"Four years later, this [the journal] little magazine with its humble beginnings now has art- and fashion-world luminaries knocking down its door (which moved to Williamsburg last fall) for under-the-radar collaborations in exchange for cool over-the-radar credibility. Kicking off the new year with a cover shoot by Juergen Teller, the journal and its gallery space also hosted designer Helmut Lang's first-ever art show in January."
Fashion Photography, Vanity Fair Portraits. Muse. Spring 2008.
excerpted text:
"A selection of sophisticated historical shots taken between 1913 and today and representing great 20th century figures. Rare prints and contemporary classics from Conde Nast's archives. The big names can be reasonably called the greatest photographers of all times: Helmut Newton, Cecil Beaton, Man Ray, David Hockney and Mario Testino. The main sponsor of the exhibition, that will then travel to Edinburgh, Los Angeles and Australia, is the Burberry mark." Exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery, London. Until May 26, 2008.
Uniqlo Art. By Leisa Barnett. Vogue.com. 04.30.08.
excerpted text:
"The exhibition features some 200 works, which were shot by photographer Matt Irwin. Along with stylist Nicola Formichetti, he embarked on a grass-roots search for starring talent, spotting his subjects in places as diverse as the streets of London and New York to MySpace. The images show up-and-coming artists, models and designers wearing some of the 700 UT Project Ts, including those by Eighties artists Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat."
UT Gallery at Unit 4 & 5, The Old Truman Brewery, Dray Walk, London E1.
"Colette's traffic-stopping windows in Paris are not — we repeat not — the latest collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Japanese artist Takashi Murakami. Rather the two armorlike suits on display, made from spliced-up genuine Murakami bags, are the work of wacky Paris design collective Andrea Crews in collaboration with the Tokyo-based French artist Item Idem and the set designer A. Bertin & Fils Ltée."
"It's about reappropriating the empire" (Maroussia Rebecq, creative director of Andrea Crews)
Nick Knight for Samsonite. FashionUnited. 04.30.08.
excerpted text:
"Instead of capturing the new Bayamo collection by Samsonite himself, estabish fashion photographer Nick Knight is facing the latest Black Label campaign. As a true style icon, Nick Night is photographed featuring his London studio as backdrop"
London exhibit probes parallels between architecture and fashion. By Suzy Menkes. International Herald Tribune. 04.28.08.
excerpted text and quotes:
"The idea of designers and architects working together is nothing new, from the Tokyo store collaboration between Prada and Rem Koolhaas to Hussein Chalayan's techno virtuosity in morphing dresses into chairs. But "Skin + Bones, Parallel Practices in Fashion and Architecture" (at the new Embankment Galleries in London's Somerset House until Aug. 10) is something else: a fascinating study of how the two crafts have run separately but on similar lines over the last 25 years." (Suzy Menkes)
"And I am curious to see what is happening five years from now" (Brooke Hodge, curator of Architecture and design at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles)
Nathalie Djurberg. Silvia Monaco. Domus. April 2008.
excerpted text:
"It comprises a series of models of giant body organs, inside of which Djurberg's noted videos are on show in a large-scale representation of the human body and its intimacy. The container serves to amplify the contents: brief animated films in which grotesque Plasticine characters move around in rudimentary domestic sets made from various materials. The agitated and decidedly surreal scenes combine violence and humor to provoke sensations of unease and unrest, all of which is reinforced by the music of Swedish composer Hans Berg."
Art Tees.Colette Newsletter.www.colette.fr.04.25.08.
excerpted text:
"GAP and Whitney Museum of American Art present Gap Artist Edition, a serie of limited edition t-shirts, sold exclusively in France at colette, starting next May 23rd. These unique pieces are printed with a selection of artworks presented in previous Whitney Biennales. Some of the most powerful artists in contemporary arts are represented: Jeff Koons, Chuck Close, Kiki Smith, Marilyn Minter, Barbara Kruger, Glenn Ligon, Kenny Scharf et Kerry James Marshall."
The Wonderful World of Prada Wallpaper. By Glenn Waldron. 10 Magazine. Spring 2008.
excerpted text and quotes:
"Prada wallpaper os clearly something else altogether - one part art installation, one part cultural provocation and another part - the biggest part naturally - yet more proof of the genius that is Prada. Because Prada wallpaper isn't actually for sale." (Glenn Waldron)
"You can inject so much energy and you can do so much. It is a lot of fun. And again, it's all about experimenting on different levels". (Miuccia Prada)"
"...a fast, flexible way to continually renew the identity of the stores." (Rem Koolhaas)
"Indeed, with Prada's Epicenter stores increasingly acting as sites of cultural exchange, the wallpapers have become a way for the architecture of each space to mimic the temporal, season-based nature of the fashion industry." (Glenn Waldron)
"Whether it's in 2003's timely exploration of the Far Eastern consumerism or in Damien Hirst's recent skull-fest, the wallpapers seem to seize the zeitgeist with gusto".(Glenn Waldron)
"In addition to selling clothes at these Epicenter stores. we try to establish a theme that changes annually, some kind of reflection on culture. The wallpaper is basically about creating a parallel universe to the fashion. It's intentionally detached from - and constitutes a very different realm from - the fashion." (Alexander Reichert, creative director of OMA)
"It's always been an incredible generous relationship. It'd kind of a triangulated setup between OMA, Miuccia Prada and ourselves, but it works well. We'll send ideas to Miuccia, she'll send ideas to OMA. It's always been a very organic process". (Alexander Reichert)
"No, I don't think so. We're not artists and we don't feel compelled to be artists. I also don't see fashion as art either. We're designers. We're working in negotiation with fashion and architecture, but we don't assume for ourselves the freedom that artists can assume." (Alexander Reichert)
"I think they fit very well into the Prada sensibility, because there are so many elements to Prada that are not just about selling clothes - the work that the Fondazione Prada does, for example. Also, the recent exhibition of Miuccia Prada's skirts [Waist Down]. We hop that the Epicenters have become places where people come not only to buy clothes but to discuss new ideas." (Alexander Reichert)
MoMA acquired two of the wallpapers for their permanent collection. In the exhibition, there's a large full-scale section of Vomit, as well as video screens playing reproductions of all the various different wallpapers." (Alexander Reichert)
73 Biggest Brains in Business. Conde Nast Portfolio. Marc Jacobs / Zaha Hadid / Karl Lagerfeld / You Minjun. May 2008.
excerpted text:
"He [Marc Jacobs] has made a career of reinventing his designs and his personal style, which the fashion world pays almost as much attention to."
"She [Zaha Hadid]makes things you couldn't make before. (Rolf Fehlbaum, Chairman of Vitra)
"Lagerfeld has managed to sell himself without selling out."
Since the auctions, prices for Yue's work and that of his peers have jumped, helping make Chinese art a must-have for many big-name collectors in the business world..."
"Everything these days has to occur in a bigger way in order to get people's attention: The volume on everything has to be turned up." (Marc Jacobs)
"And Boucheron inveiled its latest high-jewelry creations during the January couture amid contemporary artworks by Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and others on loan from billionaire Francois Pinault, who controls Boucheron parent company Gucci Group." (Miles Socha)
:In February an otherworldy pavilion designed by notes architect Zaha Hadid called Mobile Art, which houses artworks inspired by Chanel's iconic quilted bags, landed in a parking garage in Hong Kong. Like a UFO, it's next off to Tokyo, them Mew York and other worlds capitals. 'To find a gallery in each city [for the exhibition], that's boring', says Lagerfeld. Chiquet declines to say how much the project cost, but emphasizes, 'Chanel will continue to invest appropriately in ideas that intrigue, surprise and amuse our customers...[It] reinforces its myth - surprising, and provoking the public.'" (Miles Socha)
Juergen Teller. By Emma Revees. the journal. Entry #21.
"No I don't actually. I go specifically to do something. I think about it. Put everything together, organize it, and execute it. And I might have to re-shoot it if I think it didn't work out. So I work as long as I have to, to get it." (Juergen Teller)
"I guess everything is a collaboration, but I am the director, I am the boss!" (Juergen Teller)
"I was doing these record covers and music press and the i-D and The Face asked if I did portraits, and I started to look at these crazy magazines. They seemed to be full of empty pages that you could fill as long as you photographed the fashion. For years I was too shy to photograph women. I didn't know how to deal with them so I photographed men. I was too shy, my English wasn't good enough and something just didn't feel right about it. Why should I photograph this? Maybe it was the little by from the countryside next to the woods syndrome. How can I photograph these beautiful women? It just doesn't make any sense! A bit of a lack of self-confidence. Of course it has gone quite far the other way!" (Juergen Teller)
"I am loyal to my friends and working relationships. It seems to work." (Juergen Teller)
"No, not at all. I think it is more interesting to go through highly exciting times or difficult times and to keep working through a relationship. You can also go deeper and get better work."(Juergen Teller"
"I kind of think about what could be good for a particular magazine. The closest relationship I have is with Dennis at W. He has only missed one shoot of 20 that I have done over eight years, I think. We work on ideas right from the beginning and I do have control right until the end with the layout. It is really exciting in terms of commercial fashion magazine. I see so many fashion stories where you can't even see the fucking clothes. I have to photograph what they need me to, and photograph it right away. I have to be grow up about it. It's business." (Juergen Teller)
"Yes, in fact, in the Ukraine I thought, "what the fuck am I going to do?" I did photograph a lot in the street and in night-clubs and all these things, and I am thinking I can never be as good as Boris Mikhailov or as a Magnum Photographer. I am too lazy about it. I don't like voyeuristic pictures where the other person is not involved. I need direct contact and an understanding that you are willing to be photographed. I was still troubled. When I got there I was picked up by three limos, with bodyguards in bulletproof vests and guns. I was thinking ' this is insane.'You go into the subway and there is a train that is completely old-fashioned, with plasma screens with fashion TV on. You go into the hotel, into the lobby, you go into the airport, into a Japanese restaurant, into a coffee shop, there's fashion TV fucking everywhere. Night clubs. Everywhere. After the first week I was dead, thinking,'What the fuck am I going to do?' Some of the photographs made it at the end. I was thinking, 'Where is the Ukraine going?' and I thought, the whole mess, it has to be a bonkers fashion story, I need the most expensive bag in the world, this 80k[UK pounds]Louis Vuitton handbag, with all the different bags in it. It is a handbag, 17 different handbags in one, extremely limited edition. I thought, 'I have got to have it . Have to have the model, in high heels, naked, with the handbag over her head, walking through the forest.' The forest reminded me of where I grew up. I really liked it. And that was the starting point, the key picture of the whole lot. They are so much into bodybuilding and there are gyms outside. For them it is normal to work out in the snow. There are these guys working out. It is not like gyms that we know. It is more like scrap metal from builders all fixed into the ground so that no one steals it. I used one key picture with a woman wearing really tight jeans, really big glasses and she starts working out. It is crazy. Everything is insane. So i thought, 'who can actually help me to produce that?' I called Dennis from W and explained that I was doing this thing for the Venice Biennale and he like, 'Oh my God.' He was obviously very keen to do a collaboration, to be in the Venice Biennale as a fashion story. I used all these other pictures which I shot, and kept the W story very fashion. The first night I got to the Ukraine I met the Ukrainian playmate of the year. I was like 'Whoah! That is exciting'. I had Lara Stone, a Russian model, Irinia and her mum, as well as the playmate. The Ukrainians wanted to do a press conference: 'Juergen Teller does a fashion story.' I thought no way, I don't need that. Then I thought, actually that is what exactly what I need, so I photographed the press conference too." (Juergen Teller)
"It depends. You look at the clothes and think who would be possible for the mens, the womens', the young line. Sometimes I have the idea and sometimes he has the idea" (Juergen Teller)
"I have to have a relationship with the person or Marc has to have to have a relationship. For instance, Marc was so excited about Rufus Wainwright. I suggested Kirsten McMenamy or Roni Horn ad now we are using Harmony Korine. He suggested Meg White as he met her at a concert. I love her, she is great. Marc also asked me what I thought of Cindy Sherman. I analyzed the work and thought that one thing was pretty clear in her work: She hardly ever looks into the camera. Very rarely direct. thought this is what I am quite good at, being direct. She is never with anyone else, always on her own. I thought which actor we could put with her, I thought what they have to do with this. SO I thought, 'oh it is going to have to be me again!'" (Juergen Teller)
