SURFACE - ALEX PRAGER - OCTOBER 2015

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ISSUE 122 OCTOBER 2015 AVANT GUARDIAN

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LET’S MEET UP.

CONTENTS

NO. 122

departments 62 Art 64 Auction 66 Transport 68 Books 70 Material 72 On Time 74 Survey 88 Executive 90 Endorsement 192 Object

20 Masthead Editor’s Letter 22 24 Contributors 34 Select 46 Detail Know Now 48 50 Travel 52 Hotel 54 Bar 56 Restaurant 58 Store

36 product Styling: Courtney Kenefick Photos: Molly Cranna

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taste

Rocks, pebbles, stones, and even her husband’s photographs provide a designer with creative cues.

By Maria Cornejo

who’s on the cover?

Los Angeles–based photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager sits comfortably between the art world and Hollywood. The self-taught 35-year-old brings the drama of cinema—complete with elaborate costumes and vintage wigs—to the world of still photography. This year, in addition to several exhibits of her work at major international institutions, she recently collaborated with French choreographer Benjamin Millepied of Paris Opera Ballet.

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ideas in design

New York–based visual artist Charles

Atlas opens his workspace to discuss ’80s nightlife and video-making.

Hermès and Apple join forces. A

new gallery concept creates a kind of

literal Venn diagram.

134 gallery

New Guadalajara hotel Casa Fayette is

poised to turn Mexico’s second-largest city into an international destination.

176 culture club

A photo portfolio of recent events in the

Surface universe, including the opening of the Hay Mini Market at MoMA Design Store and a new José Parlá exhibition at New York’s Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery.

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PHOTOS: IDEAS IN DESIGN, MICHAEL RYTERBAND. PRODUCT, MOLLY CRANNA. TASTE, MARIA CORNEJO. GALLERY, UNDINE PROHL. CULTURE CLUB, NEIL RASMUS/BFA.COM.

ISSUE 122 OCTOBER 2015

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CONTENTS

avant guardian

Our final showcase of up-and-coming photographers, plus a look at work by today’s photographic leaders.

122 large format

MoMA celebrates three decades of its annual “New Photography” show with its most expansive presentation yet.

100 a league of her own

Los Angeles–based photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager sits comfortably between the art world and Hollywood.

144 avant guardian 2015 portfolio

Introducing work by the 10 winers of this year’s Avant Guardian photography competition. cover: Alex Prager at her studio in Los Angeles photographer: Sally Peterson

108 r ange rover

Wolfgang Tillmans proves his versatility with new exhibitions at David Zwirner and The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

116 sights at the museum

ith the help of Tina Barney and W Stephen Shore, a new book celebrates 30 years of New York’s Noguchi Museum.

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PHOTOS: AVANT GUARDIAN, MATIN ZAD. A LEAGUE OF HER OWN, SALLY PETERSON. RANGE ROVER, KAT SLOOTSKY. SIGHTS AT THE MUSEUM, STEPHEN SHORE. LARGE FORMAT, SHIGA RASENKAIGAN. AVANT GUARDIAN 2015 PORTFOLIO, PAUL JUNG.

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NO. 122

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PHOTOS: LEFT, JIAXI YANG. RIGHT, KENNETH LAVEY.

Occasionally, when editing, I’ll come across a salient quote that makes me say to myself, “This is why Surface exists.” Going over writer Paula Kupfer’s profile of Wolfgang Tillmans (see page 108) was one of those instances. In her interview with the German photographer, whose work is currently on display at both New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and David Zwirner gallery, he expounds on the simplest elements of design, and how they affect our lives more than we know. Surfaces, he says, are “so incredibly powerful because they’re always around us. And I find there’s very little discussion about them.”

What an apt metaphor for this magazine. Part of why I came to work here five years ago was the publication’s name itself. The word “surface” encompasses so much of what’s overlooked in the world—and yes, that includes what’s missed by the media. I felt that a magazine so named could create conversations about cultural ideas and issues—in design and beyond—that others seem to ignore, because they may not be obvious, easily understood, or in your face. I want Surface to be, as Tillmans puts it, “a truly sensual thing,” a publication of complexity with a clean and elegant aesthetic. To achieve that requires presenting in-depth encounters with some of the world’s greatest makers and most creative thinkers. It also means engaging readers with captivating images and photography.

This issue is our celebration of the latter with plenty of the former. Inside you’ll find an interview with Los Angeles–based photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager (page 100), who recently collaborated with Paris Opera Ballet director Benjamin Millepied. In addition, we explore two major 30th anniversaries: The Museum of Modern Art’s “New Photography” exhibition (page 122), a hallmark launching pad for up-and-coming photographers, and the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens (page 116), which is honoring the occasion with a new Phaidon book of Tina Barney and Stephen Shore photographs taken within its galleries.

Also inside is a portfolio of work by the winners of our 15th—and final—Avant Guardian photography competition (page 144). Launched in the late ’90s, the contest has taken many turns over the years (designers were added into the mix in the aughts, and for a couple years it went on a hiatus), and so has the photography industry. At the contest’s inception, the Internet as we know it barely existed; the iPhone didn’t arrive until about a decade later. Then, in 2010, along

PHOTO: HANNAH OLIVIA NELSON.

Editor’s Letter

EDITOR’S LETTER

EDITOR’S LETTER

came Pinterest and Instagram, and in the five years since the hierarchy of photography has been completely leveled. Quantity has usurped quality, and even so, there remains a tremendous, mindnumbing amount of quality out there. With all of this in mind, we’ve decided to say a bittersweet goodbye to the Avant Guardian issue. It’s been a good ride, and we’re sad to see it go, but as with so many things in life, we felt it was time.

That’s not to say we won’t continue to celebrate photography and photographers, both of which will remain at the nexus of what we do in print, online, and on social media. Each issue will still have beautifully composed images throughout. We’ll continue to cover image-makers aplenty, and photography will always be at the heart of this beast. But this time next year you’ll see the launch of our Travel issue. Our travel coverage—which is in the process of getting beefed up and overhauled by editors Charles Curkin and Nate Storey—will increase going forward.

Later this fall, we’ll also be launching surfacehotels.com, an online booking platform arranged by our editorial team.

Now back to the subject of photography. In the Avant Guardian portfolio you’ll see work by 10 emerging photographers—the youngest is 21, the oldest 31—all of whom are graduates of leading art schools, including Pratt, Parsons, and California College of the Arts. (Shown on this spread are photographs by winners Hannah Olivia Nelson, opposite; Jiaxi Yang, bottom left; and Kenneth Lavey, bottom right.) Don’t let their ages fool you: These are serious talents, each showing great promise, chosen by a star jury and Surface’s editors. Collectively, the group ranges widely in aesthetic, vision, and subject matter, but all sit within the metaphorical walls that comprise this magazine’s world. As Tillmans points out, it’s when these surfaces join that we’re presented with something truly powerful.

PHOTOS: LEFT, JIAXI YANG. RIGHT, KENNETH LAVEY.

PHOTO: HANNAH OLIVIA NELSON.

— Spencer Bailey

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Contributors

MOLLY CRANNA When Los Angeles–based photographer Molly Cranna changed her travel plans to accommodate the New York City shoots for Select and Product (pages 34 and 36, respectively), our fashion and creative teams rejoiced, having already been fans of hers for some time. The love was not unrequited: Contributing to the issue was “a total dream come true,” says Cranna, whose images have graced the pages of publications like Wired, Paper, and Self. “I’ve been a huge fan of Surface for years, so this was really special.” Though the team gathered on a Saturday to meet a looming deadline, spirits were high and the energy on set was more playful than gloomy. “[Associate fashion editor] Courtney had worked her way into a leather Belstaff jumpsuit and got stuck in it,” Cranna recalls. Other studio antics included modeling oversize trapper hats, quoting Mean Girls (“grool!”), and swapping Tinder stories (Molly’s had a happy ending). “We couldn’t stop laughing,” she says, “it was so much fun.”

STAN PARISH One of our newest contributing editors, Stan Parish, is an expert on ugly fashion trends. Not because he leaves his apartment in an Affliction T-shirt and Crocs—he actually has a very respectable wardrobe. It’s because he grew up in New Jersey in the ’90s and early aughts. For this reason, we tapped him to write about the long-overdue domestic demise of Juicy Couture for our Critic column (page 33). “It was a distinct pleasure,” Parish says, “to describe the fall of a brand that was an aesthetic plague on my home state.” He’s merciless in his recounting of an episode that has haunted him since 2003, and he toiled with keeping it discreet, fighting the urge to bring shame upon the wicked. “It’s a true story, but I’d like to note that names have been changed to protect the sartorially challenged.” Parish is the author of the novel Down the Shore (Viking), and his writing has appeared in GQ, Esquire, Departures, and The New York Times Magazine. He’s currently editing the first issue of a new magazine coming from The Wall Street Journal in December, and working on a second novel: a thriller set in Tulum, Las Vegas, and—of course—New Jersey.

SALLY PETERSON We commissioned Sally Peterson to photograph our cover subject, fellow Angeleno and photographer Alex Prager. “Alex is such a natural beauty,” Peterson says. Good looks aside, Peterson is a fan of Prager’s work. “I enjoy collaborating with artists, especially a fellow female photographer,” she says. The 35-year-old Prager is a bit younger than many of Peterson’s recent subjects, considering her current project, a series called “One Hundred.” “Over the past six years, I have been seeking out and photographing 100 centenarians throughout North America,” she says.

When she’s not working on her portrait book or shooting for publications like Time, New York, and The Wall Street Journal, Peterson is traveling, gardening, and spoiling her dog, Lola.

NATE STOREY Our bespectacled associate travel editor, Nate Storey, could hardly contain his excitement when he was asked to talk about his write-up for Gallery on Casa Fayette, Grupo Habita’s new hotel in Guadalajara, Mexico (page 132). “It kicked ass,” he says, after returning from a long weekend south of the border. “I flew down for the opening party and had a whirlwind 48 hours.” He spent the majority of his trip hanging out with the artists, actresses, and Mexico City socialites that make up Habita’s coterie. “Emiliano Salci, one of the partners in the interior design firm Dimore Studio, was rocking the most righteous outfits all weekend,” he says. “Bold-graphic pants, silk robe-like overcoats, billowing gaucho shorts—he looked exactly how you’d want the guy designing your hotel to look.” Storey came to Surface in June after five years at Travel + Leisure. He’s a capricorn, his favorite color is taupe, and he almost died during his most recent juice cleanse, but has since made a full recovery.

MAXWELL WILLIAMS L.A.-based writer and curator Maxwell Williams captures the laid-back vibe of his hometown when he describes his assignment—a cover story, no less (page 100). “I chilled out with Alex Prager,” he says. “What’s not to love? I got to speak with an amazing artist, and dig into her process. There’s nothing better than that.” Luckily for us, Williams has the chops to back up his cool-guy approach: He’s written stories for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Details, and W, among other places. And funnily enough, he once interviewed Alex’s sister, Vanessa, also an artist, for the magazine Flaunt. At the moment, he’s on the road in Asia, having just left Nepal—where he found “a brilliant white oud in Kathmandu”—for Chengdu, China. “I’m digging up stories,” he tells us. “And meeting all sorts of crazy amazing people.”

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Ideas in Design

IDEAS IN DESIGN

PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

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STUDIO VISIT

Charles Atlas

How is it working and living in the same space?

INTERVIEW BY NATE STOREY

When I was first working full-time at Merce Cunningham Dance Company, I had an office and did most of my work there. I started freelancing in 1983 and moved everything to my apartment. At first I didn’t like the idea—nothing ever got finished. Now it’s just what I do and the idea of traveling anywhere for work seems like a waste of time.

PHOTOS BY MICHAEL RYTERBAND

Are there any visual artists you’re a fan of right now?

Let’s start with gay porn. What was it like filming Staten Island Sex Cult back in the day?

I don’t have any heroes. I think you do when you’re in your 20s. Mine were Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, and Jasper Johns, and it’s always stayed that way.

The New York–based visual artist opens his work space to discuss ’80s nightlife, a new exhibition at the Contemporary Austin, and a recent campaign for Calvin Klein.

It was fun. I was in an office and someone said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get artists to do a porno?” I said sign me up. So we put ads in the Village Voice and did auditions, which were horrible—we found out that in professional porn they were giving people shots right in their dicks to keep them hard. This was before Viagra so the problems were, “Oh, this has never happened before.” So that was the issue for most of it. We didn’t get professionals. We were lucky to get one star, and we treated him really nice.

Was this after the AIDS scare?

It was, like, 1990. We used condoms. It wasn’t even a question. But I did a lot of things we weren’t supposed to do. I got nominated for best comic porno at AVN [the Adult Video News awards]. There’s so much porn now.

It’s the biggest money-maker on the Internet. This was not commercial, it was kind of amateur. I’m the only person who could do a porno and get no money for it.

How long have you been working out of this Meatpacking District studio/apartment?

Since 1980. The neighborhood has changed, and it was a lot better before.

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What’s your inspiration?

I don’t wait for inspiration. I’m from the school of: “Keep working and it will either happen or it won’t.” I don’t wait for a brainstorm. With some pieces, everything falls into place. Others are a lot more difficult.

What are you working on now?

I have an installation I’m doing in Texas: A two-piece show at the Contemporary Austin. One is called “Tornado Warning,” based on an installation I did in 2008. It’s very complicated: six channels, two rooms— all video. One room is very formal black and white; the other is a maelstrom of whirling images from a moving projector [to mimic the extreme weather events of St. Louis, where Atlas was raised]. The other piece is something I did with my choreographer friend, Douglas Dunn. I’ve worked with him many years starting in the ’70s. Over the years we’ve made a bunch of things together, and I’m taking that and making a four-channel installation out of it. Then I have another show, “The Waning of Justice,” in Columbus, Ohio. It’s an exact replica of a show I did at Chelsea’s Luhring Augustine in February. >

IDEAS IN DESIGN

The “Waning of Justice” was political and dystopian. Your work to this point hasn’t been very political. Why the change?

Not in my work, although I’m a progressive political person. When I started making this installation I started to be emotionally turbulent about the situation we’re in. I was making this piece before Obama was elected and thought, “What if Obama is elected and this piece doesn’t mean anything?”

What do you think our country’s problem is right now?

I trace the beginning of the end to Reagan, and then Clinton cemented the corporate takeover of the world. Corporate profits do not coincide with what people need or want; there’s a hopelessness that keeps people from getting excited enough to do something about it. For years, I thought there was an implicit plot not to fund education so that the people are less informed. But I’m not completely pessimistic.

You have frequently worked with drag queens. What is it about them that you’re particularly drawn to?

I used to go to the clubs when drag was a force in ’80s New York subculture.

I was a door person for [promoter and convicted murderer] Michael Alig.

It was a low point, but it was well-paid. I was up all night and slept all day.

The drag queens became my friends and were really clever. It was just fun.

And dance has always been a big focus for you.

I worked with [Scottish dancer and choreographer] Michael Clark continuously for 25 years. I like dance. At a certain point, I was only doing dance and wanted to get out. It took me about 10 years to extricate myself, and then they got me back, but not in the same way.

How did you get any work done?

I don’t know, but I didn’t get much sleep then. It wasn’t like I had to go to an office. I used to have a job on Wall Street as a proofreader at a law firm, and I remember I had to wear a jacket. That would have never worked.

I read an interview in which you said you’re too old to sell out. So tell me about your new Calvin Klein campaign.

[Laughs] Well, it turns out that I’m not! It’s not the people I usually work with, but I did what I wanted to do.

Did the brand approach you?

Yeah, totally. The creative director and designers knew my work. The fashion people are mystified. I received a note from Graydon Carter [editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair] saying how great it was that Calvin Klein did something different.

What’s the balance between commerce and art?

Well, I have a New York gallery that sells my work. I don’t have the type of work that’s easy to sell—sometimes I wish I were a painter. I feel like film artists are like the court jesters.

It’s been a big year for you. Would you say it’s been the best year of your career?

I don’t think of things that way. The idea of showing pieces is less interesting than making them, but it’s nice to get recognized.

The mythology of New York nightlife in the ’80s is almost unparalleled.

What was your experience?

I would go to clubs four or five nights a week, starting in the ’70s when I was a big Studio 54 person: drugs, parties, brain chemicals.

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ARCHITECTURE

Elements House

Since the ’70s, sculptor and earthwork artist Charles Ross has been working in the New Mexico desert on “Star Axis,” an impressive pyramidal concrete structure that blends into the landscape and allows visitors to see the complexity of the celestial skies with the naked eye. The work is best experienced at night, though, and since it’s in the middle of untouched nature, finding lodging has long been a problem for visitors. To solve the issue, Ross commissioned Hilary Sample and Michael Meredith of Boston-based firm Mos to design a facility for guests that would deliver an off-the-grid living experience. “It is one of the projects where the client allowed us to experiment with him, in form, experimentation, and function,” says Meredith, whose firm is constantly researching different systems and construction techniques (in fact, Mos is presenting a pre-fabricated modular home that is being shown as a full-scale plywood model at this month’s inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial). The design for Elements House is set up to withstand the extreme weather of the desert: An aluminum cladding creates a tunnel of air between the house and its exterior, moving heat from the roof to its cool and shaded sides. The shiny structure’s cutting-edge features make it look, from a certain angle, like a machine for living—and from another, just a home. —Dave Basulto, editor-inchief of the website ArchDaily

“The Third Room”

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PHOTOS: BOOK, ALEX PRAGER FOR BOTTEGA VENETA SPRING/SUMMER 2011 CAMPAIGN. TECH, COURTESY DXO.

We often talk about design that crosses the line into the realm of art, and vice versa. This month, a new show called “The Third Room” physically realizes this crossover: It takes place in the space between the Cristina Grajales (she does design) and Leon Tovar (he does art) galleries, which share an open 6,000-square-foot floor of a former paper factory in Manhattan’s Flatiron district. “It’s the space where we meet in life, and in sensibility,” says Grajales, who is from Colombia and whose gallery focuses on 20th-century works. Tovar, also Colombian, specializes in 20th-century Latin American art, an exceedingly popular market at the moment. The new show—in its entirety—is a sculpture by the Venezuelan artist Marisol. Tovar bought the 1981 piece, which depicts a seated and deconstructed Pablo Picasso, at a Sotheby’s auction for $112,500 last year—a relative steal, since there were only two other bidders (one of them, according to Tovar, was the Whitney Museum of American Art). Picasso’s torso is a carved block with two sets of hands, one on detached furry legs and the other on the arms of a cubist but rustic chair. It’s a handsome object, and one that Tovar thinks perfectly summarizes the focuses of both gallerists. “There are similarities of thinking everywhere,” he says. “Like the pyramids in Mexico and the pyramids of Egypt—that’s the beauty of connections.” —Dan Duray

PHOTOS: ARCHITECTURE, COURTESY MOS. EXHIBIT, JEFF ELSTONE.

EXHIBIT

IDEAS IN DESIGN

BOOK

Bottega Veneta

When Tomas Maier landed at Bottega Veneta as creative director in 2001, he aimed to “create advertising campaigns that express a wider idea of creativity and craft, beyond the normal bounds of fashion.”

Fourteen years and many seasons later, Maier’s collections have been shot by an impressive list of names: Peter Lindbergh, Annie Leibovitz, Juergen Teller, David Sims, and Alex Prager (this issue’s cover subject; see page 100 for our interview with her), to name a few. Bottega Veneta: Art of Collaboration (Rizzoli), out this month, is a compilation of these partnerships, and features more than a thousand images of the Italian fashion house’s past campaigns. “I take great pleasure in discussing the collection and seeing what it provokes in [the artist],” Maier says. “I like to get the shot without any outside intervention, so that the result can be as pure as possible.” As a compendium, this purity reigns, highlighting the distinction in each creative partnership. The book, which also includes a foreword by Tim Blanks and essays by Daphne Merkin, speaks to the power of collaboration: Maier’s designs have become a means to express each artist’s explicit view and promote individual interpretation of a heritage brand. “It is clear to see the hand of those who have worked on the campaign,” Maier says, “and the different narratives that they have brought to it.” —Courtney Kenefick

PHOTOS: BOOK, ALEX PRAGER FOR BOTTEGA VENETA SPRING/SUMMER 2011 CAMPAIGN. TECH, COURTESY DXO.

PHOTOS: ARCHITECTURE, COURTESY MOS. EXHIBIT, JEFF ELSTONE.

TECH

DxO One

The next big thing in photography is at the tip of your iPhone, but it’s not an Apple product. Meet the DxO One, an innovative connected camera and the first device by DxO, a longtime industry favorite for its top-notch photo editing software and image processors. Simply plug it into your phone’s lightning port, and your touchscreen becomes the viewfinder of a DSLR-quality camera that’s smaller than a deck of cards. The fourounce, swiveling plastic and aluminum body stands out as much for its diminutive dimensions as for what it holds inside: a high resolution 20.2 MP sensor for impressive low-light shots, an ultra-fast f/1.8 prime lens for detailed portraits, and ISO settings powerful enough to capture a perfect starry sky. “It’s the camera we always wanted,” says Frédéric Guichard, chief image scientist at DxO. “Incredibly compact, extremely sensitive to light, and most important: connected.” In other words, images can be saved directly to your camera roll and shared immediately on Instagram—no filter necessary. $599, dxo.com —Nikki Ekstein

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IDEAS IN DESIGN

RETAIL

Apple Watch Hermès Collection

It’s hard to garner attention with a partnership in this collaboration-crazy world, but the September announcement of an Hermès Apple Watch has managed to break through the noise. The new release marries two equally recognizable status symbols: the Apple Watch and an Hermès timepiece. It’s an unlikely pairing, but one with synergy. While the Apple Watch epitomizes contemporary innovation, Hermès’s cachet lies in its heritage and history. The two brands find commonality in obsessive attention to high design. Each case, available in 38mm and 42mm, features an etching of the Hermès logo, and includes three exclusive digital dial designs. Add a trio of strap options—it’s available in Single Tour, Double Tour, and Cuff, all Hermès classics—and this is arguably the first true luxury smart watch. $1,100–$1,500, apple.com —C.K.

UP AND COMING

David Cazso

PHOTO: UP AND COMING, DAVID CAZSO.

Twenty-five-year-old architect David Cazso is breaking out on his own— but starting small. Though the Los Angeles–born, Mexico-educated, and Brooklyn-based architect previously worked on large-scale residential projects for acclaimed architecture group ODA, his first design for Novel Studios, his own nascent practice, is a candle. “I love so many forms of creativity, and I wanted one piece to combine that and reflect the purpose of the studio; it’s not really a candle.” Cazso says, sounding like Magritte. “It’s about scent memory, architecture—just like a sun sets into the earth, it melts into nothing, and it disappears forever.”

The candle’s poured concrete cylindrical base blends into a cedar wood– and palmarosa-scented soy wax of his own mélange (in addition to being an industrial designer, architect, and photographer, Cazso bills himself as a perfumer). “Concrete is my favorite material to work with,” he says, predictably citing Luis Barragán, Rem Koolhaas, Tadao Ando, and Oscar Niemeyer as his most impactful influences. With Novel Studios, he is aiming to surpass a singular approach and offering more general creative direction. “The concept is really based on the idea of a creative collective, constantly designing new things in a variety of applications,” he explains, adding that “designers have an obligation to create things for people to live with and in, and a lot of people compromise design for money—but I don’t want to do that.” —Mieke ten Have

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ILLUSTRATION: TIM LAHAN.

PHOTO: UP AND COMING, DAVID CAZSO.

CRITIC

Juicy Couture’s Downfall

It’s 8 p.m. on the last day of 2003, and I’m waiting for my cousin and his date to arrive at a party in Princeton, New Jersey. This ritual New Year’s bash, attended by a mix of finance types and my friends (their college-age children), is black-tie. I’ve emphasized the dress code to my cousin’s newish girlfriend—a self-identifying “Jersey Girl”—who shows up 20 minutes late in black stretch pants, a white shirt with a vertigo-inducing neckline, and a black knit scarf that hangs down past her knees. We’re standing in the driveway; my cousin shakes his head to let me know this battle has been fought and lost.

“Hey, Melissa,” I say, “it’s a little dressier in there.”

She gives me a pitying smirk and unwraps her scarf, savoring the moment. I’m having an experience best described by Bob Dylan: Something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is. Melissa holds the scarf up to my face so I can read the words woven into the fabric, a kind of wool and polyester ticker tape: JuicyCoutureJuicyCoutureJuicyCouture.

“Um,” Melissa says, “so this is Juicy? I’ll be fine.”

I grew up in New Jersey, but not the New Jersey that springs immediately to mind. Princeton is devoutly preppie, and because my parents didn’t watch TV or read the tabloids, I never witnessed Britney’s Juicy Couture–clad Starbucks runs and psychotic episodes.

Sartorially speaking, I’d led a pretty sheltered life up to that point.

So while “Juicy” means nothing to me, the power of this brand is immediately apparent. This scarf is a sartorial stopgap, a style bandage that, in theory, elevates everything it touches. Melissa feels fabulous—or at least comfortable enough to have sex in the master bathroom of someone else’s home and respond with righteous 33

indignation when the hostess—in a vintage evening gown—dares to interrupt. I wondered, later, if that episode was a rebuke aimed to my implied critique of her outfit. I also wondered if Juicy made her do it.

The rise of Juicy Couture was mostly Madonna’s fault. The brand started as a maternity label in 1995, but two years later its founders switched gears, and sent their velour tracksuit to celebrities. And it was Madge who cottoned to the idea of declaring your ass “Juicy” and being photographed in the kind of clothes my Italian grandfather wouldn’t wear past the end of his driveway.

As Americans, we have a rich history of heritage workwear brands— ruggedly handsome clothes that telegraph a self-starting ethos and ability to get shit done. Juicy Couture was the antithesis of that. The clothes were both loud and lax; like a certain class of recent political hopefuls, they were long on noise but short on substance and structure.

The voluminous velour track suits, a precursor to the Snuggie, sent a clear message: “I have disposable income but not enough bandwidth to pick out a bottom and a top.” Sales were driven by sex-tape stars who have since been marginalized or at least temporarily institutionalized, women who matched their Juicy to their Bentley.

Now that era seems to be finally ending. In 2014, the brand announced that they’d be closing all their U.S. stores to focus on the international market, which felt like a small domestic victory. The flagship Fifth Avenue store is gone, but an article in AM New York last month reported there’s still one boutique left in New York City. It’s in Terminal 4 of JFK International Airport, past the security checkpoint.

The message is clear: Please take it with you. We’re better than this.

—Stan Parish

According to Greek mythology, the god bee that intricately employs thin strips of Dionysus used a tiger sent by Zeus to cross the brass wrapped in silk thread. If this piece is river that became known as Tigris. Drawing any indication, Michele is poised to achieve inspiration from the tale, Gucci creative direc- legendary status, joining the ranks of the stotor Alessandro Michele designed the Dionysus ried brand he designs for and the Greek god bag for his first women’s ready-to-wear collec- that inspires him. Gucci embroidered fabric tion at the helm of the Italian fashion house— and suede shoulder bag, $3,800, gucci.com a debut that showcased a modernized, more —Courtney Kenefick playful aesthetic for the label. References to the eponymous god can be seen in its tiger head closure. The soon-to-be classic silhouette also presents an update to the brand’s distinguishable double-G motif, and a hand-embroidered SURFACE

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PHOTO: MOLLY CRANNA.

Buzz Worthy

SELECT

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PRODUCT

When in Roam Ideal for spontaneous adventures in the great outdoors, these looks steer far from the beaten path.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MOLLY CRANNA STYLED BY COURTNEY KENEFICK

PROP STYLISTS: TAYLOR GIVENS AND MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

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PROP STYLISTS: TAYLOR GIVENS AND MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Vest, Victorinox Swiss Army. Hat, Carven. Camera, Nikon 1 J5. Rucksack, Bรถle Tannery (available via Crest & Co.).

Scotch, The Macallan. Boots, Off-White c/o Virgil Abloh. Jeans, 3x1. Flask, Ted Baker London.

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Vodka, Ketel One. Coat, Moncler. Scarf, Acne Studios. Trunk, Bertoni 1949. Boots, Louis Vuitton. Hat, Gucci.

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Jacket, Bally. Boots, 3.1 Phillip Lim. Pants, Simon Miller. Watch, Ralph Lauren. Camera, Sony a6000. Bag, Filson.

Rum, Facundo. Towel, Saint Atma.

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Coat, Ralph Lauren Rlx. Ax, Best Made Co. Boots, Moschino. Camera, Pentax QS-1. Keychain, Loewe. Bag, Kenzo.

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Towel, Saint Atma. Boots, Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci. Camera, Hasselblad CFV-50c. Sake, Soto. Bag, Christopher Kane. Watch, Porsche Design.

Jumpsuit, Belstaff. Sunglasses, Simon Miller x Moscot 001.

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Known for capturing urban and industrial architecture, German photographer Michael Wolf lent his work to fashion designers Fyodor Podgorny and Golan Frydman of London-based label Fyodor Golan, who transformed the images into laudable runway prints. This image, taken in Hong Kong as part of Wolf’s “Architecture of Density” series, was one of two digitally printed onto dresses and other ready-to-wear garments for the brand’s fall/winter 2015 collection. Fyodor Golan leather-trimmed polyester dress, $2,007, fyodorgolan.co.uk SURFACE

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PHOTO: MICHAEL WOLF/COURTESY BRUCE SILVERSTEIN GALLERY.

Photo Op

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FOLLOW @ SURFACEMAG

w

Hybrid Energy

KNOW NOW

In this column, we ask our special projects editor, Bettina Korek, founder of the Los Angeles–based independent arts organization For Your Art, to select something in the world that she believes you should be aware of at this particular moment.

BY BETTINA KOREK

In 1965, artist Ed Ruscha trained his trademark deadpan gaze on the aesthetic of the Southern California lifestyle in his book Some Los Angeles Apartments. The city’s sundry living spaces are still a quintessential part of the L.A. experience.

In a testament to their continued potential, gallerists and artists have recently been turning to them as dynamic exhibition platforms.

Two such spaces opened in 2014: Del Vaz Projects, driven by (and named for) a philosophy of being “open-handed and open-hearted,” operates out of a modestly sized apartment on the Westside; closer to Downtown, Park View is similarly scaled and focuses on emerging artists and lesser-known historical figures. As Patrick Steffen observed in Flash Art this June, the overhead for dual-use, apartment-based venues is economical, and consequently, “they are able to combine risk with serenity.”

The latest to join in is the New Zealand–born artist Fiona Connor, who inaugurated her own program called Laurel Doody out of her secondfloor apartment in Mid-Wilshire. (For parking, the gallery indicates a lot at a nearby Staples.)

The project evolved naturally out of earlier, intermittent presentations of her colleagues’ work. “I then wanted to start a more formal program,” Connor says. “It’s a very personal one that weaves together a loose network of friends and ongoing conversations.”

For Connor, these include the questions inherent in merging personal space with an exhibition venue. “What are the conditions in which we want to experience art?” she asks.

“And how do those coexist with conditions in which one would want to live?” Laurel Doody’s

living areas—like Park View’s—appear nearly monastic, and the project has further sensitized Connor to the porous boundaries between domestic, institutional, and artistic spaces. One discovery: apartment interiors encourage a different viewing pace. Visitors feel freer to linger, spending far more time than they would in a traditional gallery.

Laurel Doody’s July exhibition featured the audio archives of Keaton Macon, who spent four years making 366 field recordings across Los Angeles. He taped his various daily activities, from driving in his car to taking in casual street concerts; together they present a nonhierarchical conception of passing time. While they echo Ruscha’s indifferent documentarian approach, both projects paradoxically present the city’s quotidian spaces as singular, vibrant, and evocative. Certainly, these new exhibition venues are proving them to be so.

An installation view of “A Short Line Between Two Points” at Laurel Doody in Los Angeles.

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PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSEN.

The latest trend in L.A.’s ever-changing art scene?

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TRAVEL

INSIDE GUIDE TO TORONTO

BY PETRA COLLINS 01 Toronto is a burgeoning scene for modern and avant-garde art. “One of my favorite Canadian artists is Allyson Mitchell,” Collins says. Head to Mitchell’s gallery FAG (it stands for Feminist Art Gallery) in Little Portugal for shows that tend towards the performative. “Two years ago she made a lesbian haunted house—and there’s always something interesting going on.” allysonmitchell.com 02 Spread out across three locations, all in different neighborhoods, is the local mini-chain Fresh, one of Collins’s picks for quick and mostly-virtuous vegetarian meals. “I get the quinoa onion rings, and the dragon bowl, which has soba noodles with tofu steak and miso dressing. I wish it would come to New York!” freshrestaurants.ca 03 When Collins comes back to visit, she beds down at the Gladstone, where the 37 eclectic rooms are the product of a different local artist, or the Drake (pictured), which displays site-specific installations by homegrown talents like Patryk Stasieczek and Sarah-Anne Johnson. “They’re both in beautiful historic buildings in the best part of town. I wouldn’t stay anywhere else.” The Drake, 1150 Queen Street W; 416531-5042; thedrakehotel.ca

PHOTO: 01, COURTESY LISA KANNAKKO. 02, COURTESY PAULA WILSON. 03, COURTESY THE DRAKE. 04, COURTESY 69 VINTAGE.

PHOTO: COURTESY PETRA COLLINS.

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04 Queen Street is the city’s top thoroughfare for people-watching and one-off boutique shopping. “69 Vintage (pictured) has been my store since I was a kid,” says Collins. “Value Village is also great: It’s where I got some pieces that have been in my closet forever, like this amazing shag jacket I can’t stop wearing.” 69 Vintage, 921 Queen Street W; 416-5160669; 69vintage.com

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TRAVEL

Northern Exposure

Art became an outlet for Toronto’s most controversial young feminist export.

BY NIKKI EKSTEIN

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PHOTO: 01, COURTESY LISA KANNAKKO. 02, COURTESY PAULA WILSON. 03, COURTESY THE DRAKE. 04, COURTESY 69 VINTAGE.

PHOTO: COURTESY PETRA COLLINS.

When Petra Collins was a young girl growing up in Toronto, she felt neither smart nor beautiful. “Reading and writing was difficult for me because I’m dyslexic. My grades were terrible. I needed art to succeed,” she says. But now when she returns to her hometown, the photographerturned-artist is seen as one of the city’s most cutting-edge talents.

At just 22 years old, Collins has already collaborated with a who’s who of artistic icons, including filmmaker Richard Kern and blogger-actress Tavi Gevinson, landed a recurring role on Transparent, Amazon’s Golden Globe–winning com-dram, launched a collection of menstruation-themed T-shirts with American Apparel, and even got kicked off of Instagram for her edgy depictions of femininity. (The offending image? A self-portrait in a two-piece—in which she skipped the bikini

wax.) Now a New York resident, her work often reflects on women’s issues. Her book, Babe, recently published under the Prestel imprint, brings together 30 female artists for a “yearbook of sorts,” as she calls it, dedicated to exploring the modern female psyche. Among the represented voices are a global roster of young, creative phenoms—most of whom have partnered with Collins on her website, The Arduous, or on magazine projects at Rookie or Vice, where she has served as a guest editor.

Speaking of women’s sexual rights, and the recent political maelstrom about defunding Planned Parenthood, she says America sometimes feels 50 years behind its neighbor to the north. “I didn’t think these things were still issues,” she says. “I’m lucky to be from a place that offers no-judgement healthcare.”

Coitus ethics aren’t the only social aspect in which she shows great pride for her Canadian roots. “Toronto is extremely multicultural and very free of prejudice. It taught me to consider everyone in my art, and not just people I relate to directly.”

Collins’s parents had no small hand in her success. Her father, a criminal lawyer, and mother, a script supervisor for films in her native Hungary, identified visual art as an outlet for the troubled teen, and steered her towards a dedicated high-school program for talented upstarts.

“It changed my life,” she says, recalling her parents’ commitment to finding the right place for her to thrive.

It’s no small coincidence that the artist now returns to her alma mater as a favorite shoot location. “My high school has always been really lenient with me and they’ve let me shoot there so many times. I really enjoy going back. It speaks to my childhood. It’s where I grew up and it’s familiar to me. You know The Virgin Suicides was shot in Toronto, right?”

These days Collins constantly has movies on her mind. After filming a series of shorts about young female dancers in the American south (and starring on the second season of Transparent) Collins is working toward her biggest goal yet: a feature film. “I’m really into the horror genre. That’s the kind of thing I’d want to explore. I just saw White God and It Follows—both really inspired me.” It’s a slow process, she says, but somehow, there’s little question she’ll get there—and fast.

The new Tuve hotel brings rough cavernous splendor to Hong Kong.

BY SARAH KHAN How do you develop an aesthetic based on a feeling?

That was the question Hong Kong–based Design Systems grappled with when conceptualizing the look of the Tuve hotel in the city’s Tin Hau district. We’ve seen architects take reference points from locations, colors, even textures, but Tuve’s impetus marks a departure from convention: the hotelier was so taken with a particular collection of images that the property became an unlikely ode to a body of water a world away. Danish photographer Kim Høltermand’s haunting blackand-white panoramas of Sweden’s Lake Tuve made a lasting impression on the hotel’s owner, and Design Systems was tasked with transforming the mood imparted by the visuals into tangible materials.

“The photographs of the lake served more as the start of conversation. It’s not a translation from the visual to the spatial,” says Design Systems director Lam Wai Ming. “The challenge is that we wanted to differentiate the hotel with an unusual uniqueness.”

So they took the brief from the owner, rooms are alike—so guests never know quite who prefers to maintain a low profile, and in- what to expect. Bathrooms are swathed in terpreted the moody imagery with raw, natu- marble and come with brass accents. “We ral materials: carbon, brass, marble, granite, think designing by subtraction helps us deoak, and glass. Exuberant swirls in the stone velop a sense of place for the hotel for its puand gold-flecked crevices in the concrete rity and rarity as an alternative to the maindance under meticulously orchestrated light- stream,” Ming adds. ing. “Our approach is to rediscover and enhance materials’ natural beauty with surface Public Areas treatment and lighting effects, to let the space exude its authentic aura and induce emotions You might walk back and forth on Tsing in the travelers,” Ming says. To wit: the inter- Fung Street a few times before you figure out play of the light against the natural surfaces where Tuve’s façade is: the long, cave-like awakens feelings akin to those evoked by entrance tunnel is secreted next to hulking oxidized metal doors, and the location is herHøltermand’s landscapes. alded with an understated brass-and-marble sign. Once you’ve found your way inside, Rooms shards of light are diffused all over a marble The two-year endeavor culminated in July lobby dominated by a brass reception area. with the unveiling of 66 rooms redolent of The ground-floor Silver Room restaurant Scandinavia’s hallmark minimalist aesthet- serves Italian fare with Japanese inflections; ics—spare wooden beds; exposed hooks the dimly lit space is presided over by nestand handles; utilitarian boxes that contort like metal sculptures.

At Tuve, natural materials converge in a into desks and cabinets—while exuding luxury at the same time. “Luxury as a style mellow harmony designed to elicit similar has somehow been stereotyped and vulgar- emotions within guests; where other hotels ized nowadays, so instead of drawing on the are on a quest to impart a sense of place, clichés and putting together extravagant ele- Tuve’s team chose to deliver a sensory expements, we focused on presenting materials in rience. Whether or not it succeeds is entirely authentic states and pure forms,” Ming says. up to the travelers who find their way here.

Here, luxury lies in simplicity and mystery, with natural imperfections in the stone, concrete, and brass walls ensuring that no two SURFACE

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PHOTOS: COURTESY TUVE HOTEL.

Raw Hideaway

HOTEL

PHOTOS: COURTESY TUVE HOTEL.

HOTEL

(THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP) A guest room at Tuve.

The hotel’s front corridor. The reception lobby. (OPPOSITE) The lobby.

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Second Act

BAR

Cocktail by Greg Seider INSPIRED BY GROUCHO CLUB For this recipe, I took the classic Negroni and preserved its original charm and timelessness, while enhancing the flavors of the three main ingredients—gin, vermouth, aperitivo (like the three old Soho buildings that comprise the Groucho Club)—with modern-day additions.

I was inspired by the institution of afternoon tea. We use a gin like No. 3, which has its roots in London dry style, but incorporates new world botanicals of citrus and cardamom that play beautifully with the honeyed floral notes of the Rooibos tea–infused gin. The delicate floral notes of the Dolin sweet vermouth balance out the hint of bitterness, citrus peel, and herbs of the Cappelletti aperitivo leading to a new classic for the ages. ⁄2 oz

3 ⁄4 oz 3 ⁄4 oz 2

1

Rooibos Tea infused No. 3 gin or Sipsmith Dolin sweet vermouth Cappelletti aperitivo dashes orange bitters orange peel

Mix all the ingredients in a mixing glass.

Fill with ice. Stir till it pours like viscous syrup texture (about 50 times). Strain over ice into large rocks glass. Garnish with an orange peel.

Greg Seider is the co-founder of Summit Bar and Manhattan Cricket Club in New York, and

An infamous 30-year-old private club in London gets a tasteful facelift.

author of the new cocktail book Alchemy in a Glass (Rizzoli).

BY NATE STOREY

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PHOTOS: COCKTAIL, NOAH FECKS. BAR, COURTESY GROUCHO CLUB.

Bill Clinton walked into a Soho bar one Christmas night shortly after leaving office. According to legend, within minutes of his arrival, U2’s front man, Bono, commandeered the piano, and began crooning an improvised holiday jingle for the former POTUS before the awestruck patrons. Welcome to the Groucho Club.

Drunken folklore is on tap at Groucho, from a Moby and Mick Jagger duet Clash cover with backup vocals provided by Coldplay and New Order, to a night in 1995 when artist Damien Hirst, after being awarded the Turner Prize, reportedly handed over his £20,000 award and instructed the bartender to open a tab, and let him know when it ran out. (Hirst also relieved himself

BAR

PHOTOS: COCKTAIL, NOAH FECKS. BAR, COURTESY GROUCHO CLUB.

in the bar’s sink, but that’s a whole different story.)

Anyone who’s spent a few late nights at 45 Dean Street, a notoriously louche media hangout and den of iniquity, probably has a tale or two. The bar has a kind of Proustian effect, which is why it’s spoken of in hushed tones. Maybe because it was so difficult to join—its name derives from the old Groucho Marx quip, “I don’t want to belong to any club that accepts me as a member.” Or perhaps the reason is that it was seen as an antidote to London’s robust lineup of stuffy, hermetic society clubs. So the 2014 news that Groucho would shutter and undergo a metamorphosis was met with exasperation.

Will Groucho 2.0 be crushed by the weight of the past?

“The Groucho has grown a great deal in its 30 years,” says Alex Michaelis of Michaelis Boyd, the local architecture firm tasked with giving the institution a polish. “And like all good aging stars, sometimes a subtle facelift is the only answer.” He wanted to create a better flow while keeping the same atmosphere that made it such a memorable 55

experience. “We took a room-by-room approach, revealing the character of each space.”

Michaelis, who also designed Soho Houses in Berlin and the English countryside, might be understating the scale of the two-year refurbishment. The design team rejiggered the entire layout across multiple floors and peeled back the layers of the three historic buildings to showcase their character. The former reception area has been recast as an entrance lobby and library room. A reclaimed fireplace, antique herringbone floors, and bright orange sofas were added to the first-floor Mary Lou Room, which now connects to the main dining area that has been spruced up with Brazilian marble tables and curvaceous blue banquettes.

The Soho Bar was given a contemporary sheen, including lacquered walls, a resin-top bar, and a wooden floor sourced from the BBC’s Bush House, a tribute to the club’s sensationalist legacy. Michaelis says extra attention was paid to the materials. “We used a wide array of luxurious velvets, traditional tweeds, and the softest leathers across the

furniture.” The art was also a priority as Michaelis stresses the importance of the design not overpowering the collection. “We worked with the art director on where to place the club’s most iconic works,” he says.

The art really makes every room.”

As for the traditionalists, Michaelis was mindful of how beloved the original Groucho was. “Change always polarizes opinion,” he says. “Our approach has been sympathetic and focused on improvement.

Of course, not everyone likes every single change, but the benefits have become clearer to the members.”

Michaelis is still waiting for the ultimate endorsement, however: Damien Hirst pissing in the sink again.

A restaurant inside the Sydney Opera House looks forward while honoring its storied past.

BY BROOKE PORTER KATZ

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PHOTO: TOP, PIERCE LIU. BOTTOM, DANIEL BOUD.

The Sydney Opera House is perhaps the most iconic and recognizable architectural structure on the entire Australian continent.

So you would think the architect tasked with designing its new restaurant—only the fifth in its 42 history—would be just a little bit intimidated. If so, you haven’t met Tim Greer.

The first thing Greer does when approaching a new commission is think about context.

For the tri-level Bennelong—which includes the main dining room, the relaxed Cured & Cultured for oysters and charcuterie, and a top-floor bar for pre- and post-show drinks— that meant considering not only the restaurant’s past, but also its future. Greer calls this “continuum architecture.”

“I always think about the ideas that underpin a project,” says Greer, whose Sydneybased firm, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer, has designed everything from cultural institutions and Virgin Australia airport lounges to war memorials and the city’s new Old Clare Hotel. “We like to go in and un-build historic

structures, figuring out where those concepts but we wanted to keep the connection to the came from and how to take them forward.” past,” Greer says.

Take the lights. An old iteration of the But the building’s history isn’t the only restaurant had 1970s globe lamps—leading thing that inspired the design approach; he to the decision to use Tom Dixon’s new Melt also looked to its chef, the acclaimed Peter lamps, which debuted at this year’s Milan Gilmore, who strongly values natural, local Design Week. “We played with the original ingredients. This influenced the decision to idea and just reinterpreted it in a sophisti- eschew tablecloths. “You think about what cated manner,” Greer says. The new lights goes into keeping them white and starched,” have an almost unstable quality, in that they says Greer. “It’s not very sustainable.” appear to float in space like a constellation. Instead, the tables—backlit by Neoz lights— Greer and his team also played off the are made out of a resin called Marblo, which Opera House’s color scheme and natural has a tactile quality and takes on the temtones, though each floor takes a different perature of the room, like stone. The edges approach. The bar has a bright ochre carpet are subtly rounded, giving the illusion of a “in celebration of people being excited about tablecloth’s corners drooping over the side. going to the theater,” he explains. In the main (The seats are a simple and timeless leatherdining room, the hue is more subdued, allow- and-timber EL chair by B&B Italia.) ing the other showstopping elements—the Aged brass is incorporated throughout, building’s soaring concrete ribs, the view an ideal match for the natural brown palette. of Circular Quay and beyond—to shine You’ll find it in the table legs, the oversize through. According to Greer, it’s the only bar at Cultured & Cured, and the private spot in the entire building where you can dining area. And to counteract the restausee the complete structure. “If you want to rant’s cathedral-like acoustics, the walls are explain to someone how the Opera House covered with thick horizontal strips of dark was made, you go and stand in the restaurant gray felt, which resemble concrete.

Greer sums up the beauty of and mission and you can just see it,” he says.

In addition to reimagining elements from behind Bennelong perfectly: “I like to think the Opera House and its previous culinary that people come to the restaurant and get concepts, Greer incorporated some of the old a sense of the Opera House as an icon, but pieces into Bennelong, including the Fritz also what dining in Sydney is like in 2015,” Hansen swan chairs on the uppermost level, he says. “It bridges the gap between then and which he had reupholstered. “To be honest, now. That’s the goal of the whole project, and it would have been easier to get new ones, I think it gets there.”

PHOTO: DANIEL BOUD.

Australian Overture

RESTAURANT

RESTAURANT

Dish by Michael White INSPIRED BY BENNELONG When thinking about the site of the restaurant, the inimitable Sydney Opera House, a few things come to mind. The structure’s undeniable allusion to water— looking over Circular Quay, as well as the obvious architectural reference to sails—inspired a natural choice of a fresh crudo. I incorporated thick, juicy orange segments to allude to both the shape of the iconic building as well as the boldness of the design. While intricate and stunning, the interiors at Bennelong actually seem quite simplistic to me, with understated natural elements. I tried to reflect this through the plating of the dish, as well as the ingredients. Every part of this dish serves an essential purpose.

New York–based chef Michael White is the co-owner of Altamarea Group, which counts Italian mainstays Osteria Morini, in Soho, and Central Park South’s Marea as part of a 16-restaurant portfolio. His new French brasserie, Vaucluse, opened on the Upper East Side in September.

PHOTO: TOP, PIERCE LIU. BOTTOM, DANIEL BOUD.

PHOTO: DANIEL BOUD.

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To assemble

Ingredients orange, cut into supremes pound sea scallops, side muscles removed juice of one lemon tablespoons extra virgin olive oil fine sea salt tablespoon fennel pollen small bulb of fennel, shaved

Use a sharp knife to slice the orange supremes clockwise into 3⁄4-inch-wide pieces. Put the scallops into a medium mixing bowl and add the lemon juice and olive oil. Season with sea salt and gently toss to coat the scallops. Divide the scallops among 4 chilled small plates. Top with shaved fennel, then the oranges.

Finally, scatter some fennel pollen over each portion and serve immediately.

Sea Change

STORE

A tourist mecca’s new clean-lined boutique is luring New York’s design cognoscenti.

BY KATHRYN O’SHEA-EVANS

and a plethora of blonde woods. “We kept referring to this as neo-nautical,” Kelman says with a laugh. “We don’t want it to feel themey, but familiar.”

Nods to the area’s maritime past are evident in subtle ways—maple wood slatted “ribs” shaped like the hull of a ship appear to undulate above the ground floor; nylon shipping ropes anchor a series of wall fixture displays. Poured cement countertops and Corten steel surfaces (pre-rusted in Guild’s Gowanus, Brooklyn, studio) compliment the spare white and gray-walled space.

Up to 10 local designers are on rotation at any given time, showing everything from Areaware paperclips to Ethiopia-made Lemlem cotton ponchos designed by Liya Kebede, displayed on angular maple wood platforms and talcum white coated steel shelves. It’s a transformable canvas for designers that are transforming themselves, and it appears to be working. On a recent Friday, the shop buzzed with stylish young things (and a few models, who were catwalking for an audition in the second-story loft’s open gallery space).

“People yearn for tangible experiences.

They have screen fatigue,” Kelman says.

“Here, you can get a muffin and drink coffee while you shop. That’s what people want, even if they don’t admit it.”

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PHOTOS: MO DAOUD.

South Street Seaport has long been a cog in the rapidly whirling wheel of a Manhattan tourist’s agenda—thanks in no small part to its fleet of 19th-century ships and, lets be honest, mass-market mall indulgences (Abercrombie & Fitch and Guess have outposts there). But in recent months, hip city shoppers rarely seen in these parts have started to appear. That’s largely due to a flock of new design-forward stores and restaurants setting down roots.

The latest, Seaport Studios, was recently opened in an airy storefront by the Howard Hughes Corporation (yes, that Howard Hughes) and the fashion trade publication WWD. They filled it with the kinds of bespoke experiences that New Yorkers will actually leave their neighborhoods for—local designers, doting staff, a barista counter powered by the Upper East Side stalwart Via Quadronno, a Milanese-inspired café. It’s all a part of the Howard Hughes Corporation’s master plan to revitalize the once-down-onits-luck area.

“Hurricane Sandy made South Street Seaport a ghost town,” says Graham Kelman, a creative director at Guild, the firm that designed the shop. “Howard Hughes wants to redefine it.” (Literally as well as figuratively: the neighborhood has been rebranded the Seaport District.)

That goal is evident in the design of the two-story shop, which faces cobblestoned Fulton Street and is contemporary yet warm, thanks to circular pendant lamps

STORE

PHOTOS: MO DAOUD.

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BY MARIA CORNEJO Looks from the Zero + Maria Cornejo pre-fall 2015 collection. (OPPOSITE, TOP TO BOTTOM) A photograph from Mark Borthwick’s “Abandom Reverie” exhibition. Lichen in Joshua Tree.

Some people collect colored glass, but I collect green and blue in the ocean. The ocean is just little colored stones. Wherever I travel, I grab a so intricate that if it didn’t exist, you couldn’t few pebbles if I think the colors and shapes are imagine it. Within the ocean, there’s a motif in interesting. I love a circular shape, and a pebble every fish, in the coral.

My husband, Mark Borthwick, is a phois just one of nature’s versions. I’ve traveled to Tulum with my family every year for the last tographer, and we’ve constantly been working 22 years, and I love the contrast in colors of the together since we met. He has been my No. 1 supporter since the beginning. His images have nature there—and yes, the gorgeous stones.

I’ve done a few prints with stones in them. a timeless, ethereal quality. His photographs of Recently, I was on a nature walk in Joshua Tree, nature, in particular, feel pure to me—and capCalifornia, and found amazing-looking rocks ture a lot of the beauty and light that I see in the with lichen formations on them that I turned world as well. into a print for my pre-fall 2015 collection. I’ve done a lot of prints based on rock and coral formations. I always say nature is the most in- The author is a fashion designer based in New credible designer—there are 20 million types of York City.

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PHOTOS: TOP, MARK BORTHWICK. BOTTOM, MARIA CORNEJO.

Rocks, pebbles, stones, and even her husband’s photographs provide a designer with creative cues.

PHOTO: COURTESY ZERO + MARIA CORNEJO.

Natural Selection

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PHOTOS: TOP, MARK BORTHWICK. BOTTOM, MARIA CORNEJO.

PHOTO: COURTESY ZERO + MARIA CORNEJO.

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Live Aid

ART

Savvy art producer Asad Raza brings an evolving exhibition to Frieze London.

BY MARINA CASHDAN PHOTOS BY BENOIT CHATTAWAY Contemporary artists Tino Sehgal and This month, Raza will take his producPhilippe Parreno have both called on Asad tion experience and art-making know-how Raza to help produce their highly complex to create an evolving exhibition that will be installations and performances. In the case of reached through the back door of a bookshop Sehgal, Raza assisted with exhibitions in the at the Frieze London art fair. There, he’ll spiraling rotunda of New York’s Guggenheim explore his interest in the Greek god Pan. and the vast Turbine Hall at Tate Modern; for “He’s a god who’s frustrated and lonely; he’s Parreno, he was involved in the creation of the closer to animals and the non-human,” Raza methodical and mesmerizing sequences of a says. “Pan doesn’t float in metaphysical space recent exhibition at the Park Avenue Armory. like the Olympian gods and he also comes Raza didn’t start out as an artist, or in the from a time before the idea of the ‘Western’ arts for that matter. But his trajectory in the world—people from Pakistan, like my parfield isn’t surprising given his collaborative ents, feel a kinship with these figures from background. “I’ve done some political activ- antiquity.” Raza adds that he’s creating a space ism, and I also helped organize a labor strike at devoted to the mythological figure and a theNYU,” he says, adding, “I like working with atrical experience that brings many characters teams of people and trying to help.” Even so, in Pan’s orbit into play. But he won’t divulge orchestrating political events was the extent too much. “To say more wouldn’t be helpful of his production experience before working to the visitors, I don’t think. The freshness with his filmmaker sibling. “I learned that I of an experience—I wanted to try to make a enjoy collaborating with people more than, space of rest, and concentration.” say, teaching,” he says. “I started producing Raza is also working on two simultaneous by working with my sister [Alia] who makes projects for the 2015 Ljubljana Biennial of films; I met [Sehgal] in 2007 and produced his Graphic Arts: a programmed light sequence exhibition ‘This Progress’ at the Guggenheim in the city’s streets and an experimental school, in 2010.” inspired by Dan Graham’s work “Schema

(March, 1966),” in which Raza solicited two Princeton professors to help him create exercises for the young students. “It’s not exactly visual art, in the sense of a meaningful décor,” he says. “It’s more like an assemblage of practices.”

Raza, who lives and works out of his apartment in New York but travels frequently for exhibitions, explains that producing his own art comes as naturally as producing others’ works. “At some point, I started to realize I had ideas about how to make exhibitions that play with aesthetic distance, the heavy subject-object split that contemporary art usually trades in—holding your hands behind your back and judging something in your mind.” he says. “I think the future will be about holistic exhibitions, but ones that aren’t just life-as-art readymades; they’ll be alive yet still created and crafted, and speak through form.”

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Leveraging design as a strategic platform, Culture + Commerce identifies and cultivates opportunities for global brands and international designers.

GOOD DESIGN IS GOOD BUSINESS CULTURECOMMERCE.COM

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The iconic Glass House in New Canaan acts as muse for a range of artists.

BY GRANT JOHNSON

geles Modern Auctions, where the piece goes up for sale this month. “His pose is simple, but I think you can see somebody considering the end of his life and what he’s accomplished.”

Pieces like these attract diverse interest, from connoisseurs and followers of photography, architecture, history, and even landscape design. Such objects “already come with legendary status,” Loughrey says. “Philip Johnson is an icon. The House is an icon. Annie Leibovitz is an icon.

The image, whether the viewer likes it or not, already comes with a history. Everything you know—or perhaps don’t know— about the Glass House comes with viewing this work.”

Built in 1949, the house brought the International Style of modern Europe to New England. Thirteen other structures populate the 49-acre site, where Johnson lived with his partner David Whitney until 2005. (They both died that year—Johnson in January and Whitney in June.) Leibovitz’s photo follows an ever-growing tradition of artwork, particularly photography, that looks to the Glass House for inspiration. “The house is a character,” says Loughrey. “It’s a muse.”

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PHOTO: COURTESY PADDLE8.

“Sometimes it’s useful to remember that things are happening right in front of you, and that you don’t have to complicate the situation. You can take what’s given to you,” writes Annie Leibovitz about her photograph “Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut” (2000), in her book Annie Leibovitz At Work.

Easily the most prolific and familiar photographer of her generation, Leibovitz met the Glass House’s architect and its thenowner, Philip Johnson, when she shot him for an Absolut vodka campaign. Johnson and his famous home were by then not only legendary, but part of architectural history.

Seeking images for what she and partner Susan Sontag called “The Beauty Book,” Leibovitz asked Johnson if she could visit New Canaan and photograph his landmark home.

The photographer expected to have the house to herself—but upon arrival, she found Johnson not only present but downright chatty. Taking her own advice, Leibovitz adapted and orchestrated “Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut,” a portrait not only of a place but also of the legendary man who shaped it.

“He was 94 years old when she shot him in the house,” says Peter Loughrey, director of design and fine art at Los An-

PHOTO: COURTESY LOS ANGELES MODERN AUCTIONS.

Glass Works

AUCTION

PHOTO: COURTESY PADDLE8.

PHOTO: COURTESY LOS ANGELES MODERN AUCTIONS.

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house, in such works like “Do You Ever Move the Furniture?” (2004), which Paddle8 sold in 2014 to benefit the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. The painting includes a floor plan silhouette and Johnson’s perfect reply to the question of whether he ever moved the furniture around: “Why would I? Would you change anything at Chartres?” The artist’s other investigations include “Salon 1” (2010), which juxtaposes a silkscreened snapshot of Diao in the house beside a 1964 David McCabe photograph of Andy Warhol in the sitting room of the Glass House with Johnson, Whitney, Dr. John Dalton, and architect Robert A.M. Stern.

Other recent works at auction that depict the house include Ezra Stoller’s silver gelatin print “The Glass House, Photographed in 1949” (1949/2005), Matthu Placek’s “070724 Cindy Sherman” (2007), and Enoc Perez’s painting “Glass House” (2015).

These works capture the house in diverse perspectives, and in June, they all appeared as part of Paddle8’s benefit sale for the historic property, which now operates as a National Trust Historic Site.

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2006 to 2009, producing a monograph of his images, James Welling: Glass House, in 2011.

In photographs like “7484,” which sold at Christie’s New York in 2014 for $18,750, Welling introduces intense color filters. “The project became a laboratory for ideas about transparency, reflectivity, and color,” the artist told Artforum in 2010. “When I work at the Glass House, time seems to speed up.

I never have enough time to work there. It’s very strange.”

Enoc Perez’s “Glass House” (2015).

(OPPOSITE) Annie Leibovitz’s “Philip Johnson, Glass House, New Canaan, Connecticut” (2000).

A gutsy new Hyundai concept car turns eyes industrywide.

BY JONATHAN SCHULTZ

The new Hyundai Vision G concept car.

(OPPOSITE) The grille and hood of the Vision G.

Hyundai, maker of sensible, well-regarded around a newly identified customer who is vehicles of sound packaging and generous not a brand slave.”

That isn’t to say Hyundai sees no value in warranties, is conducting an experiment.

The controls of this experiment are the very its reputation as a value leader. “We underthings that have endeared the company’s stand that [these consumers] are successful products to millions of value-minded con- because they are wise with their resources,” sumers. The variable? Call it Vision G. A Chapman says. “This is a unique space concept car so named was unveiled in August we can potentially own, coming from a at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. value-based history and perspective.” Such Once more, with feeling: A Hyundai—an talk would have been anathema to Lexus, unabashedly glamorous one—debuted at Toyota’s luxury subsidiary, which even at its infancy never overtly traded on ToyLACMA. Next stop Guggenheim Bilbao?

In fairness, the Korean automaker has ota’s reputation for value and reliability. made inroads in premium sedan classes, That Hyundai, which does not have a prelaunching the Genesis in 2008 and the full- mium spinoff brand, would make penny size Equus in 2010. Those cars have largely pinching a pillar of its luxury-consumer played around the perimeter of their seg- targeting is gutsy. ments, however, never causing night sweats Yet pennies or any denomination below for incumbents like BMW, Lexus, Mercedes- gold bricks are the farthest thing from the Benz, or Audi. Yet their relative success has Vision G concept. A strong crease defines stoked Hyundai’s resolve to hone its luxury the car’s shoulder, offset by a metallic beltvernacular—a process given emphatic accent line swell. The wave curves inward before finishing at a another crease, this one with a by the Vision G. “To develop the Vision G was a deci- slight upsweep. The resulting convex shape sion made easy by the acceptance of Gen- would read funhouse mirror if it weren’t esis,” says Christopher Chapman, head of surrounded by some of the most tightly Hyundai’s advanced design studios in Irvine, drawn arches and overhangs of 2015. Inside, California. “Our confidence grew, and our the dash skews Mercedes S-Class, with presence at places like LACMA felt natural.” window-box–like digital gauge frames.

The concept came together in Irvine, “where Speaker covers, their dimples radiating outmost of the design’s ‘heavy lifting’ was done, ward in concentric circles, are another nod including prototype build,” Chapman says, to Mercedes’ redoubtable flagship. Warm with Hyundai’s R&D facility in Namyang, matte wood adds contrast to web-stitched Korea, and satellite design studio in Rus- seat leathers. selsheim, Germany streaming in. The result- Again, this is a Hyundai.

Still, the brand didn’t ask anyone’s pering GT, with its “pillarless” roof, brawny wheel arches and short overhangs, bears the mission to design the Vision G—a concept imperiousness of a Bentley and the brash- that will inform the company’s future preness of a carmaker that has no codified, cal- mium-vehicle thinking. So why do it at all?

Says Chapman: “The simple answer is, it cified notions of what it is or who it serves.

“We’re currently in a honing phase,” was time.”

Chapman says. “This means defining luxury SURFACE

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PHOTOS: COURTESY HYUNDAI.

G Unit

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PHOTOS: COURTESY HYUNDAI.

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Over the past decade, street style has become so ubiquitous it’s nearly lost all meaning. Fashion: A Timeline in Photographs (Rizzoli) by Caroline Rennolds Milbank brings a fresh perspective to the phenomenon. With a scrapbook feel, it exhibits style through candid pictures taken from the 19th century to the present—the most notable dating to a time before digital cameras and the Internet.

Its deliberate elimination of calculated camerawork captures a true depiction of how people dress. As stated in the introduction, “Photographs show what fashion illustrations cannot: what people actually wore.”

Anna Murray and Grace Winteringham of London-based firm Patternity believe in the power of pattern. In their debut book, Patternity: A New Way of Seeing (Conran Octopus), the duo show how, when used effectively, patterns surprise, shock, and “spark unexpected outcomes.” If changing perceptions of what’s possible and finding the extraordinary in what might seem ordinary is Patternity’s goal, then this book is a success. Combining projects of

their own—an installation for Swedish re- vivid and blurred, make the viewer both want tailer Cos, shoes for British footwear brand more, and wonder what lies beyond.

Clarks Originals, a cushion for Britain’s Imperial War Museums—with the work of others, “Photography” doesn’t mean what it once did. the book offers an eccentrically curated look Technical developments have expanded the into the playful and occasionally psychedelic definition of the medium, opening up possibileyes and minds of Murray and Winteringham. ities that are only enhanced when combined with other modes of creation. In PhotograThe Caribbean Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, phy is Magic (Aperture), curator and critic the Tasman Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Charlotte Cotton uses the guiding concept Dead Sea, the Red Sea, the Yellow Sea, the of a magician’s tricks (as she puts it in the North Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Atlantic introduction, “the kind of intimate, right-inOcean, the Arctic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, front-of-you sleight of hand that brings pure the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Biscay, Lake wonder and delight”) to survey the art of 80 Superior, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Gulf of contemporary photographers. Readers will Bothnia: Seascapes (Damiani) collects a find visually illusory and exciting images that Rothko-like series of images of these and “[provide] cerebral experiences for the viewother bodies of water, all captured by Japa- er that are equivalent to magic.” The resultnese artist and photographer Hiroshi Sugi- ing tome, which includes works from Michele moto. The minimal images—which play with Abeles, Walead Beshty, Sara Cwynar, and light, shadow, sky, and sea—when viewed others, is a thorough primer in the presentcollectively offer a strikingly subtle look at day scene of fine-art photography. As for the the world in all its vastness and variety. In magic, that’s in the eye of the beholder.

Sugimoto’s hands, pictures of the ocean appear reflective and deep. Horizon lines, both SURFACE

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PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Books

BOOKS

Surface would like to thank the judges of our 15th annual Avant Guardian photography competition (see page 144 for a portfolio of work by this year’s winners): HELENE BINET Based in London, the Swiss-French photographer shoots contemporary architecture, historical works, and most recently, landscapes. Binet is the 2015 recipient of the Julius Shulman Institute Excellence in Photography Award and an advocate of analog photography. She shoots exclusively with film. helenebinet.com STEPHEN HILGER Hilger has exhibited his photography at venues including Contemporary Art Exhibitions in Los Angeles and the Contemporary Art Center New Orleans as well as for publications such as New York magazine and The New York Times. He teaches at Pratt Institute, where he’s the chair of the photography department and curates the Pratt Photography Lectures. stephenhilger.com INGMAR KURTH Born in Germany, photographer Kurth has been working professionally since 1996, specializing in architecture as well as interior and industrial design. He has worked with an international clientele on various commissions, and has contributed to magazines including Architectural Digest (Germany), Domus, Frame, and Monocle. ingmarkurth.com DELFINO SISTO LEGNANI Sisto Legnani’s work spans still life, portraits, and architecture. He is a member of Italy’s national association of journalists and holds a degree in architecture. He’s a regular contributor to publications including Surface, Domus, and Vogue. His work has been shown at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in London, La Triennale in Milan, and the 2012 and 2014 Venice Biennales. delfinosl.it YOUSSEF NABIL Born in Cairo, Nabil is now based in New York and Miami. Three monographs have been published on his work, which is known for its combining of photography and painting. His photographs have been presented around the world and are included in collections such as the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi. youssefnabil.com ROY SCHWALBACH Schwalbach is the founder of Jack Studios, a photography, film, and video rental space in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. Before opening his own studio in 1995, he worked in various fields, including acting, modeling, and photography. The studio’s client list ranges from Victoria’s Secret—which has been shooting at Jack for 15 years—to Vogue, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Michael Kors. jackstudios.com

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Typically used for sneakers, Korean textile manufacturer Mogae’s circular knit offers lightweight durability with its thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) threads. Reminiscent of thick elastic, TPU can be woven into eye-catching patterns—like the bright prints above, which make a statement that even the most brazen logo cannot.

Selected by Material Connexion vice president Andrew Dent, Ph.D. SURFACE

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PHOTO: MICHAEL RYTERBAND.

Weaving an Impression

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COLLABORATION

Design Dialogues No. 20 On Thursday, Sept. 10, Surface and Moooi co-hosted Design Dialogues No. 20 featuring Amsterdam-based designer Marcel Wanders and New York–based architect and designer David Rockwell (of Rockwell Group).

The conversation, which took place at Moooi’s newly opened New York showroom, was moderated by editor-in-chief Spencer Bailey. Wanders and Rockwell discussed the relationship between theater and design, why products and buildings can often be like magic, and the inherent nature of risk-taking in their day-to-day work. Special thanks to Wanted Design and Santera Tequila. (Photos: Carlo Cipriani) 71

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Going Deep

ON TIME

These new depth-gauge watches take dials to new heights with technical and material innovations.

BY KEITH W. STRANDBERG

In the age of iPhone ubiquity, there’s no point pretending that wristwatches aren’t largely for making a statement. As a result, creating timepieces with compelling looks is more important for brands than ever. Several watchmakers in particular are playing with volumes and depth in head-turning ways.

These pieces are certainly not for everyone— and that’s exactly the point. Here, we select a few of the standouts.

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01. MB&F’s HM6 Space Pirate

PHOTOS: TOP, COURTESY MB&F. BOTTOM, COURTESY BREGUET.

02. Breguet’s Tradition Collection

Abraham-Louis Breguet was perhaps the most famous watchmaker ever, but his namesake brand’s long history hasn’t kept it from looking forward. This is best exemplified by the Tradition collection, which celebrates its 10th birthday this year. The collection pays homage to A.-L., Breguet’s first subscription watches, while featuring a range of technical advancements. “I wear a Tradition Tourbillon Fusée myself,” says Marc A. Hayek, president and CEO of Breguet, Blancpain, and Jaquet Droz. “The Tourbillon Fusée was a landmark in terms of design, and it influenced the industry. It’s the perfect blend of high technology and tradition.”

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PHOTOS : TOP, COURTESY HAUTLENCE. BOTTOM, COURTESY LOUIS MOINET.

MB&F (Max Büsser & Friends) goes far outside the ordinary with the HM6 Space Pirate, which looks more like a time-traveling device than a time-telling one. “All of our machines are about structure, volumes, and layers,” Büsser says. “The traditional flat dial and case come from am era when mechanical watches were important tools, instruments necessary for daily life.” If so, then this piece ensures that those days are over.

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PHOTOS : TOP, COURTESY HAUTLENCE. BOTTOM, COURTESY LOUIS MOINET.

PHOTOS: TOP, COURTESY MB&F. BOTTOM, COURTESY BREGUET.

03. Hautlence’s Vortex

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Guillaume Tetu founded Hautlence 11 years ago to display time differently, and the new Vortex watch is a prime example of the brand’s DNA. Tetu says that a half-trailing jumping chain that indicates the hours was designed to appeal to car and architecture lovers. “They like to see through the motor,” he says. “This gives them some mechanical emotion.”

04. Louis Moinet’s Astralis

Louis Moinet has positioned itself with unusual designs and materials—along with a story of historical significance and watchmaking legitimacy. Its namesake founder was a contemporary of Breguet, and his hallmark was the combination of his passions: art and horology. The new Astralis has a dial made of extremely unusual and difficult to work with meteorite—a prime example of a mix of craft and technology. “The meteorite is so rare,” says CEO Jean-Marie Schaller. “It truly reflects our values.”

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Fun on Top

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Colorful glasses, various metals, and black-and-white contrasts characterize this year’s quirky items for the table.

BY HALLY WOLHANDLER

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New York–based studio Apparatus conceived of the Shift tea set after learning of the Moroccan tradition of greeting guests with mint tea. The porcelain pieces are hand-thrown in small batches before they’re given three layers of a black matte glaze, masked, and then dipped into a satin white glaze. apparatusstudio.com SURFACE

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The Calder Foundation teamed up with French ceramics brand Bernardaud on a series of porcelain plates printed with images of Alexander Calder’s mobiles—a fitting collaboration, as the American Modernist adopted France as his homeland.

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The idea for Wrong for Hay’s new Moment cast-iron candle extinguisher came to its designer, Lars Beller Fjetland, during a visit to the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo, where he saw a similar device among a 19th-century collection of silver candelabras.

Unexpected materials—a mix of stainless steel, powder-coated aluminum, rubber, and ceramic—make Vipp’s salt and pepper shakers so distinctive. The set was designed by the Danish brand’s design chief, Morten Bo Jensen.

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Every iteration of Iittala’s new Ruutu vase takes seven craftsmen 24 hours to produce.

Designed by Erwan & Ronan Bouroullec, the vases come in a variety of colors, including clear, moss green, cranberry, gray, and salmon pink. “Ruutu” means diamond in Finnish.

The Prezioso tumbler came to fruition through German brand Nachtmann’s Next Gen competition for design students. The tumbler’s creator, Roman Kvita, a glass artist from Prague’s Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design, was this year’s winner.

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French designer Yann Kersalé’s Jallum lamp for Baccarat’s Jardin de Cristal collection is made of crystal and powder-coated aluminum.

The lamps work by way of a USB charger; after just 15 minutes, they’re ready for indoor or outdoor use. They don’t generate heat, so they’re cool to the touch. baccarat.com 77

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Brazilian contemporary artist Vik Muniz collaborated with Bernardaud on its Petri collection of six dinner plates and one large coupe plate.

Muniz’s work has been shown everywhere from the Tate to the Guggenheim, so these plates can be considered a chance (sort of) to make a dining table into a mini-museum. bernardaud.fr SURFACE

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Kristine Five Melvær and Torbjørn Anderssen, the husband-and-wife team behind the new Oui vase for Magnor Glassverk, designed the piece as they prepared for their wedding. The pair was inspired by the notion of two becoming one. It comes in red, blue, and green. magnor.no

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In-house creative director Amy Mellen designed Calvin Klein Home’s Villa bowl, part of its Artisan collection. An elegant shape and matte-brass finish makes it both an ideal centerpiece and a strong decorative object in its own right. calvinklein.com

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The Floating Forest series by designer Michael Anastassiades is a vase and a miniature tree farm all in one. A range of polished brass pieces suspends a seed above the water, at just the right level for it to germinate. A similar vase from Swedish company Svenskt Tenn served as Anastassiades’s inspiration. michaelanastassiades.com 81

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By Lassen’s Kubus bowl was based on Danish architect Mogens Lassen’s original sketches from the 1960s. Developed as an extension of Lassen’s Kubus candleholder, it was just released in an untreated brass-plated version.

It comes in black, white, beige, gray, and copper color options. bylassen.com SURFACE

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Chilewich’s new Drift collection of placemats appears metallic, but it’s actually made of molded vinyl. Inspired by traditional Japanese woodblock prints and designed by the brand’s founder and creative director, Sandy Chilewich, the placemats also come in black and silver versions. chilewich.com 83

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Hector Esrawe and Emilio Chapela designed the Estratos series of trays for Esrawe’s Prima Materia collection. Crafted of walnut and brass, the duo photographed and digitized wood patterns, then traced the patterns back onto wood, on which they were gradually engraved, so every piece in the collection is singular. esrawe.com SURFACE

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The Colombina Fish flatware set, designed by Doriana and Massimiliano Fuksas for Alessi, brings a bit of fun to an often-plain product.

The stainless-steel collection was conceived with seafood in mind: Pieces include a shellfish fork, caviar spoon, and shellfish cracker. alessi.com 85

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Designed in-house at Studio Christofle, a sleek steel capsule encases the new Mood 24-piece silver-plated flatware set—making it a storage unit and design objet all in one.

The brand has been a leader in silver since its founding in 1830 by Charles Christofle. christofle.com SURFACE

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Surface + Story Fashion Week Breakfast On Tues., Sept. 15, Surface and the New York concept shop Story co-hosted a New York breakfast during Fashion Week with illustrator Donald Robertson in celebration of our September limited-edition issue (which includes a cover illustration by Robertson, a custom pouch, a colored-pencil set, and a #‎surfacesketchbook in the back of the magazine). Guests enjoyed breakfast catered by Black Seed Bagels, had issues signed by Robertson, and checked out other pieces in the store with the “Donald” touch, including Canada Goose jackets, Smashbox Cosmetics products, and Diet Coke bottles. To order the limitededition issue (while supplies last), visit our website at surfacemag.com/issues. (Photos: Michael Ryterband)

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New York real estate entrepreneur Shaun Osher revels in a less-is-more approach to business.

INTERVIEW BY CHARLES CURKIN PHOTOS BY MICHAEL RYTERBAND

As a kid growing up in Johannesburg, were you a leader?

Does your creativity come from being a classically trained saxophonist?

I was a leader, but I don’t know how many followers I had.

It’s DNA—you’re either born with it or not.

It’s a gift, something that makes you a certain kind of person, just like there are people who are mathematically minded.

An entrepreneur, maybe?

Always. I’ve always had a creative entrepreneurial spirit.

Lemonade stand?

Sean Osher at his company’s Manhattan headquarters. (OPPOSITE) A shower inside one of three office restrooms at Core.

Yeah, well, back there we didn’t really have lemonade. To be an entrepreneur you have to have an imagination, be creative, and have that spirit that wants to push things. I fit into the category of a creative person.

Do you still play the saxophone?

I do. It’s very meditative Any sax rituals before big deals? Little jam sessions to de-stress?

No, it’s not like a daily ritual. It used to be.

There used to be a time when there wasn’t a day in my life that I didn’t touch a saxophone.

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And these days?

I’ve got four saxophones in strategic places so when I want to play I can reach out and touch one.

You came to New York to study music.

I was playing a lot of gigs. I was very successful in South Africa, but I realized I had so much to learn about jazz—America’s only true art form. So I came to the epicenter of the jazz world, which at the time was New York City, to learn and absorb as much as I could.

Do you think John Coltrane would have had an easy transition into real estate?

maybe Barbara Corcoran—were not people who shared the same perspective as a real estate agent.

What’s that perspective?

From the ground, from the street, from interactions with the client.

The suits don’t know what it’s like to be in the trenches?

They don’t. I don’t think Howard Lorber [the chairman of Douglas Elliman] ever sold an apartment in his life. The guy who runs Compass comes from a technology company.

It’s not really a real estate company.

He fits into the category of genius. Coltrane, Bird, Monk. People who fit into that category [had they not become famous] would be on the street playing music. I hate to make a religious analogy, but Coltrane was like Jesus on the saxophone. It wasn’t a choice.

People who have personally touched me. My schoolteachers, my mother, the woman who helped my mother raise me in South Africa.

Then there are the people I respected and admired like Charlie Parker. I look at Richard Branson as a business leader. He’s inspiring. If you look at what he’s done [at Virgin], it feels boutique and innovative. But everywhere you look, you can find inspiration. It’s easy to find.

I don’t know if that’s a good analogy.

What was it like being on television?

How do you measure up to your competitive set like Douglas Elliman, Corcoran, Compass, and Brown Harris Stevens?

I’ve never really looked at the competitive set—ever. When I started my company, I wanted to be the antithesis of what existed.

Not because I wanted to be different, but because I thought there was a need from a very personal standpoint. My perspective is really from the real estate agent’s perspective.

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Opportunities, circumstances, situations.

You’re bringing people together; presenting property in a unique way. No two people are the same. No two properties are the same. So every situation has a little nuance that needs its own attention. So my advice to people trying to get into real estate: Don’t let anyone ever tell you no.

Yeah, we’ve heard enough about him.

So you’re like the Bill Clinton of New York real estate.

I am a Fredrik Eklund fan as a person. Fredrik actually worked here and left to go do the Bravo show [Million Dollar Listing] because we had a non-compete.

Not sure that’s advice, but what are you creating?

You mean aside from John Coltrane?

Yeah, I made the choice. It was an organic shift.

Going into real estate didn’t preclude me from playing music—I still play the saxophone.

Are you a fan of Fredrik Eklund, the broker and reality TV star?

The beautiful thing about real estate is that it’s a creative industry. Every day you wake up and you’re creating. No two days are ever the same.

And your biggest influence?

But for you, real estate was a choice.

It was a business-driven decision. That show [Selling New York on HGTV] was another medium to express who we were as a company.

It definitely helped grow our brand, and recognition of our brand, which becomes harder and harder when you try to do things organically without signing a big check and running full-page ads. I think that’s the best way to build something: organically, from the roots.

What advice would you give to people who want to go into real estate?

Was your family supportive of your endeavors early on?

I couldn’t have asked for a more emotionally supportive environment, which is everything.

That’s what matters most. That’s what drives the soul and the spirit.

But Barbara Corcoran is different?

Oh yeah. She’s probably the most innovative, creative person in the industry. Before I started Core, I met with a lot of people who ran companies to understand the business, and to learn what the pros and cons were. She was the most helpful person to me, in sharing everything she could. I never worked for her, I just called her randomly. She was really open to giving me a lot of good information.

How do you hire at Core?

Someone who comes to Core is either proactively approached or comes through referral.

Our business model is very different from a Douglas Elliman or Compass, in that we’re not interested in growing mass. We’re qualitative, not quantitative. We’ve always wanted to be boutique, and we’ve always remained boutique. I’ve always believed that a brand— especially a real estate company—is as good as its weakest agent. So my ideology for the company is to not hire a weak agent.

What about the family you’ve made here at the company?

Same thing. I’ve always said that Core isn’t a place for anyone who doesn’t want to be here. This is a family. Whether it’s an agent, the person at the front desk, the person who cleans up after us at night. They need to be happy.

I saw a shower in the restroom earlier. Is cleanliness the way to success?

Absolutely. I cycle, I run. People here are very active. If someone wants to take an hour in the middle of the day to exercise and shower afterwards, there’s an opportunity to do that.

Does a line ever form?

There are three bathrooms here.

Is there anything you’d like to ask me?

Would you like to take a shower?

Through controlled chaos, Dutch photographer Sjoerd Knibbeler creates “happy accidents.”

BY GISELA WILLIAMS PORTRAIT BY JAMES STOKES

Sjoerd Knibbeler at his studio in the outskirts of Amsterdam.

(OPPOSITE) Knibbeler’s “Current Study No. 3” (2013).

The Festival of Fashion and Photography in to him about Knibbeler’s submitted work, a Hyères, a town on the French Riviera, may be photographic series called “Paper Planes,” an intimate affair, but for the Amsterdam-based Pfunder says, “It’s a reflection on the limits of photographer Sjoerd Knibbeler, who won this the medium: how to capture something that is year’s Grand Prix du Jury Photographie award, impossible to capture.” it made a big impact. “Things have been hectic “Paper Planes” comprises 16 photographs ever since,” the 34-year-old says, while sitting of origami-like works that Knibbeler himself at a worktable in his small studio in an old made, each one representing a different hisfirehouse on the outskirts of Amsterdam. The torical aircraft that was designed but never festival, which takes place in and around the actually built. It’s part of a larger project that modernist house Villa Noailles, solely focused Knibbeler has been working on for a few years on fashion when it was started 30 years ago called “Current Studies.” “Several years ago I

by Jean-Pierre Blanc, but over time it began challenged myself to photograph wind,” he to include fashion and fine-art photography. says. “It meant two things: that I had to create “There’s a very laidback but extremely interest- something that is impossible to photograph, ing mix of people at the fair,” Knibbeler says. and I had to examine the boundaries of the In the crowd this year was Chanel’s creative medium of photography itself.” The artist director, Karl Lagerfeld—the fashion label is a showed both series in conjunction as part of his supporter of the festival, and its image direc- “Digging Up Clouds” exhibition last summer tor, Eric Pfunder, was head of the photography at Amsterdam’s Foam photography museum. jury. (Lagerfeld was creative director of this Knibbeler, who studied filmmaking at the year’s edition.) When asked what appealed Royal Academy of Fine Art in the Hague, SURFACE

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shows I presented the planes unfolded, as pieces of paper. Hans said that we should add it to the book, so we decided to incorporate the images of unfolded paper planes in the publication.”

Knibbeler loves what he calls “happy accidents” in his work. “I appreciate that there’s something out of my hands that I cannot control despite the extremely controlled setting in my studio.”

(THIS PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Photographs from Knibbeler’s 2014 “Paper Planes” series: “Avro 730,” “P.170,” “IFV-12,” and “XBDR.” (OPPOSITE) “Current Study No. 2” (2013). (PREVIOUS SPREAD, LEFT TO RIGHT) “Triebflügel” (2015). “FB-22” (2015). (FOLLOWING SPREAD, LEFT TO RIGHT) “Current Study No. 1” (2013). “Current Study No. 4” (2013).

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says he has a very documentary approach Knibbeler knew that he wanted to focus on to his work. “I started, as I often do, with a replicating planes that were designed in differlot of research.” That includes both hours of ent countries during a time period that spanned Googling as well as visits to science universities 1930 to 2006. “I wanted to represent something and libraries. “I like to invite myself over to from the past,” he says. “I wanted to work with places involved in the scientific field and bump paper, but I wanted to give the planes a grandeur around and speak to people about the research that they deserved—to lift them from paper to they’re doing,” he says. “I go back home and something beautiful.” think about it for a while and sometimes an To do that, Knibbeler, who works with large idea pops up.” format cameras, shot each image with old film.

Early on in the research phase, Knibbeler “It gave the pictures an old grainy aesthetic,” he went to an air show in the middle of Holland. says. “It looks as if someone might have found “When I first started imagining who I needed them in an old trunk. If you look closely, you to consult and speak to about wind I thought can also see how things are made.” He adds of course I needed to find a stunt pilot,” he that he doesn’t manipulate the image at all. “An says. “I wanted to watch what they did and important factor of my work is that it might how they prepare.” look like something is happening in post-proAt one point during the air show, Knibbeler duction but it’s happening in pre-production.” walked into a hanger and saw a large man dancAlso important for Knibbeler is the docuing around. “He was a big guy, your archetypi- mentation of a project. As he was working cal pilot,” he recalls. “Afterwards I approached on the series he knew he wanted to publish a him and asked him what he was doing. He told book on the process. “It was about more than me he was training his muscle memory. He was making the photographs,” he says. “It was also practicing the flight. I asked him to come to my about the history and the research I had done.” studio, and I filmed him doing a preparation Knibbeler worked with Hans Gremmen of the routine. It’s hard to say what the links were, but small publisher Fw: Books. “The book was a this project led me to the paper planes.” true collaboration,” he says. “At one of my

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Avant Guardian PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

What—and who—we’re paying attention to in photography right now.

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

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A League of Her Own Los Angeles–based photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager sits comfortably between the art world and Hollywood.

INTERVIEW BY MAXWELL WILLIAMS PORTRAIT BY SALLY PETERSON

There’s a big, bright-red door a stone’s throw from the main strip in Silver Lake. Beyond it is Alex Prager’s studio—fitting, because Prager has always made photographs and films that elicit the type of mystery one gets when passing through a big, bright-red door.

Her studio is in a bit of chaos.

Through the boxes and photography equipment, the sharpfeatured Prager takes me to the back room where a treasure trove of vintage clothes fills the room, tightly packed on hangers. This is the crux of Prager’s work, a world where the clothes and wigs invoke a time gone by, but where the emotions are universal. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Prager’s work, in both her photographs and her films, is at once a critique and an homage to the magical motion pictures made in her hometown.

Prager has never taken a traditional route to her career. She eschewed school for life experience; took up photography overnight when she was 21; put on her own shows until she was noticed; and finally achieved a kind of crossover success, straddling the art, fashion, and film worlds. Her first film, Despair, 101

starring a pre–Jurassic World Bryce Dallas Howard, was shown in MoMA’s 2010 “New Photography” show. Two years later, she was commissioned by The New York Times to make a series of video portraits featuring stars like Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, and George Clooney as classic villains, which earned her an Emmy Award for News and Documentary.

This year is yet another big one for the busy artist. Last month, Prager debuted a new project in collaboration with the Paris Opera Ballet called La Grande Sortie, a film starring ballet dancers Emilie Cozette and Karl Paquette, organized by Benjamin Millepied. An exhibition of her “Face in the Crowd” series is currently on view at the St. Louis Art Museum (through Nov. 1). And she will present some of her most recent works, including a film, at Galerie des Galeries in Paris starting on Oct. 20 (through Jan. 23, 2016). On an August day in the middle of a heat wave, Prager opened up her studio to discuss her early years, and how she has come to be one of the most celebrated photographers in the world. >

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I wanted to start right at the beginning: you were born here in Los Angeles, and you grew up here. Hollywood in particular is very present in your work. What did L.A. seem like to you when you were younger.

can pass them really. Before they let me go, they basically said, “If she’s going to become an artist, having life experiences is probably more valuable to her than having academic training.” They kind of just made that call.

When I was 8 years old, there were kids in my class who were acting, and having to go do commercials or call-backs. It was constantly a part of my life, even though I wasn’t necessarily doing it myself. Going to school, you’d drive by sets, and there’d be times when, as a teenager, or still now sometimes, you’ll walk in somewhere thinking that you’re in a regular restaurant, and somebody will come up and say that you’re actually on their set, and there’s no waiters to serve you.

But there’s no way you could have known that you were going to be an artist.

(THIS PAGE, TOP TO BOTTOM) Alex Prager’s “Hollywood and Vine” (2014).

“Burbank” (2014). (OPPOSITE) “Untiltled (Parts 1)” (2014). (PREVIOUS SPREAD) Prager in Los Angeles.

No! I had no idea. I was just like any other kid: drawing and writing bad poetry. There

Did it surprise you that you ended up making films? Because, in a way, if you grow up here and you don’t set out to work in the film industry, that’s a conscious choice.

Totally. I always thought that that’s what separated me from everyone else in L.A. I was an artist that actually should be in New York as a photographer. I always liked that I was based here, because it made me feel different in a way, and that I was going against the grain.

I thought about moving to New York a few times, but it’s such a different energy for me that I decided it was just a place that I’d want to visit and work in. But moving into films was definitely a surprise for me. It’s just funny, though, because the people that I work with on my films, a lot of them are based in New York, so it’s still the same world that I always worked in, but I’m now making both moving images as well as stills.

Your work has always been on the fringes of film: Your photographs are often composed in a very cinematic way.

I’ve always been bordering both worlds. I feel like I was never quite fully making work for the hardcore conceptual art world, and I was never fully making the work for the Hollywood industry. I feel like it’s always one foot in both industries.

You got your GED when you were 16, and you didn’t go to college. Did you not vibe with school?

PHOTOS: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

Oh no. It wasn’t about vibes. It was circumstance. When I was 14, the summer that I was just about to start high school in September, I met a girl whose family owned a knife shop in Lucerne, Switzerland. At that point in my life, I was just starting to get into a little bit of… not trouble, but you could tell I was going to be a curious teenager. Los Angeles is a dangerous place to start having those urges for new experiences. Because you never know which way it could go. So when I asked my parents if I could move to Switzerland for a while and sell knives in Lucerne, they were like, “Yeah, go for it.” So I just went. My parents let me take a GED, and I passed it, because anyone SURFACE

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was no sign for me at the time that I was going to be an artist. I wasn’t one of those kids that knew from a very early age. I decided to be a photographer when I was 21. I went to a show at the Getty, and I saw some photos, and I was just like, “Alright, this is it.”

We’ll get to that later, but now that you’re older, did you ever take a step back, and say, “I wonder what it would have been like if I did go to high school and art school?”

PHOTOS: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

Absolutely. But I’ll never know what I would have learned. I’ll never know what that would have been like, or how that would have changed me. So, all I can do is ask my friends what they got out of high school, and what they got out of art school. And usually, generally, they don’t really see the point.

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Moving back a little bit, a lot has been made of that particular William Eggleston show you saw at the Getty when you were 21 that kindled your interest in photography.

Eggleston and you have vastly different styles. He’s from-the-hip, whereas you’re working in the studio or with very composed imagery. But is there a relationship to his work that you see in your own that you’ve carried with you?

I definitely see the influence of his work in mine. I think color is the most obvious, for me, because he’s the grandfather of color photography, and my work is all color photography, and a lot of it leans on the fact that it’s in color—bright, vivid Technicolor. So the primary colors are a big thing, but also the retro-’60s style.

I guess I also see a little shared romanticism, too. Some of your photographs are pretty direct. Like your “Desiree” (2008) is a reference to his woman in the grass.

Hardly anyone gets that reference. Everyone always relates it to Cindy Sherman, but it’s actually a reference to William Eggleston.

Then after seeing that Eggleston show, you got a camera. What kind of camera was it?

A Nikon N90s. I remember, because it all happened in the same week, in a flurry. I saw the William Eggleston show; I bought his book William Eggleston’s Guide; and I just looked through it that night obsessively. I told my painter friend the next day that I was going to be a photographer. And he said, “Well, if you’re going to be a photographer, you’re

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Prager’s “Crowd No. 7 (Bob Hope Airport)” (2013).

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We went to Sizzler, and we overate. [Laughs] We were 24. We were just having fun. But then we decided, ‘Forget experiencing the sins. Let’s just make work based on the seven deadly sins and what we know of them.’ And that show was really important to me, because it was the first time I felt like I had restrictions, because I had to stay within a theme. The pictures were all staged. I was really happy with the work. We did it in our friend’s loft, and a curator stopped by that night, and asked me to show my work in a group show at a gallery. So that’s what led me to start showing in galleries.

So, shortly after that, your career did take off. You had a solo show in 2007, “Polyester,” and in 2008, you exhibited “The Big Valley and Week-end,” which were some of the first places in which a Hitchcockian vibe started to creep into your work. How did this noir-ish aspect start to come in?

What do you shoot on now?

I use the Contax 645, and I always shoot with the 80 mm lens. Never anything else. I haven’t changed once in 10 years. I just love the way that looks, because it’s really what the eye sees.

So even process-wise, you shut off photography and you move into your film brain when going between the two mediums?

Especially now, yeah. I think in the beginning, like with Despair, the first film I did, I was looking at it more as a series of still images.

And, after doing a few short films, especially after The New York Times series I did, working with those actors really made me think about film differently than still photography.

Now, I really consider it a different medium.

There was a period of your life when no commercial galleries were interested in your work, so you were showing in a lot of unconventional spaces. Were you ever worried that a gallery wouldn’t catch on? Because I think it was a few years…

I think a lot of people put too much emphasis on that, and they don’t develop their work first.

They want to get in that gallery right away.

Yeah, it’s very important to people. But I

Were there any shows during that period that you feel were important to you?

I had a show called “The Book of Disquiet” with Mercedes Helnwein. [My previous show], “America Motel,” was staged portraits of people in the Midwest that I would come across, and then start talking to, and then ask them if we could do a portrait together. I remember liking what was happening with that, and I loved the characters, which is now a big part of my work. But the problem with that show was that I didn’t feel like there was enough of a vision or an idea behind it. It didn’t feel like it was cohesive enough. And so, Mercedes and I decided to challenge ourselves with a theme. “The Book of Disquiet” was based on the seven deadly sins. We decided we were going to act out the seven deadly sins, and then make work based on our experiences. We only ended up acting out one sin.

Which sin?

Gluttony.

Okay, so you overate.

It was through being in L.A. and seeing this movie called Shampoo. I was working on “Polyester” at the time, and I saw that movie.

It felt very genuine in that it was showing an emotional aspect of this break-up and this relationship of these people, but the clothes and the scenery of Los Angeles were very highly stylized, and there was definitely this wash of nostalgia for me. I also was interested in the way beauty is perceived, and how to get across this idea of the way people perceive beauty, but also sneak in these darker layers of how I feel about Los Angeles, and the scene here, and the industry. So I was really playing with these two sides. All of those works that you were talking about—“Big Valley and Week-end” and “Compulsion”—seem like studies for me of trying to figure out those two sides. And I did them in front of whoever ended up seeing those shows, basically, because I was figuring something out. And I’m still figuring that out.

Have you always looked at your images as stories?

I think from the very beginning, I was using storytelling to get the emotion that I wanted out of my subjects, so the story itself wasn’t that important to me, but capturing whatever expression that that kind of story would warrant—whatever kind of reaction—that was really important. From the very beginning, when I started setting up shots, I would make up stories for my subjects, and I’d tell them, “Okay, you’ve been sitting in a hot car for six hours because somebody locked you in there, and you just saw your husband walk by with another woman.” [Laughs] Honestly, that’s not a story I ever came up with for anyone. What I mean is that it would be that unimportant: whatever story would pop into my head. The story itself has never been that important, up until I started viewing film as film. After The New York Times work, I started looking at stories as: could it be a longer narrative? Because the stories have always just been moments when I tell them.

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

It was seven. I counted every minute of it.

[Laughs] No, it was a fun time for me, because I wasn’t really trying to get into a gallery. That was an idea that was more in the future, like, “Eventually, I’ll be in a gallery. Eventually, I’ll have a show at the MoMA.” These were future goals that I had, and at the time I was just thinking about my next shoot, and how I was going to make that, and did I think it was good.

think that was one of the benefits, too, of being in Los Angeles: It wasn’t all around me all the time. Had I been in New York, I might have felt a little more insecure about being an artist outside of a gallery. But because I was in Los Angeles, and everything was about the movie industry here, I just felt cool that I wasn’t trying to be an actress in the movie industry and struggling at that. It’s not like there were all these galleries around that I was dying to get into. The odd time I would bring my portfolio into some galleries, they’d look through the pictures in a very bored kind of way. One gallerist even told me, “You might as well give up now, because there’s no talent in here.” She was like, “I’m doing you a favor, darling.”

PHOTO: SALLY PETERSON.

going to have to be serious about it.” And I said, ‘I am serious about it.’ And he was like, “You don’t even have a fucking camera.”

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And obviously the 10-minute film, Face in the Crowd, and the film I’m working on now, there’s absolutely a beginning, a middle, and an end, and those are important. I’m learning. Film’s a new medium for me compared to still photography, and it’s become more and more important as I delve deeper into it.

I don’t think photography and filmmaking are the same.

for the style she was hoping them to be shot in, that I was the one to do it. And I, of course, wasn’t going to turn down such an amazing opportunity, because I’d be a fool to. At the same time, when I got off the phone with her, I was like, “What the fuck? This is insane.”

The whole thing was just absurd.

What can you tell me about the new film that you’re working on?

It was so unexpected. I was really proud of the project, so it was great to get acknowledged for something that I was already really proud of. It felt really great to share that with the team over at The New York Times, and the DP, and the costume designer, the music, everyone. It was a collaborative effort.

It’s for the Paris Opera Ballet. I’m really proud of it. It’s with this ballerina, who is with the étoile, which is top in the Paris Opera Ballet.

She’s called Emilie Cozette, and it’s with Benjamin Millepied, because he’s the director of the Paris Opera Ballet, so that’s how that came about. It’s been one of the highlight experiences of my entire career.

In 2011 you made a series of creepy video portraits, “Touch of Evil,” for The New York Times. You had these actors who are legends: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Mia Wasikowska, Gary Oldman. Were they receptive to you as a sort of director?

PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

PHOTO: SALLY PETERSON.

Yeah. It’s not like I was like, “Hey, can I photograph you guys?” It was The New York Times getting permission, setting the whole thing up, and they had chosen me to do it. I’d only done one short film, so it was definitely a risk on [New York Times Magazine director of photography] Kathy Ryan’s part, but she just felt like for the theme that she chose, and

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And what does it mean to win an Emmy?

Very. I think it should be important in everyone’s lives. There are a lot of bad things happening with the environment right now. It’s an area that not many people feel they can help or control much, because it just feels out of everyone’s control. Every little bit of awareness, I think, helps to some degree. [Whispers:] I foster elephants sometimes.

Wait, are you joking?

No. It’s just this group that you pay money to help the baby elephants that they find that have lost their mothers due to poaching. I’m trying to figure out ways I can zero in on where can I be the most effective, but also not let it become my full-time job.

What can you tell me about the show at Galerie des Galeries in Paris?

Well, the film is the main thing. And it’s four new photographs. I’m not totally done working on it yet, but I think it’s going to be four new very large-scale still photographs that are unrelated to the film. They’re all crowd photos, but they’re done in a completely different way than I’ve done them.

I noticed you have an interest in elephants and wildlife conservation.

Oh, from my Instagram? [Laughs] Yeah, and your Twitter. Is that something that’s important in your life?

“Crowd No. 3 (Pelican Beach)” (2013).

(OPPOSITE) Prager in Los Angeles.

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Range Rover

(OPPOSITE) Wolfgang Tillmans outside David Zwirner gallery in New York.

With Metropolitan Museum of Art and David Zwirner presentations, Wolfgang Tillmans displays his genre-defying versatility.

BY PAULA KUPFER PORTRAIT BY KAT SLOOTSKY

Bathrooms, airports, construction sites, debris, living rooms, precarious buildings, refugee camps, winding stairways, humble tropical structures, graffiti, bats flying, mosaics, electric wires, balconies, luxury, homelessness, mirrors and malls, pictures on pictures, sinking structures, dilapidation, architects’ follies. German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans’s current installation at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Book for Architects” (on view through Nov. 1), is a slow rollercoaster through urban and architectural observations in 37 countries. It’s a numbing meditation on transience and permanence, on cities and their oddities, and on the humanity and inhumanity of buildings.

Between concurrent shows at the Met and New York’s David Zwirner gallery, and winning the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography, 2015 has seen the apogee of Tillmans’s prolific career as a fine artist. Equal parts cultural observer and annalist, he came to prominence in the early 1990s for his snapshot depictions of ravers in London and Berlin that were published in off-kilter fashion magazines like i-D and Index. In 2000, he made history by becoming the first non-Brit and—more exceptionally—the first photographer to be awarded

Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize for visual He continued to explore the idea, however, artists under the age of 50. His work is in the and the “Book for Architects” title suggests permanent collections of the world’s greatest that he has sought some level of engagement museums, spanning the Guggenheim in New with the masterminds of building design. “I York to the National Museum of Modern Art would love to communicate my thoughts to in Kyoto. architects, to be in dialogue. The sentiment “Book for Architects” is Tillmans’s first wasn’t, ‘I want to teach them something’ or ‘I exhibition focused entirely on architecture, want to tell them off about something’—it’s and was originally commissioned for last a feeling of offering a perspective,” he says. year’s Venice Architecture Biennale. It is a “What interests me is how things feel, not how two-channel video installation with screens they project, and how architecture feels.”

Whether the artist’s photographic observaset at a 90-degree angle, with a raised stage for viewing in the middle of a dark room. The tions may approximate critique—although he interest in the subject matter isn’t new, but insists there is no cynicism—has to do with Tillmans, who is meticulous about the way the perceived hostility of some buildings. “I his work is exhibited and installed, felt he had really think there are a lot of architects who not found the right format. “Architecture has think about how their buildings are used and been a part of my work for 20 years,” he says, how people live in them,” he says. “But at the on a balmy summer evening in Chelsea. “I same time we see a lot of architecture that’s had always had a large number of architecture not driven by empathy for humans. There’s photographs but realized that if you put more a picture in the new exhibition called ‘Shit than 30 percent in an exhibition, the balance Buildings Going Up Left, Right, and Centre’ of the show tilts. I never felt the urgency to [2014] … There’s a lot that goes wrong in make an architectural photography exhibi- architecture.”

At 47, Tillmans stands tall and walks with tion, and this is why it was always lingering. I like the idea of a book as a communicator, but a spring in his step; even after a long day of architecture books, they’re almost a plague in installing his new show at David Zwirner (on itself, there are so many. So there wasn’t really view through Oct. 24), he has a ready smile. any urgency for that either.”

It’s his first exhibition with the New York SURFACE

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PHOTOS: COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK/GALERIE BUCCHOLZ, COLOGNE AND BERLIN/MAUREEN PALEY, LONDON.

Tillmans’s “Santa Marta” (2012).

(OPPOSITE) “Still Life, Calle Real II” (2014).

gallery, one of four solo shows he will have yourself.” As with his prior focus on LGBT this fall (the others are in Osaka, Japan; Ceské youth in Russia, the artist’s interest in nightBudejovice, Czech Republic; and Gothenburg, life is ongoing. “I’ve not stopped going out,” Sweden). The exhibition presents new works he says. “I still think it’s an important human since 2008 and displays his characteristic, activity that is very meaningful and always peripatetic approach to photography. He’s has a political side to it. Because it’s something showing 170 prints of dramatically differ- that scares adults of a certain age, you can read ent sizes in an idiosyncratic installation that a lot about society in its nightlife and what is includes works framed and unframed, small acceptable where.” and large, and architectural modifications This involvement with politics, if not to the gallery’s large spaces, in addition to a always obvious, is pervasive in his photonew video piece. After focusing on the world graphs: “My work can’t directly affect poliat large in his previous series “Neue Welt” tics,” he says. “[But] I admire activism and and “Book for Architects,” and on a single activists greatly, and I have always seen my person in “Central Nervous System,” these work as being an amplifier for ideas.” This new photographs, gathered under the title concept is echoed in the title of the exhibition, “PCR,” offer a renewed intimate connection “PCR,” which refers to a technique used in with the people and environments around molecular biology to amplify a single copy of him, and a closer glimpse into his distinctive DNA in order to generate millions of copies.

Weltanschauung, which combines portraits of The show includes photographs of protesters friends and family, nightlife scenes, domestic in New York, Osaka, London, and Santiago. still lifes, abstractions, and ephemera.

In the process of documenting the street rallies, Unassuming works communicate the art- Tillmans says, he applies the idea of amplificaist’s deep engagement with the medium as tion, “by photographing a banner in a demonwell as a political stance. A photograph of stration, and then reprinting it, republishing it, people’s dancing feet on a small stage, taken etcetera.” in St. Petersburg, provides an unsuspecting This idea of repetition and activism is example. Says Tillmans: “To discover this last present in “Book for Architects,” too, even one of two gay clubs in St. Petersburg, the if Tillmans’s agenda here is more oblique. most liberal city in a country covering 10 time It’s discernible, for example, in his photozones, means the world when you’re there graphs of toilets and people waiting in line and you’re a kid and want to go out and be for them, which he refers to as his only “little

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PHOTOS: COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK/GALERIE BUCCHOLZ, COLOGNE AND BERLIN/MAUREEN PALEY, LONDON.

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PHOTOS: COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK/GALERIE BUCCHOLZ, COLOGNE AND BERLIN/MAUREEN PALEY, LONDON.

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PHOTOS: COURTESY DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK/GALERIE BUCCHOLZ, COLOGNE AND BERLIN/MAUREEN PALEY, LONDON.

campaigning bit” in the work. After spending years observing women waiting in line for the bathroom, it makes him angry that architects who design public places don’t give ladies’ rooms a bigger footprint. This is a clear example, he says, of an architecture disconnected from the people who inhabit and use it.

On the other hand, it’s in the details and edges of buildings and structures where Tillmans finds not only the most empathy, but also a sense of seduction. He describes stairways poetically as “functional, beautiful, sculptural, and physical at the same time because they are so involving our bodies.” He then points to a corner of the room, to a place where the wall, carpeting, and metal finishing come together: “How these surfaces join in that corner over there, I mean, that is a truly sensual thing, and it has real consequences on how we feel in our lives. Surfaces, doorways, finishes—they’re so incredibly powerful because they’re always around us. And I find there’s very little discussion about them.”

“Book for Architects” is also a milestone in the career of curator Beatrice Galilee. The Met appointed her associate curator of architecture and design last year, and the installation is her first for the institution. “What I love about the show,” she says, “is that it perfectly captures the absolute truth of our built environment as it stands in this moment.”

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though it’s striking at a different level in the new show at Zwirner. Although the artist does shoot digitally, he feels the belief that digital technology causes physical objects to disappear—the CD, the DVD, the photographic print—doesn’t apply to art. “I’ve experienced the opposite with digital,” he says. “The prints that you see in this show you can only see in this exhibition, and the presence they have in front of you is absolutely irreproducible: you can’t get it on the best largest computer screen.” He describes the prints as so incredibly detailed and fine, and so nuanced in color, charged with a sense of infinity to them, that they can only really be perceived when viewed in the here and now. “The installation is a performance,” he says, “and the actual works require a physical ‘being here.’”

“The Blue Oyster Bar, St. Petersburg” (2014). (OPPOSITE) “Weed” (2014).

(FOLLOWING SPREAD) “Shit Buildings Going Up Left, Right, and Centre” (2014).

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Sights at the Museum

(OPPOSITE AND FOLLOWING TWO SPREADS) Photographs by Tina Barney and Stephen Shore in the new book The Noguchi Museum: A Portrait (Phaidon).

With the help of Tina Barney and Stephen Shore, a new book celebrates 30 years of New York’s Noguchi Museum.

INTERVIEW BY GRANT JOHNSON

To capture a landmark occasion for a landmark institution, museum director Jenny Dixon invited celebrated photographers Tina Barney and Stephen Shore into the Noguchi Museum’s special setting in Long Island City, Queens.

The 78 striking images they produced for The Noguchi Museum: A Portrait (Phaidon)— plus the book’s many never-before-published archival images—make for an elegant commemoration. Dixon spoke with Surface about the publishing project, which charms (almost) as much as the museum itself.

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PHOTO: TINA BARNEY.

The Noguchi Museum was the first in the U.S. to be created by an artist for the exhibition of his own work. And [the Japanese-American artist and designer] Isamu Noguchi didn’t just establish the museum; he designed it, converting a former industrial building into a space for art. In fact, many people view the museum as one of Noguchi’s greatest works. Beyond this, the museum, which encompasses galleries and a sculpture garden, is a place of serenity—a true urban oasis—as well as of discovery.

In 1987, Noguchi created a catalogue of work in the museum—it’s a wonderful resource, with individual shots of the artworks, and for each, an illuminating, often poetic statement.

The Noguchi Museum: A Portrait is derived from our desire to create something that would reflect the museum’s distinctive sense of place, conveyed through image rather than text. When Noguchi wrote his catalogue, the building was open only seven months a year, and the display rarely changed. Since then, it has become a dynamic, year-round place, with changing exhibitions and public programs. The book provides eloquent testimony to the fact that the museum is at once the contemplative

place that Noguchi wanted it to be and a site of activity and learning. It does this by showing not only the works the building contains, but also the relationship of the work to the building, and the very vibrant daily life of the museum.

Tina Barney’s photos show people, museum educators and others, interacting with the work. Stephen Shore has created amazingly expressive images of the works sited in the environment that Noguchi designed for them.

Together, they have created a beautiful, living portrait of the place.

I have always found Tina’s images to be so compelling, not just those of her family and close friends, but those of the Wooster Group, the Big Apple Circus, Civil War re-enactors.

Tina suggested Stephen. She has such respect for his work, as do I. Lucky for us, he was game.

They were really interesting collaborators, with very different approaches.

Noguchi himself took photographs, perhaps most notably while on his travels sponsored by the Bollingen Foundation. Those images served as markers of a particular time. I think he would see this book serve that same purpose.

Noguchi was one of the most versatile and forward-looking artists of his era. Long before it was accepted to do so, he completely ignored the boundaries between art and design, between “fine art” and “craft.” The very richness of his practice and output—from sculpture, to lighting, to furniture, to stage sets, gardens, and playgrounds—provides a wellspring of ideas and material for exhibitions and programs. We are always thinking of new ways not only to illuminate his art, but also to use the art to highlight both the historic context in which he worked and the art of today.

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PHOTO: TINA BARNEY.

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PHOTO: STEPHEN SHORE.

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PHOTO: STEPHEN SHORE.

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PHOTO: STEPHEN SHORE.

PHOTOS: TOP, TINA BARNEY. BOTTOM, STEPHEN SHORE.

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PHOTO: STEPHEN SHORE.

PHOTOS: TOP, TINA BARNEY. BOTTOM, STEPHEN SHORE.

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Large Format

MoMA celebrates three decades of its annual “New Photography” show with its most expansive presentation yet.

BY DAN DURAY

Lassry, and Alex Prager, each of whom has since all but become a household name.

“Ocean of Images” announces its intention to play in our photo-saturated landscape with the inclusion of DIS magazine, the hyper-consumerist “post-Internet lifestyle magazine” and art collective known for its fake products, and stunts like a 2010 Kim Kardashian lookalike competition at Art Basel Miami Beach last year.

For “Ocean,” DIS will contribute a video installation and light box that showcase its batch of uncanny, faux stock photography so convincing except for its models’ nihilism and overt sexuality.

Stock photography also dominates the work of Basim Magdy,

whose photos in “The Hollow Desire to Populate Imaginary Cities” (2014) series read like Instagrams designed to make you feel lonely.

His film stock images are treated and exposed on metallic paper, yielding colors for factories and family vacations that resemble newly created artifacts.

But the filters, naturally, don’t end there. Enter the photography of Lieko Shiga, whose pictures document Japan’s 2011 Thoku tsunami and its aftermath, with filters and other manipulations to emphasize the eeriness— a result that plays on both filmic conventions and journalistic photography. Why just document when you can emote? > SURFACE

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

Gripped by the tendrils of social media, most people now consume heaps of photos each day. Such is the backdrop for “Ocean of Images: New Photography 2015,” the Museum of Modern Art’s 30th edition of its annual photography exhibition, which runs through March 20. Since its inception in 1985, “New Photography” has helped launch the careers of some of the most celebrated artists working in the medium, including Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Rineke Dijkstra, Viviane Sassen, and Wolfgang Tillmans. The show’s collective proverbial batting average is remarkably high—the 2010 edition alone featured the likes of Roe Ethridge, Elad

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

Lele Saveri’s “The Newsstand” (2013-14).

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND RAMIKEN CRUCIBLE, NEW YORK.

When places aren’t being literally destroyed by natural phenomena, they’re constantly slipping away. Witness Marina Pinsky’s two-sided photo sculpture with printed images that evoke Germany’s public spaces—a man waiting for a bus, a child at a marketplace. Or take a look at Indre Šerpytytė’s former NKVD– MVD–MGB–KGB buildings, which grew from an investigation into her father’s death. She recreated these Lithuanian buildings in wood and photographed them as though they were life-sized, their empty backgrounds so eerily devoid of significance that it’s almost as though she doesn’t know where to begin.

And this of course is the real mirror the show turns on us. For all our new-found, ever-growing photographic obsession, what we’re really trying to do when we ogle a party or stalk an ex is not seek a wider world, but reduce ours to something handheld and safe. “Ocean of Images” codifies our lurking. Here, we select some of the standouts in the show.

Lucas Blalock’s “Strawberries (Forever Fresh)” (2014).

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST AND RAMIKEN CRUCIBLE, NEW YORK.

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Ilit Azoulay’s “Shifting Degrees of Certainty” (2014).

Mishka Henner’s “Astronomical” (2011).

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE PHOTOGRAPHY COUNCIL FUND.

PHOTOS: COURTESY ANDREA MEISLIN GALLERY, NEW YORK, AND BRAVERMAN GALLERY, TEL AVIV. BOTTOM, COURTESY BRUCE SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, NEW YORK.

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE PHOTOGRAPHY COUNCIL FUND.

PHOTOS: COURTESY ANDREA MEISLIN GALLERY, NEW YORK, AND BRAVERMAN GALLERY, TEL AVIV. BOTTOM, COURTESY BRUCE SILVERSTEIN GALLERY, NEW YORK.

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John Houck’s “Copper Mountain” (2014).

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PHOTO: CHARLES BENTON/COMMISSIONED BY ART IN GENERAL, NEW YORK, AND HOME, MANCHESTER.

Basim Magdy’s “The Hollow Desire to Populate Imaginary Cities” (2014).

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PHOTO: CHARLES BENTON/COMMISSIONED BY ART IN GENERAL, NEW YORK, AND HOME, MANCHESTER.

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Katja Novitskova’s “Approximation (Peacock Spider)” (2015).

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

PHOTO: COURTESY KRAUPA-TUSKANY ZEIDLER, BERLIN.

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PHOTO: COURTESY THE ARTIST.

PHOTO: COURTESY KRAUPA-TUSKANY ZEIDLER, BERLIN.

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Lieko Shiga’s “Portrait of Cultivation” (2009), from the series “Rasen Kaigan.”

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Gallery New hotel Casa Fayette is poised to turn Mexico’s second-largest city into an international destination.

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

Text by Nate Storey

Photographs by Undine Pröhl

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There isn’t another hotel group right now on the sketchy meter to attract the culture with more cojones than Grupo Habita. Since cognoscenti; Deseo Hotel and Lounge, the the Mexican boutique chain’s inception in seductive whitewashed retreat that anointed 2000, the four-man team that forms its brain Playa del Carmen the next Yucatan playground trust—Carlos Couturier and brothers Moisés, in 2001, back when it was nothing more than Rafael, and Jaime Micha—has cultivated a jumping-off point for snorkelers heading to what Spanish speakers reverently call onda Cozumel; the French Neoclassical Condesa (loosely translated to essence) at their open- DF, the first design property to plant its flag in ings across Mexico (in addition to one in New Mexico City’s rough-around-the-edges arts York) by staying true to an intrinsic but unusual quarter in 2005; Hotel Americano, which principle: Go where nobody thinks to go. On its cropped up in 2011, on Manhattan’s far west face, that seems like a counterintuitive decree side, a dead zone of industrial blocks and earlyto live by for a hospitality company putting tens closing galleries; and Hotel Boca Chica, a midof millions of dollars on the line—until you see century bolthole that brought 1950s glamour the results. back to tourist and springbreak hellscape, The 14 hotels in Habita’s portfolio all carry the Acapulco, in 2009. Habita has a knack for getsame strand of DNA: they’re smart and detail- ting to a place before it happens, or maybe it focused, possess an artistic spirit, and function happens because wherever Habita goes, a as cultural arbiters. Yet each one maintains a fashionable coterie soon follows. tactile, distinctively local vibe by bringing its “They have their own following, and it’s a surroundings inside. Casa Fayette, a new hotel crowd you want to please,” says Britt Moran, a that utilizes the bones of an old colonial manse North Carolina–bred partner of Dimore Studio, in Guadalajara’s design district—its 37 rooms the Milanese design firm tapped to do Fayette’s sit in an adjacent new-build struture—is the interiors. “It’s the cool, artistic crowd who is in latest example of Habita picking an out-of-mind the right places and is kind of jet-setting from destination as its next home. (Shown here and party to party.” on the following pages is an exclusive first look It’s a rare commission for Dimore—the at the property.) The country’s second-largest ongoing redesign of the venerable Grand Hotel metropolis hasn’t entered the leisure travel lexi- et de Milan is the firm’s only other hotel—but con yet, but its nascent art scene is begging to Moran says working with Grupo Habita was be discovered. Less an interloper hell-bent on an easy decision, even fate: a serendipitous gentrification than a new arrival that just wants encounter on a far-flung Greek island led to the to fit in, Fayette subtly blends into its leafy neigh- collaboration. “We had our side with Italians and borhood lined with galleries and nondescript their side with Mexicans—two strong-headed restaurants. people,” jokes Moran. “But Habita is really easy “We only create one hotel a year in order to get along with, and they’ve done so many to understand the community, its vision and hotels. They were able to teach us how to look tastes,” says Carlos Couturier, a citrus farmer at areas or deal with certain spaces.” and the public face of Habita. “Our goal is Dimore and Habita also shared a vision always to be local. We don’t build hotels; we that Fayette should reflect Guadalajara. “It’s curate them. The goal is to deliver a human the birthplace of the famous architect Luis experience, not an architectural or design one.” Barragán, who won the Pritzker Prize [in 1980], Habita feels like an indie rock band on and the hotel is in the same neighborhood the verge of mainstream stardom. A few of where a lot of his early work is,” Moran says. the group’s cult hits: Hotel Habita, the slinky, “We drew a lot of inspiration from that.” opaque debut EP that opened in Mexico City’s A Barragánian influence is unmistakable Polanco district when the city was still too high in Fayette’s vibrant palette: the peachy SURFACE

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reception area; first-floor breakfast room’s khaki–green walls and tropical print chairs; Amsterdam red-light hues of the “pickup bar” right off the courtyard; and shades of blue that stain Mondrian-esque windows in the bathrooms. “Carmen Miranda meets super colorful house,” says Moran, referencing the midcentury Brazilian performer’s bright costumes and fruit hats.

A cohesive 1930s and ’40s theme is predominant throughout the public spaces and guestrooms, including custom furniture from Dimore that nods to the Art Deco past. (They also maintained the original windows and woodwork.) Partitions were knocked out so guests can flow with ease from the breakfast room and outdoor courtyard to the secondfloor pool bar, which has an alcove outfitted with a Jasper Morrison for Cappellini sofa and retro black-and-white television set. “People expect something new and innovative and cool, especially from the Grupo Habita guys,” Moran says. “At first, we were thinking of adding another bar, but then somebody threw out the idea: ‘Let’s just throw on old movies.’”

A distinct Mexicanness permeates every corner of the hotel, from the local artisan-made tiles in the rooftop spa, to the brass metalwork in the headboards of the beds, to the open-air quality of the social spaces. Or as Moran puts it, “ It’s sexy and exotic. We’ve been indoctrinated with this word ‘sexy’ for two years, and it kind of rubbed off on us.”

On the surface, Guadalajara doesn’t seem like a town that does sexy. It’s horizontal and sprawling; its urban grit smacks you in the face. (Even in the design district, it looks as if an earthquake has displaced the sidewalks.)

It’s the opposite of flashy Mexico City, with its upscale fashion designers, renowned cultural venues, and world-famous chefs. In other words, it’s pretty damn perfect for a Grupo Habita hotel.

“The thing that attracted us to Guadalajara was the human aspect—there’s a slow-life attitude that’s becoming rare in large cities,” Couturier says. “There’s young and creative artists and an original gastronomic movement. All of this is happening under the radar, which makes the city even more interesting for Grupo Habita.”

Over the last decade and a half Habita’s well-executed boutique properties have earned them laudatory labels—Mexico’s Ian Schrager!—and high acclaim within the industry. Now they plan to conquer a new frontier: the U.S. In 2016, Chicago. Then an L.A. outpost.

Will their blueprint translate in the ephemeral, sharp-elbowed hospitality landscape of the States? “Our magic formula is the passion we inject into every one of our projects,” Couturier says. “We start the process every time all over again. We’re the anti-franchise of the hotel industry. Each hotel is like a child to us—they come with their own genes and identities. One might dream for a specific life for them, but they end up just being themselves.”

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PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

Avant Guardian Winners

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

For our 15th annual Avant Guardian photography competition—its final edition—we called upon six prominent figures in photography (see page 69) to help us select 10 emerging talents who show great promise. Here, a portfolio of original and unpublished works by the winners.

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Hannah Olivia Nelson, 31 OAKLAND

Education Dartmouth College and California College of the Arts Favorite camera My great love is an old Hasselblad 500 CM, but I’m having a pretty hot affair with my new K.B. Canham DLC 4x5.

Best shoot Photographing my grandfather before he passed away. It was a really intimate process and one of the few times I’ve felt that I could use my camera to see, not speak.

Dream shoot I’d like to travel more with my mother, and photograph the many hairpieces she brings to each place we visit.

Dream client The National Parks Service—fly me to Denali and strap my gear to a dog sled.

Favorite photographer At the moment, Daisuke Yokota.

Upcoming projects I’m working on making a small edition of handmade books using some of the images you see here, with accompanying text.

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PHOTOS: HANNAH OLIVIA NELSON.

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PHOTOS: HANNAH OLIVIA NELSON.

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Jessica Richmond, 21 NEW YORK

Education Parsons the New School for Design First camera I began photographing obsessively with disposable cameras. I brought one to school every day throughout elementary school and middle school.

Favorite camera Pentax 645

Best shoot I’m most comfortable in the studio, but surprisingly my favorite shoot is one that I shot on a beach. I worked collaboratively with a really great designer and creative director from Parsons. All of our ideas totally aligned and we got some really surreal, beautiful images.

Favorite photographer It’s difficult for me to choose between Viviane Sassen and Guy Bourdin.

Dream shoot Photographing a clothing brand at an exotic location somewhere far away, like Iceland or New Zealand, deep in nature, where I can just create with no pressure and with a ton of assistants to help everything go smoothly. Actually, just shooting with an assistant would be nice.

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Kenneth Lavey, 22 NEW YORK

Education School of Visual Arts First camera My dad’s old Canon AE-1 35mm, which I used along with my mother’s slightly less old Nikon FM2.

First exhibition The very first time I put my work up on a wall was in a café while I was in high school. I made these horrendous still lifes where everything except the subject was black and white.

Format Only digital now, but if a project called for it, I would be happy to get back into shooting negatives.

Dream shoot Something similar to what I have been working with lately—a form that’s obscure and utilitarian, but bodily and sensual. Make it big, though, like Richard Serra big, and have it covered in petroleum jelly. It would float above a seamless marble platform, bathed in neutral, pristinely soft light.

What’s next A project called “What is This, and Where Does it Go?” I’m also attending a residency at the Royal College of Art in London in the graduate photography program.

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Matin Zad, 28 NEW YORK

Education School of Visual Arts First camera Nikon F90X First exhibition Bottega Veneta’s “New Exposure” competition in 2013 at the Openhouse Gallery in New York City.

Favorite camera Hasselblad H5D Dream shoot To direct a short film funded by Rei Kawakubo.

Dream client Comme des Garçons Favorite photographer Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison Current project My first book, #Fashion Vol. 1, a series of iPhone photos taken in New York, came out in September. It’s a love letter to my first few years in the city.

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Jiaxi Yang, 26 NEW YORK

Education New York University and the School of the International Center of Photography First exhibition The graduation exhibition, “Tipping Point,” at the International Center of Photography this past June.

Favorite camera Phase One camera and Chamonix 4x5 view camera

Format Digital medium format and large-format film Favorite photographer Thomas Demand, Barbara Kasten, and Kenji Aoki, to name a few.

Current project I’m working on a project that starts at an abandoned beach that used to be a landfill for New York City garbage. I use the remnants of the garbage found to tell a story that sits between the past and the uncertain future.

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PHOTOS: JIAXI YANG.

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PHOTOS: JIAXI YANG.

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Zhe Zhu, 22 NEW YORK

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Education Ontario College of Art and Design First camera Pentax 35mm SLR, but I soon upgraded to a Pentax 67.

First exhibition A group show at a neighborhood church in the East Village. I pinned two photos on the wall and that was it.

Format Medium format digital back, and I occasionally shoot film.

Dream shoot I hope to work with Kathy Ryan [director of photography at The New York Times Magazine].

Favorite photographer I really liked Todd Hido’s work when I was in school.

What’s next Jiaxi [Yang, a fellow Avant Guardian winner] and I are showing our work at Photo Shanghai soon.

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Paul Jung, 30 NEW YORK

Education Istituto Europeo di Design and School of Visual Arts First exhibition Group exhibition at the State Gallery of my high school Favorite camera iPhone 3G Worst shoot Family portraits Dream client N.A.S.A. Favorite photographer Eadweard Muybridge

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PHOTO: PAUL JUNG.

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PHOTO: PAUL JUNG.

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Lilian Day Thorpe, 23 BROOKLYN

Education Pratt Institute First camera Nikon FM2 Favorite camera Hasselblad 501CM medium format SLR Best shoot I snapped a portrait of a sheep on a misty morning in Laugarvatn, Iceland, with my Nikon D5000, and that was the start of my project “Night Lamb.”

Disaster shoot I went on a cross-country road trip from Los Angeles to New York, and I was adamant about only shooting film. I brought one camera, which ended up breaking. I was left to document the rest of the journey—the iconic Route 66, abandoned motels, New Mexican diners, Texan cowboys, and Memphis country singers—with disposable cameras.

Dream shoot The Faroe Islands. I can’t look at its landscape without imagining all the digital montages I want to make.

Upcoming project I grew up in the small coastal town of Brooksville, Maine. According to U.S. census data, Brooksville’s population in 2001 was 911 and hasn’t changed much since. My project is to make a photographic record of every family in Brooksville, and eventually turn it into a book.

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Zhi Wei Hiu, 22 NEW YORK

Education Parsons the New School for Design First camera My first camera was gifted to me by my uncle, who was an art director at Ogilvy in the ’80s. That camera has been to more places in the world than I have.

Format I enjoy shooting in the 645 format. The negative is sized perfectly for scanning as diptychs or triptychs, a format that’s ideal for forming cinematic narratives.

Favorite photographer As most photographers would say, there are too many.

Upcoming projects Living between New York and Singapore has brought new light to my upbringing in a creative environment—my uncle is an artist, my father a hairstylist. I’m looking at vernacular photographs from their younger days and reinterpreting them in my context.

Worst shoot Accident is the lifeblood of photography.

When you look at it that way, I don’t think there can ever be a bad shoot.

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PHOTOS: ZHI WEI HIU.

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PHOTOS: ZHI WEI HIU.

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Tianxing Wang, 27 CHENGDU, CHINA

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Education California College of the Arts First camera Canon 500D T1i Favorite camera: iPhone Format Large format for the serious pictures.

Dream shoot I don’t have a dream; I shoot dreams.

Favorite photographer: If I had to pick one, Wolfgang Tillmans.

Upcoming project I’m currently working on a series called “Couch Project.” I’m couch-surfing around the world and taking photos of myself on people’s sofas to tell a story about myself as a global traveler.

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PHOTO: TIANXING WANG.

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Culture Club A photo portfolio of recent events in the Surface universe, including a new José Parlá exhibition opening.

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

PHOTO: MEGAN BREUKELMAN.

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Culture Club Bookmarc and Marc Jacobs Host Gloss Book Release Party On Sept. 11, Bookmarc in New York’s West Village channeled the glamour and excess of the ’70s to celebrate the release of Gloss, a book compiling the work of photographer Chris von Wangenheim. The tome includes more than 200 photos from the photographer, who is known for his provocative high fashion images from the era. Guests were instructed to follow a strict dress code that included fur coats, lingerie, sequins, and turbans.

Writers Mauricio and Roger Padilha were on hand to sign books, and partygoers enjoyed disco music played

by D.J. Honey Dijon. Notable attendees were host Marc Jacobs, Angel and Allan Kent (pictured, front, with models), Amanda Lepore, Robert Duffy, Gabrielle Union, Jaime King, Solange Knowles, Atlanta de Cadenet Taylor, and Laverne Cox. (Photo: Sam Deitch/bfa.com) 179

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MADE Celebrates Fashion Week with Lexus Lounge Throughout New York Fashion Week, showgoers took a break from their jam-packed schedules to join designers and editors in the Lexus Lounge at Milk Studios. Attendees like newscaster Robin Roberts (pictured, opposite left, with Gabrielle Union and Ashley Madekwe) enjoyed fresh juice and wine in the Joel Fitzpatrick–designed space.

Other prominent guests included Adam Selman, Wes Gordon, Common, Mariska Hargitay, Linda Fargo, Keren Craig, and Kanye West. (Photo: Aria Isadora/bfa.com)

Erdem Opens London Flagship On Sept. 9, Erdem celebrated the opening of its first brickand-mortar location with a dinner party at the new outpost on South Audley Street in London’s Mayfair neighborhood.

Erdem Moralioglu first launched his ready-to-wear label Erdem in 2005, and won the British Fashion Council’s award for Women’s Designer of the year in 2014. The evening’s guests, among them Natalie Massenet, Livia Firth, Emilia Clarke, and Laura Carmichael, enjoyed champagne and notes handwritten by the designer (pictured, left, with Christopher Kane). (Photo: Dave Benett)

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CULTURE CLUB Refinery29 Launches “29Rooms” On Sept. 10, the website Refinery29, Drew Barrymore, and Alexa Chung hosted a party to fête the launch of “29Rooms,” a two-day event in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood. Guests explored interactive installations that celebrated style and culture. Each room contained a different concept and collaboration, including a mirrored room by makeup artist Charlotte Tilbury, and an installation of clouds and the sounds of Solange Knowles’s (pictured) record label Saint Heron. Guests including Susanne Bartsch, Olivia Culpo, Alan Cumming, and Isabelle Fuhrman enjoyed snacks provided by Shake Shack. (Photo: Matteo Prandoni/bfa.com)

ED by Ellen Dinner and Party at Bergdorf Goodman To celebrate the launch of ED by Ellen, Bergdorf Goodman’s Josh Schulman and Linda Fargo, along with Ellen DeGeneres (pictured, opposite right, with Justin Timberlake and Pharrell Williams) hosted a dinner and cocktail party at the department store in New York City on Sept. 10. Attendees Portia de Rossi, Kanye West, Kim Kardashian West, Diane Sawyer, Gayle King, and Donna Karan enjoyed the night’s events, which included a sale of vintage design items from Paddle8 to benefit the Humane Society and a preview of DeGeneres’s new design book, Home. (Photo: Neil Rasmus/bfa.com)

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FIT Couture Council Awards Honor Manolo Blahnik Guests gathered to present designer Manolo Blahnik (pictured, center, with Anna Wintour, Carolina Herrera, and Amy Fine Collins) with the 2015 Couture Council Award for Artistry of Fashion. The luncheon was hosted at the David Koch theater in New York City. Attendees included Uma Thurman (a presenter at the event), Camila Alves, Hilaria Baldwin, Petra Něemcovå, Martha Stewart, Monique Lhuillier, and Simon Doonan. (Photo: Getty Images for Couture Council)

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CULTURE CLUB Elton John Presents Music is Love for Lalique The Elton John AIDS Foundation has partnered with Lalique and Paddle8 to raise funds to support projects in the fight against AIDS. Elton John (pictured) revealed the Music is Love collection on Sept. 9 at his residence in Old Windsor, England. The limited collection of crystal sculptures will be auctioned off at the foundation’s annual Academy Awards viewing party in February. (Photo: Gilles Pernet)

José Parlá Celebrates New Exhibition On Sept. 12, José Parlá unveiled his newest exhibit, “Surface Body/Action Space,” at the Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. Actress Marisa Tomei (pictured, opposite left, with the artist) enjoyed Parlá’s vibrant paintings and sculptures along with Scarlett Johansson, David Byrne, Jenna Lyons, and others. The cocktail and dinner party lasted well into the night as D.J. Stretch Armstrong played tunes, mixing in some authentic Cuban music. (Photo: Patrick McMullan)

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Ferragamo’s 100 Years in Hollywood On Sept. 9, Italian fashion house Salvatore Ferragamo celebrated 100 years in Hollywood with the opening of its new Beverly Hills flagship on Rodeo Drive. Architect William Sofield designed the store, creating a space with Art Deco flair to pay homage to the eponymous brand-founder, who started the clothing line a century ago in the City of Angels. The opening event also marked the launch of Ferragamo’s “100 Years and 100 Days,” a digital experience available on the company’s website that explores Hollywood’s Golden Age. Guests included Demi Moore (pictured, left, with her daughters Scout and Tallulah Willis), as well as Armie Hammer, Kiernan Shipka, and China Chow. (Photo: Getty Images for Ferragamo) 189

CULTURE CLUB Hay Mini Market Opens in the U.S. Danish design firm Hay celebrated the Aug. 17 launch of its first U.S. location within MoMA Design store in New York City’s Soho neighborhood. Guests shopped for a selection of home items, textiles, and lighting, which were curated by Mette Hay (pictured, left, with Emmanuel Plat, director of merchandising for the MoMA Design Store). (Photo: Scott Rudd)

Audemars Piguet Celebrates Serena Williams and Stan Wawrinka On Aug. 27, more than 150 guests, including Audemars Piguet CEO Xavier Nolot, Olivia Palermo, Johannes Huebel, Marion Bartoli, and Bjarke Ingels, gathered at The Standard Hotel in New York City to join the watch brand in celebrating tennis stars Stan Wawrinka and Serena Williams (pictured, left to right). Attendees enjoyed a scenic view of the Hudson River, cocktails, and a mixed-doubles virtual tennis match between Williams and Wawrinka. (Photo: Neil Rasmus/bfa.org)

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OBJECT

For Instants

POLAROID SNAP BY THE NUMBERS:

1948 89.95 99 50

10 60 10 32 6 4 7 8

Year the first Polaroid camera was sold Price in U.S. dollars of the 1948 Polaroid Price in U.S. dollars of the new Polaroid Snap Approximate amount of machines and tools used in the construction of the Snap Megapixels in the camera Maximum number of seconds it takes for photos to print Sheets of Zink paper held at a time Gigabytes of image files it can store Photos it can take in 10 seconds Color options Weight of the camera, in ounces Length, in inches

PHOTO: COURTESY POLAROID.

Taking aesthetic cues from the Instagram icon, the new pocket-sized Polaroid Snap camera prints photos—and also stores them digitally.

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