L'OFFICIEL USA WINTER 2020 by L'Officiel Inc.

WINTER 2020

LILY COLLINS Through the Lens of Sam Taylor-Johnson

WINTER 2020

LILY COLLINS Talks With Alber Elbaz About Paris & Looking Ahead

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LILY COLLINS PHOTOGRAPHED BY SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON AND STYLED BY JAY MASSACRET Fiona Styles using LANCÔME HAIR: Kylee Heath and tights PRADA Shoes TOD’S ON COLLECTOR’S COVER—Blazer, shirt, and tie DIOR ABOVE—Blazer ACNE STUDIOS Shirt and pants CO Shoes TOD’S MAKEUP:

ON THE COVER—Coat

Volume 3, Number 16 | lofficielusa.com | L’OFFICIEL USA | Lever House 390 Park Ave New York, NY 10022

PARTY FAVORS PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jennifer

Livingston

The most festive jewelry for the holiday season as chosen by you, our readers. ABOVE: Watch CARTIER

RAD TIDINGS

Domen & Van De Velde Pablo Patane

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STYLED BY

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Jennifer

Livingston

BY Sabrina Abbas

PHOTOGRAPHY BY James White

Luca Guadagnino’s latest star, Alice Braga, finds familiar inspiration in each new project.

Iconic model Hannelore Knuts demonstrates what makes the clothes of this season bright. ABOVE: Coat, shirt, and skirt BENCHELLAL Bag IRIS NOBLE

DAILY GRATIFICATION

LEARNING CURVE

Cartier’s newest suite of everyday objects are anything but quotidian.

BLUE CHIP BLING BY Hervé

Dewintre PHOTOGRAPHY BY Flore Chenaux

Master collector Diane Venet reveals her private archive of artist jewelry.

FLOW STATE TIME, LIGHT, SPACE BY Giorgia

Cantarini

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Alberto Tandoi STYLED BY Giulio

Martinelli

Go bold in the season’s head-to-toe patterns.

Paolo Roversi documents Poliform’s Italian design ethos in a new photo book.

MIND TO BODY BY Fabia

Di Drusco PHOTOGRAPHY BY Rhys Frampton

Netflix favorite Alice Pagani is already approaching entertainment with an artistic bent. BELOW: Jacket ALEXANDER McQUEEN Necklace BULGARI

LILY ON THE BEACH 54 BY

Joshua Glass

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Sam Taylor-Johnson

With the release of her new David Fincher flick Mank, Lily Collins looks inward.

OFF SITE

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Menelik

Puryear STYLED BY David Thielebeule

THE FOLLY & THE REASON BY Adam

Charlap Hyman CURATED BY Kat Herriman

DARK MIRROR BY Claire

Beghin

PHOTOGRAPHY BY Sergio

This resort season, wear a prairie dress for jaunts into town or a slinky sequined evening gown for farmhouse chores. ABOVE: Coat GUCCI Bra CHANEL Earring SIMONE ROCHA

REAL WORLD BY Pierre-Alexandre

Mateos and Charles Teyssou PHOTOGRAPHY BY Petra Kleis

Folly-making is a longstanding tradition of the absurd, and escapist fantasy has never been so needed. ABOVE: “Self portrait with flower & preliminary sketch for Tarraxos (a stage for Tosh Basco),” 2020, by Sophia Al Maria

102

112

Danish artist Rasmus Myrup re-sees conventions in and out of the natural realm.

Corvacho

HOME AWAY FROM STUDIO BY Ted

Loos

118

The history—and significance—of artists communally seeking creative escape stretches far back into time.

Ariana Papademetropoulos subverses beauty through paintings combining realism and trompe l’oeil.

EARTHLY DELIGHTS PHOTOGRAPHY BY Chris

Sutton STYLED BY Lucio Colapietro

Gather your strength with dramatic draping and armor-inspired embellishments. ABOVE: Turtleneck, skirt, shoes, and scarf GIVENCHY

BREAKING THROUGH BY Pierre-Alexandre

Mateos and Charles Teyssou PHOTOGRAPHY BY Thibault-Théodore

South African-Italian artist Bianca Bondi galvanzines objects and elements to dismantle reality.

GREENER PASTURES BY Kat

Herriman PHOTOGRAPHY BY Eva O’Leary

124

New York City’s art scene has long had an affair with the countryside.

L’LOOK BACK BY Victoire

de Pourtales

Powerful art will always be radical.

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PUBLISHERS

Marie-José Susskind-Jalou, Maxime Jalou CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

CHAIRMAN

Benjamin Eymère

GLOBAL CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER

CHRISTOPHER BROWN

Anthony Cenname

GLOBAL DEPUTY CEO

GLOBAL DIGITAL EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

CONSULTING GLOBAL CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER

GLOBAL HEAD OF CONTENT PROJECTS AND FASHION INITIATIVES

Maria Cecilia Andretta

Joshua Glass

Stefano Tonchi

Caroline Grosso

EXECUTIVE EDITOR

GIAMPIETRO BAUDO BOOKINGS EDITOR

CASTING DIRECTOR

Joshua Glasgow MARKETING MANAGER

SENIOR EDITOR

Sara Ali

FASHION FEATURES EDITOR

Jennifer Eymere

Laure Ambroise

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Sabrina Abbas

ART DIRECTION

Sophie Shaw

Giulia Gilebbi

INTERNS

Hannah Amini, Jennifer Bindman, Courtney DeLong, Natalie Frantz, Robbie Gutman, Lexi Hempel, Taylor Jeffries, Alyssa Kelly, Irene Kim, Agatha Krasuski, Sophie Lee, Hannah Militano, Mayra Morales, Johnny Rabe

CONTRIBUTORS CREATIVE DIRECTOR

TREY LAIRD

CONSULTING EXECUTIVE MANAGING EDITOR

DESIGN DIRECTOR

Regan Solmo

PHOTOGRAPHY

Domen & Van De Velde, Rhys Frampton, Petra Kleis, Jennifer Livingston, Chris Sutton, Thibault-Théodore

ART EDITOR

Michael Riso

PRODUCTION

Dana Brockman, Roger Inniss, Lauren Tabach-Bank

Kat Herriman FASHION

Lucio Colapietro, Luca Falcioni, Lisa Jarvis, Rafael Linares, Jay Massacret, Pablo Patane

FEATURES

Adam Charlap Hyman, Ted Loos

In this Issue

Menelik

PURYEAR PHOTOGRAPHER

David

THIELEBEULE STYLIST

Sam

TAYLOR-JOHNSON PHOTOGRAPHER

“Off Site”

“Lily on the Beach”

“We really wanted to work on something that captured the urban diaspora to the country and the new relaxed sense of the city.”

“This story celebrates originality. Why not wear your cocktail frock on the farm and something pastoral in the city? When it comes to getting dressed there are no longer any rules.”

“I’ve been looking forward to working with Lily for some time. Working with Lily Collins on a Malibu beach sounds like a perfect day in these crazy times.”

Charles TEYSSOU & Pierre-Aleandre MATEOS WRITERS

“Breaking Through” and “Real World” “Our relationship to nature and the living is being radically altered in every possible field from philosophy to biology and aesthetics. Our discussions with artists Bianca Bondi and Rasmus Myrup will hopefully help to forge a language proportionate to the current urgency.”

Eva

O’LEARY PHOTOGRAPHER

“Greener Pastures” “This shoot was one of my most memorable, especially after six months of lockdown. Everyone we photographed was amazing, incredibly generous, and down to earth.”

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Iconic model Hannelore Knuts demonstrates the stark lines, dramatic silhouettes, and pops of color that make the clothes of this season bright. Photography DOMEN & VAN DE VELDE Styled by PABLO PATANE

Dress IRIS VAN HERPEN Necklace BULGARI GIORGIO ARMANI Hat RUUD ANTHONI Bracelet BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE—Jacket, pants, shirt, tie, and shoes DOLCE & GABBANA

OPPOSITE PAGE—Shirt

Dress IRIS VAN HERPEN and boots ALEXANDER McQUEEN ART DIRECTION: Giel Domen MODEL: Hannelore Knuts HAKIM MODEL MANAGEMENT HAIR: Joeri Rouffa using BALMAIN HAIR COUTURE and WELLA PROFESSIONALS MAKEUP: Liselotte Van Saarloos using MAC COSMETICS MOVEMENT DIRECTOR: Wim Vanlessen HAIR ASSISTANT: Joffrey Conings PHOTO ASSISTANTS: Annelien Geenen and Linde Stevens STYLIST ASSISTANT: Lyn Geven SPECIAL THANKS: Jean-Marc Mondelet OPPOSITE PAGEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;Jacket

Cartier’s newest suite of everyday objects are anything but quotidian. Since 1880, Cartier has made ordinary items extraordinary, from its first inkwells and fragrance bottles to crisp stationary and gilded lighters. In the 1930s, Louis Cartier—the grandson of the French maison’s founder—declared, “jewelry like ours

is as capable of adorning a woman’s shoulders with a dazzling necklace as it is of filling her handbag with a powder compact, a mirror, a small comb, and even business cards, all stamped with the same seal of originality and art.”

Photography JENNIFER LIVINGSTON

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;OBJET

de Cartier trinket trays CARTIER ABOVE, RIGHT—Diabolo de Cartier wooden block game CARTIER de Cartier box, mini model and Cartier Baby tumbler CARTIER OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT—Panthère de Cartier vase CARTIER PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT—Panthère de Cartier throw blanket CARTIER PREVIOUS PAGE, RIGHT—Diabolo de Cartier snow globe CARTIER RETOUCHING Picture House ABOVE, LEFT—Panthère

OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT—Entrelacés

Master collector Diane Venet unveils her private archives to reveal the lost, decadent world of artist-designed jewelry. When considering the greatest artists of the 20th century, a lengthy list comes to mind: Pablo Picasso, Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Fernand Leger, Man Ray, Damien Hirst, Pol Bury, Keith Haring, Yayoi Kusama, Anish Kapoor, and so on. These are the great masters of American abstract art, the most renowned members of the Young British Artists, the legends of Cubism, the leaders of Surrealism, the references of Dadaism, the pioneers of virtual art, and the founders of Futurism. All have invented their own pictorial vocabulary, with each artist’s own radical glory spread through their paintings, their sculptures, and their photographs. Today these names are taking center stage once again in a Parisian salon—but for one day only. Transported via a single, modestly-sized box, 200 pieces from several dozen leading

artists will soon leave their temporary home (typically they are kept at a bank for safekeeping) for Luxembourg, and then on to Monaco, where exhibits and designer showcases will highlight them next. These pieces of art rarely exceed 12 inches each, and can wrap around a finger, shine from a chest, or even envelop a wrist. The works belong to a category of objects all their own: artist jewelry, a mysterious and specific type of artwork of which Diane Venet has over the years become the torchbearer. Lying on tissue paper or leaning on boxes in Venet’s apartment today, the pieces display their astonishing lines in a tasteful, topsy-turvy way: a gold brooch by Georges Braque and shaped by Heger de Löwenfeld stands alongside a watch designed by Andy Warhol with the Movado factory.

By HERVÉ DEWINTRE Photography FLORE CHENAUX

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;INVITATION

Earrings signed by Man Ray—the very ones that Catherine Deneuve wore—unroll their intriguing curves alongside the copper spirals of a necklace designed by Alexander Calder. Placed on the floor, the vivid shades of Giacomo Balla’s enamels echo the chromatic dominance of a Fernand Leger brooch or the palette of primary colors that stand out on a pendant by Roy Lichtenstein. A few centimeters away, the uneven profile of a gold bracelet by the sculptor César recalls the twists of an aluminum bracelet by John Chamberlain, whilst the hypnotic lines of a silver, enamel and mother-ofpearl bracelet signed by Victor Vasarely seem to begin an unexpected but fruitful dialogue with the horizontal and evocative slits of a gold and magnetic necklace by Vassilakis Takis, molded directly on the body of his girlfriend. With her pieces leaving, so too will Venet, surely heading to her second house and workshop in Le Muy, France: a marvelous property in Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur’s Var that she transformed with her husband, the great sculptor Bernar Venet, into a foundation dedicated to minimal and conceptual art. Her collection of artist jewelry tells the story of Venet’s life through her romances and friendships, demands and stubbornness. When considering a piece, Venet ABOVE, TOP—(Clockwise from top) “Madame,” 1960, by Jean Cocteau; “Medusa,” 2011, by Rebecca Horn; “Sega,” 1992, by Faust Cardinali; “Gli Archéologi,” 1972, by Giorgio De Chirico; “Asteria,” 1963, by Georges Braque; “Seita 1,” 2000, by Raymond Hains; “Optic Topic Mask,” 1974, by Man Ray; “Clown with Diamond Eyes,” 1980, by Karel Appel; “Hommage à Odoacre,” 1959, by Georges Mathieu; “Untitled” by Alexander Calder ABOVE, RIGHT— (Clockwise from top) “Untitled,” 2008, by Frank Stella; “Collona,” 1968, by Arnaldo Pomodoro; “Ligne indéterminée,” 1985, by Bernar Venet

makes a very clear distinction between the artist and its goldsmith or craftsman, however much of a virtuoso he may be. “I’m not saying that I don’t like jeweler’s craft, but that’s another subject,” she says. “For my part, I collect jewelry imagined by artists. It does not matter what technique is used or the value of the materials, what matters is the reflection on the change of scale. These are rare items; most of them are unique or with a dozen or so editions, sensitive items, challenging items, too.” Although attached to renowned names, artist jewelry has survived relatively unknown. “It’s because most of the time these objects were intended for loved ones,” says Venet. “André Derain imagined the models of wildlife, Cretans, and masks to offer them to his wife; Sol LeWitt created rings for his daughters; Alexander Calder designed his jewelry for his wife, Louisa; Harry Bertoia fashioned adornments for his friends. As a result, these objects have often remained in the privacy of families.” Thus it took passion and determination to bring together these unique pieces designed by men and women who entered the art canon during the last century, but also by contemporary artists whom Venet knows intimately. Oftentimes the collector will willingly play the role of muse and agent, starting first with her husband. “We met in July of 1985,” she says. “At Christmas he offered me a ring, a silver bar that he had wrapped around two fingers, halfway

between sculpture and jewelry. Later, he gave me a peice by Arman, with whom he was very close, and others from César and Sergio Fontana. The seed was sown.” Alas, the huntress’ guiding principle reconciles both the intimacy and the grandiosity of her vast collection. “I buy, but I don’t sell anything,” she says confidently. “My collection is not an investment. When I wear artist jewelry, I wear someone I love first. It is the history of art that is meant to be shared.” Venet’s collection reminds us that art is the best of companions.

ABOVE, TOP RIGHT—“Rabbit

Necklace,” 2005-2009, by Jeff Koons from top right) “Oeil de Lucie,” 1959, by Gio Pomodoro; “Seita 1,” 2000, by Raymond Hains; Untitled, 1968, by Pol Bury; “Carpe Diem,” 2013, by Barthélémy Togo; “Inclusion,” 1967, by Arman and Bernar Venet; “Montre petite cuillère,” 1967, by Salvador Dalí; ABOVE, BOTTOM LEFT—On Diane’s finger: “Ligne indéterminée,” 1985, by Bernar Venet; In hand: “Optic Topic Mask,” 1974, by Man Ray RIGHT—(Clockwise

Iconic fashion photographer Paolo Roversi documents Poliform’s Italian design ethos in a new photo book. Poliform pays tribute to the history of Made-in-Italy design while celebrating its 50-year anniversary with a photographic volume entitled Time, Light, Space, lensed by Paolo Roversi and published by Rizzoli. Through visuals from the fashion photographer, the book explores the aesthetics of the furniture company, tracing its evolution from traditional

Italian craftsmanship to the contemporary. It’s a story with a proudly familiar DNA that originated as an artisan’s shop in 1942 and formally materialized as the Poliform brand in 1970 thanks to Aldo and Alberto Spinelli and Giovanni Anzani, who are still at the helm of the company today, as well as subsequent generations.

By GIORGIA CANTARINI

The vision remains true to itself, starting from the functionality of the furniture to Poliform’s recognizable artistic design. Imprinted over the years by world-renowned designers and architects such as Rodolfo Dordoni, Jean-Marie Massaud, Marcel Wanders, Carlo Colombo, Vincent Van Duysen, Paolo Piva, Paola Navone, Studio Kairos, Roberto Barbieri, and Roberto Lazzeroni, the objects have transcended form and function. Embracing design as transformation, Poliform has taken on a number of prestigious commissions in the past five decades: the interiors of the West End Quay complex in London and the AOL Time Warner Center in New York, as well as the Palmolive Building in Chicago, and the presidential suites of the Clinton Library in Little Rock. Time, Light, Space shows this search for absolute synthesis and radical simplicity, concepts that are present in Roversi’s aesthetic. The photographer’s high poetic notes often sees spaces suspended in time, while the powerful and rigorous structures of Poliform’s design are enhanced by Roversi’s unique light.

Netflix favorite Alice Pagani is already approaching entertainment with an artistic bent. Here the actress channels a belle de nuit in alluring silhouettes and Bulgari jewelry. By FABIA DI DRUSCO Photography RHYS FRAMPTON

ABOVE—Shirt

and bra CHANEL Briefs DOLCE & GABBANA Bracelet, earrings, and ring BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress MIU MIU Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE—Romper FENDI Earrings and ring BULGARI

I WOULD LIKE to BE ABLE TO USE my BODY TO APPROPRIATE the SPACE THAT SURROUNDS IT and TRANSFORM IT into AN ARTISTIC SPACE. When Alice Pagani introduced herself to director Andrea De Sica at her audition for Baby, the hit Netflix teen drama in which she plays lead Ludovica Storti, she ended up flat on her face. “I wanted to be brave, but I was so embarrassed that I tripped and fell to the ground,” she tells L’OFFICIEL. Based on a true story, the show takes us into the world of two high schoolers living in Rome’s posh Parioli district. Bored with the bubble they were raised in, Ludovica and Chiara (played by Benedetta Porcaroli) become involved in a prostitution ring in an attempt to escape their ennui. “Ours is the best possible world. We’re immersed in a wonderful see-through fish tank, but we long for the sea,” Chiara says in the opening monologue. “That’s why, in order to survive, we need a secret life.” Two years since Baby’s debut, Pagani has just finished filming De Sica’s newest project, Non Mi Uccidere (“Don’t Kill Me”), a gothic coming-of-age story about a 19-year-old drug addict who wakes up from an overdose, undead and craving flesh. “My heroine has to fight to grow and establish herself as a woman,” she says. “It’s a story of death and rebirth that leads to abandoning the childish part of oneself. She suffers so much, but she fights to remain a dreamer.” What drew you to Ludovica, your character in the hit show Baby? ALICE PAGANI: I fell in love with Ludovica while I was reading the script because I understood her self-destructive tendencies. I think the desire to self-destruct is common for my generation; anxiety and depression are widespread because the world moves too fast. L’OFFICIEL:

L’O: You’ve become known for your blunt bob à la Louise Brooks. Is there a story behind the style?

AP: I wore it all my life up until three months ago, and I will probably return to it soon. It was my mother’s idea; she has great taste. The hairstyle framed my huge eyes, which devoured my face when I was a child. L’O: You’ve defined yourself as an artist in the past. Is acting your ultimate goal? AP: I believe that being an actress is my calling, but it is a profession that feeds on many forms of art. I would like to be able to use my body like Marina Abramović; to appropriate the space that surrounds it and transform it into an artistic space. This is something I’m trying to develop at the moment. L’O: You’ve now collaborated twice with De Sica. Which other directors do you hope to work with in the future? AP: Tim Burton, because I grew up with his imagination, and Gaspar Noé, because his raw cinema fascinates me. He is a director who asks for your soul. I loved his film Climax, because the actors always had to be in full possession of the characters. When I start a role, I say goodbye to my life as Alice. I start to breathe and walk like the character in the film.

Apart from fiction, what story would you like to tell the world? Mine and my mother’s. I’m a woman raised by a woman, and I grew up in social housing in the Marche region of Italy. Fascism was still deeply rooted in a village like mine when I was young. I have witnessed many episodes of discrimination, and that’s why I would like to be able to respond with a film about the fundamental issues of our time, such as Black Lives Matter. It took me some time to understand that the discrimination I saw as a child was inhumane. Now, I intend to use acting and social media to convey this. L’O: AP:

STYLING:

Top and skirt EMPORIO ARMANI Bracelet BULGARI Luca Falcioni HAIR: Anastasia Stylianou MAKEUP: Fulvia Tellone MANICURE: Martina Di Crosta PHOTO ASSISTANT: Danny Walker FASHION ASSISTANTS: Carla Donadio and Mihaela Popa

Party Favors

What makes a celebration successful? While the past may suggest boozy cocktails or an ornate venue, 2020 has demanded we find fresh, socially distant ways to get festive. That’s why we polled thousands of you on Instagram to understand what stunning jewelry you’re hoping to unwrap this holiday season. With the votes all in, we saw a strong interest in new, day-to-day classics that will last a lifetime, like a chunky chain necklace à la Charlotte Chesnais or The Last Line’s more delicate option. Meanwhile, other bijoux, like the emerald cabochon earrings from Chopard, were highly favored, sure to impress at your from-the-neck-up holiday party on Zoom. As time remains but an abstract concept, one timepiece no one could turn their gaze away from was the decadent Maillon de Cartier. Of course, the ultimate sign of a night to remember is the unwillingness to throw in the towel—or take off a precious De Beers necklace—just as the sun starts to rise. While each elected piece is precious in its own way, one thing is certain: you’ll be wearing it like a badge as you bring the party into the

new year.

Photography JENNIFER LIVINGSTON

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;OBSESSION

Necklace DIOR FINE JEWELRY CHARLOTTE CHESNAIS PREVIOUS PAGE— Earrings CHOPARD

OPPOSITE PAGE— Necklace

Necklace THE LAST LINE CARTIER

OPPOSITE PAGEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Watch

Necklace DE BEERS LOUIS VUITTON

OPPOSITE PAGEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Bracelet

Watch CHANEL VAN CLEEF & ARPELS PROP STYLIST: Haidee Findlay-Levin RETOUCHING: Picture House OPPOSITE PAGEâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; Necklace

From her silver screen lineage, Luca Guadagnino’s latest star, Alice Braga, finds familiar inspiration in each new project. São Paulo, Brazil–born Alice Braga always knew she wanted to act. “I grew up on a movie set,” she says, following in the footsteps of her mother, Ana, and aunt, Sônia, who are both Brazilian actors. “What I most loved in life was the arts, and my passion for acting came from that.” Her breakout role was as Angélica in Fernando Meirelles’ Oscar-nominated City of God, a visceral film depicting the pulsating, blood-soaked streets of one of Rio de Janeiro’s toughest favelas. “That’s when everything clicked,” she says. Since then, Braga has gone on to star in several notable Hollywood productions, such as I Am Legend, Predators, and Elysium, and has even branched out into the superhero film

franchises. After three years on the shelf, X-Men–adjacent film The New Mutants finally saw its release this year, and the DC Comics antihero ensemble movie The Suicide Squad, in which Braga plays South American revolutionary Sol Soria, is slated for release next summer. Braga’s latest project, however, is grounded in this world. In Luca Guadagnino’s limited series for HBO, We Are Who We Are, Braga plays Maggie Teixeira, a military physician, with Chloë Sevigny as her wife, Sarah, and Jack Dylan Grazer as Fraser, their 14-year-old son. The series is a coming-of-age story centering on an American family

By SABRINA ABBAS Photography JAMES WHITE

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;HEROINE

living on a U.S. military base in Chioggia, Italy, and—in typical Guadagnino fashion—is a slow-burning character study that delves deeply into the lives and psyches of the teenagers and adults it revolves around. “[Luca] doesn’t let you follow the script strictly; he gives you room to feel the scene in the moment,” Braga says. “He’s really curious about the subjectivism of each human being, and that is why his films are so brilliant. He’s curious about human behavior, and that sets an actor free.” What was it like to work with Luca Guadagnino on We Are Who We Are and play a part in his distinct, stylized world?

L’OFFICIEL:

ALICE BRAGA: It was wonderful! I’ve been Luca’s friend for many years now. I saw his first film [I Am Love] in 2009, and I’ve followed his work since. I always love what he does with the characters, so being able to join him in something so unique—especially the first time that he’s directing a limited series—was just wonderful. He’s a very unique director in the way that he tells stories. He’s someone who takes you out of your comfort zone and creates new paths and visions for each character. We Are Who We Are, a show that specifically centers around the youth, is so important right now. It’s important to learn from the youth, from their freedom, and from their way of seeing life. and scarf DIOR Earrings, ring, and bracelet BULGARI and skirt SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Earrings and bracelet BULGARI OPPOSITE PAGE—Suit and shirt GUCCI Large ring ANNA SHEFFIELD Ear cuff and gold rings NOUVEL HERITAGE PREVIOUS PAGE—Jacket and pants MAX MARA Earrings ANNA SHEFFIELD ABOVE, LEFT—Shirt

ABOVE, RIGHT—Top

IT’S IMPORTANT to LEARN from the YOUTH, FROM THEIR FREEDOM, and FROM THEIR WAY of SEEING LIFE.

What drew you to the character of Maggie? The first time I spoke with Luca, he said that Maggie is full of passion, but it’s shown in the cracks of her life. She is the wife and the caretaker, and she looks after this boy [Glazer], and she loves him. She’s not his biological mom, but she feels like she is. It’s a character who lives her life through the moments that she’s able to. Maggie was such a beautiful character to play. I liked the idea of playing someone who is full of life but is unable to explore that in her heart. L’O: AB:

L’O: Maggie is complex—she is the rock of the family but also has this other side that she keeps hidden. Is that something that you relate to as a person in the spotlight? AB: That’s why I love the title of the show; we all have details and emotions that we hide for ourselves and that only come out in little pieces or in certain times of our life. Some parts we keep hidden, some parts we show, and some parts we don’t have control of, and they all come out.

L’O: How do you think a show like this would have influenced you as a teen? AB: It would have been beautiful. One of the things I was excited about when I read the script was how these young adults were portrayed. It was so unique. Sometimes we don’t show kids with a curious point of view. We establish them as teenagers—oh, they’re so complicated, or oh, they’re difficult. To have a show that dives into their emotions and their questions about the world is super powerful and important.

I LIKED the IDEA OF PLAYING SOMEONE WHO IS FULL of LIFE but IS UNABLE to EXPLORE THAT IN her HEART. How did you go about telling the story of a military family? I wanted to understand how the army structure works because it is a society of its own; it is a way of living with its own mentality. I wanted to be able to show the humanity behind it. There are actual human beings with feelings, with hearts, with passions that live this reality, and I was curious about how we could portray that with authenticity. L’O: AB:

You also filmed The Suicide Squad at the same time as We Are Who We Are—what was it like to switch between those two very different roles? AB: It was challenging because it was completely different energies, not just of the set but of the subjects we were dealing with and the material we were working on. But I was working simultaneously with two directors [Guadagnino on We Are Who We Are and James Gunn on The Suicide Squad] who I deeply admire and who have done amazing work, so that was an exciting moment. L’O:

Between The New Mutants and The Suicide Squad, you have your hands in both Marvel and DC Comics—is there something about the superhero universes that you’re drawn to? AB: I grew up reading comics. My dad and mom always loved arthouse directors like [Jean-Luc] Godard, and European and Brazilian cinema, but there was a side of my mom, especially, that was very connected to action films and superheroes and comics. I grew up very much in that world, so I am a nerd [laughing]. Joining The New Mutants and being able to participate in The Suicide Squad was so fulfilling because it was a childhood dream come true. I am a fan of this world just like the fans of the comics are. L’O:

STYLING: Rafael

Top, skirt, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings CHANEL Linares for Art Department HAIR: Darine Sengseevong for Art Department using ORIBE MAKEUP: Karina Moore for Art Department using CLARINS STYLIST ASSISTANT: Abby Orozco

FLOW

state

Go bold in the seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s head-to-toe patterns, from pastel florals to high-impact animal prints. Photography ALBERTO TANDOI Styled by GIULIO MARTINELLI

sandals SALVATORE FERRAGAMO Tiara VINTAGE ABOVE, RIGHT— Top, skirt, and bag PRADA Tiara VINTAGE shoes MIU MIU Tiara VINTAGE OPPOSITE PAGE, RIGHT— Dress, shoes, belt, bag, and headband EMILIO PUCCI PREVIOUS PAGE, LEFT— Dress SPORTMAX Top (under) AD MO Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Necklace and ring BUCCELLATI PREVIOUS PAGE, RIGHT— Top, pants, and bag CHANEL Top (under) AD MO Brooch and ring BUCCELLATI

ABOVE, LEFT— Shirt, pants, and

OPPOSITE PAGE, LEFT— Coat, sweater, skirt, and

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In the 1920s, when this magazine first appeared, the remote worlds of fashion, art, and entertainment were becoming interwoven like never before in our history: They were the major cultural expressions of the new bourgeois class as it took down the old hierarchical order. For the first time, fashion was called art, and entertainers were celebrated as artists. One century later, this is more true than ever. Now that Jean Baudrillard’s postmodern society is our reality, different disciplines merge into each other: musicians and artists design clothes; designers and stylists create music, films, and any kind of art. We all live and breathe in the same cultural universe; we are inspired by the same global events, react to the same changes in an all-connected world. In 2012, L’OFFICIEL launched a quarterly publication focused on contemporary art under the direction of the visionary Jerome Sans, whose interdisciplinary curiosity defined the identity of L’OFFICIEL Art for the years to come, giving it a respected voice in the art world. In keeping with our commitment to breaking down boundaries, we feel that it is time to bring fashion, art, and entertainment together again, in one place. For this issue we found ourselves musing on the escape from the cities and the returned interest in nature; a subject pervasive in every conversation right now, be it focused on politics, health, or sustainability. Historically, the countryside has always played the wholesome foil to the seductive cityscape, but as Rem Koolhaas’s recent Solomon R. Guggenheim show Countryside, The Future illustrated, this relationship is rapidly shifting. Hurried along by the COVID-19 pandemic, art and cultural innovators are increasingly turning their attention back to nature and the outside world.

Thus, we asked ourselves: What happens when the dialectic of city and country or urban and rural becomes flipped? Where will ideas be located? What does it mean for the accessibility of art, and how will urban centers—once the loci of creativity—fare in this shift? Follies, in their tension between nature and artifice, rural and urban, madness and reason, seemed a good place to start. We explored the history of the architectural objects and then asked 14 contemporary artists from Sterling Ruby to Katarina Grosse to share their vision, too. Escaping to remote areas and creating artist communities lost in nature became a recurring theme as we learned the brief history of art residences, which still exist in faraway locations such as rural France and Senegal. In fashion, too, the natural opposition between city and country is omnipresent: From this season’s many interpretations of idyllic prairie dresses to the subversive installations of artists Rasmus Myrup and Bianca Bondi, the dialogue continues across disciplines. And for our cover shoot, filmmaker and artist Sam TaylorJohnson placed actor Lily Collins by the Pacific Ocean, creating haunting images suspended between past and future. Collins herself performs a balancing act in her successful career, on screens simultaneously as the romantic eponymous lead in Emily in Paris, and as Rita, Herman J. Mankiewicz’s assistant in David Fincher’s new Oscar-talked movie Mank. Ultimately, we learn that the once-opposite concepts of city and country are in fact fluid and interrelated. As we see from the many artists and creatives who are transforming their work within nature, the countryside can be much more than just a pretty background or an escape: It is a place for optimism, invention, and opportunity.

With the release of her new David Fincher flick Mank, the actress looks inward. Here, she virtually rendezvouses with fashion legend Alber Elbaz to consider the extraordinary influence of Emily in Paris and both creativesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; big next steps. By JOSHUA GLASS Photography SAM TAYLOR-JOHNSON Styled by JAY MASSACRET

Herman J. Mankiewicz and his notorious feud with director Orson Welles. Demure but biting, Collins plays Rita, the wispy secretary to Gary Oldman’s Mankiewicz and voice of reason to the overlooked writer’s domestic chaos. The blackand-white film was written by Fincher’s late father, Jack, and glorifies Old Hollywood drama through the director’s masterful style. Nine hours ahead in France, Elbaz is tiptoeing on the cusp of newness, too. Since his departure from Lanvin in 2015, the influential designer has purposely kept himself out of the fashion arena, collaborating instead on beauty, footwear, and even cinema projects—that is, until now, with the slow launch of his largely secretive, Richemont-backed fashion startup, AZ Fashion, which debuts in January. Displaced from the cobblestones of Paris, the actress and the designer reconnect to discuss their shared excitement for one another, creativity in quarantine, and joy ahead.

There’s BEEN SO MUCH TIME to BE QUIET and SIT STILL THAT I THINK THERE’S GOING TO BE A VERSION of A RENAISSANCE AFTER THIS, WHERE PEOPLE ARE just DYING TO be CREATIVE. When Lily Collins arrived in Paris over a year and a half ago to start filming Emily in Paris—the unsuspecting Netflix feelgood that became an overnight fame monster—the city was not as she’d expected. Born in Surrey, England but raised in LA, the daughter of Phil Collins has long been a Francophile, but upon returning to the French capital as Emily, an American hopeful trying to infiltrate the world of high fashion, the city’s volume seemed softer. With August’s heat seducing most Parisians to Biarritz or Provence for holiday, Collins and crew found themselves almost in a world of their own—that is until the rest of the world took notice. Signatured by his oval-shaped frames and unperturbed glee, Alber Elbaz had a similar experience when he first immigrated from New York. “I was like, where is everyone?” recalls Elbaz, who moved across the Atlantic to work under Guy Laroche in the mid ‘90s. The fashion designer, who would later go on to Yves Saint Laurent before forging his legacy by reshaping the house of Lanvin—and contemporary women’s fashion as we know it—was, however, home that summer. Fate in the form of a mutual friend brought Elbaz and Collins together, and the two continued to run into each other in the weeks that the Darren Star–created series filmed. “At one point I was like, am I in this show?” he laughs. Elbaz was, in fact, not, but the pair’s parallelity was sealed in more ways than one. Many months of Internet memes and record-breaking numbers later, Collins, with her beret temporarily retired, is no less Emily today as she is no less her old self, either. Newly engaged, the actress is embarking on what might be the most important phase of her career with Mank, David Fincher’s new biographical drama about Citizen Kane screenwriter OPPOSITE PAGE—Blazer

JOSHUA GLASS: Emily in Paris satirizes so many different things, but at its core the show is really about being an outsider—to an industry, to a point of view, to an attitude. What does that feeling mean to each of you? LILY COLLINS: There’s no transformative scene in the show where Emily goes into a dressing room as Emily in Chicago and comes out as Emily in Paris. She stays who she is throughout the season while learning and growing. Every time I go to a new movie set or a new TV set myself, I still feel a bit like this—like a fish out of water. It’s the experience of going into a new environment, not knowing anyone, and having to bring whatever it is you prepared to the table. It was interesting to play her, a young woman in a foreign situation who has to adapt but maintain who she is. I think many people can relate to that idea of not wanting to change who you are in order to fit in. ALBER ELBAZ: I think the message for me ultimately is that it pays to be nice. Because you could be a bitch, Lily, but you weren’t. You as Emily were a good girl with good values. You didn’t understand why people didn’t cooperate with you or didn’t get you. But it was also very much a culture shock. I’m reminded of the immigrant experience. I’ve been an immigrant a few times in my life: I was born in Morocco, raised in Israel, and then I went to America. In New York City I had an apartment the size of a table and two roommates, one of them named Muffin. Yes, Muffin. You had to see New York through your own eyes to understand it, and when I arrived, I was not only an outsider—I was nobody.

No one could have predicted how incredibly popular the show would become, and Lily, it’s easily your widest-reaching role yet. Alber, in your long career have you had an Emily in Paris moment? AE: Once when I was in New York I came across these gorgeous roses, and I said, “Wow, they’re beautiful!” The florist told me, “18 dollars.” I didn’t even ask the price. A few months later I was in Paris, and I came across another stand. “Wow, these roses are gorgeous,” I told their owner. “These are roses named Piaget,” he said back. “And they grow only one time a year. Smell them. They grow in the sun!” I asked, “So how much are they?” And he said, “We are not sure of the price.” It’s little things that show the difference JG:

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between people, cities, and cultures. In Paris they invented perfume, so there is always that sense of dreaming. I always remember what my mother used to say about perfume: “Just smell it, don’t ever drink it.” LC: Too much of a good thing? AE: Yes, and it also applies to success. One of the biggest dangers of success is when you start to believe that you are too fabulous; that you are bigger than life. I always bring it back to that moment of perfume. I tell myself, Don’t drink the perfume. Just sniff it. Almost similarly, you’re both turning the pages of two very big chapters in your lives. Lily, your new film, Mank, directed by David Fincher, just premiered on Netflix, while Alber, your new fashion startup, AZ Fashion, launches next month. Where do you two find yourselves emotionally? LC: I never thought I’d get to work with David. The idea that he believed in me to take on this character and to be a part of something of this caliber—another dream-like project— was a real gift. David is a genius in his field. He knows exactly what he wants and how to get it, but he’s also open to collaboration. He respects you, while you—and the whole crew—have immense admiration for him. When you’re a part of something like that, it changes the bar you’ve set for yourself. We filmed it at the same time we were filming Emily, so it was such a dramatic contrast to go from literal color to black-and-white to humor versus stoic no-nonsense drama. Flying back and forth from Paris to Los Angeles, I was exhausted, but I felt so creatively fulfilled. AE: For every artist the blank page is the scariest thing to face. I don’t know how it is with acting, but I feel like sometimes what I do is almost like the birth of a baby. It begins and you aren’t like, Oh, wow, life is gorgeous! It’s more like, Ouch, ouch, ouch! But then it comes out and you forget the pain. But to get into it and then leave it, is really hard. [After Lanvin], I decided not to do fashion for a few years because I was not in love anymore. At the same time, it was the only thing I knew how to do. I don’t even know how to drive a car, so I couldn’t even be a taxi driver! I had all these offers from all these big fashion houses, and I didn’t want to be a diva, but I felt that something wouldn’t let me start again so soon. I started to teach. I went to all these amazing schools around the world to understand what is next and where the world was going— this is before COVID-19, of course. Then I signed with Richemont, and I opened up this startup. LC: First of all, congratulations, it’s so exciting, and I mean there’s very little that anyone knows about it, so I’m curious; what can you share? AE: There is a big difference between creating and recreating, and in the past my job was often about not only recreating but replacing. This time I wanted to start from scratch. I’ve been observing women for the last five years; looking at everything that they are going through, the changes in their lives. I’ve always said that if I was ever a producer in Hollywood, the next James Bond would be Jane Bomb, and she wouldn’t be an ex-model. She would be a smart woman that has no age and no size, because it doesn’t matter. Looking at the lives of women today, you can see them running in ten different directions JG:

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trying to be the best mother, the best wife, the best person you work with, etc. I realized I had to start working on a solution, so that’s what I’m doing now. I’m introducing new technology, but I’m also trying to go a little bit deeper than just looking fabulous. I’m trying to listen to women to see what I can do to bring them their dreams, because at the end of the day, we are just not living in a world of only data and algorithms or instinct and emotion. We can put them both together as yin and yang. It’s not either-or; it’s both together.

It’s BEEN REALLY AMAZING TO BE at HOME and WATCH Emily in Paris BECOME THIS global SENSATION THAT NO ONE EXPECTED but ALSO HUMBLING to NOT HAVE IT BECOME MY EVERYTHING. How does it feel to be working on such momentous projects when the world has never been more different from how we’ve known it? LC: I think it’s been really interesting for me—or for all of us within the industry, really—to experience something come out during quarantine. I’ve loved it, actually, but it’s very different. I miss the social element: going out on photoshoots and being around people, but it’s been really lovely to experience the joy and the laughter and the smiles that Emily has brought to so many people, because it came out just when we needed to smile and laugh the most. On the other side, quarantine has been a great way of separating work and personal life in a way. Right? I mean, I got engaged during quarantine, and even though I have Mank coming out, I didn’t have to immediately leave for weeks to go on a press tour for it. I’ve been able to talk about the movie, which I’m so passionate about, from home and then go on a walk with my dog after. I really rely on my friends and family and—to some extent even myself—to bring me back down if I ever find myself wanting to “drink the perfume.” It’s been really amazing to be at home and watch Emily in Paris become this global sensation that no one expected but also humbling to not have it become my everything. To keep sniffing it, like you said. JG:

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WE’RE all REALLY GETTING BACK TO THE CORE of WHO WE ARE WITHOUT THE LAYERS of SOCIETY. AE: Everything about COVID-19 has been so depressing and horrible. What I miss more than anything else at this time is being hugged and the ability to hug others. I don’t even want to sit in a café, just physical contact. I’m also a hypochondriac, so this has not been easy for me. Yet, I think this moment that we’re living in will also take us to a different place. It’s kind of a detox. It’s forcing us to not only change but change faster, too. LC: This has been such an intense experience of self-reflection and identity crisis. It can be scary, especially when you’re surrounded by the same space and have to look inward to face the things about yourself or your future that you really hadn’t had to before. There’s the metaphorical mirror everyday of: Who am I? What do I want to accomplish? What makes me happy without distraction? Aside from that, it’s been a really important time to think about greater issues in the world like COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, and politics in America. There’s been so much time to be quiet and sit still that I think there’s going to be a version of a Renaissance after this, where people are just dying to be creative. AE: I read recently that [actor] Roberto Benigni said that poverty was the best heritage one could get. I think that we are all going through a sense of poverty today because we are without a lot—friendship, people, family, work, etc. Lily, the fact that you met the love of your life during quarantine is so symbolic because you met when you were really you. No decoration. LC: What’s interesting is that Charlie [McDowell] and I met just before Emily in Paris, and we got engaged this September. Quarantine has made and broken up a lot of people, but the time together just solidified what we already knew about HAIR:

each other. As you just said, everyone has very much been who they are these last few months, because there aren’t any external distractions. We’re all really getting back to the core of who we are without the layers of society. When you’ve seen someone at their best and at their worst and you’re still right there with them, that’s a beautiful thing. AE: Lily, you know, I’ve designed 32 wedding dresses. LC: No way! AE: Thirty-two in my previous life, and 31 are still married. You better call me when you need a dress! A final question either of you would like to know? Alber, setting out on an adventure like this is scary and nerve-racking, but you must be excited, too? AE: I’m sure that as an actress, there are moments that you’re on set surrounded by all these people and you’re told, “Oh, wow, it’s amazing.” But we ask ourselves internally, Is it really? Are they going to get it? Are they going to love it? Because it’s not if they’re going to love it, but if they’re going to love me. We have become the it of whatever we do. But yes, I’m very excited. You know, I’m not the vacation type. I hate the sand. I can’t stand boats. But the first day I entered my new office here I said, “God, vacation just started.” LC: What a wonderful way of thinking of it. You are one of the most beloved people in the world, and everyone is just cheering you on. You talked about Emily as someone who is so nice and warm and stays herself, but that’s who you are, Alber. Throughout everything and with every obstacle that’s come your way, you’re you. I’m so excited to see what’s next because you always make people and women feel so powerful and good about themselves. JG: LC:

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Folly-making is a longstanding tradition of the absurd, and yet, with the horrors of this past year, escapist fantasy has never been so needed. As Adam Charlap Hyman ponders the history of the architectural landmarks, 14 contemporary artists share what follies mean to them in this original portfolio. Text and Illustrations by ADAM CHARLAP HYMAN Portfolio curated by KAT HERRIMAN

After decorating his way through the Second World War, the Spanish silver-mining heir Carlos de Beistegui turned his attention to the adornment of his garden at the Château de Groussay, just over 30 miles west of Paris in Montfortl’Amaury. His creative partners of choice, the architect Emilio Terry and the artist Alexandre Serebriakoff, had been extremely busy throughout Hitler’s occupation dreaming up the wildly creative interiors of the château in a style Terry coined “Louis XVII,” for the French king who never reigned. By 1949, the trio had completed the Temple de l’Amour, the first of what would amount to seven small structures on the grounds: follies. In the center of a circular limestone colonnade and sheltered by a small copper dome, a statue of Venus stood idly on her plinth, seemingly unaware that beyond the Sienese-striped obelisks at Beistegui’s stables, the raw imprint of war, continuing rations, a slow rebuilding process and a sea of loss and suffering stretched out across the country. That the word “folly” comes from the Old French folie, meaning “madness,” I suppose is fitting for this picture. Why is it that so often the most beautiful things are created under the bleakest of circumstances? I became interested in the follies of the Château de Groussay in college, after discovering the shockingly irreverent work Terry had done on the interiors of Beistegui’s modernist apartment designed by the master architect Le Corbusier. I liked the way Terry used historical references to concoct fantasies for the present, collaging narratives, materials, and motifs in his own voice. It is amazing to consider that the architect created such a classicized world and thought in this practically postmodern way, decades before the movement was born, and expressed himself so completely. By the time I finally visited Groussay, Terry’s designs had inspired in me a love for this type of personal architectural microcosm.

FOLLIES EXIST IN the TENSION BETWEEN REASON & the UNREASONABLE. And so I went to the Royal Pavilion at Brighton to take close-up photos of the palm tree columns in its kitchen; the Palazzina Cinese in Sicily to observe the mechanism that lowers a table from the dining room into the kitchen on the floor below; the Gardens of Bomarzo to grasp the scale of the giant’s gaping mouth that forms a doorway; and the grotto at the Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria to see its jib door leading to Ludwig II’s bedroom. What I began to understand was that follies exist in the tension between reason and the unreasonable. They are the antidote to Enlightenment architectural principles, which exalt order and clarity in man’s relationship to the landscape, and yet they have their own rigor and their own logic. The definition of the folly as pure ornament for the garden—useless and for the eye alone—is an outdated one. These miniaturized buildings, or sculptures of buildings, are vessels for everything their full-scale counterparts are not: the irrational, the ephemeral, the fake, the theatrical, the perverse, the absurd, the subconscious, and the darkness. As such, they are essential. I think of Claude Nicolas Ledoux’s phallus-shaped brothel, or the sexualized depictions of meetings at little classical temples in paintings

of extraordinary Romantic gestures once punctuated by 21 follies, of which ten remain today. Once the residence for Monville, at the garden’s center is La Colonne Détruite, an enormous structure that appears to be the crumbling base of a ruined column. Had the lost temple been complete, it would have been taller than the Lighthouse of Alexandria. The cracks creeping down the column’s massive flutes are, in fact, windows, and the various internal levels are accessed via a staircase that spirals around a now-missing tree. Walking the gardens in 2013, I got a sense for the truly radical nature of Monville’s project, a cipher for a new worldview celebrating secularism and reason and embracing ephemerality. I am sure the poetically reflexive nature of the place was not lost on him, and I like to imagine that when, as lore would have it, the Reign of Terror finally reached the walls of Le Désert and he pretended to be his own gardener, Monville would have envisioned with some small satisfaction his folly’s future as a ruin of a ruin.

by François Boucher, or Clive tugging at Maurice’s sweater in front of the Palladian pavilion at Wilbury Park in the Merchant Ivory film. These are places where pleasure verges on madness, where the cerebral approaches the carnal, where people find something deep within themselves that is raw and powerful. While working on Groussay, Terry, Serebriakoff, and Beistegui became enamoured with an estate a roughly 30-minute drive away known as Le Désert de Retz. They were not the first. The place has captivated many visitors since it was built in the years leading up to the French Revolution, from Marie Antoinette to Thomas Jefferson, Colette, Salvador Dalí, and Jean Cocteau. Le Désert was the private garden of French aristocrat François Racine de Monville, and sprawls over 99 acres, organized in a series

This kind of uncanny loop in which something is “authentically fake” seems intrinsic to the idea of a folly. I am reminded of Carl Hagenbeck, the deeply flawed inventor of the modern zoo, famed for his convincing rock formations carved from...rock. Surrounded by moats, these little islands became the theatrical settings for animal life, observed by visitors across the water with few barriers besides distance, as if actually in the wild. Hagenbeck harnessed the colonial imagination of his patrons, transporting them to fictionalized exotic places that suggest the natural habitats of the animals on each island, which are grouped by species. Visiting his Giardino Zoologico in Rome in the heart of the Villa Borghese is a very different experience from wandering the aforementioned aristocratic dreamscapes outside of Paris, but the German merchant strikes me as the 19th-century inheritor of Monville, claiming the folly anew as marketing tool, colonial artifact, and entertainment for the bourgeoisie. There are giraffes grazing in front of a petite Mughal palace,

The FOLLY IS THE PRODUCT of A HUBRISTIC BARGAIN that MAN can IMPROVE UPON WILDERNESS and A VIOLENT METHODOLOGY THROUGH WHICH WE CREATE BEAUTIFUL things. zebras resting in the shade of their Yoruban clay-and-thatched house, and tigers roaming throughout a Khmer temple. These miniaturized architectures and landscapes captivated Victorian audiences, who made their way in droves seeking some tantalizing taste of the other and a fleeting affirmation of their own dominance, as humans over other animals and as Westerners in the world at large. Sadly, I am not a gardener, but what I have gleaned from the gardens I have spent time in and the gardeners I have known is that the central conceptual feature of the practice is control. The smells, colors, compositions and juxtapositions, tensions and tenderness, life and death even, come as a result of the gardener’s negotiation with nature. In this sense, the folly is the product of a hubristic bargain that man can improve upon wilderness and a violent methodology through which we create beautiful things. Think of Diana Mitford, in pseudoexile after her husband Oswald Mosly’s “misjudgement” as the head of the British Union of Fascists leading up to World War II, tending to her roses on the grounds of their converted Palladian folly in Orsay, the Temple de La Gloire. There is, of course, something both chilling and wholly appropriate that she, the wife of an authoritarian politician, should wind up residing in a supremely classicizing structure so compact that the Duchess of Windsor, upon visiting, is said to have remarked, “Oh, it’s charming, but where do you live?” While the grounds of Philip Johnson’s Glass House are probably the closest America has to Le Désert de Retz, and his Rockefeller guest house on 52nd Street the closest New York has to Temple de la Gloire, searching for follies in my city has led me to a different kind of landscape. This garden of sorts starts at roughly the 16th floor and ends beneath about ten thousand gallons of water. To see it whole it must be

linked together the way that Neddy Merrill links together the pools of his Westchester neighborhood to form the “Lucinda River” in John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer.” The water towers, roofs, and terraces of the parkside buildings on Fifth Avenue and Central Park West constitute, in my mind, New York’s finest folly garden, defined most excitingly by the contributions of Emery Roth and Rosario Candela. Harnessing the potential of the setback, as required by zoning codes of the 1920s, these architects adorned their otherwise inexpressive and austere buildings with flying buttresses, urns, cupolas, domes, and follies, to obscure the water towers and other utilities that always find themselves on the roofs of that most New York invention, the residential skyscraper. To explore the terraces on these buildings is to wander through a different world than the street below: a meandering network of hidden gardens and follies in the sky, sublimely petite against the vastness of the view. Is it possible that the developers of American Revivalist suburbs—wresting the idea of the folly from the domain of the rich and planting it in the aspirational heart of the prewar middle class; miniaturizing the Tudor manse, the Spanish colonial estate, and the medieval castle—were working with the same medium, ultimately, as Marie Antoinette building her Hermitage? Or as Edward James pouring the concrete for Las Pozas in the rainforest? Or as Niki de Saint Phalle hand-cutting the fragments of tile for her Tarot Garden in Capalbio, Italy? Or as Karl Lagerfeld planning an enormous bouclé jacket from which his models emerge onto the catwalk? Or as Not Vital constructing one of his houses “to

watch the sunset” on each continent? In the end, perhaps the only thing I know about follies for certain is that they are found when the expansiveness of desire far exceeds the size of the structure. ABOVE—“The roof of 780 Park Avenue by Rosario Candela,” 2020, by Adam Charlap Hyman (throughout) OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP—“La Colonne Détruite at Désert de Retz,” 2020 OPPOSITE PAGE, BOTTOM—“Diana Mitford’s Temple de la Gloire,” 2020 PREVIOUS PAGE—“The Tartar tent at Château de Groussay,” 2020

Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London

“Blind date at the Monster Park (Garden of Bomarzo),” 2020

HERNAN BAS

KERN SAMUEL

“A hard head makes a soft ass,” 2020 “I was thinking of the folly as something simultaneously real and imaginary—something that is its own thing and a reference to something else.”

JORGE PARDO

“Cactus Garden,” Unrealized Public Project, 2015/2020

KANDIS WILLIAMS

“A field: banana republics poetic in plutocracy and monopoly,” 2020

Courtesy of artist and Massimo De Carlo Gallery.

“Arc de Triomphe,” 2003/2020

GELITIN

Courtesy the artist and Sprüth Magers

ANDREA ZITTEL

“Panels and Portals #2,” 2020

CYNTHIA TALMADGE “Wishing Well,” 2020

Courtesy of the artist. Assisted by Matthew Brennan.

JAMES CASEBERE “Nine Pavilions,” 2020

“These nine identical, asymmetrical, geometric pavilions are each placed on a different side and designed to be shown together in a commons; a campus courtyard, public garden, or square, etc., and in a variety of possible configurations. They would be 13.5’ x 7.5 x 10’ and made of cross laminated timber, enabling use and occupation for isolation, contemplation, or dialogue.”

KATHARINA GROSSE

“Penelope’s Hut,” 2020

TATIANA TROUVÉ

“Untitled,” 2020

Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Hong Kong, Seoul, and London

“Henry David Thoreau’s cabin,” 2020

ERWIN WURM

STERLING RUBY “Studio Folly,” 2020

“This is a concept proposal to use one of the open outdoor structures at my studio as a temporary voting booth folly. When multiplied and stacked atop themselves, a fabric awning bearing the American flag is transformed from a shade shield into a privacy barrier, and a security camera becomes the all-seeing eye.”

MATTHEW DAY JACKSON “Untitled,” 2020

Courtesy of the artist

CAMILLE HENROT “Untitled,” 2013

California-raised artist Ariana Papademetropoulos subverses beauty through paintings combining realism and trompe-lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;oeil, which she stages in disconcerting installations. By CLAIRE BEGHIN Photography SERGIO CORVACHO

Books, postcards, photos... Once multiplied, they take on a whole new dimension, like an obsession that leads to madness.”

With her wide doe eyes and porcelain skin, Ariana Papademetropoulos—who seems something between an ingenuous Renaissance figure and a Robert Rodriguez heroine—is almost as visually intriguing as her paintings; both are tinged with nostalgia and the occult. In her work, the 29-year-old dissects the obsessions of the human being. “I am a collector,” Papademetropoulos says. “Before I start painting I spend days collecting random objects that people have thrown out for lack of interest. ABOVE, LEFT—”The

Shadow of Clouds,” 2020, by Ariana Papademetropoulos GUCCI Necklace JOANNE BURKE Earrings DARIUS JEWELS

ABOVE, RIGHT AND PREVIOUS PAGE—Dress

In 2014, luck smiled on the California Institute of the Arts alumna. “The right people saw my paintings,” Papademetropoulos says of her beginnings. “It happened very naturally: I was given the chance to organize my first exhibition at Sade Gallery in Los Angeles, and that’s when it all started.” Since then, she has spent her days painting in her Pasadena studio, tucked away in the garage of an old haunted house. “I left my old studio for this mysterious place, which is much more suited to my work,” she laughs. “It’s a garage like any other, but loaded with a very special vibe.” While she recognizes Downtown LA as California’s new art mecca, Papademetropoulos laments its white-cube atmosphere, which contrasts with her own idea of art.

One only needs to scroll through the artist’s Instagram account to understand that she acts in opposition to convention. Behind her polished artistic universe, it’s not difficult to sense a young girl who has elevated innocence as a way of life. Between colorful photos of her painted works, a daily life full of lightness and humor emerges, shared with a group of eccentric friends from LA to Paris; many from a generation of artists who explore the myth of female eroticism. “Everyone now has their chance and the opportunity to show their work, which is a very good thing,” she says. “I am wary, however, of the narcissism generated by social networks. I even asked my hypnotherapist to cure my Instagram addiction!”

Photos courtesy of the artist and Vito Schnabel Gallery

Art, narcissism, and alternative medicine: no doubt, we are in California, a paradoxical region that is highly representative of the vices and virtues of the human soul. “The unique atmosphere of California influences my work a lot,” Papademetropoulos continues. “Everything here has its dark opposite. The area has always attracted a lot of curious people: people come to Hollywood for fame, but also to immerse themselves in religion, to join cults, and to explore their spirituality. Los Angeles is still seen as the land of all possibilities. Everyone is looking for an answer.” The state is anchored in the collective imagination as the

land of dreams, glamour, and avocado toast, where beauty and fear go hand-in-hand towards a toned-down (and gluten-free) destiny. It’s the land where Papademetropoulos grew up.

CLOCKWISE, FROM TOP—“Keira,” 2020;

“Death of a Mermaid,” 2020; “Spying on Zeus was never a good idea,” 2020

Born to a Greek father and an Argentinian mother, she was raised between the posh country clubs of Pasadena and the hysteria of Venice Beach, bottle-fed with Barbarella, B-horror films, and occult novels. All come together now in her paintings, where the disturbing is disseminated into an ideal reality. “My work represents a certain utopia: perfect houses with very elaborate interiors, where there is always a strange detail or something mystical,” she explains. “I am drawn to what disturbs me, and interior design fascinates me in what is both

ABOVE, LEFT —“When

I met my first spiral,” 2019 Scarlet Woman,” 2020

ABOVE, CENTER —“The

the mundane and the meaningful.” Raised by the American dream and its most twisted counterparts, Papademetropoulos immerses her work in a sort of injunction questioning beauty on the surface. Her exhibition Wonderland Avenue, inspired by the murders that happened on the street of the same name in 1981, displays this. “The story perfectly echoes my work,” she says. “The name of the street sounds like Disneyland, yet it has been the scene of some very dark events.” STYLIST:

A notion of duality seems to follow her: for her next installation, Papademetropoulos intends to explore the numerous attempts by the CIA to assassinate Fidel Castro. “I found out he was a big fan of scuba diving. In the 1960s, the CIA planned to booby trap the most beautiful seashells on the seabed he was exploring, in order to get him. I found the contrast extraordinary: wherever you find beauty, however pure it may be, the gruesome is never far away. This is California.”

ABOVE— Dress GUCCI Earrings DARIUS JEWELS Jennifer Eymère HAIR AND MAKEUP: Sergio Corvacho STYLIST ASSISTANT: Ully Rose THANKS TO: Babuino 79

Gather your strength with dramatic draping and armor-inspired embellishments. Photography CHRIS SUTTON Styled by LUCIO COLAPIETRO

boots MARINE SERRE Necklace and bracelet BULGARI LOEWE Bracelets and pendant VAN CLEEF & ARPELS PREVIOUS PAGE—Cape, skirt, hat, and scarf PACO RABANNE Shoes AQUAZZURA Necklace BULGARI ABOVE—Dress, leggings, veil, and OPPOSITE PAGE—Dress

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boots ALEXANDER McQUEEN RICHARD QUINN

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GENNY Mask VOIDOFCOURSE GUCCI Ring BULGARI MODEL: Micaela Tosi IMG MODELS HAIR: Lorenzo Barcella ALDOCOPPOLA MAKEUP: Gimmy Arevalo SET DESIGNER: Lorenzo Dispensa AURAPHOTOAGENCY HAIR ASSISTANT: Alessandro Ragione STYLING ASSISTANTS: Emanuele Recupero and I-Ting Yeh ABOVE— Dress

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South African-Italian artist Bianca Bondi galvanzines objects and elements to dismantle reality. In Cité Internationale des Arts’ austere and derelict modernist building in Paris, which sits beside the perfectly squared French garden of the Hôtel de Sens, Bianca Bondi set up vases and amphora-like vessels in a small sink in the corner of a wet room. It was a few hours before the opening of her 2016 exhibition, The Garden, and the artist was making her objects live through a painful experience: oxidation. Upon making contact with salt and water, the copper of the objects became enhanced by a sheen of sparkling grey that are sometimes seen on the rocks along the beach or on some frescoes in Pompeii that have resisted the passage of time. Looking back at the mutations now, one cannot help but think of the marvelous aesthetics of surrealist gardens like Edward James’ Las Pozas in Mexico or the follies of Le Désert de Retz, which have delighted lovers of ruins and engulfed worlds.

Bondi’s creations seem to have come more naively, though; reminiscent of The Little Mermaid’s underwater cave, where the Disney princess piled up her treasures: candleholders, antique vases, treasure trunks, and a simple fork with an unidentified function. Years later, objects still have their own lives for the artist, and are loaded with a kind of surviving dimension outside of human interpretations. A flea market enthusiast, Bondi, 34, keeps a list of things to be found for future installations and to reconstruct an imaginary museum. She follows the collector’s adage that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Her objects are charged with a metaphysical force that finds its power in as much of the artist’s childhood as in her recent readings. While growing up in Johannesburg, she was affected by

By PIERRE-ALEXANDRE MATEOS and CHARLES TEYSSOU Photography THIBAULT-THÉODORE

the animist cultures of South Africa. She recalls reading The Daily Sun, a bi-weekly newspaper that published sports, love, and local, “true” accounts of witchcraft along with stories of crime. The mysterious and spiritual dimension fascinated Bondi as a young girl, and was omnipresent in her early life. She remembers regularly frequenting a so-called “pharmacy” where various roots, claws, chicken feet, and elephant feet were sold behind the counter; and spending evenings binge watching ‘90s occult faves like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or The Craft. Like the heroines of these shows, Bondi practiced divinatory ceremonies in her pre-teen years, but what could once have been a secret game of youth took a more serious and personal turn upon the death of her father. From then on, and through various rituals, Bondi tried to communicate with the impalpable. Soon, an intuition was forged—one of survival beyond the observable, a vitalist materialism where matter as well as ideas are endowed with an active and driving force of their own. Thus, the artist’s practice today is entirely driven by the art of vanity, pictorial traditions dedicated to the transitory, and the questioning of humanity’s finitude. The scales of time and space that escape us are what Bondi observes when she goes to Paris’ Museum of Mineralogy in the Jardin des Plantes, where Roger Caillois’ collection is ABOVE—“Still Waters,” 2020, Installation

view, Parvis Centre d’art, Tarbes, France, by Bianca Bondi (throughout), Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Mor Charpentier (throughout) RIGHT—“The Antechamber (Tundra Swan),” 2020, Installation view, The Busan Biennale, Korea, Courtesy of the Busan Biennale

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drowsing. Perhaps the precious stones remind her of the surface of Kepler’s 22-b, a potentially habitable exoplanet 587 lightyears away that the artist studied years ago when she dreamt of a career in science. But rather than the horological rigor of hard science, Bondi preferred the frontality of plastic and the sensual experience of colors and matter, keeping her creative sensibility close to Bio-art or Earth-art with a Seapunk twist. Bondi’s desire to observe her sites as closely as possible in order to create is what motivated her travel to South Korea for the Busan Biennale earlier this August when the world was in the throes of the first waves of the COVID-19 pandemic. The artist had to spend 14 days in quarantine in an airport

hotel before she could stage her work, “The Antechamber.” Inspired by Kim Hye-soon’s poem “Tundra Swan,” her immersive proposal depicts a landscape of salt with a few scattered objects emerging from an immaculate whiteness. It seems to oscillate between a chamber of life and a chamber of death, recollection and dissipation, as in the setting of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where astronaut Dave Bowman sees himself growing old at an accelerated rate before being reborn. For the artist, the installation has an allegorical perspective: “I wanted to create a dreamy limbo as well as a destabilizing space,” she says. “By putting way too much light in the space, and then 6 tons of salt on white floors, it plays tricks on one’s eyes. The only sources of color were the bed with its crystallized emerald pond and the chest of drawers with its symbolic glass swan.” Oftentimes, Bondi’s artwork can be seen as cosmic synapses or places of divinization. Take her current exhibition, “Still Waters,” which she is currently staging at Le Parvis Contemporary Art Center, a space located inside a supermarket in Tarbes, France. The show is inspired by the phenomenon of scrying, an ancient art of prophecy that connects us to the spiritual realm, and, to achieve her goal of reflection, the artist is using simple puddles of water surrounded by corridors of salt rather than mirrors or crystal balls. The practice is reminiscent of pagan or Wiccan ceremonies, and takes on the air of a magical biotope between metamorphosis and dereliction. In its liquid bodies are immersed flowers, shells, and copper coins, which tinge a turquoise blue upon contact with the water. The precipitates of Bondi are thus charged with polymorphic virtues; they are bodies in digestion, lives hastened or slowed according to the elements. Floral compositions complete her vanities in perpetual motion, generating a feeling somewhere between chimerical images from the video game Final Fantasy and a Vaporwave EP. Among them is amaranth, a plant with epic stems and inflorescences that is a symbol of immortality; and ruscus, a shrub used for its protective qualities. Alchemical and symbolic phenomena add here the strength of their stories. The spectator attends, in a way, a fantastic mini-epic, as minor in its dimensions as it is dizzying in its ambitions: to speak with the beyond.

Considering the history of the artist’s host town, the significance behind her show takes on an unprecedented but fated meaning. The city of Tarbes was the breeding ground of another mythical character; it was where The Count of Lautréamont wrote Les Chants de Maldoror (“The Songs of Maldoror”). The poetic novel follows a hero of the same name, who is not quite alive nor quite dead, and sings hallucinatory liturgies amidst tarantulas, hungry animals, ghosts, and a multitude of exotic plants. In the same manner, Bondi’s art appears strange and trapped, where nature imitates itself and is intertwined with artifice and trompe l’oeil. The shimmering effects of her installations hide small theaters of horror in which her more personal traumas lead to regeneration and petrification. The connection becomes even more surreal when you consider that the water used by the artist is said to be miraculous, originating from the thermal city of Lourdes, the Pyrenean Las Vegas—with stucco chapels and neon lights— which attracts pilgrims from all over the world. It is there that Saint Bernadette Soubirous would have seen the Virgin Mary in the limestone cave of Massabielle. Is Bondi an artist of a miracle? She has yet to decide.

ABOVE, LEFT—“The Private Lives of Non-Human Entities,” 2020, Installation views, Chapter 3HREE at the ex ballistic factory HET Hem, Zaandam, Netherlands, Photographed by Cassander Eeftinck Schattenkerk (left), Photographed by Martin Freiherr von Hagen (right) ABOVE AND PREVIOUS PAGE— Dress, harness, shoes, and hat GUCCI Gloves CORNELIA JAMES Jewelry BIANCA’S OWN STYLIST: Lisa Jarvis SET DESIGN: Nicola Scarlino PRODUCTION: Reda Ait

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Finding yourself all dressed up with nowhere to go? This resort season, a prairie dress for jaunts into town or a slinky sequined evening gown for farmhouse chores work just as well. Photography MENELIK PURYEAR Styled by DAVID THIELEBEULE

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TORY BURCH Boots CHURCH’S Necklace JENNIFER FISHER Socks FALKE MICHAEL KORS Shoes MANOLO BLAHNIK Earring SIMONE ROCHA MODELS: Alissa Sugawara THE SOCIETY Amelia Rami HEROES HAIR: Erick Williams STREETERS NY MAKEUP: Kuma STREETERS NY MANICURIST: Daria Hardeman EXECUTIVE PRODUCER: Roger Inniss CASTING AND PRODUCTION COORDINATOR: Eli Perdew DIGITAL TECH: Brandon Bakus PHOTO ASSISTANT: Dylan Johnston STYLIST ASSISTANTS: Erika Golcher and Taylor Champlin PRODUCTION ASSISTANTS: Ethan Greenfield and Alberto Castillo Mena AMELIA: Dress

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Through erotic foliage and subversive historicizing, Danish artist Rasmus Myrup re-sees conventions in and out of the natural realm. Tall and blue-eyed with sunny short blond hair, at first glance Rasmus Myrup easily appears a poster boy for his home country of Denmark. And in fact he might have been—had his artistic practice not been about deifying one of modern society’s strongest misconceptions.

like a seed becoming a flower,” explains Myrup. “As a gay person I just felt estranged; it was not something that I could belong to. The genesis of my artistic practices was a way to understand that nature is masturbating, having anal sex and orgies.”

Indeed, beyond his large smile, the artist continuously challenges the principle that natural order is based on heterosexual biological reproduction. Born in Denmark, and working now in Copenhagen after having lived in London and Paris, he has elaborated a practice akin to an ecosexual manifesto that thinks of nature not as a worldly reproductive mother but rather a queer orgy. An interest, the artist confesses, that came partly from his childhood. “When you are a kid, you learn about nature in the sense of reproduction,

In his quest to establish homosexuality as consubstantial to the evolution of mankind, Myrup went all the way back in time for his first solo exhibition, HOMO HOMO, which opened at Denmark’s Tranen Contemporary Art Center in 2018. Forget the prehistoric museum from your childhood in which a diorama of the perfect heterosexual family might be staged before the public’s eye. Behind the apparent realism of Myrup’s vision of a Homo neanderthal’s settlement, one could see a jockstrap made of fur hanging from a tree branch, two

By PIERRE-ALEXANDRE MATEOS and CHARLES TEYSSOU Photography PETRA KLEIS

dildos carved in wood seated next to a prototypal sex-swing, two hominids fellating, kissing, and cuddling each other, and the center of the exhibition: a prototype of a four-poster bed for two lovers. Myrup plays with the formal vocabulary of scientific display in order to engage in a queer critique of the heterosexual premise of the prehistorical narrative. Beyond this, the exhibition is a camp pastiche of the natural history museum tradition; a gay detournement of the didactic mission of anthropological diorama. The philosopher Georges Bataille once spoke ironically of the museum as a narcissistic surface that offers man the opportunity to contemplate himself from all sides and to be amazed by finding an object of wonder in front of him. In this case, the mirror that Myrup holds out lets us glimpse the face of a male Hominid covered in semen. Such was a practice that the artist would grow into. For his 2019 New York exhibition Re-member Me at Jack Barrett Gallery, Myrup recreated a forest by collaging leaves ON THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: “Homo Homo Sapiens (Forest Encounter at Sunset),” 2018, by Rasmus Myrup (throughout), Courtesy the artist and Jack Barrett, NY (throughout); “Orgy (Skovshoved, Midday),” 2019 OPPOSITE PAGE: “Homo Homo,” 2018, Installation view, Tranen Space for Contemporary Art, Hellerup, Denmark, photographed by David Stjernholm

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THE PROBLEM WITH the WORD ‘NATURAL’ ARISES WHEN IT IS USED to DEFINE SOMETHING RIGHT or PURE.

sourced from Paris and trees originating from New Jersey. The viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to the back of the room, to framed pencil drawings hidden behind or perhaps wreathed by foliage. Some of the hanging works portray bucolic scenes, their shared title “Orgy” contrasts with their apparent contemplative nature, while another, more dramatic moment depicts a male ejaculating with the semen replaced by samaras and other seedpods. Rural painting and pornography; it may be an odd parallel, but nevertheless it invites viewers to imagine the sexual darkroom behind each poppy field or a meeting of 17th century pastoral landscape master Nicolas Poussin with pope of post-porn Bruce LaBruce. This vision of nature as a libidinal entity echoes the ecosexual movement of sex pioneers Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens, and considers Earth not as a prude parental figure but as a lascivious sexual partner. Yet Myrup’s approach is infused by a more ancient pictorial tradition: gay pornography. In the wake of Fred Halsted, who created an erotic portrait of Los Angeles as a libidinal continuum of dissident desires in L.A. Plays Itself, Myrup is ceasing the iconographic potential of pornography. Staging nature as a “pollen bukkake” allows the artist to challenge a painting history in which wilderness was most of the time either the site of epic battles or a romantic refuge. As a whole, Myrup’s practice is a fight against the supposed unnaturality of homosexuality. Such is still the driving reason behind the persecution of homosexuals around the world,

but for the artist the sentiment is ontologically groundless. “The problem with the word ‘natural’ arises when it is used to define something right or pure,” he explains. Indeed, the idea of a natural order is a socio-cultural construction used to exclude behaviors and bodies that do not correspond to heteropatriarchal norms. Beyond this reasoning, Myrup drapes his thinking with a reflection on the history of gay representation and, most notably, a tradition that has praised homosexuality as an ancestral form of love. While homosexuality has historically been tied to the modern urban condition, a genealogy of artists and writers have, on the contrary, willed to embody it within classical artistic canons. These representations set homosexuality in a solar and open natural landscape, emphasizing a symbiosis between sculptural bodies and the wilderness. It is in that context that Ancient Greece became a reference point for Myrup. In particular, Arcadia, a region nestled at the center of the Peloponnese, is considered to be the mythological birthplace of the homosexual utopia. Painters such as Paul Cadmus and Jared French in the U.S., Kristian Zahrtmann in Denmark, and Magnus Enckell in Finland have championed these representations and are among the artists that inhabit Myrup’s personal Pantheon. In that regard, he says, Fire Island, a gay summer mecca since the ’50s located off the Southern Shore of Long Island, New York, is a particularly interesting illustration for the artist of such a representational shift today. Having stayed there

nature: The former conceived nature as a holiday from its architecture, while the second is a model of a garden city. But Myrup refuses to give way to any notions of idealization, explaining, “it is just that here [in Copenhagen] the landscape designer wanted something rougher.” Thus, the artist’s still-life installations hint precisely at this conclusion: the existence of primal nature untouched by man is an illusion. “As for my personal experience, I do not think of nature and city in terms of dichotomy,” he says. “I listen to Beyoncé with my iPhone and my white jeans in the forest, while I am a hermit in the city. I try to complement my urban skills with my rural skills. I am an excited dilettante in both areas rather than being highly skilled at one.“

I DO NOT THINK of NATURE and CITY IN TERMS of DICHOTOMY. I LISTEN TO BEYONCÉ WITH MY IPHONE and MY WHITE JEANS IN the FOREST, while I AM A HERMIT in the CITY. I TRY TO COMPLEMENT MY urban SKILLS with MY rural SKILLS. during his three-week BOFFO residency, Myrup realized how the destination functioned not only as a refuge from the metropolitan homophobia but also pioneered a new form of rurality that did not obey heterosexual norms. Beyond the well-known festive rituals of the island, the community has been experimenting with novel definitions of intimacy, love, and hospitality that have produced its own urbanism, architecture, and sociability. As it happens, Myrup lived in New York before returning home to Copenhagen. Two cities with opposite visions of ON THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: “Homo

Homo Ergaster (Surprise Kiss),” 2018; “Homo Homo Neanderthalensis (Spooning),” 2018

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The artist’s collaboration with the fashion brand Phipps might be the best illustration of this attitude. Following the forest culture thematic of the clothing, Myrup designed bags by twisting reeds into basket shapes, while jewelry was carved out of animal bones and walking sticks were created from tree branches for a Fall/Winter 2020 collection entitled “Treehugger: Tales of the Forest.” Oscillating between the now-defunct Whole Earth Catalog (the radical late ’60s magazine that initiated survivalist culture), a ’90s Spiral Tribe free party, and a ranger seen through the eyes of Tom of Finland, the collection seemed to crystallize all the phantasms that forests have triggered since the world realized Earth’s resources are finite. Without falling into total fatalism, however, Myrup remains careful to not indulge in any Emersonian idealization of the natural realm as a space of spiritual awakening. The queer theorist Guy Hocquenghem believed that being gay was inhabiting an identity in perpetual motion, a state of contradiction between the norm and the marge, the public and the anonymous. As Hocquenghem once said, “There is no promised land for homosexuals. We have to invent it. A territory that is not fixed in a state but a counter-world without a map or compass.” This is precisely the territory that Myrup is drawing. Neither wonderland nor shelter, it is what the French call a Carte de Tendre (“Map of Tender”) for the age of extremes.

While a rash of contemporary residencies have recently popped up around the globe, the history—and significance—of artists communally seeking creative escape stretches far back into time. In the summer of 1955, an unlikely meeting of the minds occurred in the forests of southern New Hampshire. It happened at MacDowell Colony, the art residency founded in the early years of the 20th century as a place for creative minds to flourish amid the meadows, white clapboard houses, and stone cottages. The great Marcel Duchamp, the pathbreaking FrenchAmerican Dada artist, had been given a special invitation to spend time at MacDowell. Also on hand that summer was painter Milton Avery, an American contemporary of Duchamp’s who was known for his strongly simplified, abstracted scenes. Decades later, Avery’s wife, Sally, recalled in an interview with the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art that her husband taught Duchamp a valuable skill set during the summer. Was it a painting technique? A way to see

the world through art? Advice about dealing with galleries or museums? None of the above. “Milton used to play pool every night,” explained Sally. “He was very good. Duchamp had never played, so Milton was giving him lessons.” She added that Duchamp told her husband, “‘Milton, I am going to have cards printed: Marcel Duchamp, pupil of Milton Avery. He thought that was the greatest joke.” Artists’ residencies, and the change of scenery they provide, encourage artists to form connections like these that are as unpredictable as art itself. Sometimes it’s all good fun and at other times these programs—away from the art world’s pressures—are the site of major creative breakthroughs or hard-won progress on a long-gestating piece. Founded in 1907, MacDowell, which recently dropped the “colony” from its name, is one of the oldest of such programs, and is also

By TED LOOS

MACDOWELL

the place where the painter Faith Ringgold worked on her seminal series “Baby Face and Willi” in 1982. More than 2,000 visual artists have done the residency in its centuryplus existence, and many more creators overall, since the program includes writers and performing artists, too. There are hundreds of programs similar to MacDowell around the world that are all based on the idea that time away from the demands of normal life is a revitalizing experience. During these residencies, artists bond, work, learn, teach, argue, or simply stare into space, should that inspire the creative process. “Artists need a test kitchen for their work,” explains Alexander S. C. Rower, the grandson of sculptor Alexander Calder and the chairman of the Calder Foundation, which helps sponsor the Atelier Calder residency in the village of Saché, in France’s Loire region. Of course, many also often jump at the chance to be in a like-minded community of creators, instead of stuck in the studio staring at the same four walls—that is, if he or she is even lucky enough to have a dedicated art-making space in the first place.

something—actually, a lot of things—to get away from. It’s easy to forget the changes of those years: The U.S. population nearly doubled from 1900 to 1930, and those people saw the development of the automobile, the airplane, and the radio, while also living through the trial of World War I. As the notion of art residencies evolved, so too did their ability to foster emotional and creative development. The tension between socializing and solitude is a key element of participating; too much of either, and they don’t work as well. Sarah Workneh, the co-director of Skowhegan, the art school and residency in central Maine, says that artists in the program tell her how encouraging it feels to be “situated with a group of people who are really dedicated—and that’s different from isolation. It gives reassurance and confidence.”

The very concept of an artist residency gained steam in the early 20th century, at a time when the world got dramatically busier, denser, noisier, and more urban. Suddenly, there was

TRIANGLE

Normally Skowhegan, established in 1946, has 65 students over nine weeks, though last summer it was closed due to the coronavirus (true of many such programs this year). Sometimes new settings seem to force rapid creativity. In 1967, composer John Cage and dance pioneer Merce Cunningham spent much of their time at Skowhegan mushroom hunting; Cage had been invited to meet with students as a visiting artist, and his creative and romantic partner Cunningham tagged along. But when Cage saw posters around town announcing that he was giving a performance—something he wasn’t aware of at the time, he had to think fast. And so he composed his now-famous work “Variations VII” in a single evening. “You have to improvise,” says Workneh. “That’s part of what it means to create in a reduced setting. You don’t have your normal tool kit.”

It’s NOT JUST for GIVING ARTISTS SPACE to WORK; it’s A LARGER PROJECT THAT’S ABOUT LIBERATION... it’s an EXPERIMENTAL PLACE.

TRIANGLE

Hockney was asked about this topic, he wrote back: “I am not sure I’ve ever been invited on one, but I don’t think I’d go.”) The New York painter Julie Mehretu has done more than half a dozen residencies, including at the American Academy in both Berlin and Rome. “Early residencies were very formative for me,” she says. “One of the most valuable things I received is the sense of community of people you’re involved with, whether it’s around meals or another setting.” Mehretu, whose mid-career retrospective comes to the Whitney Museum of American Art in the spring, recalls that she bonded with artist Sanford Biggers while at the Headlands Center for the Arts, a residency in Marin County, California.

Of course, Cage and Cunningham were visiting dignitaries at that point, and the primary thrust of residencies is more for artists who are in earlier stages of their careers. “There’s a trajectory,” says Workneh. “Yale-Norfolk is important for young artists,” she continues, referring to the summer undergraduate residency. “Brice Marden and Vija Celmins met there when they were in college. Then the next step is Skowhegan when you’re building your practice and you’re not a kid anymore. Yaddo and MacDowell are for when you’ve solidified your voice.”

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The average age of Skowhegan participants is 28, says the artist Kiki Smith, a board member of the institution, whose father, the late Tony Smith, also lectured there. “They are people out of grad school, out on their own, and they need other colleagues,” she says. “It’s a transformative time—you got a lot of attention in school, and now you need more.” Personal breakthroughs can also occur during a few summer months, when romance blooms among creative types who are put together in a hothouse atmosphere. “People leave their husbands and wives,” says Smith. “People get husbands and wives, too.” Smith notes that artists are all different, of course, and so opinions on the worth of a residency vary widely. “For some people they are invaluable, but not for everyone,” Smith says. “It depends on what access you have to time, peace, and materials in your normal life.” (When living legend David

SKOWHEGAN

Castel Caramel: Courtesy of subject; Palazzo Monti: Photograph by Leonardo Anker Vandal

In fact, her time spent at residencies was so important to Mehretu that she and fellow artist friends Lawrence Chua and Paul Pfeiffer founded their own: Denniston Hill, located on 200 bucolic acres in New York’s southern Catskills. She describes it as “a collective, with the residency as a collective work.” And because its founders are, as Mehretu says, “queer people of color,” it has a pointed, specific approach. “It’s not just for giving artists space to work; it’s a larger project that’s about liberation. What does postcolonialism look like? It’s an experimental place.” As residencies have proliferated, many different types have bloomed. Geographically, you can find them everywhere from the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, where in 2014 the artist Bosco Sodi founded Casa Wabi, to the heart of urban London, where a three-month program is offered by the non-profit Gasworks. As the program in the British capital demonstrates, bucolic settings are not required. The Triangle Arts residency may have started in the countryside when renowned sculptor Anthony Caro co-founded it as a summer program at a former dairy farm in Upstate New York in 1982, but it subsequently moved to the city, and it now has four studios hosting three to six artists for a few months in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn. “The urban setting is a big draw, especially for international artists,” says Nova Benway, Triangle’s executive director. The art critic and historian Karen Wilkin, who was in attendance for Triangle’s first summer with Caro, notes that the sculptor modeled the residency on one in the Saskatchewan province of Canada. Named after a remote body of water, Emma Lake, the program started sometime in the 1920s, and Caro visited in the 1970s. (When the Abstract Expressionist painter Barnett Newman was invited to participate, Wilkin says he reportedly replied, “Where is Saskatchewan, and who is Emma Lake?”) Wilkin says that these sorts of programs continue to thrive because “artists form unbreakable bonds there.” The best way to think of them, she says, given the weeks- or months-long duration of many, is as a “workshop in slow motion.” She adds that the obvious shouldn’t be overlooked: Residencies thrive because “people have a lot of fun during them.”

UP & COMING RESIDENCIES

CASTEL CARAMEL

Castillon, France, founded in 2018 “The Côte d’Azur has always had an interesting art scene but one that is almost strictly institutional,” explains collector and advisor Maria-Theresia Pongracz. “I launched Castel Caramel because I wanted to add a layer to this landscape by creating an opportunity for interactions between living artists and the community.” Since its founding in 2018, the program has done just this, hosting artists like Chloe Wise and Jill Mulleady for summer-long sojourns. The artists’ extended stays in luxurious accommodations provide ample chance for dinners, curator conversations, and spontaneous encounters with the locals to emerge. Inspired by Viennese artist Ernst Fuchs, the one-time owner of the estate in which the residency is housed and Pongracz’s mentor, the residency’s ambitions are not proprietary. In fact, rather than draw attention to Fuchs’ legacy, the founder hopes to cultivate a new generation of patrons in the region who can use Castel Caramel as a kind of clubhouse for furthering an agenda of community-building around contemporary art.

PALAZZO MONTI

Brescia,Italy, founded in 2017 It could be argued that the Palazzo Monti residency, which is situated on a sweeping estate in Lombardy, was actually born an ocean away from Italy, in New York. It was during the collector Edoardo Monti’s first time in the Big Apple that he realized his family’s unoccupied ancestral home might be better served as a space for artists to get away from the chaos of urban life. After a year of renovations, Monti has been hosting up-and-coming artists in four-to-12-week stints, by both application and invitation, since 2017. “Italy has a long tradition of supporting the production of new art,” he says. “Transforming the tradition of a private and church [site] into a contemporary project was a bit of a challenge, but one that was super rewarding.”

VALLAURIS

For artists in search of a setting that balances nature and civilization, the Chinati Foundation, in the wide-open spaces of Marfa, Texas, may be the perfect spot. Artist Donald Judd fell in love with the stark high-desert area in the 1970s, and it became a prime inspiration. Starting in the 1980s, he began inviting artists informally to spend time there, and this practice eventually became an official residency for six artists a year, each on hand for two to three months. Judd was collecting works all the while, and, as a result, Chinati, established in 1986, became a serious museum of Conceptual art, making it a rich environment for visiting artists now. “Imagine being locked in the Met Museum overnight,” says Chinati senior advisor Rob Weiner. “You’re in the middle of this great art collection, located in this natural landscape.” The Chinati residency was key for several artists who, while big names now, weren’t so big when they participated, like German painter Katharina Grosse.

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These days, there’s a program for every type of artistic interest and specialty. A.I.R. Vallauris, a residency located in the charming town of Vallauris in the south of France, focuses on the ceramic arts, the medium that the area has long specialized in. The field has seen a huge increase of activity among contemporary artists recently. “A painter can paint anywhere,” says Dale Dorosh, the director and founder who established it 19 years ago after a career as a ceramist himself. “Here we’re focused on ceramics, and that’s our added value. Because ceramists need equipment and it’s harder to travel.” Six people at a time generally spend a month at Vallauris, and there are six sessions a year, with people leaving “surprised at how much they’ve accomplished,” says Dorosh. The program gets a boost in atmosphere from the location, given that Picasso lived in the area for 10 years. “That has left a mark,” says Dorosh. “But even before then, it was quite a rich area artistically.”

Artists have to pay for the privilege of a Vallauris residency, but other programs are sponsored by patrons, as in the case of Villa Lena, a picturesque spot located in the olive grove– studded hills of Tuscany. Founder Lena Evstafieva, who formerly worked at the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and as a director for Pace Gallery, established it in 2014 partly because she couldn’t bear not sharing the exquisite setting of her home there, which she enjoys with her husband, musician Jerome Hadley. “We’re lucky that we have the space to do it,” says Evstafieva. “It seemed like a no-brainer.” The 500-hectare estate’s main villa has 20 bedrooms, eight of which are used by artists for a month or two; their separate studios are located in outbuildings down the road. Villa Lena receives around 300 applications a year, from which 50 or so artists get selected, with Evstafieva getting help in evaluating them from an advisory panel. One point of difference that makes Villa Lena stand out is that it’s a “family-friendly residence,” says the founder, who focuses on women artists in her personal collecting, buying the work of Kathleen Ryan and the late, great ceramist Betty Woodman, among others. One special slot per session is set aside for a family with children. “It’s impossible in our modern age to disappear from your children,” says Evstafieva. “I have two kids myself. I get it.” The people who arrange, sponsor, and advise on residencies closely observe what gets done under their auspices—or doesn’t get done. “A few artists weren’t productive, and our partners were disappointed,” says Rower of the Atelier Calder residency, which is run by, and partially funded by, the French government and takes place in a modern home and light-filled former workshop that Calder designed and built in the 1970s. “Obviously, we have to be careful and make sure they don’t use it as a country house,” Rower adds. But he has also learned that artistic gestation periods are long: “Sometimes you can look a year or two down the road and only then you see how the Calder program filtered into their work.” He has seen all different kinds of reactions to the time and space provided. The Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, for instance, influenced by Calder’s mobiles, perfected the weights and volumes of his bulbous, netted sculptural forms. Martin Puryear, one of the greatest living sculptors, “didn’t complete a single work of art, but he shipped it all home and finished all of them over several years,” says Rower. Jeppe Hein had 35 assistants on hand to create a circuslike performance, which created a wild and freewheeling atmosphere.

CALDER

CHINATI

BLACK ROCK

Dakar, Senegal, founded in 2019

Certainly, France’s culinary pleasures prove a draw there, too. Tomás Saraceno took a page from the locals and roasted rabbits over a fire. “There are millions of cheeses and very good wines,” says Rower. “Everyone indulges in that. A very famous artist overindulged—I can’t say who—and she blamed me for her more voluptuous form after it was over.” The rural life is not for everyone, of course. “A lot of artists aren’t prepared to go to the countryside for six months,” says Rower. That was the case for at least one participant in the Chinati Foundation residency, too, who saw more of Texas than was expected. “One artist was so anxious and disturbed by all the crawling things like spiders and snakes, they had to leave immediately,” says Weiner. But for those who stick it out, big rewards can follow. The Brooklyn-based artist Kambui Olujimi, who works in various media, is the sort of ideal artist to benefit from a few months away: He’s midcareer and on the rise, but not famous yet. He has done MacDowell, Skowhegan, and the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation residency, on the island of Captiva, in Florida, as well as one of the newest entries in the field, Black Rock, founded in 2019 by American artist Kehinde Wiley in Dakar, Senegal. “They can differ vastly,” says Olujimi, and certainly the settings of sleepy Captiva and vibrant Dakar are proof of that. In the former, he says, it was about hunkering down with the extensive facilities located in the same beachfront compound where Rauschenberg once worked. Olujimi, who says he worked 16-hour days there, called it a “wonderland.” In the African capital, it was a more social experience emphasizing getting out into the community. “It’s a cosmopolitan, wonderful city,” he says. No matter the trappings, the continent, or the duration, residencies all address the same needs. “As a New Yorker, space is a challenge,” says Olujimi. “It’s incredible to have three months when you’re not paying rent. You’re just working when you wake up, and when you fall asleep. That’s really tough to get outside of college. It’s a unique space.” “For an artist’s career,” Olujimi adds, “that’s just crucial.”

The kick-off for Kehinde Wiley’s Black Rock residency reverberated through Instagram last year as a group of influential artists and writers touched down in Senegal for an extended retreat celebrating its opening. The message that rang through was joyful and communal—exactly what the painter seemed to have in mind for his program. Housed in a luxurious seaside home, Black Rock provides an opportunity for its residents to actively deprogram themselves of the biases of the art world’s Westernized center by discovering firsthand Dakar’s thriving cultural scene. Open to all creative disciplines, Black Rock is poised to become a critical bridge for those looking to build a more international dialogue.

NXTHVN

New Haven, Connecticut, founded in 2019 Titus Kaphar wanted his creative legacy to leave behind more than paintings. The artist’s practice made a critical leap when he partnered with friends and peers Jason Price and Jonathan Brand to create NXTHVN, an arts incubator focused on fostering the careers of artists and curators of color. The trio’s plan was a hybrid of institutions that had come before them. The fellows of NXTHVN are given studio space and access to resources like typical artist residencies, but they’re also asked to pass on knowledge by mentoring one local student apprentice. Last year saw the first class of NXTHVN with artists such as Vaughn Spann and Zalika Azim participating as fellows.

GREEN-WOOD CEMETERY

Brooklyn, New York, opening in 2021 After years of hosting one-offs in the historic hills of the Green-Wood Cemetery, the graveyard finally decided to invest more deeply in the city’s arts community. Starting this January, Heidi Lau will be Green-Wood’s first artistin-residence, and will be given access to a studio space on campus for 11 months. Green-Wood’s unprecedented program attracted the artist because of its long duration and the visual research into historic tombs that she will undertake while on its grounds. “When I went to tour the cemetery I saw its backside: a wood shop, a metal shop. It’s like this little self-functioning community behind the scenes,” Lau says. “As a sculptor who works mainly in ceramics, for me it was an ideal setup, because it allows me to utilize tools that you don’t find at many other residencies.” —Kat Herriman

New York City’s art scene has always had an affair with the countryside. L’OFFICIEL heads upstate to capture the thriving community of creatives that call these winding roads home. Airbnb ads, cottagecore influencers, and lifestyle magazines sell “going upstate” to New Yorkers as if it is a relatively new phenomenon, or one dreamt up by romantic millennials looking to detox. But the truth is that urban defectors have always been a part of the Big Apple narrative. Upstate New York—a vast rural region that spans from the Finger Lakes to the trendy Hudson Valley—has long been the loyal foil to city life, providing idle shelter for its writers, designers, and artists when they need distance from the wider world. Some end up staying permanently while others make it a weekend ritual; however, it’s this interplay between the options of the city and the countryside that enables creativity to thrive. On an individual level, one can observe these effects in real time. For many, it is a super-sizer, offering artists the chance to scale up paintings and sculptures to new heights. Underlying it all, of course, the countryside becomes an oasis, a quiet retreat away from the societal and logistical requirements of “regular” life.

By KAT HERRIMAN Photography EVA O’LEARY

DAN COLEN Pine Plains, New York From the main road, the pastures of Dan Colen’s Sky High Farm blend into the agricultural surroundings of Pine Plains, but the project the artist is undertaking here is not a simple farm-to-table model. In fact, to Colen’s delight, Sky High Farms had just received its non-profit status. “I’m excited about what this means for the future,” he says, walking past a metal gate into a field heavy with grazing cows, sheep, and a donkey named Joy, the farmer’s first four-legged tenant. Expansion these days typically feels redundant—especially when it comes to contemporary art— but Sky High Farms’ mission to sustainably grow food for donation

explains the artist’s anxiety. Food insecurity is an endless threat, especially in New York’s underserved communities. The way Sky High occupies Colen’s thoughts mirrors the way he thinks about his practice, too. As it happens, they even share a physical address; Colen’s main painting studio stands as a kind of gatehouse to the property. It is inside the barnlike structure that the painter’s largescale works are being carefully looked after. The animals and vegetable beds receive the same tender care. “Everything began to click up here,” says Colen. The air feels fertile with potential; it’s easy to see how he has become seduced.

MIKA ROTTENBERG Tivoli, New York Mika Rottenberg’s family didn’t spring for a COVID-19 dog— they already had Gigi—so, instead they got chicks. The baby birds meander through the artist’s barn studio and call an abandoned camper, an old set from the artist’s 2017 short film Cosmic Generator, home. Rottenberg carries a stick to shoo them away as the roosters occasionally bully her. Gigi helps too. A longtime resident of Tivoli, Rottenberg’s practice and lifestyle have slowly turned from her city habitudes toward

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something more sustainable. She confesses she is no longer interested in plastic bobbles, for instance, whose production and global distribution propelled the narrative of her camper project. Instead, the artist is at work on a new film in which all elements are getting recycled. “As artists and human beings, I think we have an obligation to move toward sustainability,” says Rottenberg. “Living in the country you have to reckon with that responsibility on a regular basis.”

TSCHABALALA SELF Hudson, New York Much of Tschabalala Self’s trajectory as a young figurative artist was spent in New Haven, Connecticut.“It was more of a bubble than Hudson will ever be,” Self remarks, walking downhill from the Olana State Historic Site, the former estate of landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church. “In Hudson you aren’t isolated from other artists; you feel like you are surrounded by them.” The psychedelically-colored trees engulfing the scene frame the artist. Their patchwork of autumnal patterns recalls Self’s stitched compositions that conjure

figures from swatches of fabrics. The property now functions as a public park and is a favorite contemplation spot for Self, who recently bought a home in Hudson that she is slowly moving into. The studio isn’t done yet, but that’s the next step. Born and raised in Harlem, Self developed her love of open spaces while attending Bard College and then the Yale School of Art. Outside of the center where a frenzied market is hungry for her work, Self has carved out a niche where she can set the pace while still keeping in touch with her roots.

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DAWN KASPER Kingston, New York Dawn Kasper is hiking through the woods with cedar chips under arm. Rocky, her dog, stays close to her heels. She’s heading to a special clearing where she often goes. For Kasper, living upstate doesn’t provide a vehicle for isolation but rather for embedding oneself in a tight-knit community. An improviser who crosses all mediums to invoke communal moments of discovery, Kasper’s practice is by nature peripatetic, so, in a sense, sitting around a campfire at the artist’s final destination is akin to sitting in her

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studio. For the 2017 Venice Biennale, Kasper offered the public a similar privilege—she moved to Venice to reenact her best-known work: Nomadic Studio Practice. A performance of both endurance and divine tolerance, the project involved spending months drawing, dancing, and playing music in front of the tourists milling through the main Giardini pavilion of the art fair. It’s not surprising it’s taken her several years to digest the piece, and these therapeutic sallies into nature are one of many tools at her disposal.

TAMARA GONZALES AND CHRIS MARTIN Catskills, New York When it is high summer, Chris Martin drags his behemoth canvases out onto his lawn and paints on the grass. His partner and fellow painter, Tamara Gonzales, works her canvases similarly: on the floor, with full views of the sweeping mountains that engulf their Catskills home, visible through the churchlike windows of her studio. Gonzales’ paintings have a landscape quality to them— there is a lingering fear that if one looks too close they might fall in. Martin’s massive barn-door pieces often also create similar effects.

The shared sensation feels tailored to the artists’ surroundings, which, like the ocean, can make its viewer feel impossibly small and lost. The couple commute to and from New York City, but have spent the majority of the past six months up here. They miss the balance of urban and rural, but have enjoyed watching the seasons sweep across the landscape. Martin is especially in awe of his neighbors. “The more time you spend up here the more you see farmers for what they really are—engineers and artists.”

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JASON FOX AND HUMA BHABHA Poughkeepsie, New York Three dogs—two big retrievers and one short-legged puppy— rush out the door of Jason Fox and Huma Bhabha’s home in Poughkeepsie, the only urban strip for miles. This is where the painter and sculptor have found a happy medium living between the rural expanses of Hudson Valley and metropolitan clutter. “I can walk to the train station and go straight to the city,” says Bhabha. “It’s nice to feel more connected.” The couple annexed an old firehouse some years back and tailored it to their needs. Each occupies an entire floor as a studio, with a sunlit penthouse on top for living. This self-

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contained design points back to its inhabitants, who often conjure escapist fantasies through avatars in their individual practices. For Fox this is apparent in his colorful painted figures, whereas Bhabha articulates this in her extraterrestrial-inspired paintings and alien totems, some of which graced the Met’s roof in 2019 after being forged in nearby Kingston. Together the artists developed a space big enough for them to conjure new universes alongside one another. “When people see our work, they rarely notice what we have in common,” says Fox, smiling. “But we share a world.”

MARILYN MINTER Cold Spring, New York A self-proclaimed urbanite, Marilyn Minter began spending time upstate in the late 1990s when her partner Bill Miller asked for some distance from their fast-paced social calendars. Attracted to Cold Spring’s relative proximity to the city, Minter and Miller found a plot of green they liked, with a small stream roving through it. Enlisting the help of architect Stan Allen (the project was the first house for the former dean of Princeton University’s School of Architecture), they erected what Allen referred to as a “loft” in the country, which has since undergone several renovations to make way for a proper

studio and more guest rooms. Today it is a breathtaking retreat, one in which Minter has spent the better part of the pandemic. A striking addition to the hillside neighborhood, their home is filled to the brim with works by friends and students: Sue Williams, Cindy Sherman, Chris Martin, and Austin Lee, to name a few. For Minter, whose idiosyncratic contributions to visual culture may only be outweighed by that to social justice—she is an outspoken Planned Parenthood advocate—the place feels like an organic armature of a deeper, more joyful generosity.

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In 2016, L’OFFICIEL Art invited Alex Da Corte to work on a special project for its 18th issue. The American conceptual artist presented a set of collaged images titled “Dead Roses” for the magazine alongside an interview with writer Yamina Benaï and artist William Massey. “We created these collages in the spirit of my sculptures, which are often made from a collection of found objects,” Da Corte remembers. Seductive and terrifying, the artist pulled images from horror films such as the classic 1996 American slasher, Scream. Each spread acted like a mirror between two similarly-collaged compositions, invoking conflicting and unnerving feelings in the viewer. Fear is decomposed to its bare elements in these diptychs. The artist borrows from other sources of ‘90s American

pop culture such as cover art from the band Weezer’s iconic self-titled album. The original blue cover is painted over in red and scribbled with devil’s horns, superimposed on a gingham background and topped off with ice cream emojis. It is evident that a deconstruction of sorts is taking place, and the artist’s visual poetry especially resonates today in the wake of the recent American presidential election and the worldwide pandemic. Since its inception, L’OFFICIEL Art has provided a platform for contemporary artists like Da Corte to develop and exhibit creative projects, ones that compel and challenge. It is in this spirit today that the magazine continues to look forward while also reflecting our greatest hopes—and fears. —Victoire de Pourtales

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