The Arts Issue: Collectives

The Arts Issue Collectives

skaters & posers | the font family | the second sax | ‘kick-ass bangers’ | art for everyone

Washington Square News Staff

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Alex Tey MANAGING EDITOR Trace Miller DEPUTY Arnav Binaykia Asha Ramachandran Sabrina Choudhary COPY CHIEF Gillian Blum Max Tiefer DEPUTY Ariana Wahab Sam Spray UNDER THE ARCH Publishing Editor Caitlin Hsu Sydney Barragan Senior Editor Ivy Zhu Staff Editor Sunny Sequeira Portraits Editor Kiersten Dugan Exposures Editor Julian Hammond Santander Voices Editor Aleksandra Goldberg

MULTIMEDIA Multimedia Editor Manasa Gudavalli Ryan Walker Photo Editor Camila Ceballos Sam Tu Social Media Editor Luca Richman Video Director Edward Franco Audio Director Vaishnavi Naidu DESIGN Creative Director Charitssa Stone Susan Behrends Valenzuela Illustration Editor Aaliya Luthra BUSINESS Business Manager Yejin Chang Director of Sales Catherine Chen Account Associate Damascus Lee WEB Web Director Ryan Kawahara Contributor Sho Matsuyama

Contents 01 Letter from the Editor 02 222’s democratic vision for skateboard culture 04 Art + Type Magazine stresses care in collectivism 06 Key of She is redefining gender in jazz 08 MICHELLE is a creative powerhouse 10 Their Art Club: Giving a voice to artists outside the art world

Letter from the Editor

PHOTO BY MANASA GUDAVALLI

Collaboration drives exciting art. When artists come together and unite as collectives, they etch the backbones of future imaginative realities by weaving a variety of aesthetic tendencies, artistic missions and political desires under the same banner. The Russian Formalist’s art drove the spirit of the Bolshevik Revolution, Andy Warhol’s Factory defined generations of artists to come, Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis defied Pinochet’s regime by acting as a small-space of resistance for the Chilean LGBTQ+ community, and Grupo Cine Liberación challenged dictatorial tyranny in Argentina through protest cinema. Art Collectives are incubators of newness that challenge the norms of everyday life by concentrating diverse perspectives into fierce units of resistance that consistently rearticulate life itself by highlighting the art of the future.

The art collectives represented in this year’s Arts Issue represent the birthplace of new realities. Whether it’s Their Art Club’s vision of a creative outlet for artists outside of NYU’s arts programs or Key of She’s network of female jazz musicians, these art collectives and laying down the brick in the reification of future utopias.

Collectives are cooperative enterprises. Art collectives are cooperative enterprises rooted in creativity and aspiring for freshness. The art collectives in this edition of the Arts Issue — 222, Art + Type, Key of She, MICHELLE and Their Art Club — embody this spirit of creative freshness. Their diversity, both in terms of mediums and make-up, demonstrate how today’s aspiring artists are rethinking the traditions of their art through groundbreaking practices.

By celebrating the work accomplished by these collectives, this issue pushes for their ingenuity to be shared among people. As such, this issue can be seen as the gust of wind that carries the news of these collectives’ to the world.

In spotlighting new ways of thinking devised by collectives that are composed of diverse artists, this issue’s goal is to catalyze the aforementioned collectives’ practices by offering a place for people to read about them. The Arts Desk is

devoted to informing its readership about the ever-evolving rhythms of art and in putting together this collective we stay true to that goal.

With our profiles of five different art collectives with roots at New York University, this issue offers an opportunity to witness novelty in the making. Not only does our focus on collectives showcase a variety of exciting personalities involved in various art practices, but it also provides the reader with insight as to how rising artists are challenging the status quo. We hope that the reader’s of this year’s Arts Issue come away with the same verve to re-articulate the world that the artists we interview practice on a daily basis.

A great many thanks go out to all of the arts editors and writers — Yas Akdag, Isabella Armus, JP Pak, Shreya Wankhade — involved in the making of the Arts Issue. A similar token of gratitude extends itself to everyone who helped make this year’s edition possible: from our Editor-in-Chief to our Under the Arch collaborators and the most hardworking multimedia team in the game of college editorials. Everyone involved in the making of the Arts Issue has a zeal of genius and merits laudation.

Furrow the pages ahead and invest yourself in the ingenuity of the collectives represented. Hopefully they will inspire you to take on the world with similar ardor.

Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer ARTS EDITOR

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222’s democratic vision for skateboard culture

PHOTO BY MAX RUIBAL, COURTESY OF 222

PHOTO BY MAX RUIBAL, COURTESY OF 222

PHOTO BY ANGUS GILL, COURTESY OF 222

PHOTO BY TAKASHI SOEHL, COURTESY OF 222

By JP Pak FILM AND TV EDITOR

When asked by high school friends and relatives to describe the average NYU student, I am forced to answer with the word “poser.”

Poser: A young person enamored by a wide variety of hobbies and identities who lives in a city that offers the chance to pursue them, but lacks the focus or commitment to make them a genuine part of their identity. Putting 20,000 young — often financially well-off — people without much life experience or self-knowledge in a cultural hub like New York City inevitably results in a culture of shallowness.

The poser middle-parts their hair after watching Timothée Chalamet have relations with a peach in “Call Me by Your Name.” The poser watches an episode of Kaia Gerber’s Supermodel Book Club on Instagram Live, pays $30 for the 400-page novel that Gerber discusses, and flips through its first five pages while sitting on a bench in Washington Square Park — cross-legged and in the open, for everybody to see — only to never touch the book again. The poser buys a Celine bag and declares themself fashionable; the poser goes to Metrograph once and declares themself a cinephile. The poser pays $11 for a single shot and christens themself with the cheap liquid of pseudo-adulthood every Friday night.

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The poser is a deeply unfortunate product of the digital world.

Ours is the first generation to grow up on social media, exposed from a young age to a wider variety of lifestyles and cultures than ever before.

This abundance of niche interests, each more vulnerable to appropriation and hijacking than the next, breeds affectation. The dreadful softboy shows his barber a picture of 2017 Chalamet and suddenly deems himself sensitive and sophisticated. The dark academic shows off their bookshelf of unread poetry on TikTok. The pseudo-Marxist hears the term social chauvinism mentioned in a lecture and develops the habit of blaming any minor inconvenience on social chauvinism.

And the skate poser, a storied term that has only risen in use since its inception in the 20th century, feeds off of skateboarding culture for social status. Draped in clothing from skateboarding-influenced fashion brands, they hang out at skateparks but don’t actually skate, instead posting their outfits online to boost their perceived persona — an egoist among purists.

Until my recent conversation with roommates Cannon Michael and Yoshi Nakada, NYU juniors and founders of the New York-based skateboarding collective 222, it was my impression that disdain for posers is a shared and universal feeling — especially among those who take the time and commitment to truly master the craft that the poser hijacks. You can imagine my surprise when they expressed the opposite

PHOTO BY NICO LOVE, COURTESY OF 222

PHOTO BY ANGUS GILL, COURTESY OF 222

sentiment, arguing that perhaps the poser is just a purist getting started.

“It’s a negative term in many ways,” said Nakada, who began skating in San Francisco many years before moving to NYU. “It’s very discouraging to be called a poser when it’s something you really care about.”

Michael, from Fresno, California, concurs. Though he certainly doesn’t deny the existence of people who appropriate skateboarding culture, he notes that the popularity of the label itself suggests a culture of gatekeeping within skating communities. After all, even the greatest skaters began as novices.

“If you’re one to focus on people who you think are posers — to constantly talk about it or ridicule them — then, in some ways, you are even worse than the people you are trying to crucify,” Michael said.

When Michael met Nakada and their future friend Nico Love, a Tisch junior, in the Third Avenue North residence hall during their first year at NYU, he had nearly zero experience on a skateboard.

“I mean, I knew how to push around on the board and whatnot,” Michael said. “But I couldn’t pop my board at all.”

Nakada and Love, on the other hand, had multiple years of experience under their belts.

“I felt very intimidated by them when I first met them — they were just really good at skating,” Michael said.

But, time and time again, Nakada and Love still invited him to skate with them.

“They helped me progress super fast,” Michael said. “That’s the quickest way to get better at skating — being motivated by people who are better than you ... Driving you to do shit that scares you,” Michael said.

According to Nakada, few things are more pathetic than putting down novice skaters.

“No one should actually be going to a skatepark with the intent of making other people feel bad,” he said.

His desire to push Michael as a skater bled into a practice of inviting others to skate with them. Eventually, the group developed a habit of meeting on the staircase of 222 E. 12th St., a building near Third North, before skating. After COVID-19 forced them back to their respective hometowns in early 2020, the group kept in touch through a group chat named “222.” Soon, their collective, a group of artists tied together by skating, was born.

When the group returned to New York after lockdown, Michael saw an opportunity to produce their first artistic project together.

“I used some money that I had gotten from a birthday that June to buy a Sony VX-2000, which is an old-school skate camera, and a fisheye lens,” Michael said. “Then I came back to the city and we just started filming for our first video.”

In filming what would become “222,” their skate video — a collection of their skating clips filmed throughout New York City — the group members were just as concerned with employing their diverse creative abilities as their skating abilities.

Love, a “super bona fide ripper” (or talented skater) in the eyes of

Michael, worked with Michael on a set of animated segments for the video, a project that led him to his now-blossoming career as a freelance animator.

Also featured is Simon Rosenthal, a fine arts major whose drawing abilities and sensibility as a filmmaker helped shape the video’s visual aesthetic.

Takashi Soehl, a photography student, filmed clips for the video while collaborating on printed photographs with Rosenthal. And Nakada, whose obviously advanced skating in the video is just a fraction of what he can do, lent Michael his sense for visual design and music during the editing process.

The self-titled video was released in November 2020 and quickly circulated through New York skating communities and NYU students.

Michael, who oversaw its production and handled much of the editing and animation, also released the video on his Instagram.

“A video from my heart to yours,” the caption reads. “Thank you to everyone who helped make this a reality.”

The group invited friends and fellow Manhattan skaters to a rooftop screening of the video upon its release, serving drinks to celebrate the completion of the project. A few months later, they had completed a second video and committed to throwing an even larger event.

“We had to do it times two because there were way more people,” Michael said. “We had two amps and a bigger projector.”

The event drew a massive crowd.

“This fucking dude pulled up with, like, a fucking tuba,” Michael said.

“Like, the video finished and then he just starts fucking jazzing it up. It was so sweet. The cops get called for that shit like that. So it doesn’t last for too long. But it’s always so much fun.”

The night was a culmination of nearly two years of artistic production and skateboarding progression, all of which began with the group’s democratic and inclusive ethos. As 222 prepares to complete a third video, Michael says the corresponding screening will level up to accommodate the group members’ growing artistic interests. Among their new projects is Michael’s clothing brand, Duck Club, whose name is inspired by his upbringing in agricultural California.

“We’d like to do it somewhere with a little more legality, so it doesn’t get shut down,” Michael said. “Maybe a venue where we could get my friends’ bands to play. We could get the video projected on a huge scale — I could have clothing sales going on inside.”

The collective’s documented desire to keep growing can be seen as a residue from their rise out of the territory of pretension. What began as a group of people vulnerable to the label “poser” — excluding “rippers” Nakada and Love — became, for Michael and the rest of 222, a community.

Nakada’s willingness to transform Michael into an adept skateboarder made 222 possible. The joys of skateboarding extend far beyond aesthetics or identity.

“It’s about having friends at the skatepark that you don’t have to text — you just see them there,” Michael said. “I think that’s when you know that you’re part of a community.”

Contact JP Pak at jpak@nyunews.com.

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Art + Type Magazine stresses care in collectivism

PHOTO BY MANASA GUDAVALLI

By Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer ARTS EDITOR

Collectives are often born on paper. When like-minded artists come together and put their shared ideas on the page, they sign their names to a mission that will drive their ambitions from then on. The typed-up page becomes the catalyst that pushes artists with shared ideals to create. By offering up the printed page to emerging artists, Art + Type Magazine acts as the lifeblood of future collaborative art families.

Founded by current Steinhardt juniors Susan Behrends Valenzuela and Natalia Palacino during their first year at NYU, Art + Type Magazine, a print publication, is an open space for artists to grow together. (Valenzuela is a creative director at WSN and Palacino has contributed illustrations and articles.) Personal testimonies are rendered as a collective existence in the pages of Art + Type Magazine.

Exhibiting a myriad of different art mediums from a diverse array of contributors, the magazine functions as an accessible resource of inspiration for all those who come across its pages.

Palacino described the magazine as “creativity, diversity, collaboration, inspiring.” From its inception, Art + Type Magazine was an invitation to the world. The platform’s founders posted an open call on Instagram for the first issue of the magazine almost immediately after deciding to embark on the project together. They were eager

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for art and received an influx of submissions, which they carefully reviewed over the following months before publishing their first issue.

“We got a lot of things, we got really weird things, but also some really good art — and it was really nice to learn a lot of people have really good things, but they just don’t know what to do with it,” Palacino said. “It was about launching a platform for people to show their work, share who they are and why they do what they do. It was about creating a space for art and helping people publicize it.”

As they worked tirelessly on Adobe InDesign to put together the layout of their first issue, Art + Type’s two-person editing team was also building a family, concretizing it in printed matter. Every artist they took into their publication’s pages became part of a web, acting as the building blocks of a nascent art collective. Through Art + Type, disconnected artists around the globe suddenly had friends to turn to if they needed advice on a long-gestating project or a gaffer on a sudden photo shoot.

“You’re not just contributing, but engaging with other artists in ways that seem truthful,” said Tisch junior Carlos Hernandez, a photography student who wrote the introduction to Art + Type’s latest issue. “The space they’ve created allows us to interact with each other and understand each other’s work.”

Although the speed with which Art + Type Magazine’s founders created their collective belies the care they put into the making of the

Art + Type Magazine Issue 1

IMAGE COURTESY OF ART + TYPE

first issue, the love with which they developed their was present from the start. Thinking back to those earlier days, Palacino reminisced on the amount of lengthy Zoom interviews she coordinated in order to get to know every artist they were collaborating with.

“Winter break is a lot of work — picking submissions, reviewing submissions, and then throughout the semester it’s more like social media and launching submissions and just trying to sell the issue,” Palacino said.

Gallatin junior Pilar Cerón recalls being overjoyed after receiving an email confirming that their art would be included in the upcoming issue. Not only was Cerón grateful that their art was being published, but they were also happy to join the community its founders had nurtured so well.

“It’s like a family,” Ceron said. “Amazing energy and vibes — 110%.”

The family Cerón speaks of includes 69 budding artists from all over the world, ranging from 16 to 80 years old. This diversity manifests itself across the magazine’s pages. Rather than spotlighting a specific artistic practice, Art + Type showcases art’s many forms.

Including art ranging from photography to ready-made sculptures, the magazine functions as an accessible resource for artists looking for new techniques, inspirations and ideas. Through its careful curation, the magazine acts like a gallery in zine size, framing numerous novelties back-to-back on 5.5-by-8.5-inch paper canvases.

“We wanted for not only our own population to matter in the publication, but other artists,” Palacino said. “We never base it on where they’re [contributors] from, or how they look, or their gender, or anything … We try to diversify the medium, the topic they’re writing about and then diversity just comes through the diversity of the work.”

Palacino’s prioritization of content shows across Art + Type Magazine’s three issues. The small magazines are chock-full of creativity and experiments in multiple art-forms. Palacino’s exploration of grief and mental health through textiles in “Cicatriz Raw II” could not be any more different than Marcia Solis Guzmán’s colorful collages of female icons or Carlos Hernandez’s theories on the nature of craft — and yet the three pieces, among many more, all fit comfortably together thanks to the magazine editors’ layout ingenuity.

“Through their broader approaches, I really think they’re elevating marginalized communities,” Hernandez said. “It’s a thoughtdriven publication.”

Therein lies the driving power behind Art + Type Magazine’s spirit of collectivism. Its emphasis on accessibility and diverse representation — of artists and art practices — embodies the crux of a collective that cares.

“Their attention and engagement with work is care,” said

Art + Type Magazine Issue 2

IMAGE COURTESY OF ART + TYPE

Hernandez. “That’s what community building looks like, it’s sharing and presenting the resources available to all.”

With obvious love at the heart of Art + Type Magazine, its founders have been able to expand their community of artists into a space of cooperation. All of the artists involved in Art + Type Magazine form part of a network of solidarity that welcomes reaching out, discussing personal practices and lending constructive criticism. Art + Type Magazine does not gatekeep art and techniques relating to its creation; it hosts an open hub of information for artists and readers to extract from.

The way in which Art + Type Magazine splits their earnings speaks to their commitment toward equitable practices. Recognizing the importance of all its members, Art + Type Magazine prides itself on distributing all of its sales earnings equally among contributors and creators. After all, a collective’s heartbeat extends across many.

“I think collective is community,” said Palacino. “I think it’s like that for a lot of people — they find someone who matches their interests or their art aesthetic … and we [members of the collective] had a lot of similar things in terms of cultural identity and things we liked to work with. We just started making work. Once you add words to it, you become a collective.”

After two years online and three printed issues, Art + Type Magazine is preparing to move beyond the virtual space and start organizing art shows that would give their magazine a new dimension.

The publication hosted one in-person event last year, taking to Washington Square Park, where they sold magazine issues over the course of a hot summer day.

“We’re thinking about what other events we want to do over the summer,” Palacino said. “We will probably do a group show for some of the artists who do live in New York. We’re trying to find a space, probably a gallery, to show the work physically. Because a lot of times in print, you lose the nuance of the works.”

Expanding upon the tangible quality of their printed nature by organizing a group art show gives Art + Type Magazine an added weight as a collective. In gathering the work they’ve showcased and some of the artists they’ve featured in a single site, they materialize their mission to develop a space for people to craft art and and come together. This allows the creativity and care contained in the magazines’ issues to breathe beyond its pages, demonstrating the collective’s journey from the minds of its founders to the printed page and out into the real world.

“We’re going to keep growing and build our community,” Palacino said.

Contact Nicolas Pedrero-Setzer at npsetzer@nyunews.com.

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Key of She is redefining gender in jazz

PHOTO BY MANASA GUDAVALLI

By Isabella Armus DEPUTY ARTS EDITOR

Even in its infancy, jazz was not a genre that stuck to the status quo.

Developed by Black Americans in the early 20th century, jazz was marked by its amorphousness, as musicians riffed on an amalgam of influences to collaborate live with fellow band members. In short, jazz presented a sonic anomaly: It created new precedents for American music and performance.

Now, nearly a century after the genre’s inception, student-run organization Key of She asks: Why should jazz’s rebellion stop when it comes to gender?

Founded in 2012 by saxophonist Olivia Hughart — who is currently a Steinhardt junior — in Philadelphia when she was just 12 years old, Key of She is a nonprofit organization that encourages and supports gender equity in jazz through the curation of free digital resources, live events and communities of female musicians.

“It was definitely something that I saw was needed,” Hughart said. “I would just go to big jazz festivals and be like, ‘Wow, that band only has two girls in it. That’s so lame! Where are all the girls?’”

Hughart’s impassioned frustration speaks to a wider pattern in the jazz community. Though jazz is a medium that’s inherently collaborative, historically, the genre has largely excluded players who aren’t cisgender males.

From elementary school teachers pushing young girls toward stereotypically feminine high-voiced instruments, to jazz studies professors relegating “women in jazz” to a single lecture, and even collegiate jazz programs overwhelmingly comprising men, the lack of women in jazz is an accepted cultural standard.

Emily Davies, a bassist and NYU jazz studies graduate student, is a frequent participant in Key of She’s digital events. She also noted this marked exclusion of female musicians from her own jazz education.

“You hear a lot about the singers: your Ella Fitzgeralds, your Billie Holidays,” Davies said. “But you don’t hear so much about the women who played the side instruments, and there’s a whole wealth of history there.”

Seeing this lack of community for aspiring female musicians, Hughart was determined early on to make a difference. With the help of a couple friends and a supportive band instructor, Key of She was born. Starting out as a grassroots organization, Hughart gathered 12 girls from her school district

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to form a brigade of tweenage players who specialized in traditional jazz instruments from the trumpet to the vibraphone.

“We would just play music and hang out together in the mornings and bond over the love of jazz together,” said Hughart. “It became a very supportive space that everyone looked forward to every morning.”

Running with this momentum and a hunger to expand, Hughart began waving flyers and sending follow-up emails after jazz festivals. There, she began connecting with local high school band leaders and musicians.

Key of She rapidly gained more members, eventually morphing into an even bigger group.

The organization’s reach became so expansive that in Hughart’s senior year, Key of She was able to hold a jazz conference in 2019 with a flurry of panels, masterclasses and live concerts by prominent female jazz musicians at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

“It was really the moment that a little underground girl’s jazz club became a full-fledged organization,” Hughart said. “It was pretty amazing to see.”

There were over 200 attendees, connecting female jazz players from the greater Philadelphia area. The event was not only a huge success among the attendees, but also revealed an expansive, passionate community of people who weren’t getting the visibility they needed.

“We had overwhelmingly positive feedback,” Hughart said. “Girls, parents, educators, guys who wanted to come and show their support, and lovers of jazz who wanted to just be there for the music. But once everyone got in that room, they realized how important the mission actually was.”

Amy Hughart, Olivia’s mother and the managing director of Key of She, has seen firsthand how important Key of She can be to parents and their daughters.

“It’s just not an experience that you find anywhere, it’s something that we found to be unique,” Amy Hughart said. “We had a dad approach us and say: ‘This support you’re creating … I’m so glad you’re doing this because my daughter has been the literal only one in her jazz class forever’… There was just this fire in his eyes.”

Large-scale events like the conference prove that, in order to diversify the jazz landscape, community is key. The students, parents, mentors and musicians who became part of Key of She’s collective network can see that art should never be done in a vacuum. The lively energy of being in a room with like-minded, supportive individuals can make people feel less stranded — and the music even stronger.

This connection grows even stronger when unlikely communities of musicians can interact, such as student players and established professional jazz artists. Davies said this was one of the most memorable aspects of her experiences with Key of She, as she found meeting people like international performer and professional jazz saxophonist Claire Daly in this context to be both far more intimate and beneficial. “[Daly] didn’t come in like, ‘Look at me! I’m this acclaimed saxophone player,’” Davies said.“It was: ‘Look at me, I’m a human … I was where you were however many years ago, I was in your shoes and this is what was important in the path that I took’ … It really helps to hear that from another woman.”

Unfortunately, when the pandemic struck, the ability to facilitate this community was ripped out from under Key of She. The conference that was planned to be annual was suddenly inaugural, and so — in the way that only jazz musicians know how — Key of She had to improvise.

Instead of relying on the conventional group jam session, conference or live show, the organization began devoting time to curating digital events, such as their Zoom concert series, and resources, such as a database of more than 500 prominent women in jazz, which can be found on their website. This transition shows that artistic communities can actually benefit from crossing into the digital sphere. The organization’s efforts have continued even as pandemic restrictions have been lifted.

“We’re hosting our fourth virtual event at the end of the month,” Hughart said. “That’s allowed us to not only just connect with people in the

Philadelphia area but [go] nationwide and global … we even have some loyal followers in India who wake up at 2 a.m. to come to our sessions, and some girls in London — really all over the place.”

Although this global community was fostered in a turbulent context, for Key of She, it wasn’t incidental. Instead, it speaks to how the organization’s efforts are not just a localized phenomenon. When the scope of jazz’s inequalities are properly acknowledged, networks like these can transcend barriers in unexpected ways.

As the Key of She team looks toward the future, the ability to sustain this crowd-sourced support system will remain essential. This includes getting back in the swing of live events as soon as possible, which many members of Key of She are highly anticipating.

“I think being in person and having that community and sitting at a table where they can talk and share a meal — and there might be jam sessions where musicians can come over and play with them — that’s where the importance lies, in that crossover,” Davies said. “As a musician, I just want to meet up with people in person. I want to travel and bring out my bass and play with these people.”

Key of She is also working on acquiring nonprofit status; currently, Philadelphia’s Settlement Music School is their charitable fiscal sponsor. Key of She could then both retain and grow its ever-expanding network — and even inspire other communities to begin jazz collectives of their own.

“The more, the merrier, really,” Hughart said. “Once we started this band, this program, the ensemble, more girls were seeing themselves in the spotlight and not having to worry about what other people think of them because we created this supportive space. Now there’s people seeing that this is a resource that is needed, so I’m seeing more similar collectives and organizations and clubs starting to form.” Davies also noted a similar shift within her own musical community.

Key of She Jazz hosted their first conference in April 2019 in Philadelphia.

“There were never a lot of women not playing flute or clarinet, and occasionally you see female trumpet players and occasional saxophone players,” she said. “But from my viewpoint, that’s not as much of an issue anymore; there’s a lot of female players in jazz, popular music and even orchestras.”

These tangible impacts evoke a fairly appropriate cliche: Representation matters. When a person sees a path to success reflected in the people around them, a radical paradigm shift can occur. For an art form rooted in rebelling to survive, jazz is a medium that deserves to be accessible, equitable, supportive and a pleasure to all those who have a passion for mastering its craft.

As both a community organizer and a musician, this idea comes naturally to Hughart.

“Seeing awesome women in jazz just makes me want to play even more, and when I first saw that for myself, I knew it would be true for others,” Hughart said. “And it is, because they’ve told me firsthand that it really helps not to be the only person in a room where you’re the only girl … There’s no underlying stress, besides just the music being played.”

Key of She exemplifies the benefits that being a part of a collective can provide in uncertain times. Collaboration and connectivity are the last vestiges of normalcy that anyone in this particular cultural moment can understand, especially for artists accustomed to creating in a group.

Organizations like Key of She, though transgressive, aren’t necessarily about reinvention, but rather revelation. They reveal existing, vibrant communities and the incredible artistic output that comes from them when given the structural support that they require.

Key of She has upcoming digital events on March 14, 15 and 16. Future endeavors can be tracked on their Instagram @keyofshejazz or their website, keyofshejazz.org.

Contact Isabella Armus at iarmus@nyunews.com

IMAGE COURTESY OF KEY OF SHE JAZZ

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MICHELLE is a creative powerhouse

IMAGE COURTESY OF MICHELLE

By Yas Akdag MUSIC EDITOR

“Kick-ass bangers.” In three words, that’s how Julian Kaufman of New York City-based collective MICHELLE would describe their music, which blurs the lines between pop, R&B, funk and everything in between. In paying tribute to their hometown and the way it’s shaped their lives, MICHELLE skips across various sonic palettes to produce two glittering albums — “HEATWAVE” and “AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS” — the latter of which released on March 4.

New York City runs in MICHELLE’s veins. The band’s members — Sofia D’Angelo, Julian Kaufman, Charlie Kilgore, Layla Ku, Emma Lee and Jamee Lockard — are native New Yorkers who all “took [their] first steps” in the city, as D’Angelo put it. The whole group contributes to the songwriting process, acting as a collective, with Kaufman and Kilgore focusing on the programming while D’Angelo, Ku, Lee and Lockard sing.

Arguably, MICHELLE wouldn’t even be MICHELLE without New York.

The group first got together to record “HEATWAVE,” an album about growing up in the city. Having met through mutual friends in high school, Kaufman and Kilgore reached out to singer-songwriters they knew through the New York teen music scene, recruiting D’Angelo, Lee, Lockard and Ku for the project. Thus, MICHELLE was formed, even if the group didn’t know until later quite what that meant.

“Being the singer-songwriters, [we] went in on different days to write and record our songs,” Lockard said. “So we actually weren’t all together for the first time until our first concert at Bard College, which was a couple months after the album [‘HEATWAVE’] had already come out.”

The city also inspired MICHELLE’s goals as a collective, which originally

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bloomed from the group’s shared love of all things music, art and New York.

“That kind of shared love for music and art and our city really guided us through our first record and continued to guide us through the making of ‘AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS,’” D’Angelo said.

I was curious as to how MICHELLE’s mission had evolved since “HEATWAVE,” but D’Angelo beat me to the question.

“I think now the mission is just seeing how far we can go with this and how we can explore our creativity in new ways, with all these new resources that we now have access to and all the lessons that we’ve learned — from making ‘HEATWAVE’ in two weeks to ‘AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS’ in two, three years; [from] making music videos with full crews to music videos with no crew at all,” she said.

The group defines themselves as a collective because of how much they do by themselves — from merchandise to artwork — demonstrating that MICHELLE is more than just a music project.

“The sweater that Jamee’s wearing right now, Layla designed,” D’Angelo said, adding that Lee designs all of the collective’s artwork, including their latest album cover. “The fact we get to explore all of our artistic love in this one entity is really special.”

The group’s creativity and progress is no better exemplified than in their latest single, “POSE.” Over a pulsating, kick-heavy beat and ’70s-inspired synths, MICHELLE sings, “Pose one, pose two, pose next to me.” The song is the perfect dance track.

It’s hard to imagine it being anything else, though it apparently started out slower.

When Kaufman and Kilgore received feedback that “POSE” had potential for a dance song, they upped the production ante.

IMAGE COURTESY OF MICHELLE

commuting to the Institute’s new downtown Brooklyn location, which is on the F line. Knowing she graduated from NYU in December 2020, I asked her what she would say to her freshman self.

The answer was blunt.

“Use the fucking studios,” D’Angelo said. “Before Clive, I went to an all-girls school [from] kindergarten through 12th grade and I was the rogue, creative, artistic person. I’d spend my free periods in the music room playing piano and singing or writing songs [and] during music class I’d be on GarageBand … So I was kind of a big fish in a small pond over there.”

D’Angelo explained that when she got to Clive, she felt the reverse — that she was a small fish in a big pond. Nevertheless, she loved the education she got there, citing that she’s still in touch with a few of her professors. Her one regret?

“I just wish that I didn’t psych myself out because of all the producer bros who would just go to the studio and do whatever,” D’Angelo said.

“You’re supposed to make noise and that’s OK — that’s what you’re meant to do — you don’t have to ask for permission.”

On “AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS,” D’Angelo — and MICHELLE as a whole — are certainly not asking for permission. Where “HEATWAVE” was about adolescence in New York, “AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS” dwells on the transition period — that strange, slightly disorienting limbo between being a teenager and a young adult.

Lockard summarized the album as being “‘HEATWAVE’ all grown up.”

“The [new] album feels full circle,” she said. “‘MESS YOU MADE’ is about the struggles at home, and then you kind of go on a journey with us of becoming a young adult, and then ‘MY FRIENDS’ is all about those young adult friendships that you have.”

As college students, those young adult friendships are all too familiar. Just from its title, “AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS” resonates easily with the college crowd despite MICHELLE no longer being in college.

Given the album’s title, I asked if the group had any dream collaborations in mind.

“I have a fantasy that one day Odd Future reassembles and then we collab with them, because I think it would be the most unhinged, whimsical project to ever exist,” Ku said. “There would be so many people in the room; it would be utter fucking chaos. But I think it would be a really beautiful thing.”

Kaufman expressed his desire to collaborate more with MICHELLE’s mix engineer, David Pizzimenti. “[I’d love to spend] two months with him at a studio, with him actually engineering for us … with a bunch of instruments set up at all times,” Kaufman said. “Working with an engineer on the way in would be quite a pleasure for me.”

Alternatively, Lockard put Remi Wolf’s name on the table.

“Our music exists in similar ecosystems,” she said.

Wolf wouldn’t be the first big-name on-the-rise artist MICHELLE has collaborated with. As labelmates, the collective recorded a song with Arlo Parks before opening for her on her fall 2021 tour. Now, MICHELLE is gearing up for touring with Mitski.

While Lockard is most excited to play Radio City Music Hall on the tour, D’Angelo is looking forward to something more relatable.

“Hopefully [we get] our rider fulfilled every night, since these are pretty big venues,” she said. “If we can get that, then we’ll be set for breakfast and snacks. Because it’s really important to eat nourishing foods on the road.”

D’Angelo also shared that she was excited to travel again, although maybe not to Denver, where MICHELLE will meet Mitski.

“I’m also hoping for a better experience in Denver,” she admitted. “I didn’t really love [it] the last time we went there. The altitude, the altitude, can’t change that.”

Though it’s certain you won’t find D’Angelo on the Colorado slopes, you can catch MICHELLE opening for Mitski starting March 12.

MICHELLE’s new album “AFTER DINNER WE TALK DREAMS” is available on all streaming platforms.

“We turned up the tempo and we changed the kick pattern to be more of a constant pulse,” Kaufman said.

He added that they became wary of overproducing the track.

“When someone tells you a song has a lot of promise, when someone tells you a song’s going to be big — and who knows whether it will be — it’s so easy when that stuff happens to get in your head and start thinking you have to produce this pop-with-a-capital-P song,” Kaufman said. “When you do realize you have something good, turn off those blinders and just really try to look at it plainly. Make sure it’s minimal, it’s strong and it’s emotive.”

Tracing various subway journeys, the accompanying music video to “POSE” is delightfully playful, though not for the claustrophobic.

Choreographed by the group’s own Lee, you’ll watch MICHELLE hold their balance on the 7 train, glide up and down escalators, and leave behind a mysterious green bag on the subway seat. Apart from being physically and aesthetically compelling, I’m impressed by the group’s dedication — they must have spent hours in the subway, which is no easy feat. After watching the video, I had to know what MICHELLE’s favorite subway lines were.

Coming out of left field — “I know it’s going to be a big take” — Kaufman’s was the G train. Having moved to Brooklyn in July 2021, he quickly learned of the borough’s public transportation inadequacies.

“North Brooklyn and South Brooklyn were not as connected as I thought they were,” he said. “So when I learned that the G train could take me from basically Bushwick to Carroll Gardens, or even Sunset Park, I was like, ‘Wow, I really like the G train.’”

Lockard opted for the Q, since her family home is uptown.

“I lived uptown pretty much my whole life and [the Q] was under construction pretty much my whole life,” she said. “I love that I can go from 96th Street to Coney Island; I love that it goes above ground [and] crosstown.”

The BDFM lines found a fan in D’Angelo. “The orange line speaks to me,” she said. “It stops in all the coolest places, except for Herald Square.”

Ku remained neutral.

“I enjoy anything that goes over the bridge,” she said. “I don’t think that ever gets old.”

A Clive Davis Institute alum, D’Angelo must have enjoyed Contact Yas Akdag at yakdag@nyunews.com.

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Their Art Club: Giving a voice to artists outside the art world

Artwork by Kaylee Smith

IMAGE COURTESY OF THEIR ART CLUB

By Shreya Wankhade CONTRIBUTING WRITER

During quarantine, everybody took up a hobby or interest they wouldn’t have normally had the time for. Some people stuck with it; others quickly lost interest. For CAS senior Ivy Lee, founder and president of Their Art Club, an idea was born that did not burn out.

In their sophomore year at NYU, Lee decided they needed something to strive for. With plenty of time to figure out what they wanted to pursue as a result of COVID-19, they started thinking about how best to develop a community of like-minded artists.

“My main goal in life is to be a cute little grandma living in their hometown in Korea hosting art residencies,” Lee said. “It makes me so happy. My dream’s end goal is to ultimately watch people make art.”

While numerous art-oriented student clubs and groups exist at NYU, Lee noted that many are associated with NYU’s art or art-adjacent schools — Tisch, Gallatin and Steinhardt — which, as a psychology major in CAS, Lee wasn’t associated with. This ultimately led Lee to create their own art club, the fittingly named Their Art Club.

“I want to create a general art club that was helping students that were not in the art track but were still interested in art,” Lee said.

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Artwork by Ivy Lee, founder and president of Their Art Club.

IMAGE COURTESY OF THEIR ART CLUB-

“I always loved creating art, so I wanted to make sure I had a space to do that.”

It was difficult to get the club going at first. According to Lee, the process of validating a student club at NYU is unnecessarily lengthy; they refer to this period as “the probation era,” since the beginning of their junior year was spent trying to validate the club. On top of that, with the ongoing pandemic, it was hard to recruit people remotely across different time zones.

Because of all these constraints, Their Art Club wasn’t able to create any large-scale projects during the probation era. Instead, they engaged in lively discussion via Zoom to make the most of their time.

“We talked about the movies we were watching and the art we’d been into recently,” Lee said. “It was just kinda like talking about art for a while.”

Discussing different art mediums allowed them to set the stage for what was to come: actually producing art in a variety of different mediums. Club members spend meetings sharing ideas for pieces they are interested in creating and listening to the advice of others on how to improve their artwork.

“Through past experiences, I found that art really crosses over

in every media,” Lee said. “Whether it’s through a photo or some form of writing, it still catches the eye and tells a story … ‘Just bring in any media and we will grow with it’ is my motto for the club. The end purpose is just to really bring us together through art.”

This year, with the return of in-person club meetings at NYU, Their Art Club amassed a group of consistent members who are putting together their first exhibition, a collection of portraits they hope to display in NYU’s LGBTQ+ Center at the Kimmel Center for University Life. The collection will not only include traditional portraits, but also poems, photographs and other art forms. After all, the thing Lee most hopes to accomplish through Their Art Club is to bring people together and publish their work.

“We are not the students that are specifically art-oriented, so publishing is kind of a serious and daunting thing for our members,” Lee said. “A way to publish art should be readily available to everyone who is creating art, because art for the purpose of art is for it to be interactive.”

The upcoming portrait collection will show how the artists see themselves. Since club members range from incoming first-years to graduating seniors, a diversity of perspectives is present in the collection.

“Witnessing the work of all these different generations is awesome,” Lee said. “It was really amazing to see all the subtleties and each person’s identity coming through in their creations.”

Lee’s dedication to Their Art Club is inspiring and underscores their passion for creating art that’s more than a hobby. Despite creating

the club at a difficult time, they have remained committed to maintaining the high morale of, and active contribution from, members of the collective.

“Everyone grows together through collaboration,” Lee said.

“Collaboration really does rely on personal action and expression, allowing you to actually get to know your identity and put your thoughts out there.

Collaboration, for me, is very active and very much prompt action from others too.”

Collaboration is especially important for Their Art Club, as the collective’s primary goal is to highlight marginalized voices, especially those of LGBTQ+ artists and artists of color.

“It’s supposed to be bringing the collaborator that has always been in the outskirts of the group, and kind of forcing them into the focus and the main stage, the spotlight,” Lee said.

Lee said they hoped to pass the torch to another member through some sort of voting system.

“I want to make sure this club is given to someone who can actually take on the task of putting a lot of time into it,” Lee said. “The role of the president is kind of this semi-curator because you’re putting everything in the collection or exhibition together.”

Although Lee is graduating this semester, they are planning on keeping tabs on Their Art Club members — or, as they call them, “minions.”

Lee looks forward to seeing Their Art Club’s first big project come to fruition and hopes to continue nurturing the collective they started into the future.

Contact Shreya Wankhade at arts@nyunews.com.

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