE

BLINKY Matt Siren (2008) Silkscreen on Metal

MS X PM Matt Siren (2008) Silkscreen on Metal

MS X MOODY Matt Siren (2008) Silkscreen, Wood and Acrylic paint on Metal

REPEAT OFFENDERS Matt Siren (2008) Siklscreen and Oil paint on Metal

ZHOR Gary Wenc (2008) Mirror and Cement

MIRABELLA Gary Wenc (2008) Mirror and Cement

MIRROR MAN Gary Wenc (2008) Mirror and Cement

VENUS Gary Wenc (2008) Mirror and Cement

SPACE LUCIEN DULFAN (2006) Mixed Media, Oil on Canvas

SHOES LUCIEN DULFAN (2007) Mixed Media, Oil on Canvas

HELMETS LUCIEN DULFAN (2003) Mixed Media, Oil on Canvas

S.O.S. LUCIEN DULFAN (2007) Mixed Media, Oil on Canvas

A Wrinkle In Time Written by REMY MELINA

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Amber, the freezing gold, that is not hot and is not cold Has caught within its dreaming arms, the insects and the flowers charms Time has kept as still as death, holding instant, every breath Now from out our fading past, a scene which can forever lastâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; - Garry Platt -

hen studying an Eric Finzi piece, more details emerge as you move closer to the painting. Ideally, a microscopic lens would be used to truly reveal the worlds within worlds present; the interweaving swirls, whorls and starbursts. The multiple layers of chemical reactions suspended in glass-like epoxy resin that have hardened into an image frozen in time under the careful guidance of the artist. Eric Finzi is the frontier of this strange new medium, with poisonous material and unforeseeable twists that result in otherworldly beauty.

Pretty Poison

Donning a welder’s mask and protective suit resembling HazMat gear, Finzi applies the toxic epoxy resin, at this stage a viscous liquid somewhat like thick maple syrup, onto a horizontal picture plane. He then gingerly injects paint into the resin using a syringe; a 22 gauge for finer detail and an 18 for bolder lines. With a painstakingly steady hand he manipulates the paint, using needles in favor of paintbrushes. When he feels that a particular section of the painting looks exactly as it should, he solidifies it with a propane torch, freezing -or rather, heat blasting- the chemicals into an eternal image. Finzi is comfortable using this method to create his painting and guiding a syringe as an artistic tool to create precise details comes easily to him. This is because Eric Finzi, MD, Ph.D., is an expert in dermatology and liposuction. After earning his MD and Ph.D. in biochemistry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City on a full scholarship, he spent two years researching causes and treatments for skin cancer at the National Cancer Institute. After completing his dermatology residency at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland, he founded the Dermatology and Cosmetic Surgery Associates in 1992. In 2005, he opened the Chevy Chase Cosmetic Center in Chevy Chase, Maryland. While Finzi keeps the two worlds of his paintings and his profession separate, some art reviewers misread his pieces as possessing undertones involving plastic surgery. In actuality, the only common thread between these two realms is that he

has given an instrument which is used to inject Botox a new and spectacular use - as a primary painting tool. Working with a needle and syringe comes naturally to him, he handles them with a certainty and ease that can only be gained from years of experience. This has of course led to speculation regarding whether there is an implied message hidden beneath the surface of his paintings.

“WHATEVER YOU DO FOLLOWS YOU. PEOPLE CAN INTERPRET THE PAINTING IN THEIR OWN WAYS, BUT THEY’RE NOT DERIVED FROM MY WORK AS A SURGEON,” FINZI EXPLAINS. An Alchemist At Heart Conventionally trained as a painter, he was awarded a scholarship to the Pratt Institute when he was just 13 years old. At 15, he studied under famous American painter Wells Moses Sawyer. Finzi went on to attend the Greenwich House School of Pottery, all the while balancing his interest in the arts as well as the sciences. While studying dermatology, he took a year off to paint, then returned to school full-time. Finzi’s joy in experimentation with new mediums and techniques stems from his experience of working in a biochemistry lab. The concept of lab experimentation, of working with unusual molecules and agents, changing variables, and of not always getting the results one expects, has had a profound influence on his evolution as an artist. Finzi refers to himself as “an alchemist at heart” and to him, each painting is its own experiment.

It should then come as no surprise that his journey into resin painting began as its own experiment while he was working with fiberglass sculptures. Wanting to see what would happen if he added a few drops of paint to the gel-like liquid before it set overnight, he returned the following morning to find that the droplets had bloomed. “After that, I threw some more paint on it, put it on a scrap of wood and for the next four years, just experimented,” Finzi says.

Pure Serendipity

Most of the works Finzi did during this period were thrown out since he considered them exercises in learning to tame the medium, at least to some degree. Progress was touch-and-go with some unexpected and frustrating surprises along the way, but each year the paintings improved. Finzi likens working with epoxy resin to attempting to control chaos in the sense that once the paint is on the resin, it is doing all sorts of things that he has no control over. The various chemical reactions that take place, the Brownian motion and the elements influencing the final placement of pigment is what Finzi calls ‘pure serendipity’.

“TO SEE THE MOLECULES CHANGE, IT IS AS IF THE PAINTING IS GROWING, IT FEELS ORGANIC, EVENTHOUGH IT’S NOT.”

Finzi likens each resin painting to a tree, with no two ever coming out exactly alike, even when following the same creation sequence only minutes apart. Finzi explains that in the same way, “You can prune a tree, but you can’t control it a hundred percent. The tree decides where the branch grows, where the flowers grow.” The way he ‘prunes’ his paintings is by chiseling off the undesired portions of the hardened resin and filling the area in with a new layer to even out and seal the surface. In its liquid form, resin is highly toxic, but once it has hardened it is perfectly safe. The resulting artwork is waterproof and extremely durable, which is more than can be said for most traditional paintings. The resin takes on the shape of whatever surface it is placed on before it solidifies, and Finzi has recently made pieces that bring to mind the melting clocks of Salvador Dali, such as ‘Orbling No. 1’, a thin rectangle-shaped map of the world draped unevenly over a wooden hanger. Canvases for Finzi’s resin paintings include wood, aluminum and copper, with even the smallest undetectable tilt of the horizontal picture planes influencing the directional flow of the molecules. The end result is a tempest in a teapot, the capturing of a rush of chemical reactions. Various levels display the layers of paint suspended in the hardened resin like insects preserved in amber. Molecular motion frozen in time to be gazed upon in awe of its intricacy, the colors seeping outward in thin spider web wisps like gossamer lace. “When painting with epoxy resin, strange things start to happen,” Finzi says. “Things don’t quite add up, things happen that are completely unforeseen. You can’t completely predict how the painting will progress.” Other factors influencing the outcome of the paintings are the temperature and humidity levels on the day the resin is setting. The paintings he does during the summer look differently from the ones he made during the winter. Because he lives in the North, his paintings are in a cooler climate and take more time to set, whereas if he were making them in Hawaii, the resin would harden at a faster rate and the colors would have less time to expand and flow throughout the canvas. The propane torch’s role is to quicken this process, in essence using heat to arrest the paintings. “Temperature is a very important variable,” Finzi explains. “Temperature is my paintbrush, it’s how I control my work.”

Implied Violence

The theme of attempting to rein in the uncontrollable, of the climate’s influence and the delicate balance between organic changes and man-made design runs deep throughout Finzi’s latest crop of paintings, themed Orbs. Each painting incorporates the image of a globe; the Earth is seen inside of a soap bubble blown by a girl, a boy is blowing a bubblegum Earth to which a threatening needle is poised, ready to pop. A soccer player is about to head butt the globe, while in a similar piece a player is about to kick the world. The ‘implied violence’ paintings which make up much of the Orbs exhibit focus on the temporality in the conceptual, the moment of the impending shift in energy. The paintings seem to be begging of the viewers: What is going to change? What do we expect to change? “The idea of Orbs just came into my head and seemed fitting given the transient nature of the Earth,” Finzi says. “I’m very interested in timing, that instant right before something is about to happen. Catching it as it’s evolving.” Currently working on four paintings, three Orbs and one portrait of his daughter, Finzi says that as long as he continues to be inspired by it, he will stay with the theme. After he has selected a theme or subject, the paintings take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to complete depending on whether he feels the piece is lacking something and he continues to slowly add to it. Some paintings only consist of a single layer because they come out perfect on the first try, they “just click.” Others have taken longer; one painting took a year and a half of work before he felt it was done. “I have a good plan,” Finzi says. “Half the time it goes awry. But that’s the fun part; going with the error, seeing where that leads you.”

When looking for soup as a meal or an appetizer to wrap our taste buds around, most people would turn to the comfort of homemade chicken noodle soup. New York City chef Adam Ben’Ous takes the comfort and warmth of soup and turns into a unique delicacy for a more distinguished palate. His spicy coconut soup allows the flavor of coconut to not only please your mouth but your eyes as well, serving the steaming soup in the body of a young coconut. This may not be your mother’s average soup that you have memories of as a child, but the silky texture and subtly spicy, tangy flavor will allow for new memories that warm your soul. Letting yourself get carried to a new place by the exotic zest of these various Asian spices is an adventure all in itself. Like the preparation of a true homemade dish, the soup also has a heart, for many of the main ingredients are not used for texture but for flavor to be infused with the coconut milk. By laying down simple cheese cloth and layering it with animated piles of lime leaves, lemon grass, chili and ginger, the flavors are allowed to be released into the milky richness of the soup. Though you may believe in your head that what you’re eating spoonfuls of is a dairy dish, in fact it is not. The dairy-like feel of the soup comes purely from the coconut and never once brought necessity to touching base with a cow.

written by MEGAN PFAUTZ

SPICY COCONUT SOUP SERVED IN A YOUNG COCONUT SHELL

PALATABLE

As with all great recipes, this one is simple in adapting to seasonings for your specific liking. The way that, as children, we would get lost in the pages of choose-your-own-adventure books, this is a chose-your-own-palate recipe. The base of the soup is a mixture of sliced white onion, butter, and red curry paste that acts as the starting line to the level of spice destination you want your soup to take. Ben’Ous is a chef that likes spice, so when experiencing the soup first hand, I definitely got that extra kick many look for in a dish. Though of course the spice is a major factor here, there is a secret ingredient which this recipe relies on for its salty tang. No matter what you think it smells like, one must not ignore the fish sauce as a key component in the flavoring of this soup. The sauce enhances the juices that are infused into the coconut milk while adding a salty seasoning to help carry out these flavors. To anyone who has never attempted to make such a dish, it may seem impossible or extremely tedious, but after getting a firsthand look at the process, they would learn that it is fairly easy to make. Some of the ingredients may not be found at your local grocer, so a trip to the Asian market might become the hardest part in your adventure of creating this dish. You may want your chicken soup to remind you of childhood winter nights when chunks of chicken floated in bowls of broth, but as you savor the small bits of chicken, enlivened by the spices in the soups coconut shell, your mind will start racing with images of bamboo houses underneath tropical trees. Your mouth will be pleased that the creativity and effort behind this dish paid off while your palate is craving adventure.

Ingredients-Serves Four 1. Lemon Grass. 1 cup, chopped. 2. White Onion. 1 whole onion, thinly sliced. 3. Lime Juice. Freshly squeezed and added according to taste. Two limes should suffice. 4. Habanero Chili Pepper. 1 whole pepper, diced. 5. Galangal Root. ½ cup, very thinly sliced. 6. Fresh Parsley (stems included). 1 bunch. 7. Young Coconut. Top cut off and milk drained (to be used as soup bowl). 8. Chicken Carcass. Include chest cavity or wings. 9. Kaffir Lime Leaves. 4 leaves, torn. 10. Unsalted Butter. 1 quarter stick or less. 11. Chicken Stock (Low Sodium or Sodium Free). 5 cups. 12. Fish Sauce. Added according to taste, approximately 1 table spoon. 13. Unsweetened Coconut Milk. 4 cups. 14. Salt 15. Black Pepper. Freshly ground. 16. Red Curry Paste. 2 tablespoons. 17. Cheese cloth. (not pictured) 18. Garlic. 3 cloves, roughly chopped. (not pictured)

Directions STEP 1: Make a sachet using the cheese cloth. (It’s simple, so don’t let the French term intimidate you!) Cut a narrow strip from the cheese cloth to use as a tie and set it aside. Place the lemon grass, habanero chili, parsley, chicken carcass, garlic and kaffir lime leaves on top of the cheese cloth. Use the strip to tie the top of the cheese cloth closed. Set the sachet aside. STEP 2: Heat a pan over a medium flame. Ensure the pan is large enough to carry the soup liquid. Add the butter, red curry paste, galangal root and white onion. Stir frequently and cook until the onion and galangal are soft and translucent. Keep an eye on the butter to make sure it doesn’t burn by continually stirring the mixture. STEP 3: Add the sachet and the chicken stock to the pan. Allow it to simmer for approximately 15 minutes, turning the sachet throughout the cooking process. STEP 4: Add the coconut milk, lime juice and fish sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. STEP 5: Place the soup in the young coconut shell and scrape the side of the bowl for taste and texture contrasts. Garnish with some parsley and enjoy.

Written by ADAM BEN’OUS and Photography by MATT FRIED

24 PRINCE ALL LINED UP

RAUL

NIKKI

JENNIFER

CLAUDIO

IASIA

JASON

WASHINGTON

The blocks glide swiftly across the illuminated table. They are stacked on top of one another, shuffled, spun, rotated and turned upside down. Every movement causes a change in the music pumping through the speakers. Every action, no matter how minor, causes a reaction. Neon blue, red and green lights glow over the translucent acrylic surface of the round table, mapping out the squiggles and circles of sound wave frequency passing between the blocks. This is the ReacTable, a tabletop musical instrument based on human computer interaction (HCI). Written by REMY MELINA

vtthe ReacTable demonstrates the musical possibilities of computer-based instruments, managing to impress even Björk, who after seeing the ReacTable in action on YouTube requested that its creators make her one. She then took it along on her 2007 Volta tour, with musician Damian Taylor amazing audiences as he played it over Björk’s songs. He played it so hard that he wore the blocks out. For an instrument that anyone can maneuver, the ReacTable is deeply complex. Beneath the table sits a camera, which reads and analyzes any changes in the tabletop’s surface. It observes the position and movements of the objects as well as the fingertips of the players. As the players move the objects around the tabletop, changing their distance, orientation, and the relation to each other, their actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. The dazzling visual display reflected on the tabletop’s surface comes from a projector situated underneath the table. The projector displays the visual feedback of the condition, activity, and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer. When objects are moved across the tabletop’s surface, sound waves change depending on the spatial, relational and constructive connection between the blocks and spheres. The tabletop works with a resonant filter, low frequency sine wave oscillator, metronome, generators and a tonalizer in order to produce the various sounds and beats that flow from its speakers. When these objects are moved across the table’s surface, you can watch as the sound waves change depending on the spatial, relational, and constructive connection between the blocks and spheres. The white halos radiating from each block are 180-degree circular fuel gauges and are used to indicate their rotational values. The objects’ perimeter is finger-activated and users can also use their fingertips to temporarily mute, or cut, audio connections.

For an instrument with so much focus on visual feedback, the ReacTable does not aesthetically disappoint. The mesmerizing mix of patterns, designs and colors make it appear to be an interactive art display, but the design is in no way frivolous. Each and every part of the ReacTable serves a specific purpose, all shapes, forms, and lines drawn by the visual synthesizers are strictly there to pass along information to the player as quickly as possible. “The mouse and other comparable pointing devices have promoted over the past quarter century a form of interaction based on clicks, menus, icons, and windows, which has proved enormously efficient in the field of office productivity and hyper-textual navigation,” says Sergi Jorda, who originally developed the ReacTable with a team at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. “Live music creation is certainly something else. Who would have, freely and voluntarily, designed a musical instrument that could be played with just the point of your index finger? The interaction with musical instruments is typically continuous and multidimensional; new interfaces more suitable to interact with computer-generated music are therefore necessary.” “The design of new interfaces and new systems for musical creation with digital devices, the design of new digital instruments altogether, is not a simple task,” Jorda goes on to say. “The acoustic instruments are limited and constrained by the laws of physics. With digital instruments, everything is possible that wasn’t before, but it seems that instead of inspiring, this infiniteness more so complicates things. The new drivers no longer require us to click, double-click, or drag. With the flexibility that is characterized with digital technology, any parameter produced by us or captured from our environment, can come to control any parameter of our musical system.”

While the size and design of the ReacTable allows for several people to play at once, ideally it should be controlled by two or three people at a time. With four or more players, it is easier to “add too much,” Jorda says. “When shared control becomes the norm and the available control dimensionality clearly exceeds standard human control capabilities, additional sharing between several performers seemed a very logical extension,” explains Jorda. “For that reason, the ReacTable was also conceived as a tabletop multi-user instrument; for eliminating head position, leading voices, or privileged points-of-view and control, the table was thought to be circular…Collaboration increases surprise and inspiration.” It is even possible to write a composition on the ReacTable, as demonstrated by the first musician to do so, Chris Brown (no, not that Chris Brown). His score consisted of ReacTable snapshots in time order. Though this may seem difficult to recreate, Jorda points out that no performance on any instrument can be said to be identical to another performance. “Besides,” he reasons, “if you need an exact replica of a performance, CDs and Mp3s are great for that.” “Digital technologies have radically democratized musical creation,” Jorda says. “Today, anyone can have the same set of tools for creating music that are used by professional musicians and production studios. However, it is not only about the easy access to these tools, but about a true paradigm shift. Musical composition by digital means strays away from writing, and actually comes closer to painting and sculpting. The music is no longer just definable by a symbolic code, or musical notes, more or less accurate but inevitably incomplete. The digital composer, free of translation and transcription, or scores, and of interpreters and interpretations that would have interfered originally with his musical thinking and the resulting sound is now able to come closer than ever to the sound and the musical material. At the same time, as this musical writing loses its value, the doors of musical composition and creation open to all those who were once marginalized as the ‘musically illiterate’.”

After the first public unveiling of the ReacTable in June of 2005, the tabletop tangible multi-touch interface quickly became known as the new face of musical possibilities for computer-based instruments. Since then, every live showing of the ReacTable has blown audiences away. In 2007, the ReacTable team did 80 concerts and presentations in 25 countries – not counting Björk’s shows. This May the ReacTable team was awarded with two D&AD Yellow Pencil awards at the South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall in London, one for the Digital Installations category and the other for Environmental Design/Installations. Currently they are on tour in Mexico throughout June, following with a demo in Boston. Then there’s a concert in Rhode Island in October and San Francisco in November. Now the question on everyone’s mind is when we can get our hands on a ReacTable of our own. Jorda says that they are trying to make them available to the public by the end of ‘08 or beginning of ’09, and those interested in purchasing one can contact the ReacTable team through their website: ReacTable. iua.upf.edu. ReacTables are already being produced by request for science and art museums, including the Montreal Science Centre, Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry and the CosmoCaixa Museum of Madrid. As for how much it will go for, the team confides, “We want to go as cheap as possible, but I don’t think that at the beginning we’ll be able to sell for less than $12,000.” With a steady schedule of performances by the ReacTable team, new ReacTables in the works for public display, and an upcoming increase in market availability, you will surely be seeing more of this transfixing tabletop.

photography/art direction styling hair make-up models

BRYAN GURSKY ALAN CHARLES ECKSTEIN and DONNA KANG TAKASHI MATONA at Warren Tricomi VINCENT OQUENDO using Makeup Forever KAROLINA at Next VLADIMIRA at Trump Model Management CLARA at Ford Models photographer’s assistant JILLIAN KRON stylist’s assistants HAYLEY LOEWENTHAL and ELISSA MILLER hair assistant YUSA at Yui Salon thanks to KATRINA VROOMAN

Previous ‘magic’ evening gown DONNA KANG mink fur vest FENDI Right feather dress FENDI

Left dress BRIAN REYES boots FENDI fur cuff JOHN VARVATOS FOR CONVERSE right all by FENDI

Opposite dress DEREK LAM minaudiere, shoes FENDI Right organza sleeve dress PHILIP LIM 3.1 fox fur strap scarf FORM tights WOLFORD shoes FENDI crochet cardigan CHRISTIAN DIOR sheer hoody DKNY vintage high waist pant STYLISTâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S OWN feater ascot DONNA KANG shoes FENDI

Left hunting vest CHRISTIAN DIOR vintage silk blouse STYLIST’S OWN riding pant CLUB MONACO fur scarf, belt, boots fendi Center ‘wizard’ coat DONNA KANG sheer blouse PHILIP LIM 3.1 shoes FENDI necklace PONO antique lace collar stylist’s own Right long fox fur vest FENDI organza hoody ADAM LIPPES ruffled blouse ADAM LIPPES plaid pants POLO SPORT BY RALPH LAUREN scarf CAROLINA HERRERA boots FENDI

Left sleeve coat, dress, boots FENDI silk scarf CAROLINA HERRERA necklace PONO tights WOLFORD Right maxi coat, mink skirt, boots FENDI sheer blouse ADAM LIPPES antique necklace FRED FRANKLIN & SONS

Previous fox fur coat FENDI cocktail dress DONNA KANG vintage velvet hat STYLIST’S OWN Opposite surrealist skirt HANAE MORI cut-out halter DONNA KANG shoes FENDI necklace PONO brass ‘collar’ necklace CHLOE Right draped tee shirt NINA RICCI tulle skirt MICHAEL KORS

BELOW

FADE STREET photography MATT FRIED, styling ALAN CHARLES ECKSTEIN hair YAS KOSAKA, make-up ANASTASIA ARIANAS, styling assistant CASEY FREEMAN, talent DJ DL, DJ MAKE A MESS KID & DJ NICK COHEN

pants LES COPAINS shirt BROOKS BROTHERS neckscarf and hat STYLIST OWN jacket ADAM LIPPES

suit CARLOS CAMPOS tie CHRISTIAN DIOR shirt VINTAGE GIVENCHY hat STYLIST OWN desert boots CLARKS

Top Left denim pants CARLOS CAMPOS boots PALLADIUM neckwear TIMO scarf CAROLINA HERRERA asymmetric cardigan EPIK pea coat ADAM LIPPES Top Right jacket and pants CARLOS CAMPOS shirt ADAM ascot TIMO Bottom pea coat ADAM LIPPES glove HERMES

wool pants and shirt CARLOS CAMPOS jacket and gloves ADAM LIPPES oxfords BROOKS BROTHERS

trenchcoat EPIK cardigan ADAM LIPPES penfield SHIRT sunglasses RAY BAN

We can all agree that technology has enhanced our lives in innumerous ways. The information flow of the internet, the marvels and miracles of techno-science, gene mapping, complex combination drugs, surgeries without incision and gaming and entertainment like we have never experienced before. Computing goes from super to common, to ordinary, and the possibilities and potentialities multiply with every new bit and byte of memory and processing capability. Pandora, that mythic figure of gifts, she herself a gift from the Gods, opened her box, releasing all the evils of mankind – greed, vanity, slander, envy, pining – leaving only hope inside once she had closed it again. Can she serve as a metaphor to our modern age of computing? Like Pandora, unleashing her guiles on unsuspecting mortals, we have given rise to these same challenges through the development and constant perfecting of the computing capabilities of machines and mankind. Greed comes in the forms of worldwide financial management and manipulation, esoteric synthetic financial instruments, internet gambling, email scams, and identity theft. Vanity, oh vanity, thy name is Facebook, Friendster, Gawker, celebrity and personalized web sites, camera phones, and digital laser guided cosmetic surgery. Slander, much the same, with here a blog, there a blog, everywhere a blog, blog. Envy, oh boy, on every page, with every ad, check it out, and then check out. Paypal accepted! Pining is rampant, and access makes the heart grow fonder. Everyone wants to be loved, and with Match, Craigslist, Friend Finder and Classmates, you can pine for your lost love, your high school sweetheart, the anonymous date just around the corner. Technology has created whole new mythic worlds in fantasy and finance. The modern ability to manage financial information has created great wealth and great despair. In ages past, financial information was managed with paper and pencil, keeping ledgers, debits and credits. Statistical analysis was done by those with time on their hands and plenty of chalk and blackboard. Now with the ability to calculate, create, remember, trend, predict and analyze with a few strokes of the keyboard, a mouse click to data base management, and information feeds at every turn, vast amounts of information can be managed and massaged to create all kinds of new financial products. Stock indexes, derivatives, huge pools of cash flows from mortgages are bundled, securitized and sold off to individual and institutional investors. But why stop there? Information management allows the creation of the most esoteric of financial instruments, all based on modeling, statistics, how the numbers interact with the numbers. Layer upon layer of data, takes all of it farther and farther from the original end user becoming more and more difficult to understand, track, and see where cracks may form. And then the market goes higher and higher into the atmosphere of unreality. Trades take place without human interaction, and customers who actually use the products fall out of the equation. It is now common that half of all cocoa trades (yes, that’s chocolate bars to you and me) don’t even involve some one or some company that will actually take delivery of the product to use and to sell, but are done be-

tween institutions betting on price moves and profit generation. It happened in electricity (institutional trading drove the California energy crisis and then caused the casualties of the trading companies themselves), the dot com boom (trading on information flows and numbers pulled from the air, who needed cash flow?), and now with commodities and futures (it will be eye opening to learn just how much hedge funds are making betting on oil futures these days). Greed is one thing, driving up the price of corn, wheat and other foodstuffs is another. The real world, and what is happening in it, is not part of the modeling. Information, as well, swells and flows as ethereally as those afflictions loosed as a result of Pandora’s curiosity. Isn’t it pretty amazing that you can be in the middle of nowhere and get instant text, voice and images from someone else who is in the middle of a different somewhere? Information flows at the speed of light and we are capable of being better informed than at any point in history, except for tomorrow. The miracles of the digital age create a real world Matrix, where lives are shared on line, in the air, and on the phone. Vanity?, maybe? Fascinating?, definitely. Necessary? Depends on how much of your fantastic life you are willing to share, and how interested (or vain) your friends are? How much of our modern lives are taken up in the small and simple ways of checking our e-mail for the latest missive on who needs us or our advice/opinion/ attendance, only to find out that yet another Wal Mart gift card has been pushed into our inbox. I must admit, I am as addicted to my crack-berry as the next guy, and it is my constant companion (and yes, like good old Linus and his blanket, it is my security totem, can’t leave home without it!). I am old enough to remember life without cell phones (and computers for that matter) and like any early adopter and accepter of the new and improved, I can’t imagine my life without them. Sure makes waiting on line a lot more fun/productive/anti social, and I don’t even Twitter, yet. Information sharing sure, but don’t let it ruin your enjoyment of your moment, or someone else’s. Envy and pining, really the same thing when defined as not being happy or content with what our current state of mind/body/wallet is. And boy, does the internet serve these up on a silver platter (ready to purchase on eBay or Replacements.com). The entire revenue generation model is based on the premise that one little ad or picture will create the desire to click through and find out what your life has been lacking up to that moment (even if you weren’t aware of it at the time). Instant desires satisfied by instant gratification. See it, want it, shop it, express delivery available, credit cards accepted. The mall has moved on line and nothing is exclusive anymore. Not that this is a negative development. How awesome is it that no matter where one lives, you can order what you see on line, in a magazine, on the television, and get it the next day. No more lure of the big city bright lights and luxury emporiums. Neiman Marcus sells more designer goods on line than it does in its stores and the ladies from Peoria are grateful. As I tell all my luxury goods clients, you can’t think coastal anymore. We of the New York, Los Angeles metropolises think

Written by Eric Legaspi Photography by Matt Fried

A UNIQUE ARTIST’S

PECULIAR SUCCESS An Introduction to the Greatest New York Icon You’ve Never Heard Of Written by NATE HURWITZ Photographed by LEXI LAMBROS & MATT FRIED 86

ow do you define success? How do you define an icon? Have we gotten to the point where it’s not even a stretch to ask how to define a New Yorker? If you’re looking for answers to any of these questions, Otis Houston’s story will only throw you deeper into the rabbit hole. His story will hammer these questions into your head; it will chisel away at your brain until they are etched into your grey matter, like the concrete handprints littering the Harlem streets. Plainly speaking, Otis Houston Jr. is a man who defies characterization, and it is oh-so-tempting to try. We group and generalize and label everyday. We have to; it enables us to at least attempt to comprehend things that we cannot. But it seems that the more a thing defies convention and the more it wiggles free from the holes we have pegged for it, the more we try to stamp a label onto it. We crave that ah-hah! feeling, the feeling that this thing that has proven itself so elusive has finally been caught, tied down, named, and therefore terrestrially adapted, familiarized, rendered un-threatening. It is certainly the foreign and complex concepts, issues, and people that we find the most challenging. We do not necessarily recoil in fear from these challenges, for often times they are easier to deflect, cast aside, relegate to a world not worth examining. tis Houston might be one of those challenges, and in fact people have been writing him off for most of his life: A high school drop-out; former drug dealer and user; an ex-convict. These labels read like a resume for the leading candidate, like falling through the cracks into the abyss of an unrecognized underclass. But somewhere along the line (or maybe it was something innate, just under the surface), Mr. Houston decided to reverse the course of an otherwise unremarkable life and make himself heard; to make his life’s myriad of general complexities issues that those around him had to consider. Perhaps the most fascinating thing about this man is that he is able to illuminate these complexities through the conveyance of the seemingly most humble simplicities. or the last decade, he estimates, Otis has been making nearly daily trips to a ragged patch of ground on the shoulder of the FDR Drive at 122nd St. One might rightfully wonder what an otherwise sane man would be doing standing alongside such an unwelcome stretch of road. Well, Otis has turned this desolate landscape into his own public studio/gallery/soapbox. From this most unremarkable spot, he has carved out a place for himself in the collective consciousness of New York City. I met Otis on a recent trip up to Spanish Harlem. He is a short, squat, solidly built bald man who would not look out of place as a Gold Gloves cut man. When I went to meet the man sometimes known as Black Cherokee (asked where the name came from, he responded plainly, “I keep it simple, I’m part black, part Cherokee: Black Cherokee“), the first thing he did was take me over to his FDR plot. Left hanging from a tree was a large poster-sized collage Otis had made by pasting the portraits of various prominent figures onto cardboard. The piece struck me as entirely random, not containing any theme or message. We stood there for several minutes while morning rush hour traffic rushed or crawled past. I was immediately taken aback by the number of passing motorists who waved hello, honked their horns, or even called out familiar greetings. Otis seemed to be quite used to this, but clearly he reveled in these distinctly New York encounters. He stood there almost regally, like a noble waving to his admiring subjects, all the while keeping up his constant upbeat banter that oozed out in his heavy southern drawl. “Alraaight,” “How yaaa’ll doing,” “Great to see you.” As a self imposed non-driver and lifelong New York resident, I was shocked to see that such personal interactions had somehow found a way to grow out of the dreaded highway culture.

“It’s like Malcolm X said all your experiences, everything that ever happened to you feeds into your personality. That makes you, you.” A

s we stood there, I kept glancing over at the collage hanging from the tree. Still not getting it, I began running through the faces in my mind, trying to find connections. What did these faces represent? Finding nothing, it finally dawned on me that there was no point. Otis wasn’t trying to tell you anything with this installation. He was simply trying to make you think. As we continued to talk it became apparent that this was the heart, the central theme of Otis’s artistic awakening. In an era of instant access and second by second information, there is a ceaseless march toward progress; the continuous drive to be new and fresh, to do something original; the quest for the new trend, the new scene, the “it,” has flooded our culture. Standing out amongst his counterpart is Otis Houston Jr., taking it back to basics. In the art world now dominated by masterpieces covered in feces, solid colored canvases meant to make you ponder the infiniteness of the universe, and giant slabs of rock that come with an entire manual required for the viewer to comprehend the piece, Otis has brought a breath of fresh air in the form of his simplicity. In fact, one of Otis’ regular installations is a mirror he holds simply reading “think” painted vertically in blue over the glass. ould these pieces be dismissed as trite, cheesy Cliff Notes for philosophy in the form of art? Sure they could. But doing so would be a rash reaction; doing a great disservice both to Otis and the viewer. Otis has tapped into a mainline vein of modern society. A society that has at many turns wound itself into knots with its self-satisfied amazement at its own myriad of complexities. A society that Otis clearly loves and has a passion for despite his pain and the daily reminders of its failures. Otis perches like a ghetto Jiminy Cricket whispering into our ears, “Remember what’s important.” eaving the art for the motorists, we headed back across 122 St. to Otis’ apartment. Along the way we began talking about his early years and the path that led him here. We did not, however, have much time to speak. Everyone knew Otis. He stopped to wave, exchange pleasantries (including a brief discussion with an ancient doorman on the proper way to make grits), even stopping once for Otis to help up a junkie nodding off on the street. “Better get up before them boys in blue come get ya.” Just think of a sober and much more freshly attired version of The Mayor in “Do The Right Thing.” e finally reached Otis’ home, a small but neatly kept apartment high up in the Taino Towers. Despite what some of you might have read in the various blurbs about Mr. Houston in the City Section or Newsday, he is not homeless. In fact he has a terrace with a breathtaking view that would make even the trendiest city dwellers jealous. Inside he has stockpiled a paper history of his life. Other than the substantial collection of his art, Otis has kept meticulous records of himself, pulling out his past photos, writings, and especially the newspaper clippings that have been written about him (including one that exposes the gory details of a madman’s shooting in

Harlem in the 70’s of which Otis was a victim, taking two shots in the back). Otis showed off these relics with a childlike pride, yes, even the article about the shooting. As edifying as these documents were, the nagging question was still there: How did this man get to be here, doing this? tis Houston Jr. was born into a big family in Greensboro, South Carolina. “I was raised strong, learned housework from my mother, outside work from my father. That’s the foundation, gotta have a good foundation,” Otis half recalls, half declares. At the tender age of 16 he packed his bags and left, landing himself in Harlem in 1969. Despite the strong foundation, it took him a while to find his balance. “I came to New York. Harlem, New York. I was in the streets, I was hustling.” Soon after, at the age of 21 Otis was arrested for possession and sentenced under the Rockefeller Laws. He served a year upstate and came back to New York City only to find himself still hustling to get by. He opened up a pool hall out of which he ran a small heroin operation. After several years of relative calmness (I guess getting shot twice isn’t that calm), Otis was busted again. Under the ludicrously harsh Rockefeller laws, which have been modified, but are still in existence today, Otis was sentenced to eight years to life at Elmira State Penitentiary. This was clearly a low point in his life, but as Otis is fond of saying, “It’s like Malcolm X said, ‘All your experiences, and everything that ever happens to you, feeds into your personality,’ that makes you, you”. It was coming around to this form of thinking that saved him from being crushed by time. tis recalled a vision he had while he was in prison. He could see himself dying. It wasn’t just an out-of-body vision of death, he explained, he could feel it viscerally. The feeling it left in its wake was despair. Not an allhope-is-lost kind of despair, but despair at the possibility that he would never get out, or wouldn’t break the cycle his life seemed to be repeating. It was then that he awoke. He recognized “the spirit and the peace” inside of him. It was around this time that he began taking classes in prison. At Elmira State Penitentiary, there were courses offered from a nearby community college. Otis enrolled in philosophy, sociology, and creative writing. He saved almost all of his work, including a paper he wrote in 1989 which outlines, in great detail, a plan to reduce drug related violence. As controversial as it might sound, he argued that drug enforcement was a losing battle and advocated certain zones in which drugs would be legalized, in this way pro-

tecting family neighborhoods from the violence and decay that goes along with a booming drug trade. Mind you, this was about 15 years before The Wire scored big with “Amsterdam.” For those who haven’t seen it, get to watching. tis’ real inspiration however, came from his art teacher in Elmira. She was a professor from Skidmore who came regularly to the prison to teach an art class. He says she was the first person “to show me how to write about and express what I feel and see.” Otis spoke of how inmates often talk about doing good time and bad time, but in typical Black Cherokee form, he refused to think about it on the same plane as others. “I didn’t call it prison, I called it education.” And like any good performer, he brought it around full circle. “You see what I’m talking ‘bout, all ya experiences. I evolve —I got workin’ knowledge, I got street knowledge, I got prison knowledge, now I got school knowledge.” What should a prison be? This controversial question has sparked heated debate for centuries. Whether or not prison should solely be a form of punishment or a place of treatment and reform is too big of an issue to be covered in these pages. For now it is enough to show that Otis turned what could have been his grave into his launching pad. t was from his time in prison (Otis would probably disagree, reminding me it’s “about all ya experiences”) that he found his voice, or at least discovered an outlet for it. This is not a man of few words, and I can guess that he never has been. His big barrelchest pushes forth a booming voice that passionately espouses big ideas. You almost get the impression when he speaks that the words themselves aren’t capable of properly conferring the gravity of the statements. In a way all of Otis’ experiences, which are great, have mixed together into his captivating persona, and it was too hard to get them out. So point by point, subject by subject, he has broken them down in pieces of art. He romantically declared to me that “it is the artist’s role to speak for society” and lamented the fact that many people are no longer of this mind frame. His work has supplanted the booming voice, maybe not speaking for society, but with it. Not necessarily telling society one thing or another. It is enough for Otis to make you think. tis has been around the block more than once, and because of this has an ability to empathize, and as a general principal, doesn’t judge others. However, there were some central

“I didn’t call it prison I called it education.”

themes that appear in both his work and our discussions that he clearly feels strongly about. The first one was like most of Otis’s themes: simple and eternal, just doing right. He laughs heartily when he recounts how an old friend asked, “How you expect to get ahead when everybody else ain’t playin’ by the rules and you is?” The other two were a little more straight forward: the importance of reading or acquiring knowledge ( in the tradition of the great Bundini, Otis musically asks in one poem, “If you read one [book] and I read four, which one of us you think’s gonna know more?”) and of eating right and staying healthy. These two melded beautifully together in one of Otis’ classic installation/performance pieces on the side of the FDR. He brought out a stationary bike and sat there on the side of the road pedaling away holding an apple in one hand, a banana in the other, and balancing a book on his head. When asked about this quite strange display, he responded it was about “putting out positive vibes.”

“We do not necessarily recoil in fear from these challenges , often times the y are easier to deflect, cast aside, relegate to a world not worth examining.”

ften we hear our greatest creators, artists, writers and musicians talk of a compelling need to create. This is not a drive or a desire, but a compulsion, a necessity. More akin to an addict’s jones, or the release a cutter feels than an interesting endeavor. Yet there are both positive and negative examples of how this force plays out. There are the tortured artists who need their pain, who channel it with their rage. There are also those who revel in the joy of their creations. But let’s be honest, these are high-minded archetypes. In reality nothing is so black and white. There are varying degrees of each in every artist. The always uplifting Hemingway once declared, “Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it —don’t cheat with it.” While this message is at times both cryptic (what would it mean to cheat with it?) and hypocritical (if the hurt is what you are supposed to use, why forget your personal tragedy?), the point is quite simple: make your pain your outlet, use it for something. nyone who has met Otis, seen his art, heard or read his poetry would not think him in any way tortured or angry. In fact, with his installation attempts, he seems to exude “good vibes.” He is quick with a smile and ready to strike up a conversation with anyone. His work itself is fun, playful. Otis, however, is not untouched by pain, in fact he’s had his share (at alternate points tearing up both out of sadness and happiness). But it seems that pains is his driving force to do good. It is what drives him to speak, to make people think, to make them smile. It seems only fitting to end this article with the question Otis seems to be constantly asking New York: Who speaks for you?

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