There are many interesting and odd things to be found off the shores of the dying Salton Sea in southern California but maybe one of the most unique is the International Banana Museum. Recently transplanted from Culver City, the museum occupies a squat building on the side of the…
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by Janine Stankus Regular dudes strolling around Brooklyn with a couple of 40s, snapping pics with their iPhones—that may not be what you’d expect from a formal photo shoot, but that’s exactly what streetwear brand Moss was going for with its Fall/Winter 2012 lookbook. The photographs, featuring Das Racist members…
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Next-generation heritage from the British menswear label
With 257 years of brand heritage behind it, Wolsey’s Fall/Winter 2012 collection remains fully modern in a marriage of robust fabrics and forward-minded design. Moleskin and mohair are everywhere in the coming season, as are old favorites like cable knits and Fair Isle sweaters, in this case updated with…
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A conversation with Chris Bastin on this season’s foodie inspiration
As the Creative Director of GANT, Chris Bastin took the unlikely realms of food and restaurant life and embedded it into the DNA of his upcoming Fall/Winter 2012 collection. Known for crazy dinner parties in Stockholm, Bastin weighs in on what we can expect from his latest range.
I’ve always been interested in cooking and food. It struck me that there has been a strong connection between what has been happening with the whole Americana-heritage scene and the slow food movement. Both pay close attention to quality and process. It felt natural to let these two influential movements merge together—weird as that may seem.
Both begin with a sort of mise en place—the basics you need to either create a good dish or a great garment. We’ve always looked at GANT Rugger as a great example of the perfect wardrobe. Start with the classics and bare essentials and then move up the ladder to quirky pieces and not-so-essential gear. It’s kind of like complementing a simple pasta with a very good red wine. The biggest difference is that while a collection takes about six months, a killer meal can be put together in ten minutes. That’s the exact amount of time you need to whip up pasta aglio e olio. Then there’s the whole aspect of quality. If you want to make the best food, you’ll need good ingredients. The same goes for a shirt.
GANT Rugger is a heritage and vintage driven line but there is also a big chunk of sprezzatura that we wanted to come through. The chef ended up being the “vintage nerd” and the owner was given more room to show off and be the peacock—a winning combination.
The chef took care of the denim and utility gear while the owner always got the more dressed up looks. You can clearly see these two characters in our fall lookbook.
Sometimes I wonder if this whole collection was just an excuse to design a chef’s knife and an apron in selvage denim. I mean, come on, who wouldn’t want to design their own knife? That is like a dream come true. And to work with someone like Michael Lishinsky at Wildfire Cutlery in Portland, Oregon was the icing on the cake. That dude is the best.
In Stockholm I have to say Daphne’s, for the crowd and the ambience. In NYC, Omen has great Japanese food. The Standard Grill is amazing for breakfast. Italy is easy; basically go into any place that looks like crap as long as someone who looks like your grandma is behind the stove. She’s probably going to serve up the best pasta you’ve ever had.
Right now it’s pulled pork. Since I bought this monster of a thing from Weber I just want to smoke stuff, low temp. I’ve smoked everything with a heartbeat in the past year.
That’s probably the best rumor I’ve ever heard. But it’s totally untrue though. But hey, bring a nice bottle of red and ring the doorbell.
Definitely amazing pictures, good styling and a slightly chubbier designer. We collaborated with Ben and Phil from The Fat Radish this time around. The guys look great in our clothes, and of course we think the food at their restaurant in New York City’s Lower East side is simply amazing.
Has there, really? I’m very happy anyone even noticed. I think the term is quite clever. It’s about getting out of bed, throwing on whatever and still looking like a million bucks. It’s a look based on American sportswear mixed with Italian flair, but without all the fuss.
Our latest video explores the machine driven approach of Oakland’s denim master
Hidden on a back street in Oakland, California in an unassuming warehouse lies what may be the pinnacle of denim craftsmanship in the USA. Roy Denim, the second of our videos to premiere at last week’s 99% Conference, is actually just one man, Roy Slaper, whose obsession with making jeans has driven his small business into the conciseness of denim heads everywhere. In our video we learn about Roy’s machine driven approach in creating his jeans, the birth of his business and how his obsessive attention to detail results in some of the toughest, nicest looking denim around.
The serious scene with a down-home spirit
A recent invitation to the Dallas Art Fair piqued our interest initially by the range of 78 participating galleries and artists like Erwin Wurm bringing his “Beauty Business” from the Bass Museum in Miami, and Zoe Crosher creating a site-specific installation of her Michelle DuBois project as part of the simultaneous Dallas Biennale.
While we didn’t expect to encounter a domestic event in the scope of Art Basel Miami or New York’s Armory Show, Art Fair co-founder Chris Byrne clarified that wasn’t the point. “The hope is that by presenting the local, national, and international galleries on an even playing field that the viewer has an important role in evaluating the art on its own terms,” he says. After experiencing the fair among a swirl of strong sales, serious parties filled with decked-out Texas-style socialites, football stadium art tours and a glimpse at some serious private collections, we’ve discovered a Dallas that is, indeed, all its own when it comes to an art scene.
With galleries representing cities from Berlin to Milwaukee, New York, LA, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Marfa and Waxahachie, TX, the digestible smaller Dallas Art Fair, held in the Fashion Industry Gallery (or simply the f.i.g. “if you want anyone to know what you’re talking about”, a cab driver told us), presented a truly eclectic blend of big-ticket classics and new work by unknown artists. We were pleased to see a thread installation by Gabriel Dawe, as well as the 2009 graphite drawings of another thread artist gaining traction, Anne Lindberg, at Chicago’s Carrie Secrist gallery. Local Fort Worth Artist Helen Altman had her torch-drawn animal prints on display at Talley Dunn gallery out of Dallas, while New York galleries like Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld Gallery featured Richard DuPont‘s polyurethane heads and newer work by Ouattara Watts, and Josee Bienvenue featured cut-paper grids by Marco Maggi.
In the three years since its inception the fair has grown with quality, not quantity in mind, boasting this year’s solid headliners in and around the fair like Wurm and Crosher, as well as Jacob Kassay, Adam McEwen and Dallas-based Erick Swenson. “There’s no grand plan with a push pin map of the art world. The fair starts to generate an organic life of its own with a visual coherence and cohesion as a byproduct of that independent life,” says Byrne.
The long-term relationship of ’80s pop legend George Michael with his former partner Kenny Goss, who happens to be a Dallas-based arts patron and former cheerleading coach, gave the city another of its idiosyncratic art contributions. The non-profit Goss-Michael Foundation was founded in 2007 to support British contemporary art and expose a larger community beyond collectors to the works of the so-called YBA movement. Adam McEwen opened his show during DAF, on the heels of an impressive roster that in the Foundation’s tenure has included the likes of Marc Quinn, Nigel Cooke, Tracey Ermin, Damien Hirst and others.
When team owner Jerry Jones opened the roughly 3 million-square-foot Dallas Cowboys Stadium in 2009, it didn’t come as a surprise that the team’s new stomping grounds would become the largest domed stadium on the planet, house the largest HD JumboTron and hold a maximum capacity crowd of 110,000—this is Texas, after all. More surprising was the breadth and depth of its contemporary art collection, and the freedom with which the artists were able to create. The artists were selected by a committee led by Jones and his wife, Gene, the interior decorator for the VIP areas of the stadium, but were given minimal limitations beyond the inspiration of the team’s legacy to create their work. The resulting 19-piece collection spans the entire arena, from massive 2D pieces by Ricci Albenda, Terry Hagerty and Dave Muller over main concourse concession stands; to Olafur Eliasson’s “Moving Stars takes Time” mobile over a VIP entrance and the aptly titled “Fat Superstar” in the Owner’s Club. Lawrence Weiner’s “Brought up to Speed” graces a 38-foot staircase wall, while perhaps most on-brand for the Cowboys, coincidentally, are two acquisitions from Doug Aitken that play to the team’s star logo.
Running simultaneously with the Dallas Art Fair was the Dallas Biennale—a tongue-in-cheek, one-time presentation of works by Crosher, Sylvie Fleury, Claude Levecque, Gabriel Martinez and more at various venues across the city. While we were curious to see Fleury’s windows at the flagship Neiman Marcus store downtown, the Dallas Contemporary, where Crosher and Levecque presented alongside Wurm, offered an interestingly offbeat, and physically off-the-beaten-track experience in our art wanderings. Located across some sort of freeway network in what’s known as the Design District, nestled on a remote dead-end among gems like the seemingly abandoned Cowboy Bail Bonds and various strip joints, the Contemporary looks like a commercial space that might have a loading dock around the side like its neighbors. Such a spot makes for the perfect intersection of fresh ways of thinking away from the rest of the city’s stereotypically oversized or Southwestern-style neighborhoods, uncovering yet another intriguing aspect of Dallas.
Brook&Lyn’s light-reflecting amulets inspired by superstitious customs
As a follow-up to her popular debut lineup of agate pendant necklaces and body wraps, the stark leather and mirror pieces that comprise Mimi Jung‘s quietly powerful “Deflected” collection reveal an artistic progression that’s both varied and cohesive.
Inspired by a friend’s great-grandmother who regularly hid a mirror under her blouse to ward off evil spirits, Jung wanted to create a collection based on the idea of controlling one’s own well-being through the power of deflection. Amulet necklaces constructed from folded pieces of thick saddle leather, patina-covered mirrors that hang from a twisted cotton cord over one’s breastplate and molded-leather rings call to mind a mini hand-shield fit for a superheroine.
Brooklyn-based Jung took the concept of self-protection one step further, telling us that she selected a circle as the central shape running through her collection because it has been a symbol of defense throughout history in various cultures. The beautifully clouded, aged mirrors come from Brooklyn as well. The artist responsible for hand-antiquing them is extremely protective of his methods, Jung explains, recalling an instance in which he nearly banned her from his studio for trying to take his picture.
Pieces range from $66-$363 and are available online at Brook&Lyn.
See the collection in this haunting video lookbook.
One artist invents one hundred to create a truly unique biennial
After attending a massive biennial, contemporary artist Shea Hembrey found himself dissatisfied with the work presented there. In response he decided to host his own biennial called “Seek.” Originally planning to seek out a selection of artists whose work he agreed with, Hembrey had trouble finding an appropriate amount of accessible artists and decided to create all of the work himself.
Hembry’s biennial is the upshot of his pure genius as an artist. More than a collection of his own works, the show includes 100 fake artists that he conceived, each with their own persona and body of work. This monumental project was first introduced at the TED 2011 conference, where we had the opportunity to learn about Hembry and his project.
A native of rural Hickory Grove, AK, Hembrey worked as a licensed breeder of migratory waterfowl with the U.S. Department of the Interior before getting involved in the art world, which began with nine years of formal art education, including an MFA from Cornell. His study of Maori Art during his time as a Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholar to New Zealand definitively altered his take on the craft. Heavily conceptual but with an advanced understanding and mastery of varied materials and techniques. The inspirations for his works, such as “Nizdos,” a series of eleven pieces in which the artist duplicates bird nest in various illuminating installations, derive from his strong interest in and involvement with animals, especially birds, as a child. Hembrey notices patterns in nature and mythology, and attempts to imitate those patterns to comment upon the human appropriation of the natural world.
Cool Hunting recently caught up with Hembrey and got the scoop on how all these personas came to life and the challenges of composing such a challenging project.
Making a biennial seemed the easiest option once I developed a detailed vision of the final exhibition that I desired. Once I had that initial, audacious idea of actually creating all the art myself, I couldn’t not take on that challenge.
Coming from the rural South, I grew up with a rich storytelling tradition. And, the quirky, colorful characters that I grew up around made me see the world as a place filled with fascinating individuals. Then as an undergraduate, I was also an English major toying with the idea of becoming a novelist. So, yes, I have always been fascinated by narrative and strong individual characters.
No, but many of the personas are versions of me—and therefore several projects were based on what I might one day eventually get around to in the studio. So, this biennial allowed me to shop around in my warehouse of potential artistic directions and explore roads never taken.
The various artists came about in a myriad of ways. I didn’t want the artists to be formulaic—so sometimes the art ideas preceded the artists while other times a strong artist character developed and then I determined what they would create. Many details about me and my friends and family eventually did, of course, become part of this project.
It was two years in the studio making the pieces—a true biennial of art. Then I spent about five months on artwork documentation, writing, and design of the catalogue.
Perhaps the biggest lessons came from when I’d work as an artist quite different from me. I’d make some plans for a work and then ask, “What is the opposite of what I would choose to do? Now, how can I create that polarity AND make it still be a work that I respect and am enchanted by?” Those quandaries and solutions were unspeakably enlightening.
Yes. The sheer number of artists was hard to manage, so I had to focus on just a few people at a time to stay organized and productive. Once I understood an artist and had his or her voice, then they were largely autonomous and then after making their work, I spoke about and thought of them as individuals separate from me.
Since I also played the role of two curators (I made 106 artists and curated 100 into the final biennial), I had to often be detached. But, I believe in all of these artists and in the value in all of their work. I’m certainly personally invested as if they were all close artist friends of mine.
I can’t pin down any particular project. I love a daunting challenge and I relish a struggle to suss an enigma out, so I guess I really embrace work that many others would not enjoy…the word ‘difficult’ excites me. I adore hard labor, and tedium, and working on questions that do not have a solution. But, I certainly know that the most unpleasant work was painting Jason Birdsong’s snake piece because it was days of my stomach being in a twisting knot because of my fear of snakes…I was so happy to finish that image and then promptly hide it away.
I made nearly four hundred artworks for this biennial, and I really cannot even begin to single out favorites because of the diversity of the works. Really, this is just one big, multifaceted singular work of art. So, the catalogue is my favorite work.
An emerging fashion designer’s 8-bit-inspired latest collection and store
by Adele Chan
Where most go for increasingly hi-def effects, experimental Japanese designer Kunihiko Morinaga took a deliberately different direction with his label Anrealage, designing the Fall/Winter 2011 line around the concept of low-resolution graphics. Titled “Low” in reference to the throwback patterns, the collection includes skirt suits, coats, dresses, tights and court shoes printed with colorful square blocks, meant to resemble pixelated florals and paisleys. The resulting mosaic-like imagery attracts the eye, giving the illusion that moving further away or squinting might pull the designs into focus. The heels of the shoes are particularly striking—cleverly sculptured to look like miniature, offset blocks—reminiscent of Lego bricks.
An extension of the collection, the motif makes for a strong interior decor scheme in the brand’s Harajuku store as well. Entering the space is like falling back into a classic video game from the 1980s (minus the fire breathing plants and teleportation tubes). From the chairs and display table to carpet design and even hanging light bulbs, every piece of furniture appears to be rendered in a few pixels per inch.
Can’t make it to Japan? Get a taste with the Low Pixel print tights ¥5,775 (US$74) online.
Our video of the largest known collection of magic books, nestled in a secret NYC location
by Greg Mitnick
Nestled in a hidden location in midtown Manhattan, the Counjuring Arts Research Center is ground zero for illusionists and historians alike. The Center provides a range of services, publishes scholarly journals, and teaches hospital-bound kids magic through its Hocus Pocus program. It is perhaps best known as home to one of the largest known collections of historic books, letters, and other media, which the center makes available online.
Bill Kalush, the center’s founder and director, explains how he built the collection piece-by-piece and shows us some of its highlights.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
