ISSUE FOUR // 2016
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A contemporary gallery and cultural space specializing in photographic exhibitions from iconic photographers including Michel Comte, Burt Glinn, Thomas Hoepker, Dennis Stock and Billy Name as well as contemporary photographers Danny Clinch, Isa Brito, Diego Uchitel, and Hunter Barnes. Milk stands at the crossroads of the fashion, music, photography and film worlds. A media company based out of New York and Los Angeles, Milk spans contemporary culture and is a hub for nurturing creativity and supporting partnerships with some of the industry’s most visionary talent and innovative brands.
450 W 15th St New York, NY 10011 Weekdays: 10AM – 6PM Weekends: 11AM – 7PM
Thegallery@milkstudios.com
“ ...IT’S ALMOST AS IF I STILL GO TO CHASE THAT FEELING. THAT’S WHAT IS IS, I CHASE A FEELING AND THE FEELING DOESN’T DEVELOP UNTIL THE MOMENT IS ALREADY PASSED.” MATHEW CLARK
Editor’s Note
Let’s clear the elephant in the room. Why the name change from Unhemmed to Surplus? This new title marks the next step in our vision and content. In society’s fast-paced culture, fashion and arts are falling to commercialization and mass-production–altering the evolution of these fields for future generations. We wanted to shift the focus of the magazine to portray voices outside of this mentality that are emerging, fresh and highly influential. To us, Surplus is a play on this trend towards profit-oriented creative product. Our featured fashion designers, artists and influencers have not succumbed to an ever-growing atmosphere of monotony, safety and unoriginality. We dig beneath the “Surplus” of recycled ideas to find raw talent at its peak.
–Dominik, Ashwini, and Christine
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Editors-in-Chief Dominik Halas Ashwini Natarajan Christine Soo-Yeon Han Art Editors Caroline Granoff Liza Tedeschi Fashion Editors Alex Fredman Jacob Pharoah Layout Editor Olivia Park Copy Editor Sarah Bochicchio Special Thanks Joseph Artale Natasha Artale Dashiel Brahmann Matt Clark Braco Dimitrijevic Siki Im Ashkahn Shahparnia Remi Riordan Photographers Matthew Cross Christine Soo-Yeon Han Stylists Dominik Halas Sean Kwon Assistants Alex Braunstein
Advertising surplus@surplus.com SURPLUS is self-published biannually Printed in USA 2015 All Rights Reserved
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PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW CROSS INTERVIEWED BY JACOB PHAROAH
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Ashkahn Shahparnia How would you describe your job? What do you do? I’m kind of like a jack-of-alltrades creative guy. Anything that needs my creative service or my creative input or thought, I love to take on. So, that ranges from advertising work, to album covers, to logos, and then I also do stationary, you know? Whatever I’m interested in, I’ll do. That keeps things fresh for me because I get bored very quickly. How do you think you got to this point in your career? I went to Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles and I studied graphic design and that felt very limiting to me, so I switched to Fine Art. So that kind of opened my mind up to possibilities and that really helped shape my practice and what I’m interested in doing creatively. So the marriage between the graphic design and the painting and theory really helped shape how I think. Upon graduating I studied under Shepard Fairey, he’s Obey Giant, and
that really helped me. He was of like my mentor and he helped refine the way that I work. Why stationary? I had never had a goal of being in the stationary business. I came upon it by accident. It kind of came about organically, and those are my favorite kinds of opportunities. I try not to force anything. So that kind of came by accident when I did a birthday card for a friend. I was too lazy to go out, and I was like, I’m an artist, I can draw, right? So I just folded this piece of paper and drew something on it. So I did that, and my friend really loved it. But then it was kind of this clichéd story of his friends asking where he got it and then him telling me like, hey dude, so many people love this card, do you sell these by any chance? So then I sat down and designed that first birthday card and this avalanche of ideas just came to me in the form of a greeting card. There’s an exchange there. You’re giving a card with a message
to another person that you care about. So, that medium spoke to me very naturally. A quote that I saw on your website by Gavin McInnes that I really liked said “it took Picasso a lifetime to learn to draw like a child. It took Ashkahn a couple of hours.” What do you think can be gained from revisiting a childlike aesthetic? I think it’s more of an attitude. It’s just staying curious and open and really letting yourself embrace change and love and people and experience more openly. As we got older I feel like we kind of shut ourselves off from experience and new ways of thinking and feeling. So it’s about taking that childlike innocence to the world. I think that kind of comes out in my work because everything’s hand drawn and it has that innocence there, which I really love.
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It’s very cool how you show what’s inspiring you right now on your website. You’re big on Tumblr, Instagram and such. I saw a lot of your inspiration seems to come from very stylized and chic film. How do filmmakers like Sofia Coppola who use fashion in film influence you? I mean it’s huge. I don’t even know where to start. I think everything that Sofia and Gia do in that realm really influences me because it’s beautiful. To me it’s just pure beauty. I get inspired by that. I think a lot of the stuff they do is childlike as well, it’s very youthful, it has that energy and innocence we were just talking about. It has the feeling of a hopeless romantic and I love that. That’s really inspired me to think about feeling better and to think about beauty in ways that I never thought about before. And not beauty in a superficial way, but beauty as a realm.
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I saw you recently posted a picture of Kanye West, and he’d come to a studio you were working with. Like Sofia Coppola, he’s kind of someone is in a separate industry but comes back to fashion a lot. How do you think you influence people like that who come to you for creative inspiration and vice versa? Well Kanye came by the Capsule Show in Paris and yeah we spoke a little bit. He’s a huge inspiration and I’ve never been that star struck in my life. I don’t usually get starstruck but with him I was frozen I couldn’t really talk or think. I really model my life after someone life him because he really does whatever he wants. There’s no limit to what you can do as an artist, and he does it well. So I think there’s that entrepreneurial diversified spirit thing that someone like Kanye really inspires me to continue doing. It doesn’t end, and it shouldn’t end. You should keep pushing how far you think you can go.
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How would you describe your style? Simple, minimal, very stripped down, but also very powerful and hopefully moving. I want to be communicating a very strong idea in a very simple way, you know? Who or what influences you? My dog, Shadow, my girlfriend, Heather, who’s a fashion designer, recently John Coltrane, jazz and fusion jazz, Mozart recently, Julian Schnabel. Those are some of the people who inspire me. I know you mentioned your girlfriend is in the fashion world, but, apart from Heather, who in the fashion world is doing work that interests you right now? I have a lot, but I like Alexander Wang a lot. I think he’s cool—I like him. I like what he’s does and there’s no stopping him. He recently took over Balenciaga. He’s a huge inspiration.
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How do you think the creative scene in LA is different to the East Coast?
you see your enterprise as performance art –could you expand on that?
It’s a little different .They’re both great places. I like LA because there’s a lot of room to think. You’re kind of left alone in your own little world. You’re allowed to veg out and think and just be, which I think is the main difference. In New York it’s so much energy and it’s non-stop. It’s a lot trippier in LA, if you look at the history, too, it’s obvious. Look at how LA was born. I love that LA has this slow, open pace of living. You can wander around in the mountains by yourself forever and never come across anything apart from a squirrel.
For me life is a performance, and every time you’re outside, walking around, whatever you choose to wear and however you choose to act is part of one big performance. We have jobs and we have to act like somebody else sometimes, it’s a constant ever-changing series of roles that we’re playing. For me, I have fun with thinking about my practice as a performance. I go by one name, my first name, I kind of embrace a whole other character in a way. And that’s inspired by the older people in the fashion industry, like Valentino, all those iconoclasts. So, I try and dream up this idea of Ashkahn as the icon and have fun with it. And there’s a lot of humor in that. I try to be very serious about it but the underlying inspiration for it is humor.
I know it was a while ago, but could you talk a bit about your experience working with Blood is the new black? Did it push you creatively? Yeah, so that was one of the first brands that I did work for. That was really fun. I felt for the first time that I could see my designs on a t-shirt in that way. You mentioned once that
You talked a bit about how you studied Graphic design and then transferred to Fine Art. But your style is very grounded in graphic design. What is the attraction of graphic design and illustration
for you as opposed to Fine Art? Fine art is a way of thinking. It helps me make decisions in my graphic design and illustration process. It’s also there with me. I’m constantly asking myself why am I doing this? Why this color? What am I trying to say? All three categories are working together all the time. Your style feels 1960s/ 1970s kitsch with a soft focus glamour and saturated color. I think of like James Turrell as having a similar vibe. Why do you think you’re drawn to this era and style? I love it. Awesome! Those guys were fine artists. The work is very smart. These were the times when there was a huge shift culturally in what was going on in the world, so they had to communicate a very big and heavy idea in a simple way. And that’s what I love about it. It’s just so simple and beautiful. We get it and that’s more powerful than anything else. There’s an idea behind the work and people actually cared. Now I feel like there’s not so much of that, people just
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want to make cool looking shit and that’s fine, but we need to think a little more and communicate a little more. Those guys did it right. What are your views on good branding?
For me, they feed each other. I don’t think one can exist without the other. All of them are necessary in order for our culture to move forward. Without one it’s a three-legged chair, it doesn’t work, you know? It’s very important that they do all exist and that they inform each other. I saw you were in France recently? Can we expect forthcoming projects? Yeah, absolutely. I’m doing a collaboration with Collette. That’s coming out in June.
Who have been the most interesting clients you’ve worked with? I think the Mondrian hotel was a really interesting project. Learning about hospitality and the hotel experience and how people enjoy that.
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Good branding is someone understanding the client and the product if there is one and really distilling what the company is about in a very witty and humorous direction. Really understanding the brand that you’re dealing with and really distilling that into its essence. It’s important to really exaggerate something and push it.
How do you find links between fashion, music and art?
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Remi Riordan: The Mind Behind Crybaby A sophomore in high school, Remi Riordan is the creative mind behind the whimsical, teenage-themed zine Crybaby. This past year, she got featured as one of i-D magzine’s “five high school fashion bloggers to watch.” Check out what her zine and photography are all about in this exclusive interview with Surplus.
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INTERVIEWED BY ASHWINI NATARAJAN PHOTOS BY REMI RIORDAN
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Remi Riordan What were you up to before I called? Scrolling through Tumblr and adding things to my queue for the zine I do. Oh yes, Crybaby! How did you come up with the name?
By the way, congrats on being featured in i-D! How did that come about? Thank you! Well, I know someone who works for i-D and they asked me what blogs I liked. And they ended up just using my zine. I had no idea. Yes, I am extremely excited about it all. The zine is submission-based. Do you contribute your own photos and written pieces often? I mostly edit the material. But for the pieces that I did write, it depends on how I’m feeling and what’s wrong in my life at the time. I try to relate it to the general theme
What’s the coolest part about running Crybaby? I really like how people have been using it to express themselves and use it as like a platform they know they can share their work on. I’ve rejected very few submissions not because they were terrible, but because they didn’t fit the idea we were going for. What’s in store for Crybaby? We have two ideas that we’re going to follow through with. One is actually inspired by the discontinued video series the Do Not Enter diaries. We are going to have unknown filmmakers and our friends contribute to it. And we’re also going to have interviews about things like safe spaces and what makes them comfortable. Another idea is to go to very rural, suburban areas and explore
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There isn’t much meaning behind it. I had to think of a name so I went to my favorite magazine, i-D. I was looking for names while flipping through past articles and one had the word Crybaby. And I was like that’s really cute! So I decided to go with that.
of the zine, but it’s not always revolving around that. I wrote a piece called, “Five Things to Do When Getting Over Someone,” and it was really talking about my first experiences with guys that have ended badly, things along those lines.
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themes you play with in your photography? I’ve noticed that you have a strong focus on young girls as your subjects.
Well, Instagram became an app that I was really interested in. And at the time I really just used was my Ipod touch, but over time I grew out of that and my mom bought me a camera.
I mostly photograph girls. It’s not that I have anything against photographing guys , but I am a girl. I don’t dress girly anymore but I still love girly things and colors like pink and purple. And I feel posing girls is easier because guys are usually more tense about it. With the zine, mostly girls are submitting. So it’s a lot of photos of girls or writing about being a girl as a teenager. And I don’t like serious topics. I like it to be motivating, fun, pretty and cool. Those are very bland terms to describe something, but I like to keep things light-hearted.
Nice! What’s your camera of choice? I do like film because of the coloring that I’m able to get in my photos, but it’s so expensive. So I use a Canon t3i. But really I think the lens is what I need the most to get the aesthetic I go for. I have a rebel also! It’s quality is top notch for the price. What lenses do you use? I just use the 50mm with f-1.8 mostly because it gives a really nice depth of field. What are some common
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I want to talk a bit more about your personal photography work. Tell me a little bit about how you got into the medium.
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MATTHEW CLARK
Of all the places for a kid growing up in pre-hipster Astoria to want to hang out in his free time, the beaches of Long Island don’t seem like the most obvious choice. Yet that is exactly where Matthew Clark found himself in the mid 1990s, and where he has continued to return to for the past twenty years. In his photographs a clear intimate relationship between photographer and subject is revealed, and Clark uses this to capture both the grace of the wave and its power, all while maintaining a sense of the ephemerality of the sea. His work has garnered him many accolades and awards, including the Follow The Light Foundation Grant, and can be seen interntionally in both the private and public spheres, shown in galleries, magazines, and even the New York City metro system. Clark has a unique way of interacting with the ocean and the waves – and through his work, allows his viewer to have a highly personal conversation with the surf as well.
INTERVIEWED BY CAROLINE GRANOFF PHOTOGRAPHY BY MATTHEW CLARK
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Why photography? Part of what attracted me to photography must be my personality. I consider myself an observer and when meeting new people or being put into a new experience I always observe before I get right into something and participate, same goes for meeting new people. I am quiet and only make comments when I feel they are worth making the comment. All of this changes once I am comfortable with those I am with or the situation I am in. Another reasonfor photography goes back to a story I’ve told plenty of times before, the “How did it all start?” story. Well, when I started getting involved in surfing, when I was 13, my school work suffered enormously. Soon I was failing classes and had no desire to go to school. I was obsessed, and it was healthy looking back on it now, but for my mother it was a scary situation. She must have thought: “What is he doing, he’s in New York and he’s obsessed with surfing, there is no future in this at all.” With nothing left for her to do, she grounded me and took my board away so I couldn’t surf anymore. I was prohibited from surfing. My best friend was similarly obsessed, and his mother was very supportive, so she drove us to the beach whenever we wanted and often times would shoot photos or video us. She couldn’t let me surf or borrow a friend’s board because that would be going against my mom’s wishes, but she could bring me to the beach and let me shoot photos. Almost immediately I was swimming in the water with a disposable camera shooting photos of my friend, and that’s how it all began...as a way of being in the ocean without disobeying my mom.
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What attracts you to the sea? There’s something absolutely mesmerizing about the ocean to me and this has been the case since the first time I was introduced to the thought of what “surfing” is. My childhood began in Astoria, NY...way before it was the somewhat hip, up and coming place it is now. This is 1985-1993 Astoria, and we were from up over by Hellgate field and “The Projects”. Plenty of stories of shootings on the street at night, drug addicts banging on the front door looking for drugs mistaking our house with the one down the block, etc. The thought of a kid from here being involved in anything like surfing is totally absurd. My father bought me my first surfboard when
I was about 7 and still living in Astoria. We took a ride out to Jones Beach one hot summer day, and I was completely frightened of what were probably 2 foot waves and trying to ride a Styrofoam surfboard there. We took the board back home and shot arrows through it actually, but I always wanted to go back. Eventually we moved out of Astoria and onto Long Island. A babysitter we had back then worked at the Library and we would have to spend time there while she worked/watched us. They had a magazine rack and one of the magazines they had was Surfer Magazine. It was this cover shot (http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/chasingmavericks/ srfmg.jpg) of Jay Moriarity at Mavericks for the May
1995 issue, which was probably on the rack in late March-early April 1995. I was 11 years old and immediately said “That is what I want to be involved with, this is it.” It was this image that got me started on my path of surfing. I can’t describe what it is that calls me to the ocean. There’s so many amazing moments I’ve witnessed in the ocean, so many mid-fall mornings I’ve spent in the ocean with a brisk offshore wind and perfect surf...it’s almost as if I still go to chase that feeling. That’s what it is, I chase a feeling and the feeling doesn’t develop until the moment is already passed. Almost like nostalgia, I look back on the days that came and went and I chase them still, the commonality of it all is that they all took place in the ocean.
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How does being from NYC affect your aesthetic? For sure, I am heavily influenced in this experience of concrete surroundings and “No” signs everywhere. The beach is a slice of freedom for so many people. One of my typical images is a “lone surfer,” just them and the sea. It’s the antithesis of what New York really is. Try taking a photo in New York, you’re surrounded by buildings and cars and telephone wires and people. There’s no quiet, there’s machines grinding away, people yelling, busses rumbling through the street, but surfing is you and just the ocean. Another image I enjoy shooting is the surf and the urban elements that can be found on western Long Island. What do you shoot in typically? Typically I am shooting in the ocean, haha. I’m not sure how to interpret this question but I’ll hit it from both angles. I typically shoot in digital with a Canon 5d mark III in Raw always. I use a bunch of different lenses while I am in the water. I shoot with a
sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye lens, a Canon 28mm f/2.8, a Canon 50mm f/1.4, and a Canon 70-200 f/2.8, all of these I use my SPL waterhousing to keep it dry. I also use a 5/4/3 winter wetsuit by Isurus Wetsuits, 5mm wetsuit gloves, 7mm wetsuit booties, so basically I am completely covered head to toe with neoprene except for my face. I also use Air Hubb Swimfins to keep me moving quick enough to get the shot. Often asked is how I take these photos of waves in the water. No I am not on a surfboard or anything, I am out there swimming, rain/ snow/sleet/hail or sun. What specific challenges to creating a “successful” photograph does moving water present? Mainly they are technical issues. When shooting photos through a Plexiglas port, there is the issue of having water droplets on the port. Water droplets equal blurry photos, so we have some industry secrets how to protect against that, but they can still be an issue. Another challenge is being in the right place at the right time, and that takes years of ex-
perience to learn. I’ll tell you right now that unless you already surf and understand surfing you won’t be able to get a good photo of surfing. I respect this and I wouldn’t try to go out and shoot skateboarding because I don’t know what looks good in skateboarding. Sure, taking a photo of someone grinding down a handrail is something I can capture, but does it translate to a skateboarder, are they moved by the image? Probably not, because I don’t have the soul of a skateboarder. The masters of sport photography understand the sport they are shooting on a very deep level. It’s taken me years to learn to place myself into the impact zone and not get crushed by a wave as a surfer is traveling directly at me and to pull the trigger without screwing up the horizon and making it an interesting image. It’s hard. What is the favorite project that you’ve done? Least favorite? I travelled to Indonesia with a group of New York surfers and we took a boat around the Mentawai Islands and got some amazing days of surf there. It was paradise.
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The water was crystal clear and blue, the days were sunny and warm and we travelled to some of the most remote parts of the world just to surf uncrowded waves. It was amazing. My least favorite projects are the ones I do for money and nothing else. If I’m not motivated to make a great picture and I am only there to collect a check at the end, barf. Are there any new projects you’re working on? I’ve been working on this career-spanning project that will eventually end with a book of some sort. It’s not even close to being finished, and I wouldn’t release anything until I felt it was complete. It will be a document of surf in New York, and by surf I mean waves and not surfing in particular. I hope to put something out in 20 years. Other than that, I have plenty of other projects I work on weekly, whether it be new T-shirts, video edits, projects for hotels or other work.
Do you have any goals for your own work? Recognition by the New York Surf community. To this day, I feel as if my work is still not hitting the right peoples desks and it’s a goal of mine to have that happen. Ideally, in time I’d like to be working only with surf related work, picking and choosing travel destinations to go out and shoot photos of waves and have my own surf art gallery where I could host events and display my work alongside others. What do you want the legacy of your work to be? I’d like to leave behind a love story of a man and a wave. Intimate imagery of New York’s finest surf for over 30 years, the story of a man and his wave told through just imagery. That’s what this has all been, an affair with the ocean that very few people understand.
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PHOTOGRAPHER CHRISTINE SOO-YEON HAN STYLIST DOMINIK HALAS & SEAN KWON PRODUCTION MANAGER ASHWINI NATARAJAN FASHION ASSISTANT ALEX BRAUNSTEIN MODEL NICO GEYER HAIR STEPAN @ ARTE MAKE-UP TOMOYA MOTEGI CASTING ALEX BRAUNSTEIN
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DASHIEL BRAHMANN LOOSE LEAF INTERVIEWED BY ALEX FREDMAN
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Hello. My name is Alex Fredman. I’m the Womenswear Editor of Surplus. How has your day been? It’s going well. I Just got home. Can you tell us about your background. I hear you have some experience at Thom Browne. I spent about 8 months with them during my last two semesters at FIT. I did a lot of work in the Animals and Hunters collection. I performed a lot of sewing along with assisting in the process to produce samples for the FW 2014 show. I actually went to Paris with the team and worked right up until the day of the show. It was an interesting experience. In addition when I returned, I did pretty much all of the Women’s FW 2014 topstitching. I also did a little freelance work on Men’s Pre-spring 2015. Can you tell me more about the freelance work? It was a lot of sewing, specifically piecing grosgrain strips together to make a patterned yardage for ties. Those ties were specially
released to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of the Japanese store. Congratulations on winning the Joe’s Blackbook Scholarship. Can you tell us a bit about the process that led up to that? It was something I knew I wanted to take part in. I went to the large Magritte exhibition at the MOMA and it was the first time I had seen that much of his work in person. It was really moving to me—his whole thought process and how he perceived reality. It was totally obscure and completely new. I thought it was a great starting point for a collection. I took inspiration from underlying ideas such as mis-associations, attempts to break the relationships formed between word and images, and the concept of a failed doppelgänger. I tried to use materials in ways they hadn’t been before and in ways you wouldn’t expect them. I was playing with the idea that nothing is solidified. Magritte has a piece called “Not To Be Reproduced” and it’s a picture of a man looking in a mirror and seeing only his
back in the reflection. On the contrary in the painting on the mantel there is a collection of poems from Edgar Allen Poe which are reflected properly. And so I built upon that idea by flipping garments around and allowing them to be worn backwards. For instance, I had 2 different coats that were identical besides that fact that one was to be worn forward and looked proper, however the second appeared to be worn backwards but fit properly on the wearer in the “backwards position”. That whole process took me a total of about 3 months. There was a lot of handiwork that went into fabric manipulations I even made some of my own fabrics. I didn’t expect to win. I thought I’d get pretty far, but that was a surprise. I had the opportunity to present my work in front of 6 amazing judges and that was extremely intimidating. They saw that I understood the practical elements in how pieces were to be produced. The judges appreciated that I did a Magritte-inspired collection that wasn’t too literal or gimmicky.
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The Menswear Judges were varied (Robert Geller, Eugene Tong, Josh Peskowitz, Lee Norwood, Ben Stubbington, Rick Hendry) and have very different personal tastes. Did you take that into account when designing your collection? No, the judges weren’t announced until later on. I just wanted to push myself as far as I could and make something that could be shown at any fashion week. Leading off that--do you design more for your customer or for yourself? I definitely design for myself. I know what I like, and knowing what I like leads me to create something really unique. In doing so, I’m designing for somewhat of a void in the market. I think a lot of people would appreciate what I’m designing. What would that void be? In the fashion market today everything moves so fast. Runway fashion has crazy turnaround and there is a loss of focus on the garments themselves. What I
want to do is take essential garments and give them a creative flair. I want to make garments that I truly believe in, one at a time. I don’t want to make 60 pieces for a runway show when only a few will appear in stores. I also think that very few people appreciate natural fibers, though they truly are the best. They are easy to take care of and perform extremely well. They also are less damaging to the environment than polyester, rayon, and other synthetics. Eventually, I’d also like to use natural dying when I can. Not many people are doing that now. As a society, we should create less and focus more on the quality. I want to know where my stuff is coming from and how it’s produced. How do you reconcile the commercial/financial constraints of fashion with the purer artistic side? I want clothing that people wear, but I also enjoy the creative aspect of it. I want to create clothes that are new and interesting and have a certain luster. I want to make something DASHIEL
that fits well, wears well, and is comfortable. Being comfortable is most important—the #1 utility. Uncomfortable clothes are useless. It must stand the test of time. Fashion is an art form, and I do consider my pieces artistic. However, they would still be wearable. Unwearable fashion is pointless—I’m not trying to speak down on anyone who does that, but I know that I can demonstrate my vision while making practical clothing. I want to see someone appreciating and wearing my pieces. I don’t want them to just be displayed on a wall. Your clothing is meant to be worn. Who do you see wearing it? What other brands would you like to see worn alongside Loose Leaf? I see it worn by young creative professionals. I definitely see it in the contemporary market. It’s something that you have to pay a little extra for but not overreach for. I’m currently stocked at Pilgrim Surf Supply in Williamsburg which I’m extremely grateful for, everyone there
is great. I’d also like it to hang in a store like Assembly, I really appreciate what they do. I’d like to be associated with brands like Lemaire. His fits and fabrics are really well chosen and he doesn’t stray far from what he knows. I appreciate Industry of All Nations for their emphasis on handiwork and equitable trade. They create a truly beautiful product . Not many people in fashion know about them, but they should. I also really like 69 Worldwide. I believe in what she’s doing. She takes simple pieces and makes them interesting but also has a little fun. Many prominent figures from disparate fields have said that surfing inspires the work they create. Would you agree? What significance does surfing play for your line? For sure. I take a lot of inspiration from surfing. I’ve been on a board my whole life. It’s such a personal pursuit to me. Surfing, like fashion, is about personal style. My favorite surfers— people like Craig Anderson—are known for their smooth, graceful style. I want that to be the feeling that my clothes emote, effortlessness. Could Looseleaf be seen as a reaction to the current
popularity of surf-heritage brands like M. Nii, Liberty, and Saturday’s? You seem to eschew the pastoral notions of surfing for a darker, grittier aesthetic. I wouldn’t say it’s dark or gritty. I would say that my clothing is natural and humble. It’s a reaction in that it’s different and more creative. The garments that I create test the eye and can cause that reaction. I don’t want my clothing to be explicitly about surfing. I want that to be a sub layer, but I don’t want to be a surf brand. Surfing’s a personal thing for me. My work comes from an artist’s perspective and surfing is an art of its own. I don’t feel the need to directly relate the two. Surfing is getting popular in the fashion community but I don’t want any part in that. My surfing and my fashion share ideas because they both reflect who I am. I’m not doing it purposefully. What impact do you think the internet has on an emerging brand today? It obviously can increase exposure, but what are the downsides? Have consumers lost their personal relationship with clothing? The internet serves a great purpose by allowing you to reach out to people.
But at the same time, there is a completely different reaction when you see something on the internet than when you see it with your own eyes. I don’t think you can have an emotional connection with a garment that you only see over the internet. Feeling and trying a piece on in real life is an intimate connection. The internet is a watered down version of the actual experience. It’s the same for any art form. Seeing a painting online gives you an idea of what it is, but you don’t really see the expressive qualities. I had had experiences with Magritte in books and online but that can only do so much. The artwork in person, in its immensity, is a much more extreme emotional experience. Writing can convey someone’s firsthand experience to you, but a first hand experience is much more special. The most moving thing I have ever experienced was Pina, the documentary on the dancer Pina Bausch. I’m really upset that I didn’t get to see it again with an audience. Do you think the constant scrutiny in New York has a stifling effect on designers? For sure. I’ve recently felt that I’ve entered a new state of mind and have
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tried to tone things down and live a humbler life in New York. New York is expensive and overwhelming and pulls your attention in so many different directions. I try to make sure I remember to do the important things—the things that make you a human. Whether it be making time for friends family, personal relationships or surfing. I also look to absorb information rather than regurgitate it. It’s important educate yourself then step back do nothing and take time to think which in turn allows you to start creating. A lot of the people I look up to aren’t coming out of New York anymore. Overall, I’ve tried to catch myself and hold back a bit. I want take care of the people who take care of me. I want to be happy with life. Hopefully I can build a solid foundation here in New York and then be able to move out west in a few.
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PHOTOGRAPHER CHRISTINE SOO-YEON HAN STYLIST DOMINIK HALAS PRODUCTION MANAGER ASHWINI NATARAJAN MODELS ALEX + LILY HAIR STEPAN @ ARTE MAKE-UP TOMOYA MOTEGI CASTING ASHWINI NATARAJAN
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KATE OWEN INTERVIEWED BY SARAH BOCHICCHIO PHOTOGRAPHER CHRISTINE SOO-YEON HAN
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Give us a bit of background. Hi! I’m Kate. I grew up in San Francisco and live in New York now. I’ve always loved taking pictures. My first steps were with a camera (it’s corny but true). How did you start photography? What attracts you? What do you like about being a photographer? I took my first photography class when I was in high school. Before that I guess I was just taking pictures? It’s weird to think of a time when I wasn’t taking photos, but it wasn’t until high school that I got really into it. I always thought my first teacher hated me. She was always rolling her eyes at me and it took a solid two years for her to smile at me (ironically, it was after I spilled Stop all over the lab and they had to cancel all of the classes in the building because of the smell). But I kept going! I love the idea of capturing a moment, a place, an experience. My favorite part is looking back at the photos and remembering all the fun I had. What stimulates/drives you as a photographer?
there is so much access to all of these amazing photographers’ work—so there’s inspiration everywhere! In general, I am obsessed with lines, movement, and emotion. I want everything to be punchy! It becomes a funny combination of perfection and off moments. What is your biggest influence? Oof, I have no idea. I’m always looking at different work and I have a running tab of my favorite photographers. Inspiration will come from anywhere: —artists of any kind, the street, buildings, road trips, adventures. I need to keep moving. This is a cliché, but, film or digital? This is always such a big topic of conversation. Honestly, I think it totally depends on what you’re trying to do. I shoot both film and digital. I always have my film camera on me because I think film photos feel more special in the end. I have jobs that I’ve shot both digitally and on film and I’ve never actually looked at the digital photos because it didn’t feel exciting enough. And I have other times when I think, “Damn! I should have shot this digitally!” I don’t think there’s a right
I think the best is that today KATE
answer. They both have their strengths. Fashion editorials and documentation: is there a scene you're more driven towards? I like action. I love creating scenarios and letting my imagination run wild. All of the documentary stuff I do has a lot of action in it, so, for me, it’s still very different from your everyday documentary photos. I shoot in the pit of a car race with all of the mechanics running around, or in the middle of a super hectic fashion week with clothes flying, people screaming, and girls running around. Once, I was almost stabbed with a very pointy high heel. It tore my shirt and just breezed my skin. Now that could have been a disaster! Any hobbies photography?
besides
Have you seen my dance blog? Any exciting current/future projects that you are working/planning on? I’m working on a few different very exciting projects at the moment…! I can’t tell you though.
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Are you ever satisfied with the out takes? What makes a photograph satisfying to you? I usually go in waves. I’ll be super happy with them, and then I’ll start to think, “No, these are not good. They need to be better.” And then I’ll like them again (hopefully). Or sometimes I really love them from the start. That’s the best feeling. A photo is satisfying as long as it’s intriguing to you. And that’s where that emotion is really important. I like photos with a little spark to them. Do you have a muse? @hamforsam, my love. Do you collect anything? Some people think I’m a bum, but I collect lucky money. I’m a big believer in luck and every lucky penny helps! I never spend any of it and I keep it in a special jar that no one’s allowed to go into. What is your favorite working environment? Great people and great attitudes. That’s really all you need. I always have music playing and I like lots of light and energy. If a dance-off started on set, that would be my dream.
You travel a lot, what effect does that have? If you had to choose, what would be your favorite place? Traveling is so important. Sometimes you forget because you think, “Oh I don’t have time.” But: IT’S SO IMPORTANT! It keeps me inspired. Being in the same place for too long can be boring and monotonous. My favorite places to go are the desert and the beach. Maybe those are opposites. Swimming will have to be somehow involved in either case! Always down for a road trip.
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BRACO DIMITRIJEVIC WORKS IN PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Tate Gallery, London Museum of Modern Art, New York Musee National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh Arts Council of Great Britain Contemporary Art Society, London Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven Museum Ludwig Cologne Nationalgalerie, Hamburger Banhof, Berlin MAMCO, Geneva Stadtiches Museum Abteiberg Monchengladcbah SMAK, Ghent Kunstmuseum Bern Israel Museum Jerusalem Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt Kunsthalle Bern Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris Museum of Contemorary Art Zagreb Neues Museum Nurnberg Cincinaty Museum of Art, Ohio, USA City of Cologne Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade City of Geilo, Norway Museum and Garden Charlottenburg, Berlin Musee Saint Denis, Reims Moderna Museet Beijer Collection, Stockholm Kunstinstitut Ghent Wilhelm-Hack-Museum Ludwigshaven Dutch Art Line Holland Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain du Pays de la Loire Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain, Limousin Fonds Regional d’Art Contemporain, Loraine Chateau d’Oiron, France Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK), Vienna State Russian Museum, St Petersburg Museum Essl, Vienna City of Ussel, France City of Saint-Claude Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA Terrae Motus, Naples Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Trevi Ludwig Museum Budapest Moderna Gelerija (Museum of Modern Art), Ljubljana MMSU, Rijeka Museum of Modern Art, Dubrovnik Schubladen Museum, Kunsthauses Zurich Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb Museum of Modern Art, Sarajevo Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Connecticut, USA Ars Aevi Museum of Contemporary Art Sarajevo Musee de la Musique, Paris Sammlung Hoffmann, Berlin Museo di Teritorio Biellese, Biella, Italy Leeds City Galleries, UK
BRACO DIMITRIJEVIC
INTERVIEWED BY LIZA TEDESCHI
Why art? How would you describe your life as an artist? How did your background influence your work? I grew up in a painter’s studio. My father was a wellknown Yugoslav artist. He was proud when I began painting with oils at about four years of age. When my parents would go out to dinner I would go to the studio and paint quickly in order to surprise them with a new work when they came back. That is why I was an “Expressionist” at my early age. When I was nine and a half, one of the critics who came to visit my father saw my work and organized a show displaying my forty oil paintings. On that occasion I gave several interviews, and a twenty minute documentary was made on me and shown in cinemas around the country. I must say I was a little bit embarrassed. There were two reasons. First because I knew it all originated from my father; and second, because I knew that some other children from my class drew as equally well – however my paintings were in oil. I became aware that medium was more important than the message,
and I felt that even before reading Marshall McLuhan. Another important point was that I realized that what causes some art to be admired comes from “outside” circumstances. The experiences of my first show were important for my later artistic philosophy. How did your art change over time and what influenced its change? BD. Immediately after my first show, I thought I would never become an artist. As a teenager, I had a successful alpine skiing carrier. On the downhill slopes you have a chance to realize who you really are. It is just you and the mountain environment. I stopped painting at the age of ten, but every now and then I would create a piece – now considered to be early Conceptual Art. For instance, in 1963 I replaced the national flag on my boat with a brush-cleaning cloth and named it “the Flag of the World.” This was the first time I replaced an “official sign” with an alternative one, related to the subjective feelings of an artist. What is your strongest/ favorite childhood memory? Did that inspire any of your work? BRACO
BD. When Ivo Andrić won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961, one of the first private visits he made upon his return from Stockholm, was to my parents. He was a very pleasant man and I liked listening to his stories, but I equally liked the stories of our school caretaker. I knew that my school caretaker had no chance of winning the Nobel Prize, but he was an especially good storyteller. At this early age it made me reflect on fame and recognition. In my later teens, I read many history and art history books. I realized that to me the most interesting creative people like Kafka, Malevich or Nikola Tesla were not given due attention. Kafka was not published during his lifetime, while El-Greco was only rediscovered after three hundred years. All that led me to reflect on these issues, and when I was twenty I wrote: Story about Two Artists: Once upon A time, far from cities and towns, there lived two painters. One day, the king, hunting nearby, lost his dog. He found him in the garden of one of the two painters. He saw the works of that painter and took him to the castle.
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The name of that painter was Leonardo da Vinci. The name of the other disappeared FOREVER from human memory. This story about two artists became a motif for many of my works. I started making gigantic portraits and monuments of casual passersby, anonymous people that I would meet at random on the streets of London, Zagreb, Paris, and New York. My Story about Two Artists was published worldwide and was included (quoted) in the Warner Brothers Hollywood movie Great Expectations with Robert de Niro and Gwyneth Paltrow. Story behind a Casual Passer-by? Passer-by for me is a metaphor for an unrecognized creativity, and at the same time with that work I question our perceptive mechanisms. For instance, if I photograph a casual passerby with a group of famous artists, when looking at the group photo everyone believes that the passerby is an artist too. If the portrait of a passerby is the subject of a gigantic photo, (the largest one I made was 1200 sq feet (120 sq meters) on the facade of the Pompidou Center in Paris), everyone believes that the passerby is someone from public life, a famous artist
or actor. In a way this is an homage to Kafka and El Greco – a reminder that sometimes we are not able to recognize a genius in time. Tell us more about the statement “The Louvre is my studio; the street is my museum.” This refers to my early years when I began to realize that our environment is dominantly cultural heritage. The Louvre stands as a place preserving cultural layers of different millenniums. In short, for artists like myself, a place where one seeks inspiration. But for me, it is even more than that because at the Louvre I created several installations using the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Rafael, Mantegna, Piero della Francesca, Botticelli. So physically and literally it became my studio while working on these installations. The second part of that statement refers to public space because I never gave up the practice of exhibiting gigantic portraits of anonymous people on building facades and billboards, making monuments in public parks, or memorial plaques dedicated to unknown persons.
What do you like and dislike about your work and the art world? BD: The contemporary art world, as well as that of the past was always an inspiration for me. A long time ago, I said that, “Our environment is not physical space but cultural heritage.” I coined the term “Culturescape,” (similar to the words landscape, seascape) to connote art that seeks inspiration in the field of culture. A contemporary artist is someone who has to take the risk. The art world is something that evolves; there are periods that are more open to experiment. My generation was very lucky. We created Conceptual Art, the last Avant-Garde movement of 20th century. How do you want other people to respond to your art? With open eyes, reflecting on what they see, that which is in front of them. Three favorite artworks and exhibitions (you participated in)? What is your favorite group show? Malevich’s Black Square, Duchamp’s Bottle Rack, Magritte’s The Son of Man. My favorite shows are Documenta 5 in Kassel 1972, Magiciens de la Terre, 1989 in Paris and Arts &
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Foods 2015, the show that is part of the World Expo in Milan right now. Artists you worked with/ are working with that you admire the most? Why? In 1976 I started incorporating original masterpieces borrowed from various museums in my installations. For these works I coined the generic term “Triptychos Post Historicus” given that they consist of three elements: an original painting, an everyday object and an organic element - real fruits or vegetables. In my very first Post-Historical triptychs I included Kandinsky, Picasso, Manet, Mondrian. I have a very pluralist taste and what determines my choice is the meaning of a particular work. Later, during the last four decades, I made Triptychos Post Historicus in numerous museums around the world including the Tate Gallery, Centre Pompidou, the Guggenheim Museum, Musée d’Orsay, the Israel Museum, Museum Ludwig, and the Louvre. The idea for such a work could be triggered by very different elements. Sometimes it is a very lyrical painting that triggers an idea for a triptych, like Chagall’s Green Violinist which I used in an installation at the Guggenheim Museum
in New York. Another time it could be the geometry of Mondrian, or suprematist universe of Malevich. In general I had to have some fifty years distance from the time when the master painting was made. For instance, I was very pleased when, in the late 1970s, Richard Serra suggested the possibility of using his work. I enjoy a lot of his work; he is one of the greatest artists of our time. I explained that I need a historical time distance for the full reading of a work. I told him that I have no doubt that he will be equivalent to Malevich, Matisse, Picasso. It is only recently that I found a solution for Serra’s work. Between the Louvre and the Zoo – what changed since the exhibition at Galleria Sperone, Turin, 1974 / New York, 1975 and the exhibition in 2012 (New York)? What was the idea behind it? The change is that time has piled up behind me, and that I started new cycles in my work. After the Casual Passerby works in the early years, I began to make “Triptychos Post Historicus”; in these three-partied installations I was very interested in the dichotomy of Culture–Nature. This led me to a series
of paintings exploring that subject, paintings of animals and symbols of art. At the same time I made my first installation with living animals at the Waddington Galleries in London 1981. Live peacocks were looking at Picasso, Matisse, Leger Monet, and Lichtenstein. This work is about a harmonious world, in which culture and nature are well balanced. Furthermore, my statement: “If one looks from the moon there is no distance between the Louvre and the Zoo,” is suggesting that “things” are inseparable in a universal sense. If at the beginning of civilization man had a need to classify artifacts in order to facilitate the cognitive process, the man of today should create a more synthetic vision. These thoughts led me to create more installations confronting works of art with lions, leopards, pink flamingoes. Describe yourself in one word. Why that word? It would have to be in eight words: Slow as a Light, Fast as a Thought.
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