Autre Magazine and Sow & Tailor Gallery Hosts A Frieze Week Wrap Party At Holloway House In West Hollywood

Sow & Tailor gallery invited Autre Magazine to close out art week in Los Angeles at the new intimate Holloway House by Soho House in West Hollywood surrounded by a brilliant curation of works by some of our favorite Los Angles-based artists like Greg Ito and Sayre Gomez. Sounds were provided by DJs Dana Boulos, Cherry and Saturn. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Sarah Ellison Studio Releases The Float Sofa At The Iconic Stahl House In Partnership With Design Within Reach

Inspired by the conversation pits of the 1970s, Australian designer Sarah Ellison’s FLOAT sofaβ€”available in a rich Pantone brown called Piccolo or a bouclΓ© fabricβ€”was fΓͺted high above Sunset Strip at the iconic Stahl House. Speaking to Ellison at the famous Case Study House #22, she remarked on how wonderful the clash was between her obsession with 70s aesthetics and mid-century mod. A low-slung multi-seater that is modularly configurable, the sofa is an instant classic. photographs by Adrian Gaut

Autre Hosts The Fourth Annual Frieze LA Week Kickoff With Jeffrey Deitch Gallery at Desert 5 Spot in Hollywood

Autre Magazine and Jeffrey Deitch host their annual Frieze Week kickoff to celebrate one of the busiest cultural weeks in Los Angeles. Guests sipped on Grey Goose vodka coladas and enjoyed a slideshow by artist Nadia Lee Cohen high on the rooftop of western themed bar Desert 5 Spot within the Tommie Hotel in Hollywood. photographs by Oliver Kupper

Bal(enciag)at by Hakan Solak and Osman Γ–zel

all clothing by Balenciaga Spring 2023

photography by Osman Γ–zel
styling by
Hakan Solak
set design by
Stefanie Grau
hair by
Masayuki Yuasa
make-up by
Gianluca Venerdini
using
Haebmau Atelier, Pat McGrath and Byredo
production by
Laura Howes
light assistance by
Riccardo Contrino
styling assistance by
Aleix LlussΓ  LΓ²pez
hair assistance by
Lee Hyangsoon
set assistance by
Catherine Lemeshynska
casting by
Eli Xavier Casting
modeling by
Sarah G. @ TIAD, Lici, Albena @ Indeed and Tarek
special thanks to Hayley Foo and the
Balenciaga Team

Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Models pose in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Photo of evil eye pendent
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Models pose in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Models pose in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Model poses in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration
Photo of metal structure with chandeliers
Models pose in Balenciaga Adidas collaboration

Backstage with Olivier MohriΕ„ge by Lukas Goldschmidt

photography by Lukas Goldschmidt
styling by
Olivier Mohringe
hair by
Tina Pachta
makeup by
Janette Peters and Darja Crainiucenco
set design by
Nina Oswald
styling assistance by
Vlada Kitaeva
hair assistance by
Caroline Raick
modeling by
Sandra @ MIHA Managament, Nastya @ Viva Models, Ana @ IZAIO Management, Celine and Zen @ A Management

Nastya wear dress by Miu Miu
boots by Balenciaga

Celine wears dress by & Other Stories
bag by Vagabond
rings by mussels and muscles

Nastya wears jumper by Raf Simons
boots by Balenciaga
bag by Vagabond

Sandra wears dress and earrings by Balenciaga
pumps by Steve Madden
bag by Agneel
ring by mussels and muscles

Zen wears top by Axel Arigato
skirt by Joseph
shoes by Vagabond
necklace by Bottega Veneta
earrings by mussels and muscles

Celine wears top by Jacquemus
pants by Aligne
earrrings by Sabrina Dehoff

Ana wears two-pieces by & Other Stories
boots by Iceberg
earrings by Sabrina Dehoff

Ana wears full look by Balenciaga
earrings by Sabrina Dehoff

Sandra wears dress by Wolford
earrings by Balenciaga
bag by Bottega Veneta
pumps by Scarcosso

Zen wears bodysuit by Falke
culottes by Joseph
earrings by Sabrina Dehoff
ring by Akind
bag by JΓ©rΓ΄me Dreyfuss

Celine wears body by Ganni
pants by Ivy & Oak
earrings by Sabrina Dehoff
belt by Diesel
bag by JΓ©rΓ΄me Dreyfuss
mules by Kurt Geiger

Zen wears trenchcoat by & Other Stories
tights by Falke
earrings by Vivienne Westwood
gloves by Roeckl
shoes by Vagabond

Zen wears two-piece by Ganni
tights by Falke

Celine wears pants by Ivy & Oak
earrings by Sabrina Dehoff
gloves by Roeckl
bag and belt by Diesel
shoes by Kurt Geiger

Nastya wears dress by Marc Cain
bag by Dior
mules by Ferragamo

Every Single Look For Celine's Homme Winter 2023 Runway Presentation

Hedi Slimane delves into today’s youth’s rediscovery of the 2000’s electro clash and electronic rock sounds and scenes, a movement appearing in major cities like Paris, London and New York. He pays tribute to New York’s cult proto-punk band Suicide formed in 1977 by Alan Vega and Martin Rev, a band who in 2023 still intrigues and inspires the emerging music scenes. Key to the collection, the tight black leather Celine pants, are paired in β€œdouble leather” with biker and racer jackets customized with studs or rhinestones. The Celine coats are worn oversized and are cut out of cashmere or english tweeds recreated on a traditional loom. The Celine suits are slightly raised, worn with cropped flared trousers. The embroideries are handmade in the Parisian couture ateliers. The giant leopard and tiger printed coats are made from shearling cashmere. The models wear β€œnightclubbing” perfume, part of the Celine haute parfumerie collection. The pieces that pay tribute to Le Palace iconic years are limited edition.

Hedi Slimane Goes Back to His Youth For Celine's Men's Winter 2023 Show

Black and white photo of Le Palace club in Paris, France

The Celine 18 – Men’s Winter 2023 show is taking place at the legendary Le Palace in Paris. A place dear to Hedi Slimane that he frequented most nights during his youth starting from the age of 16 - Le Palace remains a sentimental place which triggered his future as a couturier and where he celebrated his 50th surprise birthday party in July 2018.

Originally built as a theatre dance hall in the 17th century, but also known for its years as a nightclub, in 1978 le palace was taken over by renowned impresario Fabrice Emaer, who animated the paris nightlife at the time. Commissioned by emaer to reimagine the space, architect patrick berger participated in revamping its rich art deco interior, installing the emblematic and modern chandelier of neon lights, playing a major role center stage lighting up the walls embellished with gΓ©rard garouste paintings.

Once considered a french version of new york’s Studio 54; the iconic Le Palace was one of the first nightlife venues where a variety of communities could mix freely with exuberance, attracting the likes of Yves Saint Laurent, Grace Jones, Prince, Karl Lagerfeld, andy Warhol, Serge Gainsbourg, Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall and many more who enjoyed masked balls and live performances before making their way to the basement to Le PrivilΓ¨ge private club.

Lara Monro Interviews Choreographer Holly Blakey In Anticipation of the Premiere of Cowpuncher My Ass

Photo of four dancers dancing in unison in front of large windows

Photograph by Max Barnett

Born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, Holly Blakey found contemporary dance as a teenager. After she was rejected by a number of well-known dance schools, she attended University of Roehampton where teaching dance was the only option. What was initially a devastating and painful life transition turned out to be a profound moment for Blakey, leading to a fruitful career as a choreographer. Free from the confines of institutional models and languages of dance, she created her own β€” one that advocates drama and our lived experiences. 

Honesty, intimacy, and a sense of community feed into her work, as does her fascination with music, film, and TV. Her ability to emulate pop culture has led Blakey to traverse multiple creative industries such as directing music videos for musicians who include Florence Welch and Coldplay. She also had a longstanding collaboration with the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, whose widower Andreas Kronthaler, has designed the costumes for the return of her performance of Cowpuncher My Ass. This Wild West dance show, scored by Mica Levi, takes the notion of the hyper masculine, yet camp cowboy, as a starting point to explore the archetypes of masculinity through non-linear perspectives.  

Cowpuncher My Ass will be playing at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Wednesday 15 February at 7:30 pm. 

Autre’s London editor at large, Lara Monro, spoke with Blakey in between rehearsals to discuss how the performance challenges what might be deemed acceptable in choreography and much more. Read more.

Pussy Riot Presents Putin's Ashes @ Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles

photographs by Morgan Rindengan

On January 27, Pussy Riot brought its radical performance art to Jeffrey Deitch's Los Angeles gallery, inviting everyone to join their protest against the authoritarian leader of Russia who started the biggest war in Europe since World War II. This was the first presentation of Pussy Riot’s political performance art at a gallery in Los Angeles.

Putin's Ashes was initiated in August 2022 when Pussy Riot burned a 10 x 10 foot portrait of the Russian president, performed rituals, and cast spells aimed to chase Putin away. Twelve women participated in the performance. In order to join, women were required to experience acute hatred and resentment toward the Russian president. Most of the participants were either Ukrainian, Belarusian or Russian.

Pussy Riot's founding member Nadya Tolokonnikova bottled the ashes of the burnt portrait and incorporated them into her objects that were being presented alongside her short art film, Putin's Ashes, directed, edited, and scored by Tolokonnikova.

"While working with artifacts, bottling ashes and manufacturing the faux furry frames for the bottles, I used skills that I learned in the sweatshops of my penal colony. I was forced to sew police and army uniforms in a Russian jail. I turned what I learned in my labor camp against those who locked me up. Putin is a danger to the whole world and he has to be stopped immediately," says Tolokonnikova.

In 2012, Tolokonnikova was sentenced to two years imprisonment following an anti-Putin performance. She went through a hunger strike protesting savage prison conditions and ended up being sent far away to a Siberian penal colony, where she managed to maintain her artistic activity and with her prison punk band made toured around Siberian labor camps. Tolokonnikova published a book Read and riot: Pussy Riot's guide to activism in 2018.

Pussy Riot stands for gender fluidity, inclusivity, matriarchy, love, laughter, decentralization, anarchy and anti-authoritarianism.

 
 

JeΕ‘tΔ›d Tower: Krista Papista with Isotta Acquati & Hakan Solak

photography by Isotta Acquati
concept by
Krista Papista
styling by
Hakan Solak
photography assistance by
Maria Larrea
styling assistance by
Aleix LlussΓ  LΓ²pez
set design by
Jillian Van Koutrik
light design by
Ashley Young
hair by
Dushan Petrovich
makeup by
Lee Hyangsoon
produced by Grace Farson
location assistance by
Tatiana Bastos
graded by Carlos Vasquez
starring Krista Papista,
DΓ©bora Fernandes and Eliza Chojnacka

DΓ©bora is wearing blazer and shoes by Comme des Costumes, stockings by Falke, earrings by Uncommon Matters, and brooch by Hugo Kreit
gloves: stylist’s own

Krista is wearing dress by Lou de BΓ©toly, faux fur coat by Comme des Costumes, fishnet, stockings and socks by Falke.
shoes and necklace: Krista’s own

Eliza is wearing vintage Mugler by Nightboutique Berlin, heels by Comme des Costumes, rings and earrings by Alan Crocetti. gloves: stylist’s own

Krista is wearing dress by Lou de Bètoly, faux fur coat by Comme des Costumes, fishnet, stockings and socks by Falke.
shoes and necklace: Krista’s own

Krista is wearing dress by Jean Paul Gaultier x Lotta, Volkova by Nightboutique, coat by A Better Mistake, and shoes by Buffalo

headpiece by Bjoern van der Berg at Nightboutique Berlin

Krista is wearing dress by Jean Paul Gaultier x Lotta. Volkova by Nightboutique, and coat by A Better Mistake

Eliza is wearing tank top by Axel Arigato.
Krista is wearing net tights and socks by Falke.
jewelry: Krista’s own

 

Yearb00k by Prissilya Junewin & Camille Frank

photography by Prissilya Junewin
styling
Camille Frank
styling assistance by
Antonio Chiocca
hair by
Rabea Roehll
make-up by
Paloma Brytscha
casting by
First Encounters
modeling by Nora @
IZAIO Management, Xie, Giada, Paul, Sijo, Valentin, Cong, Anja

Read Our Interview of Heather Agyepong on the Eve of the Centre for British Photography's Inaugural Exhibition

 
Photograph by Heather Agyepong depicting woman in dress.

The Body Remembers, Le Cake-Walk, Wish You Were Here, 2020 Β© Heather Agyepong

 

On Thursday 26 January The Centre for British Photography will open for the first time. Founded by the gallerist and philanthropist, James Hyman, the charitable organization will present free, self-generated exhibitions as well as those led by independent curators and organizations championing the work of British photographers. 

Hyman explains: β€œWe hope that through this initial showcase to make a home for British photography we can, in the long run, develop an independent centre that is self-sustaining with a dedicated National Collection and public program.”

There will be two leading exhibitions, organized in partnership with Fast Forward Photography. Headstrong: Women and Empowerment celebrates photographers based in Britain who have made work concerned with how they are represented, what they are dealing with in their everyday lives and what it means to embrace diversities that challenge the conservative order of a patriarchal society. And, Images of the English at Home takes the viewer on a journey from the street, up the front steps, and into the private spaces of the living room, kitchen and bedroom before sending them out into the back garden. 

Alongside the exhibitions, The Centre will spotlight five British photographers as part of an In Focus display; Natasha Caruana, Jo Spence, Andrew Bruce, Anna Fox and Heather Agyepong

Autre’s London editor-at-large, Lara Monro, spoke with the multidisciplinary artist, Heather Agyepong, to discuss her body of work, Wish You Were Here. Commissioned by The Hyman Collection in 2019, the series explores the work of Aida Overton Walker, the celebrated African American vaudeville performer who challenged the rigid and problematic narratives of Black performers. Read more.

Read Our Interview of Love Me Tender Author Constance DebrΓ©

Author Constance Debre at Paris coffee shop.

Until Semiotext(e) published Love Me Tender, Constance DebrΓ© was unknown in the United States. Like most French novelists, Debré’s life and literary career happen in Paris, a city she’s called home since birth, a city that seems to have shaped her classic French distaste for many current American cultural exports and obsessions. And perhaps it’s that Parisian je ne sais quoi that helps explain, in part, Love Me Tender’s splashy reception among American literati. Few foreign novels get translated and even fewer receive glowing reviews in The New Yorker, The Guardian, and The LA Review of Books. So, why is this novel appealing to Americans? And what does its embrace say about US literature? 

Love Me Tender follows an unnamed narrator who abandons her bourgeois marriage and law job to become a writer. Along the way, the protagonist loses custody of her young son after her spurned ex-husband weaponizes her newfound lesbianism against her. In a surreal literary twist, the ex-husband’s attorney convinces the courts that her collection of books by Genet, Bataille and de Sade prove her degeneracy and the embittered ex wins full custody. As the narrator’s legal appeals inch through the French courts, she writes, swims and takes many lovers, her months punctuated by awkward, chaperoned visits with her son at a state-run center once every fifteen days. Love Me Tender is a painful examination of motherhood, family, and the lines an artist must draw between themself and the world. But it’s also a punky take on sex and freedom drawn from Debré’s own biography, though the novelist provocatively insists that the book is not β€˜about’ her.

Reading the novel in LA during the waning days of 2022, I couldn’t help but see in it a rebuke of the current literary moment, one often critiqued as straight-jacketed by moral and social objectives. On the other hand Love Me Tender is deliciously French, the narrator unsentimental, blasΓ© even about choosing literature over motherhood, responsibility, and the trappings of upper-middle-class life. 

Originally, DebrΓ© and I met at the LA launch of Love Me Tender in October, 2022. After inhaling the novel, I invited her to read at my reading series Casual Encountersz β€” I was curating one in Paris and DebrΓ© enthusiastically accepted. Though a health issue ultimately kept her from the event, we met the following afternoon at Chez Jeannette, a bistro in Strasbourg Saint Denis popular among Parisian artists, writers, and glitterati. DebrΓ©, like the narrator in Love Me Tender, has a swimmer’s build and in person she’s warm and intellectual, kind of grand in her own way, gently tapping sugar crystals into an espresso, often palming her buzzed head of hair. Despite the lousy January weather, we sit outside, DebrΓ© across from me with her back to the street, just beyond Chez Jeannette’s awning. Though it drizzles throughout our conversation, DebrΓ© seems indifferent to the rain. Read more.

The Olympics by Shahram Saadat & Elizabete Pakule

photography by Shahram Saadat
styling & creative direction by
Elizabete Pakule
hair by
Myuji Sato
make-up by
Dasha Taivas
production by
Daniela Noriega
photography assistance by
Nicole LeBlanc
styling assistance by
Alex Tang
modeling by
Em, John Foley, Dehiry, Neve, Kwadwo and Kristie

Neve wears full look by Mowalola.
shoes: stylist’s own

Kwadwo wears pants and jacket by Nadia Roberts.
skirt: Mowalola
shoes: Alyssa Marie Groeneveld

Kristie wears full look by Ethan Mullings.
shoes: Eva Lee

Em wears top and skirts by Alyssa Marie Groeneveld.
leggings: Diesel
boots: Brogan Smith

John wears dress by Eva Lee.
shoes: Sarah Inyoung Park

tracksuit: Diesel
heels: Brogan Smith
tights: Raquel de Carvalho

John wears tracksuit by Diesel.

Em wears jacket and shorts by Diesel.
bra: model’s own
bralette: Raquel de Carvalho
boots: Brogan Smith

Dehiry wears shirts by Pariahcorp.
pants: Alyssa Marie Groeneveld

Santa Cruz by Saskia Schmidt & Pino Sartorio

full look: Balenciaga archives

photography by Pino Sartorio
styling by
Saskia Schmidt
hair & makeup by
Ischrak Nitschke
modeling by
Marta Toba

coat: Barbour International
jacket: Brogger
dress: Jaded London 
shoes: Louis Vuitton x Vestiaire Collective

full look: Ottolinger

top & dress: Preen by Thornton Bregazzi
skirt: Gucci archive 
glasses: HBA x Gentle Monster 

full look: Balenciaga archives

Masturbating To Solzhenitsyn: Nadya Tolokonnikova as a Hero of Our Time

text by Max Lawton

At dinner with Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova after a reading at UCLA, the famous Russian writer Vladimir Sorokin gets ready to make a toast––he loves making toasts. His toasts are often wry, slightly sarcastic, and metaphysical. They’re like little slogans drawn from his novels. But, getting ready to pronounce this one, he looks deadly serious. 
He meets Nadya’s eyes and raises his broad-bulbed glass of Malbec: 
β€œTo a hero of our time!”
He takes a beat as glasses clink.
β€œI mean it Nadya… you’re a true hero of our time.”
Nadya looks touched. She thanks Vladimir in heartfelt fashion.
But Vladimir is also being a little bit funny. He does believe that Nadya is a hero of our time, he wouldn’t say it otherwise, but those precise words are, of course, a reference to the title of the classic Lermontov novel––a Romantic text about a doomed Russian soldier in Central Asia.
The meat of his words are what he means, but their surface always has a conceptual cast to them.
The dinner continues.
The reason Vladimir feels such a strong kinship with Nadya isn’t entirely explicable by way of typical notions of the Dissident in Russia. Vladimir is quite skeptical of the stereotypical cult figure of the dissident writer. Even so, throughout his 40-year career, Vladimir has constantly been in the crosshairs of the powers that be for his wildly controversial reimaginings and desacralizations of Russian life. In his first novel The Norm, he depicts the Soviet Union as an enormous social experiment in which the single most substantial rule is that all citizens must eat literal shit (referred to as β€œnorm”) every day––or be arrested. In Their Four Hearts, he recasts the end of the Soviet Union as a Bataillean rampage filled with pedophilia and coprophagia. 
And in My First Working Saturday, he brings his experience in the Moscow Conceptual Underground to bear in the creation of strange prose texts that draw more from Andy Warhol than they do from Fyodor Dostoievsky. Starting out not as a writer, but a painter, Vladimir was inspired by the way that painters in the Moscow Conceptual Underground like Eric Bulatov and Ilya Kabakov simply appropriated Soviet visual tropes and used them in their paintings in a way that, though they were hardly altered, entirely deflated them. The short-story collection My First Working Saturday is made up entirely of binary bombs: their first halves are pitch-perfect imitations of Soviet Socialist Realist prose, but, in the middle of each story, there’s an explosion and some aberrant act of violence or linguistic insanity pushes the story into a new world that couldn’t be further from official Soviet aesthetics. 
However, it’s the novel Marina’s 30th Love that seems most relevant to Vladimir’s adulation of Nadya. In that book, the titular lesbian dissident often masturbates to the icon-like picture of Solzhenitsyn by her bed:

Through the spreading cigarette smoke, Marina met those eyes for the umpteenth time, then sighed.
HE always looked as if he were waiting for the answer to a question posed by his piercing eyes: what have you done to merit being called HUMAN? β€˜I try to merit it,’ she replied with her eyes, large and slanting like a doe’s. And, as always, after the first mute conversation, HIS face began to grow more kind, his pursed lips lost their sternness, the wrinkles around his eyes gathered together softly and calmly, and loose strands of hair fell onto his forehead with a human helplessness all too well-known to her. His triangular face lit up with a familiar, tender kindness. 
[...] Marina was certain that everything with HIM would come to pass properly. As it was meant to happen––that which, alas, she’d never had with a single man. That stupid, medical-sounding term ORGASM was shoved out of her fantasies with disgust, synonyms were searched for, but they weren’t able to describe what the heart felt so sharply and clearly…
[...] HE always remained a form of secret knowledge, a hidden possibility of true love, that which Marina dreamed about, that which her slender, swarthy body craved, falling asleep in the arms of yet another girlfriend…

Even though she can’t have orgasms with men, Marina imagines that Solzhenitsyn––HE––will manage to give her one. For Vladimir, this part of the novel acts as a way to distance himself from basic, unreflective dissidence. His dissidence is better represented by Marina’s masturbation or by Stalin and Khrushchev’s apolitical anal sex in Blue Lard than it is by unimaginative pamphleteering.
When Vladimir cheekily referenced Lermontov in calling Nadya a β€œhero of our time” at dinner, I’m certain that his words were a way of making it clear that she also belongs to this nuanced mode of dissidence. 
Indeed, Nadya has proven herself capable of mastering wildly diverse idioms of art and discourse, then handily transforming them into conceptual outgrowths of her central project, which is simultaneously political, sexual, and aesthetic. To claim that Nadya’s whole project is simply undermining the Russian government would be just as ridiculous as those who would have Sorokin be a straightforward anti-Russian dissident in a Solzhenitsian mode. It’s for this reason that Nadya has said that β€œfor better or worse, there would be no Pussy Riot without The Norm and Blue Lard.” 
Like Vladimir, Nadya coΓΆpts genres and styles, eviscerates them, then makes them her bitch. 
An able and worthy mistress, Nadya turns punk rock, NFTs, conceptual installations, and performance art into latex-masked subs, all performing her will in a state of total submission.
Just like in Putin’s Ashes, a squadron of balaclava-clad women doing a ritual to bring about Putin’s death, they bear a flag with the Russian word for CUNT and a button that β€œneutralizes Vladimir Putin,” they stand in formation before a burning effigy of Putin’s face, Nadya, wearing a white balaclava, is the leader, drone shots above them in the beautiful desert night, the entire squadron stabs the ground, the women spit into the sand in Putin’s general direction, then Nadya collects the ashes from the effigy. 
Just as is the case with everything else that passes through her art, the Putin’s Ashes project has turned Vladimir Putin into Nadya’s bitch. 
Yes, in a very real way, over the course of the video, these ashes become Putin’s real ashes and no effigy. 
In that same vein, these days, Nadya often recites Orthodox prayers for Putin’s swift and painful death.
This performance might seem confusing from the perspective some people once had (or still have) of Nadya: a rock musician who writes anti-Putin music and was arrested for performances in public places. How narrow-minded and inaccurate! Punk was merely the medium for her message at that time. Now, it’s Death Grips and gabber-influenced electronic music––sometimes ornamented by her truly awesome death-metal screams––that has become a better accompaniment to her aesthetic project. 
But her project goes far beyond music. Given her recent collaboration with Judy Chicago, and the Putin’s Ashes exhibition, it should by now be utterly clear that Nadya is an artist who takes control of conceptual modes in the same way that Sorokin and his conceptual forebears in the Moscow underground once did. 
Any artistic idiom should be so lucky as to have Nadya dominate it––to have Nadya as a mistress.
Like Marina masturbating to Solzhenitsyn, Nadya represents a challenge to fossilized forms of dissident activity. 
It goes without saying that, in delivering his toast, Vladimir also meant that Nadya is a β€œhero of our time” in terms of sheer physical bravery. That’s probably what gives her a certain affinity with Lermontov’s hero. She’s a badass who puts herself in dangerous situations that most people wouldn’t dream of. But what she does on top of that, as in Putin’s Ashes is hyper-nuanced. 
It’s conceptual art and she’s a conceptual artist––even in the context of NFTs, and OnlyFans, and over-the-top music. 
I can’t wait to see what idiom this β€œhero of our time” appropriates next––to see which artform gets to wear the latex mask. Whatever it ends up being, I’m sure it shall be completely and utterly dominated by Nadya’s fierce artistic, political, and sexual energy.

НоТ для ΠŸΡƒΡ‚ΠΈΠ½Π° Ρ‚ΠΎΡ‡Ρƒ,
Π—Π»Π° Ρ‚Π΅Π±Π΅ я Π½Π΅ ΠΏΡ€ΠΎΡ‰Ρƒ.

Sharpening a knife for Putin,
I will not forgive your evil.

Max Lawton is a writer and musician, and translator of many books by Vladimir Sorokin and Jonathan Littell.

Putin’s Ashes
will be on view at Jeffrey Deitch from January 27 through February 3, 2023. 7000 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90038. On opening night (6-8PM), there will be a performance, click here to RSVP. Only people in balaclavas will be granted entry. Balaclavas will be provided at the gallery entrance. Guests are encouraged to bring their own balaclavas.

Shepard Fairey, Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova

flyer by Shepard Fairey

Autre Hosts A VIP Dinner To Celebrate Issue #15 Fall/Winter 2022 "Losing My Religion" At Neuehouse Hollywood

Last night at Neuehouse Hollywood, Autre hosted an intimate gathering of friends and contributors for a dinner to celebrate the Losing My Religion issue (#15 Fall/Winter 2022). photographs by Oliver Kupper