Review Of Cristine Brache's Solo Exhibition Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) @ Fierman Gallery In New York

text by Adam Lehrer

Artist Cristine Brache has developed an interest in surrealism. For her recent exhibition, Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) at New York’s Fierman Gallery, the artist has created a sculptural installation rife with references to some of the surrealist movement’s most important female practitioners. In particular, the anthropomorphic forms and hybridity between body and object of the figurative sculpture that functions as the installation’s centerpiece, Woman Getting Reupholstered, recalls those soft sculptures of Dorothea Tanning such as Nue Couchée, 1969. The larger installation—in which a figure appears seated with the floral pattern emblazoned on both the piece of furniture and the figure indistinguishable, a resin moon illuminated by a striking shade of blue, entitled Gaslight (After Remedios Varo, Papila Estelar, 1958), is hanging from the ceiling concealed within a small bird cage, and a kind of miniature mountain replete with water depicts small figures bathing and swimming—references Mexican surrealist Remedios Varo’s 1958 painting Papila Estelar. Brache had previously only been familiar with the male surrealists, and the renewed interest in the work of the women within the movement—Carrington, Varo, Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and others—that has developed in efforts to correct its canon made Brache understand why people had told her in the past that her work evoked surrealism.

“When I saw [these artists’] work I found myself drawn to surrealism for the first time,” says Brache. “I was drawn to surrealism because it’s a code. Lately, I’ve been drawn to the ways in which oppressed groups speak in code to survive or avoid persecution for self-expression.” As an example of cultural codification, Brache often points towards the Orishas, or the spirits/deities of the African Yoruba diaspora who identities were merged into those of the Catholic saints to survive the onslaught of erasure that came with the Caribbean slave trade. “Due to the need to assimilate with the icons of Catholicism , the deities were assigned a correlating Catholic Saint,” she says. “The survivalist mutations of Santeria that draped Yoruba beliefs in a cloak of Christian beliefs is known as syncretization.” Her exhibition last year at Locust’s Projects in Miami, Cristine’s Secret Garden, explored this notion in depth. Ghosts, like ideas and concepts, are adaptable.

 

Woman Getting Reupholstered, 2020
Fabric, foam, oak, hardware Approximately
55 x 30 x 22” (140 x 76 x 56 cm)

 

Brache believes that that codified language of surrealism—and as Roland Barthes pointed out in Death of an Author—is an especially codified language because it sought to unleash the potential of the unconscious mind via the “irrational juxtaposition of images” that help separate a work or text from its maker or author—is especially suited to women artists. She cites an article written by Lexi Mantakis for Dazed. “Women emblazoned surrealism with a new type of self-awareness never achieved by their male counterparts,” writes Mantakis. “Their intuitive expression turned the movement from something quite dissociated with reality, to a deeply personal exploration of human emotion, personal trauma, the subconscious, female sexuality, and identity, all through a lens of fantasy.”

Breton saw surrealism as a movement that liberated artists to explore and express “the actual functioning of thought.” To Brache and Mantakis, male artists used surrealism to project their interiorities and fantasy lives onto the world, while female artists used the codified fantastical imagery and language of surrealism to express something more rooted in lived reality. Surrealism gave women artists the opportunity to express themselves in a veiled way that allotted a kind of freedom, and were able to do this better than their male counterparts because women are used to being culturally conditioned to codify communication. “All marginalized groups find ways to codify their behavior to survive or avoid persecution,” says Brache. “Women often use (for example) beauty and demeanor/language as tool to operate within patriarchal systems (take women's use of exclamation points in emails). To me, this is a code.”

Brache sees surrealism as contradictory in its treatment of the women in its canon. From her perspective, the history of the movement has been typified by one persistent gaslight, or manipulation by means of denying reality, in which the artists who best exemplified its tropes have until very recently been relegated to the status of muse to some of surrealism’s most famous male artists. Tanning, for instance, was better remembered as Max Ernst’s wife than she was a significant artist in her own right until relatively recently. Photographer Dora Maar had long been historicized as one of Picasso’s muses, rather than one of surrealist photography’s foremost pioneers. Do women actually make for better surrealists? It’s hard to know, really, whether an artistic style can be better realized according to the genders of its practitioners. But nevertheless, Brache’s approach in her recent exhibition forces her audience to confront questions around gender, art history, manipulation, and cultural codification. For Brache, surrealism is emblematic of the oppressed artist screaming to be heard while self-conscious of who might actually be listening.

Bathers’ Soup, 2020
Baroque freshwater pearls, resin, stainless steel, genuine silver leaf, birch, polymer clay
16 x 18 x 4” (41 x 46 x 10 cm)

That Brache hadn’t quite understood her connection to surrealism is interesting, because manifestations of the style in her work have always been rather clear. On the surface level, one could make the connection between Brache’s working in a variety of disciplines and the multivariate practices of her surrealist forebears. Like Carrington, whose fantastical and bizarre short stories rivaled her visual artworks in their importance, or Unica Zurn, who produced writings that pioneered the “abstract horror” style that would later influence writers like Clarice Lispector and Blake Butler at the same time that she was producing macabre and strangely seductive illustrations and drawings, Brache is as serious about her work in text—poetry, specifically—as she is in her visual artwork. “It's totally a different process, but I think the feelings and intentions come from the same place,” says Brache. “I like different media because it does different things and it can enhance an idea as a result of its very form.”

But perhaps more indicative of Brache’s connections to surrealism is her underlying artistic ethos. The artist excavates her own psychology and personal experiences, and connects it to broader collective struggle. The work isn’t about her necessarily, but nevertheless her own memories and traumas inform the ways in which she makes art about the world around her. The personal, the political, and the social collide and coagulate in the work, blurring the structural boundaries between self and group “I draw from my personal experience and use that to look to the world in order to articulate a collective experience to bring awareness and empower people (on a personal level),” says Brache. “I would never want to make work about something I haven't experienced myself because I don't think it's my place to.” Her 2018 painting, Painting of a Collage My Mother Made (she cut Michelle Pfeiffer’s face out so she could be catwoman), recreates a collage made by her mother in which her mother’s face replaces the actress in the second Tim Burton Batman film. The image becomes a tender homage to a mother while it also emphasizes a woman’s desire to be creatively fulfilled, empowered, demanding to be heard and seen.

 

Gaslight (after Remedios Varo, Papilla Estelar, 1958), 2020
Resin, steel, LEDs, electrical wire
24 x 20 x 11” (61 x 51 x 28 cm) - sculpture size, installation dimensions variable based on chain length

 

Partially, one of the reasons that surrealism remains seductive to contemporary viewers is its direct, libidinal simplicity: the clarity in the paintings of René Magritte, the frank and explicit sexuality in Louis Aragon’s novels, the freedom in the automatist approach to art making. Surrealism utilizes simplicity to transport content and ideas directly into its viewers’ subconscious minds. Like the vampire priest in Park Chan Wook’s Thirst who reanimates his dead lover with sex and the offering of his own blood, surrealism allows the artist to share his/her world with a viewer through blunt, erotic, and sometimes violent imagery. The content is codified, but the concept communicated is often clear. Directness, or simplicity, characterizes Brache’s work as well, and she concedes that directness is something that she strives for, but makes sure to differentiate it from ‘flatness.’ “If you can communicate something complex simply, then I believe you've distilled the idea to its purest form,” says Brache. “There’s nothing around the idea that gets in the way of its interpretation.”

You see this directness in her poetry, its blunt provocations and incisive observations of sex, womanhood and contemporary life in liquid modernity. In her poem Sophie, the text reads like something you’d read off of some lurid dating profile.

my name is Sofia, black eyes, with a tight and petite body, I am 168cm,49kg, 35c-24-34. a cute and sexy girl. I work in a cloth shop in daytime, but in nighttime I am also doing some part time escort.

In Brache’s video piece made in collaboration with the artist Brad Phillips, ppants (for Brad), Brache is depicted in lower profile and over the course of two minutes she slowly urinates in her own jeans. A pee spot grows in width over her crotch while the flash of a camera is seen going off behind the frame. The elemental transgression of taboo becomes both playful and heroic; the decision to lose control over bodily functions becomes an act of power. One can imagine the ghost of Henry Miller watching from behind the camera, muttering “I love everything that flows.”

Surrealism has long been the spectre haunting Brache’s work, but in Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) the spectre has become corporeal. She is now dealing with the legacy of the movement as she has always dealt with art making: directly. Brache is placing herself within the legacy of surrealism, and seeing within it a style specifically suited to be made by women who have already adapted to codify their language within the oppressive hierarchies of contemporary life. Surrealism is an art of “code-switching.” Brache is an artist interested in codes.

Commit Me, Commit to Me (Cázame, Cásame) was intended to be on view from February 22nd - March 29th, 2020 before its run was cut short by the Coronavirus pandemic. For more information, contact Fierman Gallery in New York and follow @cristinebrache_ on instagram.

Falling In and Out of Love With Fashion: Here Are Ten Things You Need To Know About Elio Fiorucci

This Monday, the fashion world was saddened to hear of the death of Italian designer Elio Fiorucci. Known as “The King of Jeans,” the Milanese designer’s raunchy, colorful fashions “sold America back to America.” His kitschy, recycled style broke the harsh, conservative boundaries of haute-couture, gaining international popularity with his low-cost materials and everyday fashions. The Fiorucci name was a staple in the jet-set world of youth and alternative culture in the New Wave era. However, despite fame and acclaim, poor management and legal issues separated Fiorucci from his brand into the 21st century. Interior design guru Rossana Orlandi said Fiorucci was “the point of reference for an entire generation.” Giorgio Armani called him “revolutionary.” Fiorucci recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Here are ten things you need to know about the fashion icon:

1. Elio Fiorucci was the son of a Milanese shoe-and-sandal shop owner

In 1963, a 22-year-old Fiorucci, while experimenting with new designs in his father’s shoe shop, created three pairs of rubber galoshes in bright, primary colors. After being featured in local Milan fashion magazine Amica, the galoshes sparked a sensation. 

2. Fiorucci was an integral player in fashion’s globalization

A Model In A Chiffon Dress With Roses And Red Satin Accents, 1976 Photo: Associated/REX Shutterstock/Rex USA

Fiorucci was deeply inspired by the bright miniskirts and kitschy baubles trendy in London’s Carnaby Street. When his first shop opened in Milan in 1967, he was determined to bring modern British and American fashion to Italy. The then-conservative Milan had barely seen t-shirts, jeans, and glitter. The store was instantly popular for modern Italian shoppers. Later, the Fiorucci brand would turn underground fashions such as the Brazilian thong and New Mexican glass beads into international trends.

3. The Fiorucci label popularized many staples of modern fashion

Fiorucci introduced the monokini and thong from Brazil, albeit while sparking controversy with the topless photos used to advertise them. The label was the first to popularize leopard-skin prints, Afghan coats, and fishnet stockings. In 1976, Fiorucci introduced the first “fashion” jean for women, selling over one million pairs of jeans in the first year on the market. The company created the first pair of stretch jeans in 1982.

4. Fiorucci was more interested in the everyday than “haute couture”

Fiorucci was known for favoring cheap materials—$10 t-shirts from India, plastic see-through jeans, aluminum lunch pails sold as purses. “I am a merchant, not a man of fashion,” he told WWD in 1976 at the opening of his Manhattan department store. He told People in 1980 he found the label haute couture “pathetic.”

5. Fiorucci’s department stores did not just sell clothes

Fiorucci’s first big store in Milan expanded from fashion to offer books, music, furniture, and makeup. It also boasted a performance space, vintage clothing area, and restaurant. The Milan shop became a focal point for youth and alternative culture. Fiorucci’s Manhattan location was known as the “daytime Studio 54.” New York’s New-Wave creatives would come to the store to sip espresso and trade party plans in the pre-soirée hours. The Fiorucci store was frequented by art exhibitions, book signings, and parties.  

6. Fiorucci advertisements were iconic for their innovation and controversy

The famous two-angels logo was plastered on bags, t-shirts, and billboards internationally. It was paired alongside models in skin-tight jeans wearing fluffy pink handcuffs, Brazilian thongs, camouflage and leopard-skin prints. Others show women in provocatively tight jeans and latex pants. An exhibition at SACI featuring the ads in 2012 claimed, “Such ads, and others with fluorescent colors and breakthrough graphics, ensured the Fiorucci brand a place in design and retail history.”  

7. His designs were extremely popular with celebrities of the 70s and 80s

The glitzy innovation exhibition in Fiorucci’s designs attracted the trendy, jet-set celebrities of the New Wave era. Notable Fiorucci-lovers included Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and Jackie O. Fiorucci is credited with creating Madonna’s look, launching her career. Debbie Harry was known to scour Fiorucci collections for anything black. Truman Capote signed books in the window of the New York department store. Fiorucci sent an extra-large sweatshirt with a crown embroidered in gold thread to Princess Diana as a wedding present.

8. Fiorucci launched the careers of notable fashion designers

Fiorucci’s New York department store was the first to feature designers Betsey Johnson, Anna Sui, and Jill Stuart. Marc Jacobs told the New York Times in a 2001 interview, “'When I was 15, instead of going to sleep-away camp I spent the whole summer hanging out in the store. I had this wide-eyed glamour about these beautiful young people that globe-trotted from club to club dressing in these fabulous clothes. It was like a living, breathing fashion show that I wanted so much to be part of.” Jacobs credits Fiorucci with inspiring the low-cost designs

9. By the late 1980s, Elio lost the right to use his own name

Despite thriving sales, poor management forced Fiorucci to close its New York City location in 1986. By 1988, franchise disputes lead to the closing of all U.S. branches. The company was subsequently split into shares that were bought by various multinational corporations, and Elio Fiorucci was legally barred from designing under his own name.

10. Elio Fiorucci fell out of love with fashion

In 2003, after 36 years, Fiorucci closed down his historic shop in Corso Vittorio Emmanuele, Milan. He said he had “fallen out of love with fashion.” However, he continued to design. He launched his own brand, Love Therapy, and designed for Agent Provocateur. 

Text by Keely Shinners

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[FASHION REVIEW] Siki Im Spring 2016 Collection Is A Celebration of Sub-Culture

John Varvatos technically closed NYFWM. But for me, it all ended with Siki Im. At its best, fashion tells stories. Of the designer who created it. Of the sub-cultures that inspired it. Of music. Of art. In 15 minutes, Siki distilled everything that I love about fashion into one seamless collection.

Siki Im has a lot of interests. He collects Jordan sneakers. He appreciates Black Metal and is an avid Hip-Hop fan. He loves literature. But as a former architect, the common thread that ties together all of Siki’s cultural influences appears to be structure. He is passionately obsessed with how things are created, whether they are objects or simply, emotions. Siki has serious design pedigrees, having worked under Karl Lagerfeld and as head designer at Helmut Lang after its namesake designer left the brand to pursue an art career. But with his own brands, Siki aims for the personal, and his presentations are fueled by emotional touchstones. One thing that had been missing from Men’s Fashion Week in New York was showmanship. As one attendee at the show put it, “This was the only collection that felt like there was anything at stake.” It’s true, it feels as if Siki Im is deadly close to entering the big leagues of menswear designers: Rick, Raf, Wang, Kim Jones. These guys do not seem to exist in a world that far removed from Siki Im anymore.

At NYFWM, Siki Im presented the Spring Summer 2016 collections for both his high-end Siki Im line and his more street-ready Den Im brand. He presented the collections together, blending the higher end and street looks into a cohesive street army. The collection, entitled “Youth Museum,” explored Siki’s most prevalent passion: New York City. Growing up as a skateboarder in Germany, Siki longed for the day that he too would shred the streets of the Big Apple. When he got here, however, the city wasn’t quite what he imagined it would be. Or was it?

The show, the most star-studded of any I attended this week, started when a man (Sam Wheeler) entered the middle of the catwalk with an electric guitar. He started welding Dead Man-era Neil Young-like riffs, full of tremolo and power. Then, the Opera singer Anthony Ross Costanzo took the stage. He put the microphone to his lips, and in an earth-shattering operatic falsetto, he began singing the opening line to LCD Soundsystem’s song, ‘New York, You’re Bringing Me Down.”

The message was clear: New York is different, but we are here, god damn it.

As a bass thudding soundtrack, composed by Casey Mullen and helmed by Sam Wheeler kicked in, the looks came down the runway. One of the wonderful things about Siki’s garments is that they are in many ways classic utilitarian work wear, but with flourishes and details Siki is able to turn a sweatshirt into a garment that can be work into an infinite number of presentations. Chalk it up to his talent for structure or his belief in individuality, but in Siki Clothes you can really wear them however you want. A Den Im bomber jacket came with a detachable skirt. A “Jedi poncho” was a call back to Siki’s youth, and most likely, your youth. We all love Star Wars.

Prints from German artist Frank Thiel called back to Siki’s home in Germany. Jeweler Chris Habana embellished the looks with broaches and charms that will be available when the collection drops next year. Siki also amped up the looks with futuristic sunglasses that he designed in conjunction with Gentle Monster Eyewear. With sneaker brand No. 288, Siki designed simple and sleek slip-on sneakers that could be worn at the beach or in space.

As the finale reigned in, Sonic Youth’s ‘100 Percent’ blared from the speakers. The collection was a celebration of New York and of Siki’s life. This was a supremely personal collection, but at the same time it felt remarkably resonant and life affirming. I got into fashion through art and music. Or perhaps, it was just by living in New York that fashion was inevitable. Siki Im’s SS ’16 presentation of his Siki Im and Den Im lines was a celebration of sub-culture and its resilience in the face of gentrification, industry, and commerce. Yes, New York culture has been chewed up and spit out many times over. But it’s still here, and we are still here.

Adam Lehrer is a writer, journalist, and art and fashion critic based in New York City. On top of being Autre’s fashion and art correspondent, he is also a regular contributor to Forbes Magazine. His unique interests in punk, hip hop, skateboarding and subculture have given him a distinctive, discerning eye and voice in the world of culture, et al. Oh, and he also loves The Sopranos. Follow him on Instagram: @adam102287

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Ten Things You Need To Know About the Incendiary and Prodigious Poet, Painter, and Musician Lizzy Mercier Descloux

To some, she was France’s answer to Patti Smith, or perhaps a 20th century reincarnation of Arthur Rimbaud – or maybe both. To others, she is virtually unknown. But listen to her track “Fire” off her seminal album Press Color, which is seeing a rerelease this summer, and you’ll wonder why you’ve never heard of her. Instead of being France’s answer to Patti Smith, though, Lizzy Mercier Descloux was more of a soul sister; she was also more punk than no wave – punk in the sense of her rebelliousness. You can find Descloux donning a suit next to Smith, who is barefoot and wearing a tattered dress, in a poetry art book that the duo released together – with contributions from Richard Hell. Born Martine-Elisabeth Mercier Descloux in Paris, Lizzy was a bit of a creative anomaly – she introduced world music into her music before there was such a thing. If it wasn’t for her explorations with world music, there is a chance Paul Simon may not have made Graceland. Whatever the case is, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, who died in the early naughts, is still a force to be reckoned with. Here are ten things you need to know about Lizzy Mercier Descloux.

1. She Grew Up in Paris and Taught Herself How To Play Guitar

Born in 1956, Lizzie Mercier Descloux grew up in Les Halles – the center of Paris. She attended art school at the École des Beaux-Arts and taught herself how to play guitar. By this point – the beginning of the 70s – early examples of punk and no wave music was flowing out of New York and London and making its way to France.

2. With Michel Esteban, She Opens a Punk Boutique in Paris Called Harry Cover

Just like Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren ran their iconic boutique and punk mecca, provocatively called Sex on King’s Road in London – Descloux helped run Harry Cover, which became a “temple” for the punk movement in Paris at the time. It sold books, music, clothing and local bands rehearsed in the basement.  She managed the boutique with her boyfriend Michel Esteban who became her closest creative collaborator and partner.

3. Descloux Goes To New York On Assignment For Rock News – Everything Changes

In 1975, her partner Esteban starts a French music magazine called Rock News, which was covering a lot of the punk and no wave scenes that were quickly spreading throughout the world. Descloux visits New York to do a story on the local scene happening on the Bowery. In doing so, she is introduced to Richard Hell and Patti Smith, which would have a profound affect on the young artist’s trajectory as a musician.

4. She Moves to New York Permanently and Buys a Fender Jazzmaster Guitar

Realizing that if she wanted to make it as an artist and a musician, she needed to make New York her home. In 1976, she makes the move and joins a mass migration of artists looking for a new creative environment. The artistic cognoscenti of Downtown New York welcome Descloux with open arms – including Richard Hell, whom she became romantically involved with. She buys a Fender Jazzmaster guitar and starts to work on music.

5. In Collaboration with Richard Hell and Patti Smith, She Publishes a Book of Poetry

With Patti Smith penning the illustrations and the preface, and Richard Hell adding his own contributions, Descloux publishes a book of poetry called “Desiderata.” The title comes from the Latin word, Desiderata, which can be translated into English as, “desired things.” Some of the photographs in the book include photographs of Patti in a dress and Descloux in a man’s suit.

6. She Releases A Mini LP Under the Name Rosa Yemen

Together with guitarist D.J. Barnes, she releases her first EP – mini-album with six tracks, like all-instrumental Decryptated and the improvisational and performative ode to venereal disease Herpese Simplex, which is a good example of one of Descloux’s rawest and most rebelliously minimal songs in her early catalogue. However, it was her debut record on ZE Records – entitled “Colors” – with the electrifying first song, Fire, which really showed Descloux’s true talents as an artist and collagist of musical genres and sounds.

7. Descloux Was Also An Actress

With her distinct look – androgynous facial features and wild swash of hair – she became a muse of the Blank Generation’s film scene. In fact, she can be seen in Amos Poe's “Blank Generation,” which is largely considered to be one of the most important cinematic documents of that era. She can also be found in a short film directed by Seth Tillett.

8. She Loved Multiple Musical Genres and Sounds From Around The World

Descloux’s second album, Mambo Nassau, mixed no wave sounds with funk, soul and African beats. In fact, Descloux was one of the first musical artists to play with the concept of “World Music,” which was an unheard of term in 1980 when Mambo Nassau was released. After a long trip through the African continent, she released an unexpected hit single called "Mais où Sont Passées les Gazelles?,” which had backing vocals from South African musicians. Shortly after this effort, Paul Simon released Graceland, which had an eerily similar approach and sound. In one of Descloux’s later albums, entitled One For the Soul, she teamed up Brazilian musicians with Chet Baker, who she met at a Jazz Festival in Rio De Janeiro.

9. Descloux Went to Africa On The Trail of Arthur Rimbaud

A lot of young artists have had a fascination with the young and brilliant 19th century poet Arthur Rimbaud who gave up writing and moved to Africa where he later died. Although, most young artists don’t follow the same trail as Rimbaud. But Descloux did – she first traveled to Ethiopia and then made her way down to South Africa, which was then still in the throes of the Apartheid.

10. She Is Diagnosed With Cancer and Dies in Corsica

Toward the end of her life, she started to paint more and decided to settle on the beautiful island of Corsica. After being diagnosed with cancer, it was here that she decided to live out her last days – her ashes were scattered at sea in a beautiful and fitting end to a long and fruitfully creative life.

"Press Color," Lizzy Mercier Descloux's seminal album will be rereleased in August by Light In the Attic Records. You can click here to preorder. Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper. Photos courtesy of Esteban and ZE Records. 

Ettore Sottsass: A Master of Postmodern Italian Design

There is a good chance that you have been hearing a lot about Ettore Sottsass – the revolutionary, incendiary and boundlessly creative postmodern Italian designer and architect. If you are in the design world, you may say that the Sottsass renaissance is already starting to recede – from the flood of interest that came after his death in 2007. For others, you may be curious: who is Ettore Sottsass and why is everyone talking about him? If you don’t know his name, you may be seeing a lot of his designs on social media, his peculiar lamp on someone’s desk, or an alien-like bookshelf in a friend’s home. What is there to know about Sottsass? The most important thing to know is that he was a complete anomaly – a planet on its own bizarre axis. His limitless exuberance was a breath of fresh air compared to the stodgy, boring design of the 1970s and 80s, and his referential palate extended to American Jazz, beat poetry, and 1940s Indian architecture.  Indeed, Sottsass got his start revolutionizing mundane, everyday utilitarian objects and machinery, from typewriters to corkscrews. However, it was his founding of the Memphis Group and his subsequent furniture designs that earned him both praise and vitriol. Love him or hate him, Sottsass’s designs will be forever iconic of his singular vision of reinterpretation and creative anarchy.

 

Imprisoned In A Concentration Camp

After graduating from the Politecnico di Torino with a degree in Architecture in 1939, Sottsass entered the army. After dutifully serving in the Italian military during WWII, he was captured by the Germans and taken to a prisoner of war concentration camp in Yugoslavia. After his liberation at the end of the war, Sottsass went to work for iconic midcentury designer, George Nelson.

Everything That His Father Was Not

Sottsass was a futurist in that he believed that reinventing the wheel could only come out of  “dismantling the past.” His father was a prominent Italian architect and he moved his family closer to Turin so that his son could study architecture there. However, Sottsass had a distinct aversion to the old school methodologies of design and architecture – the idea that functionalism is the key objective. “It’s not enough. Design should also be sensual and exciting."

“Valentine” Portable Typewriter For Olivetti Puts Him On The Map

Obsessed with American pop art and having a distaste for the boring sameness of office equipment and machinery, Sottsass went to work for Olivetti. Through this collaboration, the fire engine red “Valentine” typewriter, with its sleek carrying case, was born – it was perhaps the first writing machine that could be described as sexy, sensual and fun. In 1970, actor Richard Burton was photographed at the Heathrow airport with the typewriter in one hand and Elizabeth Taylor in the other.

A Trip To India

If you look at some of the homes in Tirunamavalai, which is located in Southern India, you can see some of Sottsass’s strongest references. Many of these homes were built as early as the 1940s – forty years before the founding of Memphis Group. It was in India that Sottsass learned the importance of color. Even the poorest in India lived in brightly colored homes and wore brightly colored clothing. His design sensibilities started to change radically. This is evidenced in his large altar-like ceramic sculptures and his “Superboxes.” It was also in India that Sottsass suffered from nephritis, which led to his chance encounter with the Beat Generation.

Meeting Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg & Other Creative Misfits

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan and Peter and Julian Orlofsky photographed by Ettore Sottsass, San Francisco, USA 1965

Sottsass was given a grim prognosis – back then a diagnosis of nephritis, which affects the kidneys, was basically a death sentence. Roberto Olivetti, no doubt indebted to Sottsass for his contributions, funded a groundbreaking treatment program for the designer at Stanford University. After a miraculous recovery, Sottsass moves north and meets Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsburg and Neal Cassidy. Back in Italy, Sottsass’s apartment would become a central meeting point for the counter culture. From his walks through Milan with Ginsberg, Sottsass’s designs began to become more and more radical.

He Photographed Everything – Literally Everything

Sottsass was also an avid photographer – his camera was a vessel for absorbing the world. He would photograph walls, floors, objects, and people, like Bob Dylan, Chet Baker, Ernest Hemingway, Picasso and many more. For years, he photographed every hotel room in which he had slept with a woman. On a twelve-day trip to South America, he took nearly 2000 photographs.

A Vase In The Shape Of A Penis After Falling In Love With A Woman

The pink, phallic Shiva Flower Vase is an iconic example of Sottsass’s design sensibilities. Created for the Barcelona Design Company, the vase has been titillating enthusiasts and non-enthusiasts alike since its unveiling in 1973. Designed after falling in love with a Catalan woman – its shape, color and ceramic contours are heavily inspired by Catalonia. The Shiva Flower Vase is still in production today.

Creates The Memphis Group After A Night Of Listening To Bob Dylan Records

Three decades of exploration, immersion in the counter culture underground, and radicalized thought, coalesced into the founding of the Memphis Group. The name is taken from the Bob Dylan song "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again.” Dylan’s records were on repeat during that fateful night. Inspirations for Memphis Group designs borrowed from Art Deco and Pop Art movements – with a heavy dose of kitsch. After unveiling the first examples of furniture and objects at the 1981 Salone del Mobile of Milan, the responses varied – from praise to loathing. One review called it "a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price"

Sottsass Associati Is Established As A Major Global Design Consultancy Firm

In 1980 – in the wake of Memphis Madness - Sottsass created Sottsass Associati, which was to serve as a design consultancy and architecture firm. The purpose for the Associati, which still has an office in Milan and London, was to build architecture on a substantial scale as well as to design for large international industries. His firm designed the home of David M. Kelley – designer of Apple's first computer mouse. 

His Most Famous Furniture Pieces and Objects Become Iconic

Sottsass’s most famous pieces include a number of functional items for the home – big and small. There is the Carlton room divider, which can also serve as a bookshelf and display case. There is also the Survetta bookcase with its classic graphic black and white pattern printed on laminate. There is also the Tahiti lamp, which looks not unlike an abstract bird of paradise bending down for a sip of water.

Text by Oliver Maxwell Kupper and Summer Bowie. You can explore the work of Ettore Sottsass and the Memphis group at an exhibition entitled "What Is It About Memphis" which is on view now at the Modern Archives until July 30th, 2015. You can also learn more about Sottsass by purchasing this book, which was released by Phaidon last year. FOLLOW AUTRE ON INSTAGRAM: @AUTREMAGAZINE

Black Lives Matter: A Photographic Essay of the Freddie Gray Protests in New York City by Mike Krim and Alex Papa

Mike Krim is the owner and founder of Paperwork NYC, a Brooklyn based publishing imprint which has gained a cult following for its stream of sometimes subversive, sometimes erotic, but always visually captivating zines, books, and photographs. After news emerged that Freddie Gray, Jr. had broken his spinal cord and died while in the custody of six police officers, riots erupted in Baltimore. The idea of the straw breaking the camel's back had a strange and literal meaning in this case, after many other deaths of unarmed black men and women at the hands of police: Tamir Rice, 12 years Old, Cleveland Ohio; Michael Brown, 18, Ferguson, Missouri; John Crawford III, 22, Beavercreek, Ohio; Eric Garner, 43, New York; Freddie C. Gray, Jr., 25, Baltimore, Maryland; and many more. The riots and protests quickly spread to New York City and grew louder and louder. Krim and a friend - model Alex Papa - hit the streets, armed with cameras, to capture the above photographic essay. In Krim's words: "Alex Papa and I decided to grab some film and join in. Not knowing what to expect, we jumped in the crowd and started taking photos. That lasted roughly twenty minutes until we found ourselves chanting "No Justice No Peace Fuck The Police" and fully engaged in the protest, which took over city blocks and highways. As voices echoed loudly, we ran to fill in gaps, walking interlinked to shut down intersections, and marched forward. At times losing people to small pockets of raw emotion that took place. I'm not sure what the exact term of "peaceful assembly" is but I feel it was accomplished last night. Was anything achieved besides screwing up all the traffic in NYC? I'm not sure. I will tell you one thing, though, it felt fucking awesome approaching Times Square with that many people and taking over what some call the center of the universe."

CREDITS:

Photography: Mike Krim and Alex Papa

Location: New York City

Learn more about Paperwork NYC

FOLLOW AUTRE ON INSTAGRAM: @AUTREMAGAZINE