Quantcast
Channel: Culture
Viewing all 315 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

Gian Paolo Barbieri’s lost love in “Flowers of My Life”

April 18, 2016, 2:14 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple673In collaboration with Branislav Jankic, the great Italian photographer, Gian Paolo Barbieri has published “Flowers of My life”, a tribute to his lost love, Evar.
50%
2 Colonnes Image 50: 
Image 50: 

How to tell a story that took place 25 years ago? This is how Flowers of My Life starts.

 

Through this very personal work, the fashion Italian photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri pays tribute to Evar, his lover who died in a motorcycle accident and with whom he shared three years of his life. Divided into three sections, Flowers of My Life tells of their meeting and their burgeoning love in "Innocence", the protective bubble they built around them in "Love", and then about the death of Evar and the mourning that followed in "Death".

  

Mixing portraits of Evar, sublime shots of flowers and fragments of their relationship, Flowers of My Life plunges us into a magical and timeless world. The flowers, used as metaphors for human nature and love contribute to the stunning lyricism of the book. 

 

Image 50: 

Barbieri asked his former protégé, Croat artist and photographer Branislav Jankic, to put his love story into words. The magnificent prose poetry inspired by the memories of the Italian photographer gives the images an even more intense dimension.

 

The publication of Flowers of My Life coincides with the opening of the Gian Paolo Barbieri Foundation dedicated to the archives of the Italian artist. Self-taught, Barbieri collaborated with Italian Vogue from 1965 and subsequently worked with the French and German editions. He also worked with Valentino, Armani, Yves Saint Laurent and Dolce & Gabbana. These photographs, influenced by the glamour of Italian cinema were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London as well as the Kunstforum in Vienna.

 

www.fioridellamiavita.com

 

By Léa Zetlaoui

100%
Image 100: 
2 Colonnes Image 50: 
Image 50: 

Barbieri a également demandé à son ancien protégé, l’artiste et photographe croate Branislav Jankic, de mettre en mot son histoire. Les magnifiques poèmes en prose inspirés des souvenirs du photographe italien, confèrent aux images une dimension d’autant plus intense.

 

 

 

50%
2 Colonnes Image 50: 
Image 50: 
Image 50: 

Barbieri a également demandé à son ancien protégé, l’artiste et photographe croate Branislav Jankic, de mettre en mot son histoire. Les magnifiques poèmes en prose inspirés des souvenirs du photographe italien, confèrent aux images une dimension d’autant plus intense.

50%
Image 100: 
2 Colonnes Image 50: 
Image 50: 
Image 50: 
April 18th 2016Culture
0
BlancVideoCulture50Cover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
Search

“I could have been an even better dancer if I hadn’t spent every night in clubs taking so much coke.” Encounter with Sergei Polunin

April 25, 2016, 3:08 am
$
0
0
English
Article 50/50689Encounter with Sergei Polunin, prodigious dancer who’s spent many years hell bent on his own destruction, addicted to drugs and self-harm. A flaw noticed by Mickey Rourke who became his mentor when the young dancer left ballet to conquer Hollywood.
100%
April 25th 2016Culture
Image 50: 
Body: 

A prodigious dancer aged 26 seen as the natural heir to Nureyev and Baryshnikov, Sergei Polunin spent many years hell bent on his own destruction, addicted to drugs and self-harm. A flaw noticed by Micky Rourke who became his mentor when the young dancer left ballet to conquer Hollywood.

 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

The 3 Mills Studios in East London look like their Hollywood equivalents, Fox and Paramount, vast hangars lined up geometrically and separated by roads populated with technicians, extras in glittering costumes and other props in hurry. Inside set 11, Sergei Polunin has not yet started filming. But it won’t be long seeing the enthusiasm with which he describes his future career. He’s been thinking about becoming an actor for a while now, but “as long as you have commitments, a professional situation, links with another trade, your mind isn’t free enough to devote itself fully elsewhere”, he explains sprawling half naked in an armchair. 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

Early summer he picked up his telephone and told Igor Zelensky, director of the Stanislavsky Music Theatre in Moscow, but also his coach and mentor, that he was leaving the world of dance for good. 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

When you find out that Polunin is on a par with Nureyev and Baryshnikov, in other words the most important dancer to burst into the scene in the last 30 years, you can’t help but wonder why he’s stopping and not just branching out within his domain. He says that dance no longer excites him. “Frankly it would take something really special to make me go back again. Of course rhyme and reason say I should continue but that’s just how I am: I burn bridges, I like fighting, having goals. I wanted to be the best gymnast, the best dancer, and now I want to be the best actor. And I’m young, I have to try out different things while it’s still possible. I never really thought being a dancer was the right job for a man. Boxer, soldier, footballer, yes, those are jobs for men. The only thing I ever liked in dance was being able to jump high in the air and playing roles. And if you like playing roles, then you may as well become an actor. I’ve already had propositions, but I don’t want to be a dancer who acts, I want to act seriously, to find a school in England or the US, and really prepare myself in this craft for two or three years.” 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

The fact that Sergei Polunin met Mickey Rourke and formed an instant bromance - to the extent that the dancer actually lodges at the actor’s home in Los Angeles - has clearly had an effect on his decision. “I always loved the movies, actors like Sylvester Stallone and Micky Rourke. I love films like Basic Instinct, 9 1/2 Weeks, and  Man on Fire with Denzel Washington.” His first project is a documentary about himself by David LaChapelle. Filming will take place this Autumn in Los Angeles as well as Hawaii, where the photographer owns a house. “I’m very excited about it because we’re going to film outdoors, in the depths of forests and waterfalls. That’s why I’m still in training because I’m going to dance one last time in this film. There’ll probably be a Russell Maliphant choreography to Debussy’s Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune, revisited by a DJ. And then an improvised solo in a church: if it’s going to be my last ever dance, I want it to be right.”

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

As for Micky Rourke, he cites him as a great source of inspiration: “He’s a real man; he’s taken a lot of drugs and really lived. He’s a boxer as much as an actor and I like that. We work out and do martial arts together. He wrote me a letter saying that I didn’t need to lead a life of excess, that it was a waste of energy. For years people would lecture me and I’d answer them by saying, ‘Yeah sure, I’ll think about it.’ But I had neither the will power nor desire to ask myself those sorts of questions. But when it’s a guy like Mickey Rourke who says that, of course I’m gonna listen. I could have been an even better dancer if I hadn’t spent every night in clubs taking so much coke. Mickey showed me how that’s a dead-end street and that it always goes bad, you end up a wreck. Thanks to him I feel better and I know I will never touch that shit again. All my life I used my muscles, I hated people who sat down to write. Now I’ve got my brain back again, I’ve understood that it’s time to read books and learn.”

 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

We ask him about his scars, particularly the one down his life side that looks like a bear or feline has mauled him. “Oh that’s an old tattoo I didn’t like anymore so I had the colours rubbed off, but I’ve got lots of other scars. Look at this one, that was done with acid. I poured acid on my skin and then rinsed it with water 10 seconds later. It’s not easy to do scars, harder than you think,” he tells us with a wry smile. The reason the young man inflicts such treatment on himself is because he finds them, “very beautiful. A man should always have scars, on the face for example. I could have been a roman gladiator or native Indian in a former life. And as for tattoos they are so romantic, it instantly makes me think of prison: and what’s more upsetting than the world of prison! All these men who spend their days and their nights reading and who come out so intelligent.”

 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

He explains another motivation behind his change of profession is the prospect of earning big bucks “For sure, you shouldn’t focus on money when you’re young, you have to discover life and who you really are. On that subject I know it was good to grow up in modest circumstances. But as soon as I started earning money, I helped my parents, my grandparents, my friends back in Ukraine and I realised that money disappeared quickly and that I needed to earn more. Not for me, because I need very little myself, just enough to live off and take care of the person I love, but also to help others. In Russia you have multi-billionaires who are richer than certain States, but they don’t give a penny to any charities. They haven’t understood that there is no greater feeling than helping others and doing good around you.” While he waits for the millions his Hollywood career will no doubt bring, he’s taking part in various artistic projects for free, because, “it’s a chance to meet interesting people and to learn new things”.  Yet if you believe his entourage he’s hardly the most accessible man on the planet. He never answers his telephone or emails. “I was on Facebook for a month, but I didn’t meet any interesting girls. Just weird people who wanted to invite me to dinner. It wasn’t my thing. I like having time to myself. I don’t like talking for the sake of it. That’s what makes me I’m happy.”

 

 

By Éric Dahan

0
BlancVideo

Photos by Jacob Sutton

CulturePortrait50Cover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
↧

Hollywood’s nefarious chronicle by the filmmaker Kenneth Anger

May 4, 2016, 2:32 am
$
0
0
English
Article 50/50715The cult, experimental and underground director is also a brilliant writer. In his novel “Retour à Babylone” [Back to Babylon], he unveils the best gossips from the old Hollywood. Review of five poisonous rumours.
100%
May 04th 2016Culture

The cult, experimental and underground filmmaker who influenced Scorsese, Lynch and John Waters is also a brilliant writer. After his nefarious Hollywood Babylon, published in France in 2013, the Tristam editions unveil its second volume, even more poisonous. Here are five rumours, destroying the glittering myth of the biggest dream machine and revealing what really happened behind the scenes.

 

 

Image 50: 
Body: 

The secret side to hot icon James Dean

 

According to Kenneth Anger, the sex symbol caught crabs on the set of Rebel without a Cause. In between scenes he’s be scratching his crotch so much that director Nicholas Ray dragged him to a drugstore to get some ‘insecticide’. At the time the gorgeous Jimmy was known to hang out at the Club, a bondage bar in east Hollywood, looking for anonymous sex. There he discovered the pleasures of bondage and belt beatings. At the club he was known as the ‘human ashtray’ because when he got drunk he’d beg everyone to stub their cigarettes out on his bare chest. We also discover how Dean managed to get out of military service by saying he was gay. When the actress and columnist Hedda Hopper asked him how he did it, he replied, “I kissed the doc.” And at the beginning of his career when he had no money at all, he was kept by an aging TV producer. 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

Alfred Hitchcock was a voyeur (and a psychopath)

 

One of the all-time greatest movie directors didn’t just like scaring his audiences, he also had a penchant for spying on women, and enjoyed seeing them being badly treated. To the point of scopophilia (achieving sexual satisfaction through voyeurism) he would use telescopes to watch actresses as they undressed in their trailers, in particular the sublime Grace Kelly. He then sexually harassed another typically Hitchcockian blond, Tippi Hedren, for whom he harboured an unhealthy obsession (he kept a replica of her face in his home). As she refused his advances off screen, he got revenge on screen. On the set of The Birds he insisted – for the sake of ‘realism’ – that real birds attack her. She nearly lost an eye and fell into a deep depression when filming was over. 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

The tragic life of Jean Seberg

 

When the brilliantly edgy heroine of A Bout de Souffle arrived in the USA during the 1960s, she became friends with the Black Panthers and was radicalised politically. In order to discredit her, the FBI circulated fake documents claiming she’d been impregnated by a member of the protest movement. Her husband at the time Romain Gary declared that the FBI had intimated her and ultimately been responsible for her premature demise when a few years later her body was discovered naked in the back of a car. The cause of death? A barbiturate overdose... During her last days alive, the actress had become acutely paranoid, according to Anger, convinced that even her refrigerator was threatening her. She left everyone truly Breathless... 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

Liz Taylor got better by taking the trash out

 

At the start of the 1980s, the violet-eyed actress checked into the Betty Ford clinic to break free of her 25-year addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs. She claims she spent most of her time there taking out the trash and cleaning the patios with a hosepipe, two chores that helped her to recover. The superstar who majestically played the title role in the epic movie Cleopatra was, for the first time ever, faced with a life of solitude. Which couldn’t have been easy for this fervent lover (of jewels among other things)... 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

Marilyn Monroe, traumatised by her stay at a mental hospital 

 

She said she’d end up really going mad by dint of being locked up “with the crazies”. Anger also evokes Gene Tierney’s stay at a clinic. One evening at a show the stunning brunette was kissed by a ‘fan’ with the measles who’d left her sick bed especially to see the actress. Gene was pregnant, caught the illness and her daughter was born blind and handicapped. Following this she fell into a profound depression (understandably) and attempted to end her days. Locked up in a lunatic asylum she even suffered electro-shock therapy.

 

Retour à Babylone, 

320 illustrated pages,

in French bookshops or online from Thursday April 28th,

published by Tristram.

 

By Violaine Schütz

0
BlancVideoCulture50Cover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

Gus Van Sant’s “The Sea of Trees”, a surprising glitch

May 9, 2016, 1:58 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple720Legendary film maker and emblematic figure on the American indie scene, Gus Van Sant has been honoured by the Cinémathèque française. His new film, The Sea of Trees, with Matthew McConaughey, is in movie theatres now.
100%
Image 100: 

Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe in The Sea of Trees, Gus Van Sant latest full length feature film.

 

Even the best can sometimes get it wrong.  The Sea of Trees will no doubt be seen as a surprising glitch in Gus Van Sant’s otherwise exquisite contribution to contemporary cinema, like a slightly bland and warped sidestep. In a story about depressed men, Matthew McConaughey and Ken Watanabe, immerged in a forest at the foot of Mount Fuji, talk about their lives in hushed tones, about the regrets and the time gone by too fast, all beneath a constant drone of pompous violins and a sickly syrup that seems to drip over inch of the screen. The film, not particularly touching and never quite as spectral as it would like to be, disappointed both the willingly finicky spectators at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and his die-hard fans, us included.

 

A few years earlier with Gerry (2002), Gus Van Sant was already filming in his static, dead-end way with people searching for themselves, playing games of hide and seek with death. But that was done with infinitely more grace and risk. At a beachside press conference in Cannes he briefly and placidly noted the difference between the two films, “In The Sea of Trees the heroes are more contemplative than lost. They talk about their life, while in Gerry they disappear completely into the landscape…” The director of Will Hunting, now 63, is no longer of an age where he needs to justify his choices. 

100%
Image 100: 

Gus Van Sant is the subject of a retrospective at the Cinémathèque française. Above, River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho, released in 1991.

 

Gus Van Sant’s career, haloed with the 2003 Palme d’Or for his incredible Elephant, inspired by the killings at the high school in Columbine, has never followed a straight path. For the last 30 years it’s oscillated between ultra-personal projects and others which weren’t initiated by him, chiefly in the writing of the scenario. The Sea of Trees is obviously one of the latter, but then that’s also produced excellent results recently with the majestic Promised Land where his fetish actor Matt Damon finally takes the temperature of a more delicate movie-making in-between two blockbusters. “Gerry, Last Days, Elephant, My Own Private Idaho, all those films were written by me, explains Gus Van Sant. “Those were the most experimental in my filmography and that’s great. Maybe that’s what I should always do… or not. I also like the idea of putting my voice into commissioned work.”

 

100%
Image 100: 

John Robinson in Elephant, Gus Van Sant’s masterpiece that won him the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 2003.

 

His next project will bring the author of To Die For face to face with new constraints, because When We Rise, a mini-series about the LGBT rebellions at the end of the 1960s in San Francisco (written by the screenwriter of Harvey Milk, Dustin Lance Black), was commissioned by the terrestrial channel ABC, subject to harsh laws of advertising. While we wait for the next episode in his film career, we can touch base with the Gus Van Sant we know and love at the Cinémathèque française, with an exhibition on until this summer, showing an anthology of visual art works created in parallel to his films. Gus Van Sant/Icônes features some twenty paintings done for the Los Angeles Gagosian Gallery in 2011, but also several hundred Polaroids, dating back to the start of his career when he was influenced by William Burroughs in the 1980s. It’s a veritable American odyssey. A few artistic and photographic collaborations are also on show, works with the likes of William Eggleston, Bruce Weber and even David Bowie. Just in case you forgot what category of artist Gus Van Sant really belongs to.

 

 

The Sea of Trees. Released on April 27th.

 

Gus Van Sant/Icônes,

On at the Cinémathèque française until July 31st.

 

Par Olivier Joyard

May 09th 2016Culture
0
BlancVideoCulture50dqzvvp9H-9YYoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

Direct from Cannes: is Kristen Stewart the biggest actress of our time?

May 18, 2016, 7:11 am
$
0
0
English
Article 50/50745Starring in films by Olivier Assayas (“Personal Shopper”) and Woody Allen (“Cafe Society”), Kristen Stewart clearly stands out as the actress who best embodies the modern game, oscillating between total detachment and complete commitment.
100%
May 18th 2016Culture
Body: 

In the opening scenes of Personal Shopper, Olivier Assayas’ new full length movie, it’s like a small shift in time has taken effect. Kristen Stewart appears in a diffused sombre glow, pale and grey. Like an eternal dawn light. Her closed expression doesn’t quite have the same youthful traits, but there’s a furtive memory of the Twilight years, like a ghost from another era and film genre. In fact ghosts are everywhere in this film that recounts the wanderings of young assistant in charge of a celebrity’s wardrobe, whose twin brother recently died from a heart attack. Less inspired when it confronts spectral representations and spiritualism a little too hastily, Personal Shopper remains stuck fast to our retinas as it works its crucial task: observing the metamorphosis of an actress. 

1Vimeo166922594
Image 50: 
Body: 

Kristen Stewart, like so many others, could have disappeared after the first slap of success, but instead she’s staged her emancipation, making it the subject of this decisive step in her career, even though she’s only just turned 26. In 2014 with Sils Maria, also by Assayas, Robert Pattison’s ex-girlfriend freed herself of her starlet rags as she played a stunningly natural personal assistant to a famous actress interpreted by Juliette Binoche. This time the film doesn’t focus on her relationship with the absent star whose clothes she chooses.  

Citation: 

I play a lonely young woman, totally isolated, and sad. It actually left me in a pretty pained state. 

0
Image 50: 
Body: 

Stewart traverses Personal Shopper alone. She drags her sneakers, jeans and worried expression from boutique to boutique, from Chanel to Cartier, in complete indifference. We watch her attempting to survive her grief, trying to get her fragile body back onto the rails of desire. She strips naked in front of a doctor; she tries on a designer gown in an unforgettable scene where the actress confronts all the fantasies that she herself is the subject. She receives text messages from a mysterious admirer/poison pen letter writer, she tries to make contact with her dead brother, she navigates the streets of Paris, she unsmilingly takes the metro. It’s a difficult exercise for an actor to have no one to address, to dialogue with the invisible. Which is exactly what the actress suggests when she talks about the film. “I play a lonely young woman, totally isolated, and sad (…). It actually left me in a pretty pained state. Thankfully during filming I was surrounded by people I love and I never actually felt alone. If there hadn’t been such a positive and friendly atmosphere on set, I would have been a mess; I’d have collapsed on the floor. In the film, I never stop, I’m constantly on the move, I’m in perpetual motion. I lost a lot of weight during that shoot. It was exhausting.”  

Citation: 

In only two films Stewart has confirmed her reign over today’s cinema.

0
Body: 

Kristen Stewart overcomes this exhaustion to make a full and fascinating movie. Among today’s young actresses, no one else is better able to embody the modern game, mixing deadpan detachment and complete committal, a perfect fusion of her roles and the gaze of directors. She’s capable of exhibiting the deepest of melancholies all while lighting up the screen, as she also does with Woody Allen’s latest flick, Cafe Society, where she gracefully slips into the skin of a young woman in the 1930s. In just two films Stewart has confirmed her reign over today’s cinema.

 

Cafe Society by Woody Allen, currently in theatres.

Personal Shopper by Olivier Assayas, in competition. 

 

 

By Olivier Joyard

1Vimeo165813100
BlancVideoCulture50Cover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
↧

Tino Sehgal ignites the Jemaa el-Fna square in Marrakech

June 1, 2016, 3:44 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple776Forget everything you know about contemporary art. With Tino Sehgal there are no material objects or traces of his work (photographic or video)… only happenings to experience. Visitors to the Jemaa el-Fna square get ready for an intense adventure.
100%
Image 100: 

The Jemaa-el-Fna square, Marrakesh, in the middle of the day.

 

 

 

ART OF RUMOURS

 

With Tino Sehgal, and this can never be emphasised enough, it’s about the art of rumours. Prohibiting all recordings of his work (photographic and video) the Berlin based artist feeds not only the mystery surrounding his oeuvre, but propagates a studied rumour through oral or written stories on the subject. Tino Sehgal deliberately reigns in the unlimited visibility of our era, a time when concerts are viewed through smartphones and the instantly shared image is more vital that the real-life experience. He reactivates a pre-modern way of living when stories were told without being filmed, where culture was just not physical objects bought and sold on an insatiable art market. His art, which he calls “situations”, is formed through carefully choreographed moments combining songs and dance, movement through space or simple words. Having been shown in the greatest establishments on the planet his oeuvre was awarded a Lion d’or at the 2013 Venice Biennale. 

100%
Image 100: 

Tino Sehgal photographed at the Jemaa-el-Fna square in May 2016.

Photo: Khalil Nemmaoui.

 

 

 

A “HALQA” TO THE BEAT OF THE SQUARE

 

Invited to the Jemaa el-Fna square in Marrakech until June 5th by curator Mouna Mekouar, whose boundless energy everyone agrees is responsible for this exceptional project,Tino Sehgal offers a unique experience to the world from 11am in the morning to nightfall. With his troupe, the artist deploys his own "halqa", one of those ancestral circles (featuring everything from snake charmers to story-tellers) that have always peopled this historic Marrakesh square, earning it UNESCO heritage status. At the heart of this special halqa, the only one to be composed of non-Moroccans, Tino Sehgal has his troupe performing a powerful medley of choreography readapted for the occasion. From morning onwards dancers move like snakes within the BAM, the building dedicated to art next door to Jemaa el-Fna. It's a hypnotising and fascinating spectacle. 

 

100%
Image 100: 

At a dinner with Tino Sehgal in the Jemaa-el-Fna square following the first day, song and dance are improvised at the table.

 

 

A MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY THROUGH TIME

 

Then following the rhythm of Jemma el-Fna itself, coming alive and slowing down throughout the day, the troupe proposes different situations each one more enthusiastic than the next, before concluding the day as night falls in a performing circle. And this apotheosis is grandiose. The troupe come together for a session of voodoo incantations or an ancient choir, in dances punctuated by their own voices (onomatopoeic words are spoken alongside Rihanna lyrics) and literally set the venue ablaze. The Moroccan public ebb and flow around the troupe taking part in the experience themselves. Everyone dances, sings, bursts in applause, moving with their own steps.

 

 

100%
Image 100: 

The Jemaa-el-Fna square just before dusk. 

 

 

 

RECREATING THE COLLECTIVE, EXCHANGING, THE ART OF SHARING

 

Tino Sehgal’s ‘halqa’ appears as an organic body in constant mutation, fully integrated within its environment. A veiled woman comes face to face with the artist to exchange a mystical gesture, teenagers experiment with hip-hop battles, masters of other halqas on the square pass by to bless that of Tino Sehgal… The artist offers a journey through time, like one we rarely see. A fusion of traditional Moroccan tradition with western modernity, classical choreography and street dance, an elder dressed in traditional garb and young girls in skirts. The artist has succeeded in recreating an ephemeral collective, just for a day, a night a month. A veritable communion of senses, emotions and sensations... 

 

 

Place Jemaa el-Fna, Marrakech, from May 13th to June 5th, 11.00 to nightfall (except Mondays)  

Tino Sehgal is represented by the Galerie Marian Goodman.

 

By Thibaut Wychowanok

 

June 01st 2016Art
0
BlancVideoArtCulture50Cover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

When Alexander Wang collaborates with Apple

June 9, 2016, 3:08 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple795To inaugurate his “Fashion Curator Program”, Apple Music invites Alexander Wang to collate three playlists and invites you to join him and party.
50%
2 Colonnes Image 50: 
Image 50: 

Ever since pop music burst onto the scene in the 1960s, which also coincided with the invention of television, fashion and music have been celebrating their honeymoon. At a time when R&B stars lay down the law to brands, and launch their own lines of clothing, Apple Music is launching its “Fashion Curator Program” that invites fashion designers to share their own playlists. The first guest is Alexander Wang. For anyone who's been living in a hole for the last ten years, the Californian designer now based in New York has always been very clear about his passion for music. From New York parties to Coachella, music irrigates Wang's life and the world of his brand.

 

Perfectly reflecting his generation, the American designer shines in his eclectic tastes:  in his earphones there’s rap, R&B as well as the DJs Diplo and Baauer. A passion Alexander Wang showed in 2014 in the pages of Numéro in a double interview with Diplo (Numéro 144). For spring-summer 2013 Wang convinced rapper A$AP Rocky, a friend from the New York party scene, to take part in a video promoting his T line: the film had Rocky desperately trying to buy a t-shirt from a hysterical shop assistant (the comedian Anjelah Johnson in character as Bon Qui Qui) at Alexander Wang's flagship store in downtown New York, on Grand Street.        

Image 50: 
100%
Image 100: 

 

 

 

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of his brand last September, Alexander Wang organised a Dante-esque party with an exclusive showcase of rappers Lil Wayne and Ludacris, DJ Baauer who invited A$AP Ferg to share his slot, as well as the singer R’n’B Tinashe. An ecstatic Alexander Wang climbed on stage to introduce each one of his guests himself. In the audience that night was another star, the prodigious The Weeknd, with whom Alexander regularly collaborates. First at Coachella in 2015: The Weeknd took over the brand's Instagram account giving followers exclusive backstage access to the famous event, and distributed limited edition #WANGXO printed bandanas (#WANGXO being the name of the operation). Then last November the collaboration extended with a capsule collection exclusively designed by both Alexander Wang and The Weeknd, also bearing the WANGXO name.

 

For Apple Music to invite the designer on-board today makes perfect sense. The tracks split into three different ambiances, three moods with three playlists entitled CHILL, HYPE and VIBE. To put it all into context there’s even a video of Alexander Wang organising a party at his place…Have you ever dreamt of being invited to a crazy party hosted by the coolest New York designer of his generation? Well now thanks to Apple Music, you are. Listen, chill and dance…

 

Discover the Apple Music Alexander Wang video here.  

Discover the Apple Music Fashion Channel here.

 

By Delphine Roche

June 09th 2016Music
0
BlancVideoFashionMusicCulture50Cover#e10000Aligner à gauche
↧

Who is Bess NYC, the hot new artist discovered by Dior on Instagram?

June 16, 2016, 2:59 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple805Inspired by the irreverence of artist Bess NYC, a social network phenomenon, the house of Dior invited him to do the scenography for its new line of sunglasses DiorSplit, with a series of videos and surprising collages.
100%
Image 100: 

 

 

He’s one of those artists who use Instagram like a blank canvas. Going by the name of @bessnyc4 (or more simply “Bess NYC”) Doug Abraham has made controversy his signature and social networks his playground. The New York based artist crafts his oeuvre through the appropriation of campaigns by major houses from Céline and Loewe to Balenciaga and Givenchy. With clever collage, this fashion and luxury lover mixes up iconic campaigns with photographs from contemporary pop culture to create new images, often subversive, always fascinating.

 

His creativity certainly charmed the house of Dior, who chose him to set the stage for its summer 2016 line of glasses DiorSplit, an ultra-contemporary version of the aviator design with mirrored stripy lenses. Delving into the archives of the fashion house, Bess NYC has combined sublime black and white images of the 1950s with photos from the 2016 eyewear campaign shot by the great Patrick Demarchelier.  "Dior gave me access to their picture archive and the most incredible videos, which I juxtaposed with visuals from the new campaign in this idea of crossing the past and the future", he explains. This bold collaboration continues with a series of five short films of life backstage at the spring-summer 2016 runway show, all of which can be discovered on the couture house's website. 

 

 

www.dior.com, @bessnyc4,
@diorofficial

 

 

By Léa Zetlaoui

 

Discover the story behind the collaboration between Gucci and Instagram artist Guccighost.

June 16th 2016Fashion
1Youtube
BlancVideoTvVwBpv8kksFashionArtCulture50TvVwBpv8kksYoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
Search

The top model Anja Rubik bares all for Mary Komasa’s new music video

May 17, 2016, 3:18 am
$
0
0
English
Media full738 Berlin-based singer Mary Komasa enlisted model Anja Rubik to feature in the latest music video for her debut album “Mary”. For “Lost Me,” shot by the musician's brother Jan, the singer and model mirror each other’s body language in a liberating dare.
100%
May 17th 2016Music
0
NoirVideoctWZFp6b1gQCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
↧

Danse in sunny fields with the Londoner Pixx in her new music video “Baboo”

May 17, 2016, 8:38 am
$
0
0

Pixx’s first EP album Fall In was realeased last August on 4AD.

 

 

English
Media full742 Noticed last year because of her hynotic pop music, Hannah Rogers, aka Pixx, unveils today a new 70s pastoral music video. Ideal for the summer to come.
100%
May 17th 2016Music
0
BlancVideocsuCJMLbHZUCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

“Silly Me”, Yeasayer’s new apocalyptical music video

May 19, 2016, 9:41 am
$
0
0
English
Media full747 Yeasayer unveils a new creatively speaking striking music video derived from his “Amen & Goodbye” album. As formidable as always.
100%
May 19th 2016Music
0
NoirVideouWlrjh76FTYCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

Adele rids herself of her ghosts in “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”

May 23, 2016, 5:51 am
$
0
0
English
Media full752Third track derived from her new “25” album, “Send My Love (To Your New Lover)”, directed by Patrick Daughters, bewitches.
100%
May 23rd 2016Music
0
BlancVideofk4BbF7B29wCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

Mykki Blanco collaborates with Woodkid for “High School Never Ends”

May 25, 2016, 5:16 am
$
0
0

Check out our encounter with queer icon Mykki Blanco.

English
Media full756Directed by Matt Lambert, “High School Never Ends”, tragic tale of a forbidden love story in a rural Germany, is a punchy music video. Violence, romance, teeth-gritting pursuit and bliss in haystacks... A modern “Romeo and Juliet”.
100%
May 25th 2016Music
0
BlancVideocNGR4ciDmTACultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
↧

How to feel about Craig David’s new music video?

May 30, 2016, 9:18 am
$
0
0

Beats headphones, duck faces, virgin cocktails close-ups, babes in denim shorts running on the beach, video selfies of a superficial youth taken with a hipster’s vintage camera, failed models laughing so hard they might suffocate on their newly whitened teeth as they are so wealthy and dumb and well-dressed and want more than anything to share their deserved phony happiness with the world. Original title, fascinating theme, poor taste, clichés and tricks... Craig David’s “One More Time” music video perfectly represents what's best in the Y generation. Sarcastic much?

English
Media full771 What should we think about “One More Time”, Craig David’s new music video? Summer hit or sickening flop? See for yourself.
100%
May 30th 2016Music
0
BlancVideogNDjr7MH67kCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

A cheerleading Mahaut Mondino shakes it in her new music video “Summertime”

June 6, 2016, 7:27 am
$
0
0

 

 

 

 

English
Media full788Directed in Los Angeles by photographer Olivia Bee and choreographed by Oth’than Burnside (Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Chris Brown, Ciara), “Summertime”, by French singer Mahaut Mondino, announces a very energetic first album. To be continued in September.
100%
June 06th 2016Music
0
BlancVideoXlgUyOVDLFACultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
Search

What happens when Rihanna is put into a box

June 17, 2016, 6:11 am
↧

The Strokes’ “Threat of Joy”, a scrumptious music video

June 30, 2016, 2:28 am
$
0
0

 

 

English
Media full842The Strokes’s new music video for “Threat of Joy” is filmed the way of an absurd, comical and absolutely scrumptious short movie. Some pigs, Julian Casablancas in a poncho, kidnappings and a kitsch happy ending... With the best of soundtracks.
100%
June 30th 2016Music
0
BlancVideoIJNgvS-sA-sCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧
↧

An electrifying alien Rihanna in “Sledgehammer”

June 30, 2016, 8:05 am
$
0
0
English
Media full844“Sledgehammer”, single derived from “Star Trek Beyond” soon-to-be released movie, was directed by Floria Sigismondi and is an entirely IMAX music video. Starring an alien Rihanna, more powerful than ever, and the iconic Starship Enterprise.
100%
June 30th 2016Music
0
BlancVideoBXhIT4MpRisCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

The electro-dark band Crystal Castles is back with a new singer

July 7, 2016, 1:54 am
$
0
0
English
Media full1326Edith Frances, who now replaces the former singer Alice Glass, jostles everything in the new “Concrete” music video announcing the upcoming album, expected next month.
100%
July 07th 2016Music
0
BlancVideoM7zxAI3GW2oCultureMusicOn the Playlist50YoutubeCover#ffffffAligner à gauche
↧

An encounter with Joel Simkhai, founder of Grindr

July 28, 2016, 8:21 am
$
0
0
English
Galerie simple444Despite the rising number of countries that have legalized gay marriage, being homosexual is far from easy in many parts of the world today. Numéro spoke about the situation with Joel Simkhai, the founder of hook-up application Grindr.
100%
Image 100: 

Portrait by Stéphane Gallois.

 

Numéro: You were born in Tel-Aviv. What’s your first childhood memory?

Joel Simkhai: I must have been three or four. It was Purim, which is like the Jewish Halloween. I was dressed as a rabbit.

 

You were dressed as a rabbi?

No, no, not a rabbi, a rabbit! The rabbi came later. I’ll show you that photo. [Laughs.]

 

You left Tel-Aviv at a young age.

I was three, it was in 1979. We moved to Roosevelt Island in Manhattan. The economy in Israel was pretty bad at the time, and my dad wanted a shot at better opportunities. His older brother had moved to the States, and he wanted, you know, to find the American dream... Times weren’t easy in Tel-Aviv back then, it was only in the 90s that Israel really grew and developed. It was still very agricultural in the 70s.

 

Was there tourism?

I’m sure some Jews went back there at times, but it hadn’t become the  place it is today. We’d go every year and stay at my grandmother’s house, and I’d watch television, but there was only one channel in Israel.

 

Oh my God!

Yeah. And at 11.00 pm it would shut down! So there’d be a movie, like, you know, a 20-year-old movie, and then they’d play Israel’s national anthem and it would shut down. There was very little original content. It was interesting, because each time I went back to Israel I could see the progress. I could see the States by the late 70s and 80s had developed early on and had a good economy. It was cool to see the transition between the States and Israel over the years. And gay life too. When I first started going out as a gay guy in Israel in my early 20s, about 15 years ago, there was only one gay bar, open on Tuesday and Friday nights. There simply weren’t that many options. Now, there are thousands of TV channels and hundreds of different parties and gay bars. So Israel has advanced pretty dramatically over the years.

 

How is homosexuality seen in Judaism?

The same way as in Catholicism: it’s condemned in some of the holy texts, but unless they’re super religious the average Jewish person is fine with it. But at the beginning of my adult life, as a Jew, I was closeted. I only came out at the end of college.

 

Why were you closeted?

I was worried I wouldn’t be able to have a normal life, that I’d be some kind of outcast, not able to get married and have children, or find a job, and that I’d have a marginalized existence. Because I felt that a lot of the gay people I knew at the time were marginalized, lonely...

 

This wasn’t that long ago...

I’m now 39, and my whole coming out process was like from 17 to 22, so, yeah, 20 years ago. Which is a generation ago. And now we have great gay role models. There’s Tim Cook, for example, the CEO of Apple, the most valuable company in the world. There wasn’t that kind of role model when I was growing up. Nor were there any married gay guys with kids. So I had this fear of a lifestyle that wouldn’t be accepted. That’s what kept me in the closet.

 

Were you also scared you wouldn’t be accepted by your parents?

Sure. I think that, like most parents, they wanted me to have kids and get married. And with me it never even crossed their mind. When I told them, my dad said, “I thought your brothers might be gay, but I never thought you were.”

 

Why, are both your brothers gay?

Yeah.

 

There must have been something in the water!

The younger one, Jonathan, is a fashion designer based in New York. My older brother, Amir, is also in Manhattan, and got married to a man about three years ago. And he’s just had kids, a boy and a girl who will be one in a few weeks.

 

Do you want children?

Potentially – I love kids! But it’s obviously a big commitment, it’s life changing, and it’d probably be easier to deal with a partner first... I don’t have one right now.

 

It’d be a good first step, sure!

I mean I could have a child on my own you know, and maybe I will... We’ll see what happens.

 

What business are your parents in?

My dad’s a diamond dealer, he works on 47th and Fifth, the diamond district. He has an office, buys and sells diamonds. Trading. Tel-Aviv was a big diamond capital you know.And my mom’s a jewellery designer. She designs Jewish religious pendants. But when I was growing up she didn’t work, she raised us, she was a house mom. After I graduated, she was a school teacher and then she went into jewellery.

 

Did you have a lot of friends at school?

No, not really. I was feminine, and didn’t play sports with the other guys. I wasn’t doing what the other boys were doing. I had a tough time getting connected to other boys. I gravitated around the girls, but that made it even worse. There was some teasing, and some bullying, and then at about 15 I ran for student government. And that was a pivotal moment for me. I had to go on stage, make a speech. And you’re supposed to be a bit of a leader. That really helped me to kind of come out of my shell, and find my comfort, and myself. I was dating girls at the time, so I had a girlfriend...

 

Oh my god, you dated girls?!

Yeah. To start out with I was straight, then I had a phase where I was bi, and now I’m just gay!

 

What was your first job after college?

Mergers and acquisitions basically. Advising companies on M&A and raising capital.

 

I’m sorry this is Chinese to me.

It wasn’t much fun, it’s true. And then the internet boom hit, and I left finance to work for a start-up. That was a lot of fun, but after that the company fizzled out with the internet bust. That was in 2001, and afterwards I went to work for NBC news. I’m a big news junkie. At the time there was a lot going on in Israel, and they needed someone who spoke Hebrew. It was a pretty cool job, but it didn’t pay very well, which was very hard in Manhattan.

 

And then you launched Grindr in 2009.

Yeah. But in between I started selling magazines online. Then I moved to L.A. in March 2008, and in June of that year Steve Jobs announced the second generation of iPhones with GPS and the ability to develop third-party apps. I immediately knew I wanted to use that to meet guys. I’d already been thinking about easier ways to meet. When I was living in Manhattan I would wonder about the guys who lived around my block, or the guys in the bar I went to – how do I meet them? I wanted to do something with that, really focused on proximity and location.

 

But when they released the iPhone, were you like, “I want to launch a successful app,” or was it more, “I want to be able to meet guys”?

I didn’t think about the business. I just wanted this app, and I wanted to find a way to do it. I didn’t have that much money at the time. So I found a friend who was interested, and then a developer online. To be honest we didn’t have much of a business plan. This was back in the early days of apps. Today it’s very common to start an application, but ours was one of the very first generation of apps, probably number 10,000 or something. To put it into perspective, today there are well over a million apps out there.

 

Was there an advantage in being a pioneer?

Oh yes, there were definitely some advantages to getting in there early. Today if someone were to say, “Hey, I’m going to create an app for gay guys to meet other gay guys!”, the chances of their being successful and making it work as a business are very, very low.

 

Do you think that since Grindr was launched, gay guys don’t go out anymore? People always say that.

I don’t understand why people say that! When I go out I see a lot of people on Grindr. You know when you go to a bar and think, “Ugh, when was this last renovated? Why does it take half an hour to get a drink? Why can’t I find somewhere to sit?” Right? And then the bar closes down and they blame Grindr. Hey buddy, you didn’t invest any money in your bar! And maybe it’s tough for them, and they don’t have the money to invest, I don’t know. I’m not here to pick on bars. But the beautiful thing about Grindr is that it’s with you anytime. You can sit in the park, you can go to a bar, you can take the bus. Before Grindr, you had to stay home! I remember studying in Paris back in 1997, when I was still closeted, and using the Minitel…

 

Oh yes, the Minitel rose…

Oh dear, what a system! You were  totally stuck at home on that thing, in the chat rooms.

 

Are there countries that ban Grindr?

Yes, several. Turkey for example.

 

How do you ban an app?

They ban the cell provider. I actually don’t know the exact details regarding how they do it, but they can certainly control it. I mean the government of a country can really do whatever it wants.

 

Why do you think Grindr is banned in Turkey in particular?

It’s a good question, because Turkey is supposed to be a secular democracy. And there are a lot of other Muslim countries where we’re not banned. But President Erdogan has banned Twitter, he’s banned YouTube and has done quite a lot to suppress freedom of communication in general. I don’t know why they picked on us.

 

And what about China? Is Grindr banned there?

The app works in China. We were banned for a period of time, but we’re not anymore.

 

How did you go from being banned to not being banned?

No idea.

 

Is China a big market?

Potentially. And we now have a Chinese investor.

 

Who bought Grindr, right?

They bought 60% of it. So we think they’re going to be a good partner for us as we tackle Asia.

 

Is Asia going to be a growth area for you?

There’s a huge market out there! You know they’re all on smartphones now, and there’s tens of millions, maybe even hundreds of millions of gay men there who don’t really have gay bars or gay clubs. Maybe in a few cities, but you know, among the billions of people living between China and India there’s probably ten gay bars. Ten gay bars for two billion people! We can certainly help those guys to hook up.

 

What’s this triangulation thing that apparently allows the police in repressive regimes to locate gay men and arrest them via Grindr?

With just a part of the service you share your distance with other people. You can see if somebody is 50 feet away from you. And based on that information you can basically figure out where someone is.

 

Is there a way round that?

We allow two things. One, if you don’t want anyone to see exactly how far away you are, you can hide that information. And then in certain countries it’s fairly dangerous to be gay. So we just hide that information altogether. And that makes it a lot more difficult to find people.

I mean I guess Grindr has a certain moral responsibility towards its users, no? You don’t want to be getting them killed or arrested or imprisoned.

It’s a tough issue, because when you think about it, what exactly is our responsibility in these countries? Should we not be available in these countries? I mean I think we’re doing a big service for these folks, these guys that have no gay outlets. We’re helping them connect, we’re here so they don’t feel lonely. So I think it’s still good for us to be there.

 

Can you do more to protect your users?

We don’t require you to put your photo up, and we don’t require you to put your name up. Other apps require Facebook integration, but we let you stay anonymous. In Cairo, for example, we’ve actually sent out messages which said, “Hey, don’t post pictures of yourself if you’re concerned about your safety. You might be identified.” I think there are ways people can try to be safer, even though it’s challenging. They raided a bathhouse a few years ago and said, “Gay guys should never be together in here ever again.” I mean you just can’t do that, right?!

 

Well I certainly don’t think so, no. But clearly not everyone sees it that way...

We try to strike a balance by allowing users to hide their distance and not forcing them to put their info up.

 

Okay, one last question. When you sold 60% of the company, how rich did that make you?

If you really want to know, you can look up the numbers online.

 

 

Interview by Philip Utz

 

August 25th 2016Culture
0
BlancVideoCulturePortrait50Cover#faa3ffAligner à gauche
↧
Viewing all 315 articles
Browse latest View live
Search