A Forsaken Place: Andrea Zittel's A-Z West Is A Laboratory For The Future →

Andrea Zittel
A-Z Wagon Station customized by Giovanni Jance
2003
Powder-coated steel, MDF, aluminum, Lexan,cushions, iPod Nano, headphones, solar iPod chargers
91 x 82 x 57 inches
© Andrea Zittel, Courtesy the artist and Regen Projects, Los Angeles


The desert is an unforgiving, but magnetic landscape. Agnes Pelton, Georgia O'Keeffe, Walter De Maria, Michael Heizer, Robert Smithson, Nancy Holt, and many more artists have all been drawn to the desert of the American West. Its barrenness, its potential, its raw heat, its solitude, and liquid mirages all provide a contemplative and hot combination of all the right ecosystemic ingredients for artists to experiment and conceive of cosmic ideas. Even the word desert is alluring: it comes from the ecclesiastical Latin root desertum, which means a “forsaken” or “abandoned” place. Lately, though, the desert has become less a quirk of America’s multifold topography and more a frightening, but beautiful prelude to an arid, lifeless future on Earth. 

Andrea Zittel fits into the historical canon of artists lured to these forsaken and abandoned landscapes—abandoned by time and most botanic nature—but she isn’t so much a land artist as she is an artist of the land. Like the late artist and sculptor Noah Purifoy before her, Zittel is not a visitor—she is a guardian of the desert’s inexplicable potential as a testing ground for future civilizations who might live in a world that is going through a rapid process of what geologists call desertification.  According to scientists, over a third of the world is going through this process, and every year 120,000 square kilometers of land turns into an actual desert. Studies show that if global carbon emissions aren’t curbed, much of the Earth will become a desert by 2050. Read more. Originally published in Autre’s Biodiversity Issue, FW 2021

Dennis Osadebe Looks To Heritage For Answers To The Future In MODERN MAGIC @ König London

With the starting point of the influence of Black culture, the works of Dennis Osadebe’s MODERN MAGIC present themselves like a theatre filled with visual challenges and rich experimentation. Viewers are given a front-row seat to an unfolding show as Osadebe’s painted characters take on the role of performers captured amid moments of magic; their masks symbolic of divine protection. Abstracted architectural spaces are lit by variegated sources, along with exaggerated shadows, and heightened perspective, to create an atmosphere of a dreamlike stage. Drawing from a wellspring of metaphysical, Surrealist, and Renaissance painting, Osadebe conjures a realm where viewers can only question the location of the powers that be.

Lavish cultural motifs reflect Osadebe’s fascination with craftsmanship. References to the Magic 8 Ball are found throughout the paintings and act as a point of focus for Osadebe’s first-ever conceptually guided sculptural installation, with objects employed as vessels aimed at preservation. These include the traditional Nigerian fan — a ubiquitous, accessible object, necessary for everyday life — highlighted by a pristine, symbolic framing that celebrates its cultural significance. This one motif is exemplary for Osadebe’s take on preservation, which looks to heritage for answers to the future, consciously speaking of Blackness and its pivotal role in shaping contemporary culture.

Osadebe’s radical approach to self-portraiture manifests his philosophical basis for contemporary Nigerian art, fusing Western techniques and indigenous traditions to construct a new paradigm for the evolution of art. As said by prolific Nigerian painter Ben Enwonwu, “It is setting the clock back to expect that the art form of Africa today must resemble that of yesterday otherwise the former will not reflect the African image.”

MODERN MAGIC is on view though July 16 @ König London 259-269 Old Marylebone Road

Naima Green Performs Rituals Of Intimacy In "A Sequence for Squeezing" @ Baxter St In New York

A Sequence for Squeezing is a solo show of lens-based work by 2021 Baxter St Workspace Resident Naima Green. Featuring new and recent photographs, as well as a recent video work, the exhibition continues Green’s practice of collaborating with her community to create intimate portraits and record personal scenes of play, exploration, and pleasure. Focusing on the experiences of Black, Brown, and Queer individuals, the exhibition builds on and expands the themes of Green’s previous work, exploring water as a site for pleasure and freedom, the sensuality of enjoying food, and the rituals of intimacy. 

On the back wall of the exhibition, a giant vinyl double-exposed image of the Rockaways serves as the  backdrop for Green’s video work The Intimacy of Before. The Rockaways — and water — are an important  reoccurring site in Green’s life and work, and water is featured across much of her new work, even if as a  subtle suggestion. At Baxter St, the Rockaways frame Green’s intimate video self-portrait, a sensual  exploration of self the artist shot in her apartment during the early days of the COVID pandemic. The audio  from the video, including the sounds of waves and Green’s own voice, becomes a soundtrack to the exhibition  as a whole, asking, as she does in the video, “Is it too much to want a tender and complete intimacy?” 

A Sequence for Squeezing is on view through July 23 at 126 Baxter St

Autre Hosts An Intimate Gathering To Celebrate The Premiere Of "She Will" Directed By Charlotte Colbert and Presented by Dario Argento

Autre hosts an intimate gathering at San Vicente Bungalows to celebrate the premiere of She Will, a new film directed by Charlotte Colbert and presented by Dario Argento. The film will be released in theaters and demand on July 15. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Suspended in Memory: Read Our Interview Of Veronica Fernandez →

Standing in front of Los Angeles-based artist Veronica Fernandez’s paintings you may start to feel as if you’re part of a fever dream or someone else’s past life regression. They are raw and autobiographical, a place where the viewer is invited to float through fragments of extremely personal memories while being entertained by the various textures and materials Fernandez has thoughtfully arranged in each work. There are painterly aspects that divide you from reality, yet it still feels as if you're walking into someone else's actual space and you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like. 

The paintings are in essence a mapping of her family lineage, their struggles and their persistence captured through the lens of old photographs passed down from her grandmother. Through these photographs, Fernandez is navigating her own identity as it relates to her childhood and her closeness to family. She manipulates these images to tell a story of adolescence that most of us couldn’t comprehend and yet she finds strength in these memories, weaving them into a narrative about what it means to call somewhere home and to make a place for yourself. 

I visited Fernandez in her studio as she put the final touches on her first solo exhibition entitled When you hold onto my spirit, will you let your spirit grow?  at Sow & Tailor in Los Angeles. Read more.

Benjamin Millepied's Be Here Now Is A Rose By Many Other Names


text & stills by Summer Bowie


“And if my life is like the dust
that hides the glow of a rose
What good am I?”

 – Max Richter featuring Dinah Washington, “This Bitter Earth / On the Nature of Daylight”

 

On Wednesday June 22, the audience for L.A. Dance Project’s closing week of Be Here Now was graced with a rare opening solo performance by choreographer Benjamin Millepied. Dancing to Max Richter’s “This Bitter Earth / On the Nature of Daylight,” he walked onto the stage in street clothes making a large circle that slowly spiraled in on itself before sweetly erupting into a vulnerable serenade of sorrow and deliverance. He jumps and spins, arms outstretched, a motif we will see later in the piece, but otherwise, there is no indication as to whether we are watching choreography or improvisation. Why he chose this night or this song is a mystery that isn’t asking to be solved, much like the meaning behind the myriad movement compositions that comprise his oeuvre. His latest work is no different in its narrative-defying abstraction. It is a work that calls you to let go of linear time and tune into the everlasting moment, to be present with how all of it feels, and to have the clarity and confidence of knowing that this is all you need.

Be Here Now is inspired by critically-acclaimed composer Andy Akiho’s Seven Pillars, an 80-minute, chamber music work that was nominated for two Grammy’s earlier this year. Created over the course of eight years and performed by Sandbox Percussion, the work was composed very personally for its masterful quartet of percussionists. Akiho has said that he composes for people, not instruments and Millepied choreographs in kind. When his dancers are coupled, each pairing takes on its own distinct chemistry. Dressed in a neutral uniform of sheer, cream-colored tank tops and slate-grey sateen briefs, they dance with a synchronicity that is uncanny, yet they bring out different sides of one another. They take on new attitudes, rhythms and textures based on their varying social compositions from one piece to the next. One doesn’t have to question the degree of intimacy that the work requires of these movers as colleagues. Their multitudinous selves are expressed earnestly and their compatibility is unmistakable. 

The first piece begins with four women who materialize one at a time from each corner of the stage. We’re in a sexy, dark alley, and we’re just scared enough. They slowly walk to meet in the center making coy eye contact with one another in preparation of their task. Caroline Shaw’s “Entr’acte” performed by Attacca Quartet acts as an unlikely and fierce accompaniment for our prologue. Its rhythmically exigent string arrangements drive the dancers through a combination of sequences that oscillate between classical allegro and modern floorwork, returning periodically to a long, outstretched arm motif that rises upwards to the side as if pulled by some magnetic force, or perhaps it serves as an invitation. They keep count under their breath while the meter changes frenetically from one time signature to the next. They clap hands, slap thighs, hop and skip with the natural consonance of children on a playground. At times they are sylph-like. They hold hands, weaving in and out of one another with an amiable sorority reminiscent of Leonid Yakobson’s Pas de Quatre (1971). 

In the next piece, four men take the stage and we are officially in the first of Akiho’s Seven Pillars. Their feet keep the beat with its clamorous, polyrhythmic percussion, while their upper bodies undulate and their arms elongate sumptuously, adopting the arm motif as though they are collectively conjuring something of a mystical variety. They bring the virtuosic bravado of any classical male group combination, most notably seen in works like The Nutcracker’s “Russian Dance” and combine it with something that is both more earthy and contemporary. Raw in its masculinity, the piece reveals the mystique of male sexuality in a way that defies the limitations of classical dance while remaining grounded in its outward rotation.

The women join the men, pairing themselves respectively and we realize that this is a courtship dance. Each pair performs the same choreography in rippling canons before breaking off into their own distinctive duets. These duets are punctuated by highly idiosyncratic solos, one of which, danced by Daphne Fernberger to Akiho’s “Pillar II” is a haunting change of pace bathed in the cold, shadowy glow of a moonlit séance. She gradually binds us into a spell of arms that whip, toes that sweep and developpés that lean backward as they travel forward. She gives us the sense that there’s some elasticity to the now. A following duet by David Adrian Freeland, Jr. and Sierra Herrera to “Pillar III” is an awe-inspiring feat of ever-intensifying prowess. One imagines they could be a celebrity couple whose first names have been inextricably bound by a catchy portmanteau. They remain poised even as they catch their breath, subtly hinting at the labor behind the shiny veneer. Peter Mazurowsk defies gravity with a heart-pounding solo of leaps that spin on axes of every angle. He is Apollo painting every inch of the space with his body in perfect balance and measure like a Pollock tableau in its natural aplomb.

These characters reveal themselves to us not as archetypes, but as individuals endowed with unbridled talent and intrinsic drive. They are roses by many other names reflecting the morning moonlight in their sweet, dewy petals. We are reminded by their unrivaled beauty to pause and return to our sense of olfaction. We are present and in a state of admiration. 

Be Here Now was performed throughout the month of June at L.A. Dance Project with a portion of the proceeds going towards the company's partnership with Ghetto Classics Dance, a dance company in Nairobi, Kenya. This will provide the funding for the dancers to travel to Los Angeles for a two-week summer dance workshop in collaboration with Everbody Dance LA.

Moving Past Giants: Read Our Interview Of Artist Devon DeJardin →

Devon Dejardin sits in front of a couch, arm resting on the cushion, looking into the camera.

text by Stella Peacock-Berardini

Devon Dejardin’s exploration of art may have started from the humble encouragement of a sugar daddy psychic, but it has grown into a journey of healing and reflection that continues to drive his success in the art world. Within his cubist-influenced style of work, Devon Dejardin, an LA-based painter, processes through the elements of life demanding answers to all of its most urgent lingering questions. Dejardin employs his work as a way to unpack and understand the entropic nature of the universe through his lens of belonging, going deeper into the storms he's faced that brought him to the clear sky of his creation. This 29-year-old, self-taught artist originating from Portland juggles depression and anxiety within the creative realm and expresses his gratitude for the therapeutic release his art supplies to himself and its viewers. His newest project, Giants dives into this preconceived idea of spirituality and shifts its narrative to his ideas surrounding the guardians of the world, those that protect, aid, and grow in strength and vulnerability within the boundaries of our world. His art, huge in size, mimics the ideas of giants and how they are commonly perceived, yet it develops further than that. These feelings, or challenges in life, such as sadness or grief materialize as giants, but represent the deception life can have on us all. We sat down with this artist to explore his influences, conceptions around his work as a whole, and his first New York solo exhibition at Albertz Benda. Read more.

Summa: A New Journal On Realms Of Protection Published By Tabayer Jewelry


text by Lara Schoorl


What do you keep close—in your pocket, hanging around your neck, or passing through your fingers—to feel more safe amidst the mystery and reality of our world; which routines—burrowed in your tread, your thoughts, the sky, in the background—allow you comfort within your wandering mind? Those objects and presences of protection, that render wonder and convince significance, form the fabric of Summa, a new literary journal published by Tabayer jewelry. 

Echoing Tabayer’s philosophy to connect the metaphysical and tangible in their designs, Summa delves into ancient materials and contemplates forms of guardianship. The editor’s letter introducing the first issue tells us that summa “was a medieval literary genre that aimed to cover the whole terrain of a subject.” Following this intention, the contemporary journal sets out to publish stories on “the collective imaginary of protection—from the magical properties of amulets and talismans to ancient rites and private divinations.” For its inaugural issue, subtitled “Singularity and a Totality,” eight writers, artists and philosophers share texts and imagery on personal, societal and natural talismans and symbols. Their objects of study and care are rooted in yet transgress the material realm through the words that contextualize them in their personally attributed significance. 

Circles, gold, a potato, water, garlic, a symbol, a meteorite, time, and deities, worlds apart, transcend time and space and become the humble protagonists of these pages. Their histories strung together not only through a collective theme, but through the recurring materials in its content, of its pages and binding, and through the generous inserts—on the barely light blue pages—by the editors illuminating certain topics. Together these material and conceptual layers form a connected totality: Summa. 

No wonder then that the journal opens with “Primary Spheres” a visual essay by Batia Suter on round shapes as found in archival materials; a preface to the continuity of content that challenges the linearity of turning pages. Circles, as seen in (what appear to be) the eye of a parrot, the back of a child’s head, a cell, a shell, an instruction manual, a planet, and diagrams cover full pages. The images, that otherwise seem to exist independently from one another, cleave together through their found origin and circular forms, also foreboding, visually, how the all contributions subtly touch in language, references or content. 

In her essay “A gift from the stars,” Chloe Aridjis wonders, as she wanders through the Natural History Museum in Vienna, if the meteorite that her father gave to her as a child belongs to the same mother asteroid as (some of) those displayed in the museum exhibits. The fragments of meteors, once whole, once existing in a place beyond our imagination, could now inhabit our planet separated in museums or people’s homes and pockets. For Aridjis, the meteorite became an amulet when picked up from the earth in Durango, Mexico and placed in her hand. Pausing at this change, she also briefly references fertility figurines as the oldest “sacred scarabs.” While Aridjis obfuscates our sense of scale through her wonder—small, enormous and their proximity wax and wane in her essay akin to how the universe does as well—she plants a seed that grounds us in these pages with the mention of the ancient Venus talisman, who later on recurs in Fiona Alison Duncan’s text in the role of Inanna. Literal points of connection like these are scattered throughout the journal. 

Duncan proposes the story of Inanna to be the oldest documented Hero’s Journey, a narrative device as conceptualized by Joseph Campbell. A goddess from ancient Sumer, known for love, sex, power, justice and protection among other attributes (hence her association with Venus) has hymns recording her adventures dating from more than 2000 years BC. In one of them, she receives eighty mes—“an untranslatable term that means something like, ‘being, divine properties enabling cosmic activity; office; (cultic) ordinance,’” Duncan explains—from her father. These mes, Duncan continues, “bestow agency, free will, and protection against dependency.” Highly valuable immaterial talismans that emphasize that protection. Duncan also recognizes that Campbell mostly has studied male heroes for his theory, listing works such as the Odyssey and those of James Joyce are exemplary. Both of which, coincidentally, occur in conjunction with each other earlier on in the journal as a case study to connect the talismans that protect Odysseus from Circe, a root called Moly, and Bloom from Zoe by a black potato. 

Be it coincidence, thoughtful editing or life, the unintentional linkage between the texts in this first issue sparks excitement in your mind with its rhythmic interplay between new and then familiar information. Reading Summa is like following a choreography, allowing you to create your own narratives between the given ones. It soothes: to feel as though the world in some way can be, is, connected through a lattice of protection. It soothes: to experience that knowledge is fluid and our true armature, wisdom and questions. 

This takeaway is embedded within Tabita Rezaire’s poetic essay, “The Tongs of Gold.” The value and power of (inner) knowledge flows as an undercurrent in Rezaire’s essay, in which she recounts practices and memories of her ancestors and of other cultures and characters in history to illustrate the damage and violence inflicted upon earth and people by the gold mining industry. “When will you understand the true gold is water?” she dreamed her grandmother told her. And, “She knew a seed of wisdom was worth more than a mountain of gold,” referencing the journey of Queen Makeda visiting King Solomon. Carrying the past, she bears words of hope for the future (considering our current time a threshold) and encourages us to challenge the attributed meaning of wealth, treasure, scared, sacred and gold: “one can mine more gold from the depth of the heart than the from the core of the earth.” Her language so full and genuine that the words become precious in their own regard. I will keep them with me.

In a different context, Federico Campagna also questions the use of gold; gold that covers the background in medieval paintings: Fondo Oro. Moving away from material explanations—such as wealth, ornamentation, (lack of) technical skill—towards a metaphysical understanding—that what is both known and not, the omnipresence of God—to argue for the function of the gold backgrounds, Campagna begins to efface the distance between mystery and reality. In doing so, however, he circles back to what Rezaire came to as well: gold provides a space to rethink reality. It is impossible to fully grasp the ever changing space around us. Rather than attempting to grasp, medieval painters painted gold backgrounds because the gold became a symbol for the impossibility of one static background. Instead the gold offers endless imagination to those who perceive and construct space. Thus Campagna ends his argument that “Here lies the talismanic function of these images [fondo oro], as a tutamen (Latin for “protection”) rather than a mere decus (Latin for “ornament”): they strive to keep their viewers within the realms of “subjectivity” where reality is endlessly revealed and reimagined and to preserve them from the blindness that befalls those who become dead “objects.””

In each of the texts and imagery mentioned above protection seems to align with the ability to change oneself or what surrounds you via meaning and position. These concepts of protection, ethics, and origin, at the core of Tabayer’s philosophy, have translated so beautifully into their literary project Summa through the words and images of a profound lineup of authors hailing from disparate fields and places: Batia Suter, Laynie Browne, Chloe Aridjis, Federico Campagna, Tabita Rezaire, Daisy Lafarge, Fiona Alison Duncan, Shumon Basar. This first issue of Summa, more an anthology than a journal, contains many more texts to read and knowledges to uncover than what I have highlighted here. The journal is available on antennebooks.com and tenderbooks.co.uk. It is released annually in print and is accompanied by two blogs, MATERIA PRIMA and WHAT PROTECTS ME, where some of the texts are published online as well.

How Do You See The Now: Read Our Interview Of Artist Jillian Mayer →

RACHEL ADAMS: When I think about your work, I often see objects that provide assistance. Slumpies help your body adjust to the onslaught of technological devices, sculptures that become flotation devices, and the works in our show TIMESHARE were prototypes for living in a future where you couldn’t go outside–a fountain that doubles as a hydroponic garden, blueprints for life underground, etc. How do you see this new glasswork fitting into the idea of assistance?

JILLIAN MAYER: I have always loved the appeal of any object that does more than one thing. Whether it be a mop that can convert to a broom, a reversible clothing item, or anything else that fits into the  “Well that’s not all…” rhetoric. I love to think of these items as suggestive and simultaneously insecure and self-aware of their limit if they could only be one thing… that objects have to try to justify their existence as well as place amongst your other objects. Along with pressure for us to perform many tasks, our items are not excused from this weight. There is only so much room in our lives so these objects plead the case for their acceptance. Read more.

CATALOGUE OF DISGUISE Presents Their New Collection & Fashion Film @ TRAUMA BAR UND KINO In Berlin

art direction, styling and fashion by Tanja Bombach
photography by Laura Schaeffer 
makeup by Viktoria Reuter
hair by Kosuke Ikeuchi
nails by Camilla Volbert
modeled by Peer Liening-Ewert, June, Susanne Engbo Andersen, Yi-Wei Tien, Alistair Wroe

On Wednesday, June 22, CATALOGUE OF DISGUISE will be premiering ALOW, a 28-minute film that captures the pervasive anxiety, loss of control, and trepidation lurking under the surface of three separate escapist encounters. It is an underground tale of slow horror.

Collections made for the film by Laura Gerte, Don Aretino and Tanja Bombach blend with choreography by Phoenix Chase-Meares and Jos McKain developed with ten dancers.

The exclusive screening will be hosted by CATALOGUE OF DISGUISE at TRAUMA BAR UND KINO, where the film was shot.

During the event, there will be an immersive sound installation inspired by the film and after the screening a DJ-set by the sound artist Simone Antonioni, who scored the film. The soundtrack will be released under the independent Berlin-based record label Verlag later this year including a remix by ZIúR.

Date: June 22
RSVP via CATALOGUE OF DISGUISE

William Basinski Live @ The Barbican In London

text by Lara Monro
photographs by Jose Ramon Caamano

On Thursday 9th of June in London, Baba Yaga's Hut showcased the American avante-garde composer William Basinski at The Barbican. Known for his obsession with reel-to-reel tape decks, loops and delay, Basinski has released a multitude of ambient and experimental works to great acclaim since the late ‘90s.  

Taking centre stage in a sparkly suit jacket and shoes, with hair tied back and framed by aviators, Basinski readied himself for a solo performance of his 2020 album Lamentations. Ambient waves of sound washed over the listening audience. The piece evoked tension and sorrow through drones, orchestral symphonies and the voice of a female operatic. William became an extension of his equipment with robotic glitchy movements - a welcomed addition to his overall performance.

The lighting show intensified the beautifully harrowing atmosphere - bright whites progressed to deep reds as the sounds unravelled. Unfortunately, a percentage of the audience felt the need to capture the performance, but didn’t think to turn off the flash of their camera phones, or worse didn’t care. The momentary brightness set against the darkly atmospheric room, for want of a better phrase, ruined the vibe.

Lamentations was captured and constructed from tape loops of Basinski’s archives dating back to 1979. There is no clear beginning or end, almost as if suspended in a deprivation tank. Those who attended having never listened to Lamentations or knowing the concept behind it may have been sitting in their seats perplexed and uncomfortable. It felt like the kind of performance piece that left half the crowd in awe and the other half wondering whether they could get the last hour of their lives back. 

Robert Ames conduscts the London Contemporary Orchestra under blue and green lighting.

The second performance was an orchestral arrangement of Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops 1.1 and 3 by the London Contemporary Orchestra, conducted by Robert Ames. The Disintegration Loops was born from disintegrating tape loops as they passed over a tape head – the unexpected result of transferring early recordings to a digital format. The orchestra played with dexterity and softness, using subtle nuances of slowing tempo and quietening sound, reflecting the inevitability of decay. The minimal use of individual instruments left a lot of space for the music to breathe. Impeccable timing was needed from all musicians to ensure the loops had cohesion. The performance was melancholic - again I felt it might have split the audience, either submitting the viewer into a dreamy trance state or a deep slumber. 

It’s not out of the ordinary to overlook the complexity of Basinski’s music. But, thanks to the sonic brilliance of The Barbican Hall, the sound was effortlessly projected alongside the classy and conceptual lighting, all of which elevated the performance pieces. 

Special thanks to Marlon Clark for his contribution to the piece.

Spotlights shine from behind Basinski into the crowd in the dark auditorium in front of him.

"Having Breakfast With The Family" Is A Portrait Of Displacement In The Face Of War


photographs by Daniel Vaysberg
text by Joshua Poschinski


There are currently millions of stories about people fleeing for their lives under threat of war. Stories about the relentless assault of aerial bombing destroying the place that was once called home. It might not be all of a sudden for those in power, but life shatters in an instant for everyday people. The supermarket where the cashier asks how your kid abroad is doing whenever you enter the building, the neighbor who lends you eggs every once in a while because you forgot to buy some for breakfast, the club where you had your first kiss, or just the unique smell of the house where you have been living for years, maybe decades. All of a sudden, everything you know is reduced to rubble, and you have to leave it all behind due to the perils of a single dictator’s fragile psyche. 

Whether they be in the Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, or Mali—there are millions of people globally who are seeking shelter from a reign of life-threatening terror that is utterly incomprehensible to those who are unfamiliar. One of these stories comes from Berlin-based photographer Daniel Vaysberg, who saw his parents flee his hometown, Kharkiv, after several weeks of mass destruction perpetuated by the Russians. He used to capture people’s daily life in Ukraine whenever he came home to visit. It was his way of bringing a piece of Ukrainian culture to Europe, providing a sometimes lovely, sometimes skewed view of a country that has become more liberal with every passing year. Now it is a war zone where Daniel finds himself facing two generations of trauma and representing a third one himself. Checking his phone incessantly for messages from his parents and friends has become Daniel’s daily routine, and what he’s left behind already feels so far away, as if home has slipped over the edge. 

While watching their hometown die, it took weeks for Daniel’s parents to leave the country. "On the 24th of February, around 5:00 a.m., we woke up to powerful explosions," Daniel’s mother Svetlana says. "We quickly took a look outside and realized that everything was burning and smoking. At that moment, we did not understand the seriousness of the problem. One to three days and it will cool down—that’s what we thought that morning.” 

Ukrainian citizens have lived in a sovereign nation since 1991, and yet they still find themselves seeking true independence from Russia long after the fall of the Soviet Union. They are a society shaped by communism that has managed to gradually inch towards democracy and hasn’t for a moment questioned the need to fight for their freedom at all costs. At the end of 2013, when the corrupt Ukrainian government led by president Viktor Yanukovych was about to push the country into grave dependence on Russia, the people demonstrated. When violence by their own government was used to keep them down, Ukrainians pushed back. They fought for their land and they won. The three months of bloody protest known as Euromaidan led to Parliament to eventually voting to remove Yanukovych from his post followed by his current exile in Southern Russia. However, victory was short lived with Putin’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula taking place only a couple of months later. Since then, Ukrainians have lived under a constant fear of war that is so dominating, a collective numbness has set in for most people living in the Southern region.

 
 

 "Words cannot describe the fear that a human experiences during these types of moments." 

Svetlana sits quietly in a chair now next to her own father in Dusseldorf, Germany, where they arrived five weeks after the Russian invasion started. She spent twenty days on the road and feels lucky to live with family in a place where she doesn’t wake up to sirens in the middle of the night. Now Svetlana’s father takes care of her and her husband, Vyacheslav, as he took care of his grandson, Daniel, when he came to Germany years ago. But as quiet as she seems, her mind is rattled by the experience. "The most frightening part of the war is the aerial bombings. When you sleep at night and have no idea where the next one is going to land. All my friends and family slept in jackets, pants, and boots to be prepared to run to the nearest shelter in case of an emergency. Words cannot describe the fear that a human experiences during these types of moments." 

Both she and her husband made the final decision to leave Ukraine while standing in line at the supermarket. After a three-kilometer walk and four hours of waiting in line, they were uncertain if anything would be left for them at all. They stood in line while "aerial bombs landed around two to three kilometers away. Everybody started to panic, nobody knew what to do. After that moment, we made a final decision to leave our hometown in order to survive." 

Svetlana is having breakfast now with her father, her husband, and her son in a small kitchen somewhere in Dusseldorf, Germany. What they have been through is what they keep. Daniel’s father, Vyacheslav, decided to leave the country with his wife, even though he wasn’t actually allowed to. Men under sixty are required to stay on Ukrainian soil and to be prepared to fight. But who is really charged with forcing citizens to bear arms against their will? 

After a week of travel, the couple reached a small city in the North of Lviv where Svetlana stayed while Vyacheslav went on in search of a way to leave the country. Five days passed before Svetlana received his call—he made it to Poland. But what happened during these five days is not what they talk about. Vyacheslav manages a chain of local storage units throughout Kharkiv and its surroundings. Svetlana used to work as a hair dresser in Kharkiv. She ran her own business for eighteen years. The building where her salon was located is now damaged and needs to be renovated, but the war rages on and most of their friends, family, and customers have left at this point. Nevertheless, they both want to get back. 

They feel blessed to have family and people who care in Germany, and as much as they are both enjoying time with their father and son, there’s a haunting restlessness. Svetlana and Vyacheslav are more than two thousand kilometers away from the place that they long for—a place that has endured heavy aerial bombing for over one hundred days and counting. They seek peace for themselves and for all the refugees who are currently experiencing this unbearable trauma. They want to have breakfast with their family in Kharkiv again. Kharkiv is home. It’s where they belong.

 
 

Antler: A Fashion Editorial By Jaara Lange & Camille Pailler

photography by Jaara Lange
art direction and styling by Camille Pailler
styling assistance by Katya Makhno
makeup by Leana Ardeleanu
hair by Reiya Yamaoka
modeling by Gigi @ Let It Go

AUTRE: Where does your inspiration come from?

JAARA LANGE: Looking back, my art was born from a deep need to escape a world that was not safe for me. So, I created a world for myself accordingly. Even today, I am inspired by daydreams, science fiction, and fairy tales. I created my own world where I could exist, which was beautiful and dark at the same time. I think this deep experience still inspires me today.

 
 

AUTRE: What drew you to Gigi as a muse?

LANGE: Gigi is a powerhouse and role model for me at the same time. I don't know anyone who enters the room with such presence — that fascinates me a lot. In her I see strength, beauty, and above all, resilience. We are all very grateful for what she does for the Berlin trans community and as sisters we support each other.

 
 
 
 

AUTRE: Why is nature such a dominant subject in your photography practice?

LANGE: Nature has always fascinated me. It represents a place of refuge for me. Out in the green, I have always felt freer — nature is a space without condemnation or connotation. It forms a complete projection surface for me with its wealth of forms, surface structures, and change. It is the perfect stage for me. Today, I only need to embed my protagonists in nature as a stage, wait for the right light and the spectacle is complete. I find this fascinating every time anew, because it is also so simple.

 

Process: Twelve Artists Reinterpret Looks From Alexander McQueen's Pre-Autumn/Winter 2022 Collection

To illustrate the fact that creativity emerges from countless perspectives, Alexander McQueen invites a group of twelve artists to express their individual working practices inspired by the Autumn/Winter 2022 women’s pre-collection. Each artist has chosen a look from the collection and responded to it through their preferred medium, engaging in a creative dialogue with the house. All have been given complete creative freedom resulting in a rich conversation between their work and the selected looks. ‌ The artworks are conceived to be displayed alongside the McQueen pieces they relate to in a temporary installation at 27 Old Bond Street, the house’s London flagship, designed to showcase the individual approaches and the ways in which artworks and looks interact. ‌ The artists are: Ann Cathrin November Høibo Beverly Semmes Bingyi Cristina de Middel Guinevere van Seenus Hope Gangloff Marcia Kure Jackie Nickerson Jennie Jieun Lee Judas Companion Marcela Correa Marcia Michael ‌ “I wanted to engage in a new creative dialogue with the collection this season and see how the artists interpreted the work that we created in the studio. It’s been very interesting to see how creativity has sprung from so many different perspectives, and the outcomes that have been varied and beautiful. We wanted the artists to have total freedom to respond to the looks, creating bold and thought-provoking conversations with their works. I hope that viewers will be as inspired as we have all been by witnessing these creative processes.” – Sarah Burton, Creative Director. Click here to discover more.

Nadia Lee Cohen "HELLO, My Name Is" Opening At Jeffrey Deitch Gallery and Private Dinner in The Hollywood Hills

Friends gathered for the opening of Nadia Lee Cohen "HELLO, My Name Is,” the artist’s first major solo exhibition in the United States, now on view at Jeffrey Deitch Gallery. After the opening, friends gathered at the home of Jeffrey Deitch in the Hollywood Hills for a private dinner. photographs by Aaron Sinclair, Becky Hearn and Myles Hendrik

Lust, Aliens and Summer Nights: Aryo Toh Djojo's Crepuscular World Stuns and Frightens

Aryo Toh Djojo’s world is a crepuscular world where the distant buzz of alien spacecraft whirs like a high voltage transformer, arcing between coils with the secret blue language of electricity. This is also the language of Djojo’s paintings, which were recently on view at Sow & Tailor in Los Angeles. They are hard to pin down, they are elusive and evocative, which makes them hit that spot between nostalgia and eroticism. This is your brain on UFOs, weed, and the hot magnesium flash of lust. Inside the hinterlands of Djojo’s hyper-realistic airbrushed canvases, there is the feeling of eternal summer, but also alien abduction, which could be seen as a metaphor for the amnesia of youth—for the forgetting of yesterday to live for today.

Fucklore: Read Our Interview Of Krista Papista →

Top: Dolce & Gabbana (Nightboutique Berlin), Fishnet, stockings and socks: Falke, Boots: Abra

“Sonnenallee” is one of the thirteen tracks in Fucklore, Krista Papista’s new album to be released on July 22, 2022. Its material is the sonic environment of a place at a particular moment: A street in Berlin (Sonnenallee avenue) that is the heart of the city’s Middle Eastern community that beats to the sound of dabke music blasted from cars after the Ramadan. Krista Papista lives nearby. She composed the song in response to the street’s soundscape, using fm and analogue synthesizers, asking her friend Kiki Moorse, one of the founding members of Chicks on Speed, to write the lyrics. In the album, the song is part of a musical and conceptual re-interpretation of notions of the folklore. It is also indicative of how the artist works: in relation to places and in defiance of the mainstream, queering traditions and customs, which she seeks to re-invent often in a collaborative spirit. Of “Sonnenallee,” Krista Papista says that it functions as a shit-show that mixes Middle Eastern and Greek music (sirtaki most prominently) with contemporary electronic rabbit holes. I relate to what she means, when I play the album in my car driving in Nicosia (Cyprus), testing the way her songs perforate the soundscape of her city of origin. The intentional disharmonic blend of sounds and musical references is dizzying, built on tensions between known folk tunes and the electronic. As for the lyrics, they oscillate between the poetic, the absurd and the sexually explicit, sometimes functioning as reflections on our current moment of (political, financial, cultural, and environmental) collapse, melding the personal with the political. In the album’s track list, a song on five hours of period cramps follows a song on the murders of migrant women by an army officer in Cyprus. Their story is most hauntingly evoked in the album’s cover that pictures the dark red waters of a dam that punctuates the landscape like a gigantic open wound. With this in mind, Fucklore is not just an attempt to re-imagine the possibilities of folk music. It is also a protest against tactics of oppression, discrimination and marginalisation that is carried out with forthrightness, unapologetic self-determination and a dildo between the legs. Read more.

Autre Magazine VIP Cocktail Celebration For The Body Issue At Veronika by Fotografiska In New York

Last night, Autre magazine celebrated its Spring Summer 2022 Body Issue at a special preview of Veronika by Fotografiska before its reopening this summer. Canapés were served and cocktails were provided by Wilde Irish Gin. photographs by Oliver Kupper