Sidor pub16 sp by Randy Dunbar

FALL 16

Rare Finds

Find the best hidden gems around town

this seasonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new classics

Lasting Impressions

Style built to last in downtown LA

Animal Control

Glass Animals discuss their new album and the fans who inspired it 1

Merz

Fall 2016

out

g n i t t ge Art

Whatever the scene is around town, we’re already on

it, and coming back with the poits and i n t r e s t a n d juciest bits. paper is far from

dead, and so are you- so keep yourself informed with the best garbage

that’s ever seen print.

We’re not a phenomena,

We’re an epidemic.

www.MERz.com Merz

Fall 2016

Fall 2016 Editorial Director James Sidor Managing Editor Lucas Willard Art Director R. Woods Media Relations Mitchell Smith Copy Editor Jocelyn C. Cruz Staff Photographer Alan Smithee Jr Media Relations Coordinator Rolf Bjornson Advertising and Sales Rhonda Williams INTERNS Timmor Siggurdson Holly Brown Edgar Preibus Minh “Jonny” Lee Tobias Skellig

Annual Subscription Price: $14 (print) Online Edition: $5 New Issues Arrive 4th of each month www.merz.com/subscribe Advertising Inquiry - RWill@merz.com Distribution Inquiry - RBergoff@merz.com Other Inquiry - TalkToUs@merz.com PUBLISHED BY OMNICRON. FUNDED BY THE SCHWITTER FOUNDATION. Reproduction of any part of this magazine, in whole or in part must be authorized by the publisher and credited to MERZ magazine and all contributors involved. issn 2011-2444 (print) 2011-2445 (web) 5

CONTENTS From Letter tor the Edi

7 11

EAT

Take over the republic of pie.

e e s Changing faces in FIDM’s

display hallways

View of the Waxworks at Wacko’s

Human Aft er All

ng Indy darli

Glass

n tour

es us o k a t ls a im An

s n

a r t e ’s s A ild L c n w y a i t ra n se ce life of n o r f ro PAroad a spa n the hulma t B f c e o Sc e e h e t v to ndof l v ius f t c E a l o ospe , Ju e r se R m o e n n C m r A etr ama m R e r d A su e n cam ge

Merz

Fall 2016

the

classics

NEW

fall 2016

Merz

Fall 2016

Letter from the editor

Pardon the Mess We just got settled into the place. Welcome to the first issue of MERZ. We’re part a rag on local color, part lifestyle magazine, and mostly beautiful mess. This issue we’re higlighting some going-on’s of the fall, from the medschool dropouts Glass Animals and their sophomore album How to be a Human Being to the current change of window dressing at FIDM, at MERZ we’re commited to keeping an eye on everything worth looking at. Regardless of what the fall means to you, we hope to give you a few places to look forward to visiting before their charm is lost in the spirit of Christmas commercialism. We have places to visit, things to see, and events that have to be seen to be believed within. We’re hoping we show you something you’ve seen before, but with any luck we’ll show you more than stuff worth checking out- we’ll show you something to inspire you.

js 9

attn:

Eat See Go

Easy as Pie

Ut et mil mostem iAd utatem qui od qui doluptas sum volorerum voluptatem. Ut ullab ipsante laborro cum lam, seque eumquis im eumquia ntibus pra nobis quamentem fuga. Ut est, odit abo. Nem quiassitibus peliam use salt water, the healing, salt water is the healing. They key is to have every key, the key quibusam, ut est verciet ea num venist, ne cones to open every door. You smart, you loyal, you saecesto consequis dela genius. The key is to enjoy life, because they lata con conseque quae don’t want you to enjoy life. I promise you, opta volorepre volum

Fresh eats in a laidback atmosphere Article and Photocredit:James Sidor

You

should never complain, complaining is a weak emotion, you got life, we breathing, we blessed. Give thanks to the most high. Let me be clear, you have to make it through the jungle to make it to paradise, that’s the key, Lion! Life is what you make it, so let’s make it. The key to more success is to have a lot of pillows. The first of the month is coming, we have to get money, we have no choice. It cost money to eat and they don’t want you to eat. They don’t want us to eat. They don’t want us to eat. They will try to close the door on you, just open it. It’s on you how you want to live your life. Everyone has a choice. I pick my choice, squeaky clean. It’s on you how you want to live your life. Everyone has a choice. I pick my choice, squeaky clean. Find peace, life is like a water fall, you’ve gotta flow. Surround yourself with angels. Learning is cool, but knowing is better, and I know the key to success. Find peace, life is like a water fall, you’ve gotta flow. Learning is cool, but knowing is better, and I know the key to success. Find peace, life is like a water fall, you’ve gotta flow. I told you all this before, when you have a swimming pool, do not use chlorine,

they don’t want you to jetski, they don’t want you to smile. Let’s see what Chef Dee got that they don’t want us to eat. Learning is cool, but knowing is better, and I know the key to success. Look at the sunset, life is amazing, life is beautiful, life is what you make it. How’s business? Boomin. Let me be clear, you have to make it through the jungle to make it to paradise, that’s the key, Lion! To succeed you must believe. When you believe, you will succeed. Don’t ever play yourself. They don’t want us to eat.

attn: Eat•See•Go

Windows into the Surreal FIDM’s 5th floor windows celebrate the surreal work of Elsa Schiaparelli BY Hamish Bowles Portrait Irving Penn Windows Carlos Diaz

“Madder

and more original than most of her contemporaries, Mme Schiaparelli is the one to whom the word ‘genius’ is applied most often, Time magazine wrote of its cover subject

in 1934. Coco Chanel once dismissed her rival as “that Italian artist who makes clothes.” (To Schiaparelli, Chanel was simply “that milliner.”) Indeed, Schiaparelli—“Schiap” to friends—stood out among her peers as a true nonconformist, using clothing as a medium to express her unique ideas. In the thirties, her peak creative period, her salon overt flowed with the wild, the whimsical, and even the ridiculous. Many of her madcap designs could be pulled off only by a woman of great substance and style: Gold ruffles sprouted from the fingers of chameleon-green suede gloves; a pale-blue satin evening gown—modeled by Madame Crespi in Vogue—had a stiff overskirt of Rhodophane (a transparent, glasslike modern material); a smart black suit jacket had red lips for pockets. Handbags, in the form of music boxes, tinkled tunes like “Rose Marie,

Merz

Fall 2016

attn: Eat•See•GO Hot Wax

Danni Shinya Luo and Van Saro set up shop in LA’s Favorite Wax Emporium BY Alan Smithee

Ut et mil mostem iAd utatem qui od qui doluptas sum volorerum voluptatem.

The first of the month is coming, we have to get money, we have no choice. It cost money to eat and they don’t want you to eat. Don’t ever play yourself. Fan luv. They don’t want us to win. Special cloth alert. Let me be clear, you have to make it through the jungle to make it to paradise, that’s the key, Lion! Eliptical talk. Always remember in the jungle there’s a lot of they in there, after you overcome they, you will make it to paradise. They never said winning was easy. Some people can’t handle success, I can. Congratulations, you played yourself. A major key, never panic. Don’t panic, when it gets crazy and rough, don’t panic, stay calm. They key is to have every key, the key to open every door. Life is what you make it, so let’s make it. Major key, don’t fall for the trap, stay focused. It’s the ones closest to you that want to see you fail. You smart, you loyal, you a genius. They never said winning was easy. Some people can’t handle success, I can. Give thanks to the most high.

The

key to more success is to get a massage once a week, very important, major key, cloth talk. The key is to drink coconut, fresh coconut, trust me. Give thanks to the most high. Mogul talk. Major key, don’t fall for the trap, stay focused. It’s the ones closest to you that want to see you fail. Life is what you make it, so let’s make it. Another one. Let’s see what Chef Dee got that they don’t want us to eat. A major key, never panic. Don’t panic, when it gets crazy and rough, don’t panic, stay calm. Special cloth alert. Always remember in the jungle there’s a lot of they in there, after you overcome they, you will make it to paradise. Watch your back, but more importantly when you get out the shower, dry your back, it’s a cold world out there. I’m up to something. The key is to enjoy life, because they don’t want you to enjoy life. I promise you, they don’t want you to jetski, they don’t want you to smile. Look at the sunset, life is amazing, life is beautiful, life is what you make it.

Merz

Fall 2016

t h g i R e Th stuff

Copic Classic Markers

$10

Not all tools of the trade are created equal, but Copic Markers stand out. Their lybrary of colors and variety of styles ensures you won’t need to reach for other solutions for how to draw outside the line.

Pantone Color Bridge Set A million dollar idea isn’t worth much if your vision leaves the printer a million dollar mistake, and Pantone Color Bridge is the best way to make sure your art matches your screen.

$170

Montana MTN 94 Series Spray Paint

Daylight Professional Artist Lamp Of course every artist perfers natural light to whatever else is available, and now there’s a lovely desklamp that puts perfectly color-balanced daylight right on your desk.

$190

we’re not gonna tell you what to do with it- but we play a lot fo faovirtes at MERZ, and though it comes at a little bit of pricetag, Montana spray paint comes withough in vibrance and staying power. Use Responsibily.

Merz

Fall 2016

Audio Technica AT-LP120 Drive Professional Turntable Some things are Tobvious to everyone, some fly under the radar- but for lovers of hip hop this low flying oddity will be sure to deliver satasfaction and nuane to your starving eardrums.

The Rebellion Sessions Black Milk & Nat Turner

$20

$250

An artist needs good gear but if you’re still using your dad’s cabinet from college our best guess is it’s not just your utensils that need an ungrade. THe Audo Technica LP doens’t just spin records but rips them to your devices, so you can finally slap that Zaegar and Evans Vinly you found at good will on to your iTunes.

808 audo ear canz $40 The Audo Jack is Not Dead, and this little buds will make you believe that Apple backed the wrong conceptual horse.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami

$10 Japan’s most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II. Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon.

GLASS ANIMALS

Merz

Fall 2016

From former medicine students at Oxford University to stalwarts of the indie music scene.

H U M A N

A F T E R A L L

By Matilda Edwards Photos Aaron Burn

l p

Australia was the first place to really embrace their 2014 début, Zaba – selling out their first ever run of shows and hearing encores so wild they had to play breakout single ‘Gooey’ twice; so new to the game they literally had no other material. Album number two is a whole new kettle of fish for the Oxford-based quartet: rather than just a collection of songs, everything in How To Be A Human Being – visuals and music videos included – runs to a theme, a web of intertwining characters telling their stories in fascinating ways. We spoke with drummer Joe Seaward during their recent headline jaunt in Australia. FL: So – you’ve just done the quite brave pre-album run of shows down here in Australia…how’d all the new stuff go? Joe Seaward: The shows have been really good – everything’s been great so far; they were just so fun! I…..I think the new stuff was good! It’s very hard to know, you know – we’re focusing so hard and we’ve all got stuff in our ears, but I think people are reacting positively which is really cool. It’s always slightly terrifying to play new songs, there’s so much potential for stuff to go wrong live, but it keeps us on our toes and keeps us paying attention to each other which is quite nice.

l p

Australia seems to have been kind of the first place that really picked you guys up and embraced you, with ‘Gooey’ – I mean, it’s probably impossible to pinpoint… but do you have any idea why? I’ve been asked this once before – and I genuinely don’t have any idea, it’s strange how these things work, isn’t it? Australia’s been kind of a home away from home for us – and we always feel very welcome here. We played Falls a while ago which was just the most wicked festival…but yeah, we always seem to get a reception here that’s quite unlike anywhere else, really. It’s quite bizarre, because we’ from the opposite side of the planet, but it’s amazing! I’m not questioning it, but accepting it and feeling happy.

Merz

Fall 2016

l p

I remember seeing your first ever Melbourne show; you obviously didn’t quite realize how much people loved you round here – you had no idea anyone would want an encore, but you had nothing left to play so you just had to do Gooey again. Oh my god I’d forgotten that – that’s right! We were like “Oh god, what do we do?” that was a really crazy welcome to the whole thing really. It started out well, and people seem to still be into it, which is really cool. Seriously though, we’ll literally keep coming back and playing Gooey multiple times until you’ve had enough!

l p

So – the new record, How To Be A Human Being. It’s a genuinely fascinating kind of concept, and you’ve tied in the artwork, the music videos – it’s all one big story, right? Since Zaba came out we’ve pretty much been on tour non-stop; in two years we probably spent about five weeks in total at home. The thing that was really interesting to us was that you kind of come into contact with people all the time. Before that, before people really knew who Glass Animals were, we spent a lot of time on our own in a dark room, but then we were thrust out into the world, meeting people and hearing all these crazy stories. Dave came up with this idea to base on the next record on these people – not on them exactly, on the fact that we’d been meeting these people and hearing the stories they had to tell, and they way they told them was really interesting. So we kind of had this idea through it, and I don’t know if I’d go so far as to call it a concept, but it was a really helpful theme to have while we were making the record; something to aim at, and something in the distance that helped us know what we wanted to do. It made making the music and the artwork easier to get our head around, and it made the writing process much quicker, too. The visual stuff we really wanted to tie in with the music; the idea was that it can be as superficial as you

Maybe, I wish I co To ver But you turne

And so it hu And we ainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t g

Merz

Fall 2016

ould remould you rtical and golden ed to Styrofoam

urts to say itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hopeless, gonna make it - Season 2 Episode 3 23

People will just tell you the most extraordinary thingsknowing they'll never see you again

Merz

Fall 2016

want – we wanted the cover to look nice on its own – but we also wanted to make it so that if you listen to the record and you’re interested enough, you can kind of try and connect these dots. With the music videos, too, all the characters are there – there’ll be more soon, too! – and their lives, the way they are becomes increasingly clear. So if you want to invest time and effort and thought into it, hopefully it will give as much back. But then also superficially you can just listen and think “oh that was nice”; that’s really great, but yeah – if you want to really get in there and get deep, there’s also the scope for that – that was kind of the idea.

l p

The first video’s kind of mental, so I’m really looking forward to seeing the rest then – if the story starts to unfold. The first one’s actually kind of connected to the second one, so hopefully things will start to make a little bit more sense. There’s no real one storyline across the whole record or anything, it’s like a collection of stories under this umbrella, but the music videos were actually somebody else’s take on our story. We tried to explain what was going on, then they went away and made their own version of it too.

l p

So this concept then – you sort of got the idea and based it off the concept of recording conversations; things that people like taxi drivers or just people on the street have said. I know this is more Dave’s thing than you, but… Actually, it was kind of all of us, weirdly! We were sort of….all doing it independently of each other, so when Dave told us about this idea before we started making the record, we were all like “holy fuck, that’s weeeeird” because it’s something we’d all been conscious of in slightly different ways. But yeah, we just meet really strange, interesting people – and some of the stuff that people you don’t know – complete strangers – will tell you are just the most fascinating things! I think partly

because they have stories they can’t speak to people they know about, you know – their partners, children, brothers, sisters, parents – but when you meet a stranger and you start talking and asking questions people will just tell you the most extraordinary things, knowing they’ll never see you again. So yeah, we were kind of meeting all these people and hearing these stories and recording them sometimes, so when we sat down to make the record we had this absolute mine of stories to draw from.

l p

It’s a really interesting way to approach it – you find that so much content in music is very introspective, personal and self-reflective, but this is almost completely the opposite- you’ve totally outsourced! Yeah, exactly! It was a very interesting thing to do, and we’re very conscious of, like, not betraying anyone’s trust – obviously we wouldn’t take people’s words directly. But one of the things Dave found most interesting was just how people told you things about themselves – they might tell you a very, very sad story, but tell it in a very positive way, and have a very clear mind after having come to terms with it, but underneath it’s a really sad thing – so he tried to use things like that, making a song sound all happy but underneath it’s a bit more dark and sad. That’s why writing the record was much easier, and it came together very quickly – it really only took a couple of months, and it took Dave only about ten days to

Merz

write about the whole thing, create all the characters and make a start on all the songs, so it was very fast – all because we had this kind of plan, this idea in the distance that we were aiming at. I think if that had drifted we could have been very bogged down, I can imagine that without a vision as strong as we had it could have been really tough.

l p

Another thing I found interesting – not just in this record but through Zaba as well, is how much you guys love to use food metaphors in your lyrics. Dave is the person to ask about this, but what I do know is that he forgets to eat a lot. When he was locked in the studio for like ten days writing the lyrics, working really really hard, he was literally just surviving on cereal – so maybe there was some sort of subconsciously desperate hunger that ended up going into the lyrics – i don’t know if it’s any deeper than that! We really are a band who is constantly hungry; that’s a Glass Animals trait. I get so hangry, if I don’t eat I’m such a pain to be around.

Fall 2016

l p

What does the rest of the year look like for you?

l p

And back here again once the record’s out?

Pretty busy! We’re off to America tomorrow morning, playing some festivals and stuff, then we go home and we’ve got a lot of work to do, learning the rest of the record, then it all kicks off really! We go back to America and do a proper tour, then back to the UK for a tour, then to Europe, then BACK to America, so right now is kind of the beginning of chaos! I mean to be fair, I’d much rather be busy than not busy enough.

Oh god, I’d love to. I want to do Falls or another festival again, I want to get so sunburnt and drink lots of beer.

How To Be A Human Being is out now through Caroline.

A Sense

of Space

Merz

Fall 2016

Julius Schulman

Photographer â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photography spread California Mid-century modern around the world. Carefully composed and artfully lighted, his images promoted not only new approaches to home design but also the ideal of idyllic California livingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; a sunny, suburban lifestyle played out in sleek, spacious, low-slung homes featuring ample glass, pools and patios. By Peter Gossell Photographs by Julius Schulman

ven if you’re confused by the fork in the driveway, which slopes up to the Edenic apex of Laurel Canyon, or don’t recognize architect Raphael Soriano’s mid-century design landmark, you can’t miss Julius Shulman’s place. It’s the one with the eightfoot-high banner bearing his name—an advertisement for his 2005 Getty Museum exhibition “Modernity and the Metropolis”— hanging before the door to the studio adjoining the house. As displays of ego go, it’s hard to beat. Yet the voice calling out from behind it is friendly, even eager—“Come on in!” And drawing back the banner, one finds, not a monument, but a man: behind an appealingly messy desk, wearing blue suspenders and specs with lenses as big as Ring Dings, and offering a smile of roguish beatitude. You’d smile, too. At 96, Shulman is the best known architectural photographer in the world, and one of the genre’s most influential figures. Between 1936, when a fateful meeting with architect Richard Neutra began his career, and his semi-retirement half a century later, he used his instinctive compositional elegance and hair-trigger command of light to document more than 6,500 projects, creating images that defined many of the masterworks of 20th-century architecture. Most notably, Shulman’s focus on the residential modernism of Los Angeles, which included photographing 18 of the 26 Case Study Houses commissioned by Arts & Architecture magazine between 1945 and 1967, resulted in a series of lyrical tableaux that invested the high-water moment of postwar American optimism with an arresting, oddly innocent glamour. Add to this the uncountable volumes and journals featuring his pictures, and unending requests for reprints, and you have an artist whose talent,

timing, ubiquity, and sheer staying power have buried the competition—in some cases, literally. Shulman’s decision to call it quits in 1986 was motivated less by age than a distaste for postmodern architecture. But, he insists, “it wasn’t quite retiring,” citing the ensuing decade and a half of lectures, occasional assignments, and work on books. Then, in 2000, Shulman was introduced to a German photographer named Juergen Nogai, who was in L.A. from Bremen on assignment. The men hit it off immediately, and began partnering on work motivated by the maestro’s brand-name status. “A lot of people, they think, It’d be great to have our house photographed by Julius Shulman,” says Nogai. “We did a lot of jobs like that at first. Then, suddenly, people figured out, Julius is working again.” “I realized that I was embarking on another chapter of my life,” Shulman says, the pleasure evident in his time-softened voice. “We’ve done many assignments”—Nogai puts the number at around 70—“and they all came out beautifully. People are always very cooperative,” he adds. “They spend days knowing I’m coming. Everything is clean and fresh. I don’t have to raise a finger.” As regards the division of labor, the 54-year-old Nogai says tactfully, “The more active is me because of the age. Julius is finding the perspectives, and I’m setting up the lights, and fine-tuning the image in the camera.” While Shulman acknowledges their equal partnership, and declares Nogai’s lighting abilities to be unequaled, his assessment is more succinct: “I make the compositions. There’s only one Shulman.” “The subject is the power of photography,” Shulman explains. “I have thousands of slides, and Juergen and I have assembled them into almost 20 different lectures. And not just about architecture—I have pictures of cats and dogs, fashion pictures, flower photographs. I use them to do a lot of preaching to the students, to give them something to do with their lives, and keep them from dropping out of school.” It all adds up to a very full schedule, which Shulman handles largely by himself—“My daughter comes once a week from Santa Barbara and takes care of my business affairs, and does my shopping”—and with remarkable ease for a near-centenarian. Picking up the oversized calendar on which he records his appointments, Shulman walks me through a typical seven days: “Thom Mayne—we had lunch with him. Long Beach, AIA meeting. People were here for a meeting about my photography at the Getty [which houses his archive]. High school students, a lecture. Silver Lake, the Neutra house, they’re opening part of the lake frontage, I’m going to see that. USC, a lecture. Then an assignment, the Griffith Observatory—we’ve already started that one.” Yet rather than seeming overtaxed, Shulman fairly exudes well-being. Like many elderly people with nothing left to prove, and who remain in demand both for their talents and as figures of veneration (think of George Burns), Shulman takes things very easy: He knows what his employers and admirers want, is happy to provide it, and accepts the resulting reaf-

Merz

Fall 2016

firmation of his legend with a mix of playfully rampant immodesty and heartfelt gratitude. As the man himself puts it, “The world’s my onion.” Given the fun Shulman’s having being Shulman, one might expect the work to suffer. But his passion for picture-making remains undiminished. “I was surprised at how engaged Julius was,” admits the Chicago auction-house mogul Richard Wright, who hired Shulman to photograph Pierre Koenig’s Case Study House #21 prior to selling it last year. “He did 12 shots in two days, which is a lot. And he really nailed them.” Of this famous precision, says the writer Howard Rodman, whose John Lautner–designed home Shulman photographed in 2002: “There’s a story about Steve McQueen, where a producer was trying to get him to sign on to a movie. The producer said, ‘Look how much you change from the beginning to the end.’ And McQueen said, ‘I don’t want to be the guy who learns. I want to be the guy who knows.’ And Shulman struck me as the guy who knows.” This becomes evident as, picking up the transparencies from his two most recent assignments, he delivers an impromptu master class. “We relate to the position of the sun every minute of the day,” Shulman begins, holding an exterior of a 1910 Craftsman-style house in Oakland, by Bernard Maybeck, to the lamp atop his desk. “So when the sun moves around, we’re ready for our picture. I have to be as specific as a sports photographer—even a little faster,” he says, nodding at the image, in which light spills through a latticework overhang and patterns a façade. “This is early afternoon, when the sun is just hitting the west side of the building. If I’m not ready for that moment, I lose the day.” He does not, however, need to observe the light prior to photographing: “I was a Boy Scout—I know where the sun is every month of the year. And I never use a meter.” Shulman is equally proud of his own lighting abilities. “I’ll show you something fascinating,” he says, holding up two exteriors of a new modernist home, designed for a family named Abidi, by architect James Tyler. In the first, the inside of the house is dark, resulting in a handsome, somewhat lifeless image. In the second, it’s been lit in a way that seems a natural balance of indoor and outdoor illumination, yet expresses the structure’s relationship to its site and showcases the architecture’s transparency. “The house is transfigured,” Shulman explains.

Merz

Fall 2016

“

If I were modest, I wouldn’t talk about how great I am.

”

“I have four Ts. Transcend is, I go beyond what the architect himself has seen. Transfigure—glamorize, dramatize with lighting, time of day. Translate—there are times, when you’re working with a man like Neutra, who wanted everything the way he wanted it—‘Put the camera here.’ And after he left, I’d put it back where I wanted it, and he wouldn’t know the difference—I translated. And fourth, I transform the composition with furniture movement.” To illustrate the latter, Shulman shows me an interior of the Abidi house that looks out from the living room, through a long glass wall, to the grounds. “Almost every one of my photographs has a diagonal leading you into the picture,” he says. Taking a notecard and pen, he draws a line from the lower left corner to the upper right, then a second perpendicular line from the lower right corner to the first line. Circling the intersection, he explains, “That’s the point of what we call ‘dynamic symmetry.’” When he

two or three people—the owner of a house, or the children—and put them to work. Sometimes it’s called for.” “Are you pleased with these photographs?” I ask as he sets them aside. “I’m pleased with all my work,” he says cheerfully. “I tell people in my lectures, ‘If I were modest, I wouldn’t talk about how great I am.’” Yet when I ask how he developed his eye, Shulman’s expression turns philosophical. “Sometimes Juergen walks ahead of me, and he’ll look for a composition. And invariably, he doesn’t see what I see. Architects don’t see what I see. It’s God-given,” he says, using the Yiddish word for an act of kindness—“a mitzvah.” I suggest a tour of the house, and Shulman moves carefully to

holds up the photo again, I see that the line formed by the bottom of the glass wall—dividing inside from outside—roughly mirrors the diagonal he’s drawn. Shulman then indicates the second, perpendicular line created by the furniture arrangement. “My assistants moved [the coffee table] there, to complete the line. When the owner saw the Polaroid, she said to her husband, ‘Why don’t we do that all the time?’” Shulman’s remark references one of his signature gambits: what he calls “dressing the set,” not only by moving furniture but by

a rolling walker he calls “the Mercedes” and heads out of the studio and up the front steps. As a plaque beside the entrance indicates, the 3,000-square-foot, three-bedroom structure, which Shulman commissioned in 1948 and moved into two years later, was landmarked by L.A.’s Cultural Heritage Commission as the only steel-frame Soriano house that remains as built. Today, such Case Study–era residences are as fetishized (and expensive) as Fabergé eggs. But when Shulman opens the door onto a wide, cork-lined hallway leading to rooms that, after six decades, remain refreshing in their clarity of function and communication, use of simple, natural materials, and openness to the outof-doors, I’m reminded that the movement’s motivation was egalitarian, not elitist: to produce well-designed, affordable homes for young, middle-class families. “Most people whose houses I photographed didn’t use their sliding doors,” Shulman says, crossing the living room toward his own glass sliders. “Because flies and lizards would come in; there were strong winds. So I told Soriano I wanted a transition—a screened-in enclosure in front of the living room, kitchen, and bedroom to make an indoor/outdoor room.” Shulman opens the door leading to an exterior dining area. A bird trills loudly. “That’s a wren,” he says, and steps out. “My wife and I had most of our meals out here,” he recalls. “Beautiful.” We continue past the house to Shulman’s beloved garden—he calls it “the jungle”—a riot of vegetation that overwhelms much of the site, and frames an almost completely green canyon view. “I planted hundreds of trees and shrubs—back there you can see my redwoods,” he says, gestur-

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adding everyday objects and accessories. “I think he was trying to portray the lifestyle people might have had if they’d lived in those houses,” suggests the Los Angeles–based architectural photographer Tim Street-Porter. “He was doing—with a totally positive use of the words—advertising or propagandist photographs for the cause.” This impulse culminated in Shulman’s introduction of people into his pictures—commonplace today, but virtually unique 50 years ago. “Those photographs—with young, attractive people having breakfast in glass rooms beside carports with two-tone cars—were remarkable in the history of architectural photography,” Street-Porter says. “He took that to a wonderfully high level.” Surprisingly, Shulman underplays this aspect of his oeuvre. The idea, he explains, is simply to “induce a feeling of occupancy. For example, in the Abidi house, I put some wineglasses and bottles on the counter, which would indicate that people are coming for dinner. Then there are times I’ll select

ing at the slope rising at the property’s rear. “Seedlings, as big as my thumb. They’re 85 feet tall now.” He pauses to consider an ominously large paw print in the path. “It’s too big for a dog. A bobcat wouldn’t be that big, either. It’s a mystery,” Shulman decides, pushing the Mercedes past a ficus as big as a baobab. The mystery I find myself pondering, as we walk beside the terraced hillside, is the one he cited himself: the source of his talent. In 1936, Shulman was an ama-teur photographer—gifted, but without professional ambition—when he was invited by an architect friend to visit Richard Neutra’s Kun House. Shulman, who’d never seen a modern residence, took a handful of snapshots with the Kodak vest-pocket

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camera his sister had given him, and sent copies to his friend as a thankyou. When Neutra saw the images, he requested a meeting, bought the photos, and asked the 26-year-old if he’d like more work. Shulman accepted and—virtually on a whim—his career took off. When I ask Shulman what Neutra saw in his images, he answers with a seemingly unrelated story. “I was born in Brooklyn in 1910,” says this child of Russian-Jewish immigrants. “When I was three, my father went to the town of Central Village in Connecticut, and was shown this farmhouse— primitive, but [on] a big piece of land. After we moved in, he planted corn and potatoes, my mother milked the cows, and we had a farm life. “And for seven years, I was imbued with the pleasure of living close

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American photographer

Julius Shulmanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

images of Californian architecture have burned themelves into the retina of the 21th century.

to nature. In 1920, when we came here to Los Angeles, I joined the Boy Scouts, and enjoyed the outdoor-living aspect, hiking and camping. My father opened a clothing store in Boyle Heights, and my four brothers and sisters and my mother worked in the store. They were businesspeople.” He flashes a slightly cocky smile. “I was with the Boy Scouts.” We arrive at a sitting area, with a small pool of water, a fireplace, and a large sculpture (purchased from one of his daughter’s high school friends) made from Volkswagen body parts. Shulman lowers himself onto a bench and absorbs the abundant natural pleasures. “When I bought this land, my brother said, ‘Why don’t you subdivide? You’ll make money.’” He looks amused. “Two acres at the top of Laurel Canyon, and the studio could be converted into a guest house—it could be sold for millions.” He resumes his story. “At the end of February 1936, I’d been at UCLA, and then Berkeley, for seven years. Never graduated, never majored. Just audited classes. I was driving home from Berkeley”— Shulman hesitates dramatically—“and I knew I could do anything. I was even thinking of getting a job in the parks department raking leaves, just so I could be outside. And within two weeks, I met Neutra, by chance. March 5, 1936—that day, I became a photographer. Why not?” Hearing this remarkable tale, I understand that Shulman has answered my question about his talent with an explanation of his nature. What Neutra perceived in the young amateur was an outdoorsman’s independent spirit and an enthusiasm for life’s possibilities, qualities that, as fate would have it, merged precisely with the boundless optimism of the American Century—an optimism, Shulman instinctively recognized, that was embodied in the modern houses that became, as Street-Porter says, “a muse to him.” “[Shulman] always says proudly that Soriano hated his furniture,” says Wim de Wit, the Getty Research Institute curator who oversees Shulman’s collection. “He says, ‘I don’t care; when I sit in a chair I want to be comfortable.’ He does not think of himself as an artist. ‘I was doing a business,’ he says. But when you look at that overgrown garden, you know—there is some other streak in him.” That streak—the free soul within the unpretentious, practical product of the immigrant experience—produced what Nogai calls “a seldom personality”: a Jewish farm boy who grew up to create internationally recognized American cultural artifacts—icons that continue to influence our fantasies and self-perceptions. I ask Shulman if he’s surprised at how well his life has turned out. “I tell students, ‘Don’t take life too seriously— don’t plan nothing nohow,’” he replies. “But I have always observed and respected my destiny. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was meant to be.” “And it was a destiny that suited you?” At this, everything rises at once—his eyebrows, his outstretched arms, and his peaceful, satisfied smile. “Well,” says Shulman, “here I am.”

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An ElectronicA TransGender RAve PartY BY ALYSON CAMUS PHOTO ALAN SMITHEE

Fall

may be upon us but the Broad museum in Los Angeles was having its final installation of Nonobject(ive): Summer Happenings

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London based DJ SOPHIE cuts rap and heavy beats into a thumping scoundscape

first one back in June had started with a celebration of queer culture with the fabulous Perfume Genius among other queens, this new one was a transgender electronic music jubilee. These nights are the occasion for the museum to open its door to a large public at night while transforming the place into a brand new environment, making the museum more alive, and Saturday night was a sort of avant-garde club culture, a wide range of abstract electronica with an underground idea in mind. First of all I knew only one of the artists performing that night, JD Samson (Le Tigre, MEN), who was DJing a blend of house electro-pop-soul in front of an ecstatic crowd on the Broad plaza. Of course JD is a woman looking like a guy, whereas most of the other performers were men, looking like women, the confusion of genres was the theme of the night, and I am obviously not only talking about music. Up in the gallery, in front of the colorful murals of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami and Jeff Koon’s ballons, electronic musician Kid606 was accelerating his beats with nervousness almost like a cha-cha-cha, before decomposing them into spacey, hard, harsh concrete electro-techno glitches, there also were some airport-like voices into the mix and a ‘Perpetual Dawn’ sticker on his computer, which may have implied a darker side to all this. In the Oculus Hall, Elysia Crampton, a transgender electronic poet, performed some shaking-all-senses audio-visual number called ‘Dissolution of the Sovereign’. I imagery, with planets on fire, dinosaurs, a Star-Warsstyle trailer and images of the Aymara people (he/she is from Bolivia), superimposed with Elysia’s demand for transgender equality. The music sounded like an electro video game with repetitive laser-like loops, lost in space to conquer new frontiers and distant stars, it was an electronica battle crashing into surreal imagery, a collage between bar jails and the devil, as Elysia ended screaming like the girl in the exorcist. At the end it was not too different from Morrissey’s slide show showing

The

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Top Left: Lauren Bousfeild, vitruoso in post-classical breakcore Bottom Left: Elysia Creampton giving a soulful performance| Right: JD Samson live mixing electro, pop, and soul

Fall 2016

it was epic, futuristic and kitsch at the same time, mixing history, pre-history, sci-fi and death

tortured animals, except that, this time, transgender women had replaced the animals. Powerful stuff. On the Broad plaza, SOPHIE (London-based electronic musician Samuel Long who has produced Charli XCX and Madonna among many others) was sculpting hard beats with a few rap themes and some abrupt changes in the rhythms and textures of her adventurous soundscapes. It was some weird stuff, rather abstract and experimental (like almost anything I heard during the night) bringing noise and metallic beats with some sudden and rare dance floors, accompanied by high-octane voices. Nevertheless, people were truly enjoying her avant-garde rave party. In the gallery upstairs, I caught a bit of Lauren Bousfield, whose giant keyboard was connected to a computer. The result was rather quiet, almost sounding like a calming and suave symphony until beats were

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introduced and made things far more complex than they first seemed. Then Julianna Barwick played her rare piano looping notes and sang with a frail and ethereal voice while Charles Atlas was projecting a live video, a superposition of random images, faces, eyes, landscapes which almost had a poetry of a Kenneth Anger movie. Saturday night was one of the most surprising nights of these Summer Happenings at the Broad, transforming the museum into a strange rave party, promoting music not easily accessible, played by a community rarely celebratedâ&#x20AC;Ś Another reason to like the Broad.

Left: Kid 606 blending generes in front of a Takashi Murakami installation Right: Julianna Barwick sings in sync with a psychedelic image reel

Until next time, dear reader