Autre Magazine and König Galerie Frieze Week Kickoff Dinner and Party At Desert 5 Spot In Hollywood

Starting off with a dinner in partnership with Tequila Casa Dragones at KA'TEEN (a conceptual take on ancient Yucatan Peninsula cuisine from Chef Wes Avila) , followed by an after party at Desert 5 Spot on the rooftop of tommie hotel, AUTRE magazine and Berlin-based König Galerie celebrated Frieze Week in Los Angeles to honor artist Ayako Rokkaku. photographs by Oliver Maxwell Kupper

Nocturnal Pilgrimage: Read Our Interview Of Designer Luca Magliano →

 
 


interview by Janna Shaw
photographs by Pavel Golik

I once dreamt of Luca Magliano. I had no idea what he looked like; he appeared veiled but in no way sinister. In one of Magliano’s earlier video presentations, a poem is recited, a sonnet with lines dedicated to each garment displayed. “Out of Saint Teresa of Avila’s Chanel coat I stole one dollar to gift to my golden Wagner jacket.” After this display of romance, I wandered about my own closet, singing praises sweetly and theatrically to my own favourite pieces. Something poignant to this act.

Luca Magliano’s self-titled fashion brand is described as “Quintessentially Italian” and “An Emotional Anthropology”. Since its establishment in 2016, the brand’s collections have unfolded as a personal reflection of the vast imagination of Magliano, who derives inspiration from the works of artists and filmmakers such as Luchino Visconti, as well as his own emotions, encounters, curiosities, and experiences. We spoke with the emerging designer about his FW 22/23 collection and his celebration of solitude and melancholia. We speak about his love for Italy and my love for Italians, we discuss sleep and what follows it. We don’t talk much about clothes. We decide to let those speak for themselves. Read more.

Tori Wrånes Presents Mussel Tears @ Shulamit Nazarian, Los Angeles

 
 

As a synesthete, a person with a condition of combining senses such as seeing color and form in sound and language, Tori Wrånes visualizes sound into a sculptural and physical dimension. This experience allows the artist to use sound to dictate the form of painting and sculpture and, in turn, she also visualizes objects through vocal projection. Mussel Tears premiers sculptures, paintings, sound, and performance together to evoke dream-like narratives, where the familiar becomes fantastical. The exhibition has developed from the artist’s ongoing observation of what she describes as “the quiet outcasts of society,” referring both to elements of nature and personal relationships. The works in the show visualize a sensory experience of the world.

Wrånes’ unique method of communication, using sound and form to convey primal emotions and truths, bypasses the structural hierarchies of language and rational thought. The result is a wide-ranging, experimental, and ritualistic practice that guides us outside of our known world. The works in Mussel Tears situates the self in relation to other beings, both human and non-human, and illustrates how our understanding of the world is constantly mediated by our own bodies. Throughout her practice, Wrånes sews together our senses, asking us to consider how we might privilege the overlooked in any form.

Tori Wrånes is on view now through March 12 @ Shulamit Nazarian 616 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles.

Yuri Yuan Presents "The Great Swimmer" @ Make Room in Los Angeles

In the past year, Yuri Yuan has often dreamed about water. Sometimes she sees a sinking ship, sometimes in a quiet ocean. Often, she finds herself on a diving board, perched over a blue swimming pool. Yuan’s latest body of work is titled "The Great Swimmer" after Kafka’s fragment of the same title. These limpid canvases explore different aquatic landscapes, but they most often return to the landscape of the swimming pool, with its diving boards, tiles, and changing rooms. Yuan tapped into her memories of swimming lessons she took at age 13, having just moved to Singapore from China. These classes were a minefield of linguistic, bodily, and emotional alienation– not unlike the alienation expressed by Kafka’s swimmer.

"The Great Swimmer" marks a watershed moment in Yuan’s practice. Working in a consistently larger format, the works showcase the influence of cinematic narrative on the artist’s practice. Fascinated by the intricate visual constructions of filmmakers such as Wes Anderson and Wong Kar Wai, Yuan’s new works seek to understand the innate connections between narrative and aesthetics. "The Great Swimmer" also takes influence from the deep ultramarine palettes of the Italian Renaissance, as well as the figural masterwork of French Romantics such as Géricault. "The Great Swimmer" presents a narrative in two sets of fragments, hopping between visions of the internal and external, the literary and the cinematic, the real and the dream.

Yuri Yuan is on view now through February 12 at Make Room 5119 Melrose Ave, Los Angeles.

Spirit Of Ecstasy: The Beauty Of The First Try By Tristan Roesler

leather jacket: Versace
top: CELINE
mini skirt: Versace
heels: Versace

photography by Tristan Roesler
styling by Camille Franke
model Jee at Izaio Management
makeup by Sabina Pinsone
hair by Kosuke Ikeuchi
casting by Kyra Sophie, Olga Sikorska & Ananya
fashion assistance by Sarah Masche & Finn Schiffmann
photo assistance by Lewis Berninger

full look: MIU MIU
necklace: Swarovski
socks: Octobre
heels: Versace

 

full look: Balenciaga
earrings: Swarovski
shoes: William Fan

 

sunglasses: CELINE
earrings: Swarovski
dress: CELINE

full look: Hèrmes

dress: Loewe
shoes: Ganni

necklace: Swarovski
corsage: Mugler

Brian Wills Presents New Wall Works @ OCHI Projects In Los Angeles

 
 

In his first solo exhibition with OCHI Projects, Brian Wills presents twelve new wall works intentionally placed throughout both galleries. Building upon the artist’s unique visual vocabulary of thread, paint, and wood, Wills’ new work evokes experiential understandings of line, color, space, and object as he aligns his practice with minimalist abstraction, the subversive history of the monochrome, California Light & Space, and other art historical paradigmatic shifts. Singular strands of thread are delicately wrapped around wooden substrates, eventually creating surfaces that appear to vibrate and shift depending on available light, thread density, the architecture of the panel, and the motion of the viewer.

Wills is acutely aware of how a viewers’ brain will react to his work. The visual cortex interprets received visual data—color, motion, texture, and depth—precisely the fundamental properties that Wills engages. When exposed to pattern, the brain extrapolates as it habituates, for example when assuming that a vertical line of brown thread will repeat as it did thousands of times in a row—the works in OCHI Aux exemplify these principles. Deliberately skipped threads or a shift from warm to cool red thread are intended to reveal moments of intuition and intention, while indicating methods of construction. Expectations are constantly at play. Engaging with one’s own perception is always a gift, offering moments of joy, wonder, and self-reflection—in other words, investments in observation are rewarded handsomely.

Brian Wills is on view through March 12 @ OCHI 3301 W Washington Blvd Los Angeles.

First Look: Amor Corp Presents "Salon" A Curation Of Art and Design by Noemi Polo

AMOR CORP presents SALON, a site-specific collection of art and design curated by Noemi Polo in a domestic environment featuring works from both local and internationally established artists and collaborators. Set in a newly completed residential project by SCI-ARC grad collective, PENTAGON, this exhibition occupies Milwood Avenue, arguably one of the most architecturally relevant residential neighborhoods in both Venice and Los Angeles. On public view from Tuesday February 1st through February 14th, SALON features over 100 objects from more than 50 artists and collaborators- a collection resembling that of an imaginary persona that would potentially inhabit the home. Understanding PENTAGON’s focus on new, speculative approaches to building design, pragmatic inquiry into context and location, SALON plays as both a showroom and conceptual art exhibition, including works that are in direct conversation with the home’s unique design through their textures and forms. Notable artists include Jordan Wolfson, Gaetano Pesce, Cody Critcheloe and more. Race Service, as a partner in the exhibition, will showcase a rare NASCAR vehicle alongside a custom painted race car in the garage. Click here to make an appointment. Photos by Ed Mumford

Theodoulos Polyviou & Dakis Panayiotou Present Transmundane Economies @ Künstlerhaus Bethanien In Berlin

Bellapais Abbey, a ruin of a monastery in northern Cyprus built in the 13th century, is the subject of investigation for the site-specific virtual installation Transmundane Economies. A relic of many lives, following the different colonial periods over the centuries, the monastery went through changes, architectural but also cultural, organizational and operational.

Theo & Daki address the long-lasting shape-shifting history of Bellapais Abbey to discuss the codes and hierarchies that over the years have been established and inscribed on it. Starting from the architectural structure as well as the ceremonial use of the place while examining its narratives, liturgy and history, the artists speculate on the relation-ship between queerness, restoration and reinvention.

Visitors to the exhibition are immersed in the partial reconstruction — based on drawings by George Jeffrey from 1912 — of the Gothic refectory of the monastery by means of VR technology. Alternative paths and possible uses that deviate from colonial interventions of the past, become free and accessible in this way. The virtual architecture, which in its digital translation appears to be sacred, yet free of Christian intentions, in turn, exposes the socio-political fabrication of the monastery. Next to this conceptual grounding, by virtually transposing the site into the gallery space, the artists turn the ruin into an event rather than an object, proposing in this way an alternative to acquisition.

The Cypriot Orthodox Church exerts a strong influence on the political affairs of the island and participates in the instrumentalization of the national collectivity, often through the superintendence of gender and sexuality by claiming to protect the Greek Cypriots from ‘the ethnic other’ as described by Nayia Kamenou in her text Sexuality, Gender and Nationhood in Cyprus and hence exploiting the country’s postcolonial milieux. The queer community on the whole island is therefore not only subjected to marginalization based on their sexuality but all the processes of identity formation that constitute their bodies; race, class and gender. Transmundane Economies is an offer to discuss mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, and think of the potentiality of any place to transcend its own physicality and hence escape its embodied ideological charge and power. Writer Jazmina Figueroa has been commissioned to arrange a sound piece for the installation.

Transmundane Economies is on view through February 6 @ Künstlerhaus Bethanien Kottbusser Straße 10
10999 Berlin.

Unique To The Unison: Read Our Interview Of Taboo Founder Kenny Eshinlokun →

 

Photograph by Agustín Farías

 

In the fall of 2020, Kenny Eshinlokun launched her creative agency, Taboo, to create world class projects that transcend audiences and industry borders. After working for a decade in the marketing and music industries, she saw the need for artists to build meaningful, long-term partnerships with brands that truly care about their creative endeavors. Through Taboo, she has built a global cohort of creatives and brands that are committed to giving back to their communities and building relationships that are rooted in genuinely shared visions. Autre caught up with the Eshinlokun to talk about the inspiration for starting her own agency, the meaning of true allyship, and the future of Taboo. Read more.

Bedtime Stories In A Mental Asylum: Get In Bed With Tobias Spichtig →


interview by Janna Shaw
photographs courtesy the artist

When was the last time you stood up on a mattress, off-kiltered, aware of your balance, or lack thereof?  When was the last time you jumped on a bed with friends? When was the last time you jumped on a bed with strangers?  When was the last time you played childhood games? Cuddled in a group clad in coats and cloaks? Watched a couple kissing horizontally? Were read a bedtime story late into the evening, with snow falling gently outside?  

The KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin is hosting Die Matratzen, a week-long exhibit by Tobias Spichtig, with a nightly changing cast of poets and text-based artists reading their works aloud to an audience perched upon mattresses and sheets, sourced from friends and various collaborators of the artist.

Over the course of Spichtig’s installation, the mattresses are lived in and take on new forms, shifting from their original placement, absorbing the shapes and sounds of their dwellers and run-uponers. In one corner of a mattress, a tiny faded blood stain. Next to it, a rip from a Balenciaga heel, courtesy of that evening’s impromptu game of Tag. The sheets themselves have a collective abstract quality to them, marred with scuffs, prints, and static marks of movement. On view from above, the blocks of foam and springs morph into a perfectly assembled jigsaw puzzle, spanning the full space in its entirety, corner to corner. From here, one can clearly see that the work does not consist of objects in a room, it is the presence and experience of the guests that are on top of them that complete the work. It is an interactive performance.

Janna Shaw spoke with Tobias Spichtig on his opening night of Die Matratzen after a kickoff reading with Karl Holmqvist. Read more.

Up In Space: An Upcycled Fashion Editorial By Esa Vokshi & Laura Voyelle

 
 

photography & production by Esa Vokshi
creative direction & styling by Laura Voyelle
photography assistance by Thien Hoa Dinh
makeup by Julia Bachmayer
talent by Laura Lundgreen

hoodie: Vintage Champion
t-shirt: By Human Hand
tights: stylist’s own
glasses: Gentle Monster
boots: F_WD

patchwork sweater: Melissa Kunz/Stress Studio
tights: stylist’s own
track bottoms: vintage Champion
shorts: Streetwise Gallery (reworked Nike bottoms)
glasses: Gentle Monster
balaclava: By Nenat
sneakers: Axel Arigato (recycled materials)

patchwork sweatpants: Streetwise Gallery
necklace: Oystersia
boots: F_WD

puffer jacket: Axel Arigato (recycled materials)
corset top: Streetwise Gallery (reworked Fila sweatshirt)
skirt: Streetwise Gallery (reworked Nike top)
boots: F_WD

puffer jacket: Axel Arigato (recycled materials)
glasses: Gentle Monster

puffer jacket: Axel Arigato
necklaces: Oystersia

hoodies: vintage Nike
cuffs: Streetwise Gallery
necklace: Oystersia
sneakers: Axel Arigato

puffer jacket: Axel Arigato (recycled materials)
tights: stylist’s own
military pants: By Nenat
cuffs: Streetwise Gallery
shoes: CAMPERLAB

Drowning In Black Gold: Read Our Interview Of Evita Manji →

 

shirt: Sportmax
top: Matoguo
glasses: Gentle Monster
necklace: Chanel via Vestiaire Collective

 

interview by Caroline Whiteley
photography by Matias Alfonzo  
art direction and styling by Camille Pailler 
set design by Matt Bianchi 
casting by Alter Casting 
hair by Tina Pachta 
makeup by Nikolas Paroutis 
nails by Camilla Inge

Evita Manji is an Athens-based artist and vocalist who implements their carefully constructed practice of sound design into live shows and productions. In addition to founding the independent music label, myxoxym, they have collaborated with numerous artists across various media. Their most recent release is a compilation of international artists with all proceeds going to ANIMA, a non-profit association active in the field of ecology, with its main activity being the nursing and rehabilitation of wild animals in their natural environment. One of their recent singles, OIL/TOO MUCH addresses the toxic effects of crude oil extraction on the planet and its inhabitants as well as the exploitation of its laborers. A process akin to drowning and being burned alive simultaneously. Read more.

Sustainability As Emotion: Niko June By Axel Swan

Odorico with Niko June ceramic stool

photography by Axel Swan
art direction by Niko June
casting by Simone Drost

“Good objects are such that they give power to an attitude, which treats sustainability not as a science, but as emotion.”

In the fall of 2021, photographer Axel Swan traveled to Copenhagen to shoot portraits of some of its unique inhabitants in collaboration with Niko June, an emerging sustainable brand that emphasizes craftsmanship, DIY, and the spirit of inclusivity. The series takes aim at the deep intimacy of its subjects and their everyday lives across the city and its boroughs. 

Elinor with Niko June Eros Torso Vase

Niko June Studio Vase & Emilie seated on Niko June P-L 01 Chair

Maria with Niko June P-L 02 Stool and P-L 01 Chair

Noa with Niko P-L 02 Stool & Eros Torso Vase

Rasmus with Niko June Studio Candleholder

Johannes with Niko June Eros Torso Vase

Listen To Our New Playlist: Punk Is Undead

Elton Motello

From proto, to post, an abridged ride on the periphery of punk.

Temporal Vertigo: Read Isabelle Albuquerque's Interview Of Nicolas G. Miller →

 

Everett Sloane in Yohji Yamamoto S/S 2000
photograph courtesy ofstudio photography

 

interview by Isabelle Albuquerque
photographs by ofstudio photography

If you look up close and if you have an exceptional memory for Old Hollywood character actors, you will clearly make out the distinctive face of Everett Sloane with his signature wide-set eyes and crooked nose. Known primarily for his roles in The Twilight Zone, The Andy Griffith Show, and Citizen Kane, the actor, songwriter, and theatre director took his life by way of barbiturate overdose in 1965 at the age of 55. Here, he is immortalized and miniaturized by artist Nicolas G. Miller in the form of a bronze statuette. He appears to move with a brisk, yet cool stride walking down an imaginary runway wearing Yohji Yamamoto S/S 2000. In the following interview, Isabelle Albuquerque sits down with Miller to discuss the temporality of fashion, the process of sculpting in bronze, and the act of breathing life into the deceased. Read more.

Silly Walks, An Editorial by Bastian Thiery

 

leather blouse: Joseph
tights: Wolford
shoes: Scarosso

 

Photography by Bastian Thiery at Bird Production
Styling by Camille Franke
Talent by Mariia Ivanova at Mirrrs Models

LEFT
headpiece: stylist’s own C.N.F.
pink mini dress: Versace via Vestiare Collective @ Reference Studios
tights: Falke
heels: Gucci archive
RIGHT
embroidered blouse: Ganni
dress: Prada archive

dress: Joseph
shoes: Scarosso

LEFT
necklace: Capsule Eleven
fluffy cardigan with XXL collar: Ganni

dress: Leon Emanuel Blanck
shoes: CAMPERLAB via Reference Studios

coat: Perfect Moment
tights: Falke 
heels: Gucci archive

dress: Prada via Vestiare Collective @ Reference Studios
black leather clogs: GANNI

 

bodysuit: Perfect Moment
shoes: model’s own

 

Thought Girl Winter: Read Our Interview Of Nada Alic →


interview by Annabel Graham
portraits by Paige Strabala

I first met Nada Alic in the fall of 2019, in New York, at a literary reading held at the Nolita headquarters of a women’s sleepwear brand. The small storefront was packed, and readers perched on the edge of a gigantic feather bed in the center of the room. Most of the guests were there to see a certain Instagram poet with an especially rabid fan base—I witnessed actual tears of joy when said poet opened her mouth—but it was Alic who captured my attention. Radiating her trademark blend of confidence, self-deprecation, and deadpan humor, she read from a short story in progress. In it, an anxious, painfully cerebral young woman questions “this whole business of being alive,” pursues an obsessive friendship with a woman named Mona, and considers the pros and cons of lightly grazing her hand across a stranger’s penis. At a cocktail party with her husband’s business associates, Alic’s narrator muses: “They all looked so vulnerable, so up for grabs; concealed only by a thin layer of fabric. I imagined them as windchimes waiting to be struck. The impulse wasn’t sexual, it was destructive. I just stood there, not touching anyone’s penis, quietly frightened by who I was and what I was capable of.” Suffice it to say that I was riveted.

Alic and I struck up a conversation after the reading, exchanged email addresses, and made loose plans to get together for a coffee next time I was in Los Angeles, where she lives. What followed almost immediately was a global pandemic, a government-imposed lockdown, and a 19th-century sort of pen-pal correspondence conducted over the entire year of 2020. Alic’s emails are just as surprising and enjoyable as her short fiction—witty, dark, vulnerable, sharp-edged; weird in all the best ways. The story she read that night in New York (featuring the penis-windchime simile that’s eternally burned into my brain) is now entitled “My New Life”—this past year, it was published in the literary journal No Tokens, where I serve as fiction editor. You can read it here.

2021 was a landmark year for Alic—she married her partner (Ryan Hahn, of the indie band Local Natives), and sold her short story collection, Bad Thoughts, to Knopf, in a two-book deal (her second book, a novel, is slated for release in 2023). The title Bad Thoughts stems from the eponymous Instagram series Alic created in 2020 during quarantine, wherein she posted bimonthly lists of Tweet-like aphorisms that were at once wildly humorous, razor-sharp, and deeply relatable. The stories in the collection—which will be published in July 2022—are brash and heady, breaking established rules of narrative and form. Like the Instagram series, they’re also delightfully funny. In one, the spirit of an unborn child hovers over the bodies of its future parents, willing them to copulate and bring it into embodied existence. In another, a woman’s musician boyfriend goes on tour, leaving her alone in their home for the first time ever; she proceeds to question all of her life choices and tumble down a frighteningly familiar Internet rabbit hole; chaos and body dysmorphia ensue. Alic is well-versed in the awkward, writing into our most neurotic, shameful habits and thought patterns with an unparalleled acuity.

For Autre, I sat down with Alic in her Mount Washington living room to talk about the holiness of humor, becoming an artist with no formal training, and the archetype of the eternal child-god. We’re real-life friends now—a true privilege!—but sometimes I miss our extremely long emails.  Read more.