Posts from the “AnOther” Category

How Danny Lyon Became the Defining Photographer of America’s Outsiders

Posted on May 10, 2024

Few artists are willing to risk it all, except those who know no other way to exist. Photographer and filmmaker Danny Lyon inherited the spirit of rebellion and resistance from his mother, who regaled him with heroic tales of her brothers’ fearless crusade against the Tsar in the Russian and Bolshevik Revolutions of the early 20th century. As a young boy growing up in Queens, New York, Lyon would lie in bed at night and dream of seeing the world – never knowing his destiny was inextricably bound to history, art, and film.

Now 82, Lyon charts his extraordinary journey in the new book, This is My Life I’m Talking About (Damiani), a picaresque memoir that reveals his natural gifts for storytelling. Like his photographs, Lyon’s prose is electric, poetic, and filled with explosive details, bringing readers into the middle of the action before roaring off to the next episode. The stories move with the same intense pace with which he worked, crisscrossing the country on his red Triumph motorcycle during the 1960s.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

*Danny Lyon. Susan Measles and Nancy Weiss.*

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Sandro Kopp: The French Dispatch

Posted on October 26, 2021

Lea Seydoux as Simone, courtesy of Searchlight

With the advent of the 24/7 media cycle, the art of journalism has all but disappeared. With slashed budgets, few can afford to engage in the glorious reportage of yesteryear, when reporters would disappear into a story for months only to remerge with masterfully crafted tales of historic import.

Wes Anderson offers a masterful love letter to journalists of yore with new film The French Dispatch, which made its UK premiere on Friday, October 22. Set in the outposts of an American magazine in the fictional 20th century French city of Ennuisur Blasé, The French Dispatch brings together a star-studded ensemble cast that includes Timothée Chalamet, Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Lyna Khoudri, and Anjelica Houston.

Organized like an anthology, The French Dispatch presents three stories including “The Concrete Masterpiece,” which was inspired by “The Days of Duveen,” a six-part New Yorker feature on British art dealer Lord Duveen published in 1951. In the film, staff writer J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) chronicles the story of incarcerated artist Moses Rosenthaler (Benicio del Toro), who draws inspiration for his glorious abstractions from prison guard Simone (Léa Seydoux) and soon comes to the attention of ruthless art dealer Julien Cadazio (Adrian Brody).

But perhaps the true star of this story is the paintings themselves — the magnificent masterpieces that we imagine Rosenthaler creating from inside the confines of his prison cell. In turns bold and brutish then thoughtful and tender, the paintings explode on the screen, offering a wildly expressionistic counterpoint to the precise formalism of Anderson’s aesthetic sensibilities.

Created by German-New Zealand artist Sandro Kopp, the abstractions present a point of departure for the figurative painter who has received acclaim for his Skype portraits, his hypnotic paintings of the human eye, and his mesmerizing portraits of partner Tilda Swinton. Realizing “The Concrete Masterpiece” has proven a blessing for Kopp, who continues to draw inspiration from Rosenthaler’s art.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Categories: AnOther, Art, Painting

Remembering Prince Through the Stories of Those Who Knew Him

Posted on August 3, 2021

*Prince – Welcome to America. Photography by Kevin Mazur, © The Prince Estate*

While watching YouTube videos of his friend Dr Cornel West, Prince heard the famed American academic and activist say, “I love my brother Prince, but he’s no Curtis Mayfield.”

The gauntlet had been thrown, and Prince took charge, writing the song Born 2 Die and later recording it in March 2010. Although President Barack Obama was in power, the issues affecting the Black community remained the same. Years before pop culture and the mainstream media would centre social justice, Prince crafted Welcome 2 America, a profoundly prescient statement about what he saw about the state of the nation at the dawn of the new millennium. Recorded in just a week, the record was ultimately shelved, with the artist choosing not to release it.

However, soon after completing the album, Prince embarked on a world tour bearing its name, capping it with the historic 21 Nite Stand show at The Forum in Inglewood, California on April 28, 2011 – which is available as a live concert video in the deluxe edition. Backed by the New Power Generation (NPG), Prince performed classics likePurple Rain and Kiss as well as covers of Janet Jackson’s What Have You Done for Me Lately and India.Arie’s Brown Skin.

“It’s extremely satisfying to know that people are going to hear Prince’s words because they are so important, and need to be heard over and over again,” says bassist Tal Wilkenfeld, who played on Welcome 2 America. “Prince wanted to help people and you can hear it in the music.”

In conjunction with the new, posthumous release of Welcome 2 America (Sony Legacy), we look at the man behind the myth through the stories of NPG keyboardist Renato Neto and bassist Ida Nielsen, who played The Forum show, along with sound engineer Jason Agel and Wilkenfeld, who worked on Welcome 2 America.

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*Prince – Welcome to America. Photography by Mike Ruiz, © The Prince Estate*

Categories: AnOther, Art, Music

Mime Imbert & Cristina Firpo: Prince Street

Posted on July 16, 2021

*Prince Street. Photography by Maxime Imbert, Styling by Cristina Firpo*

In 1974, Susan Meiselas moved to Mott Street, in the heart of Manhattan’s famous Little Italy neighbourhood, and soon after met a gaggle of preteen girls on the cusp of adolescence. She got to know this group, photographing their adventures as they traipsed around town, walking through the streets knowing that the world was theirs for the taking. Her photographs, which are brought together in the series Prince Street Girls, have become icons in their own right, capturing the innocent yet knowing pleasures of youth, when summers were bountiful and responsibilities were few.

Fast forward five and a half decades to April 2021, when photographer Maxime Imbert and stylist Cristina Firpo teamed up to shoot Prince Street, a zine printed in a limited edition of 100 copies. Photographed on location at a house in Eltham South, east London, Prince Street tells the story of four sisters spending the summer holidays at home. Dressed in vintage Prada, Fiona O’Neill, Helena Manzano, Alexandra Armata, and Ilana Blumberg, the girls effuse a sense of casual chic, ready for wherever life may take them.

A familiar sensation of excitement and boredom fills the photographs, lending the images a melancholic air and the viewer a sense of nostalgia for a perhaps simpler time. With a second edition potentially on the way, all profits from Prince Street will go to Hackney Quest, a charity organisation serving the young people and families of Imbert and Firpo’s own neighbourhood. Here, the duo tells us about the making of Prince Street.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Categories: AnOther, Art, Fashion, Photography

The Truth About Halston, According to People Who Knew Him

Posted on May 27, 2021

*Liza Minnelli and Halston at Studio 54 circa 1982 in New York CityPhotography by Robin Platzer/Images/Getty Images*

Halston lived the American Dream – then fell victim to it. Born Roy Halston Frowick in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1932, Halston arrived in Chicago at the age of 20, opening a hat business the following year, with a clientele that included actresses such as Kim Novak, Gloria Swanson, and Deborah Kerr. In 1957, he began using the name Halston professionally and moved to New York, skyrocketing to fame when he designed the famous pillbox hat Jacqueline Kennedy wore to the 1961 Presidential inauguration.

By the end of the decade, hats had fallen out of fashion but Halston continued his ascent, designing clothes and opening his first eponymous boutique on Madison Avenue in 1968. The following year Halston launched his first ready-to-wear line, adopting the chic minimalist silhouette that would become the hallmark of disco style. Celebrities including Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, and Babe Paley flocked to Halston in droves, driving the worth of Halston’s line to $30 million. He sold his line in 1973, expanding to become a brand long before this kind of thing was done, stamping his name upon fragrance, luggage, menswear, and handbags, all while retaining creative control.

The 1970s belonged to Halston as he defined decadence with a delicious blend of sex, glamour, and luxury. A fixture on the club scene, Halston brought the edge of night to the daytime world with “The Halstonettes,” a term fashion journalist André Leon Talley used to describe the jet-setting squad of supermodels who appeared together in Halston ads, editorials, and events including Pat Cleveland, Beverly Johnson, Angelica Huston, Karen Bjornson, and Alva Chinn.

But like any mortal flying too close to the sun, Halston’s fall was harrowing. After signing a six-year, billion-dollar licensing deal with JC Penney in 1983 to produce Halston III, a line of affordable products starting at $24, high-end retailers retaliated, dropping his ready-to-wear line. That same year, Halston lost control over his namesake company and then, in 1984, he was banned from creating designs for Halston Enterprises. He barely made it through the decade, testing positive for HIV in 1988, before dying on 26 March 1990 at the age of 57.

“Fashion is brutal,” says photographer Dustin Pittman, who knew Halston from the early 1970s. “People don’t realise the only designer still living from the American side at the Battle of Versailles is Stephen Burrows. That’s it. Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Halston, and Anne Klein are all dead. Fashion goes up and down – a lot of designers go bankrupt.”

In 1991, American journalist Stephen Gaines penned Simply Halston: The Untold Story, the biography that inspired Ryan Murphy’s new five-part Netflix biopic series about the designer’s life starring Ewan McGregor in the title role. In a statement released on 10 May 2021, Halston’s family derided the show as “an inaccurate, fictionalised account”, much in the same way the Versace family described Ryan Murphy’s 2018 American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace as a “work of fiction.”

Invariably, myth looms larger than fact, becoming a through line that shapes the historical record. To provide balance, we speak to Halston’s friends, colleagues and associates to provide insight into the character of a man who was larger than life.

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Liza Minnelli; Andy Warhol; Halston; Jack Jr. Haley [& Wife]; Mrs. Mick Jagger – Celebrities during New Year’s Eve party at Studio 54: (l-r) Halston, Bianca Jagger, Jack Haley, Jr. (bkgrd), Liza Minnelli (bkgrd), Andy Warhol.Photography by Robin Platzer/Twin Images/The LIFE Images Collection via Getty Images/Getty Images

Categories: 1980s, AnOther, Art, Fashion

Remembering Tom of Finland Through Stories of Those Who Knew Him

Posted on May 19, 2021

*Tom of Finland, Untitled, c.1973, Tom of Finland Permanent Collection*

Those who had the pleasure of meeting Tom of Finland (born Touko Valio Laaksonen, 1920–1991) may have expected to encounter a walking, talking version of his drawings. Instead, they would have been greeter by a gentle soul, whose Finnish upbringing made him a quiet and reserved individual, who would easily slip into the fantasy world of his homoerotic drawings for hours at a time.

“If you know Finns, and most people don’t, they can be quite quiet,” says Durk Dehner, president of the Tom of Finland Foundation. “When I first went to Finland, Tom set up a cocktail party for me at his apartment. His friends started coming while he was arranging cocktails and preparing hors d’oeuvres. We were all sitting in the living room and nobody was saying a word. I was so uncomfortable, I went into the kitchen and said, ‘When are they going to start talking?’ He said, ‘Give them one more drink and they will,’ and that was the case. Of course six hours later I went into the kitchen and said, ‘When are they going to go home?’ That’s Finns in a nutshell.”

Although Tom was unassuming, he was confident and determined to create works of art that would empower and inspire gay men at a time when homosexuality – and very the depiction of it – was criminalised, stigmatised, and misrepresented. Tom’s groundbreaking drawings of bikers and leathermen, which he made from photographs now on view in the new exhibition Tom of Finland: The Darkroom, revolutionised the portrayal of gay men forevermore. “He wanted his history to be in his art,” Dehnrer says. And so it was – but still many wish to know, what was Tom of Finland really like? Here his friends, lovers, and models reminisce on the man behind the myth.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Tom of Finland, Untitled (Aarno), 1976, Tom of Finland Permanent Collection

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Photography

Mel Odom: Gard Stuff

Posted on May 10, 2021

Growing up in Mayberry, North Carolina, in the 1950s and 60s, artist Mel Odom would sneak out of his room after his parents went to sleep, turn the TV down low, and watch old movies late into the night. Mesmerised by the sleek yet sensuous art deco aesthetic that defined old Hollywood glamour, Odom revelled in the cool sexuality that smoldered under the glimmering surface of these films.

Intuitively he brought this sensibility to his work as an illustrator, a passion that took root when he was just three or four years old. Born to a mailman and a housewife living in a small town, Odom found solace in drawing his own world. “As an adult I realised whenever there was something traumatic going on in the family or in my life, drawing where was where I would go to exhibit some sense of control,” he tells AnOther. “I would go to my room and draw for hours. My parents understood it was something that meant a great deal to me, so I had lessons from the time I was seven years old.”

After receiving his first commission in third or fourth grade to draw 36 place cards for a school event, Odom understood he could make money doing what he loved. It’s a passion that he’s pursued throughout his life, one that he reflects back on in the new two-part exhibition, Mel Odom: Hard Stuff, now on view online and at the Tom of Finland Store in Los Angeles. For the exhibition, Odom brings together 100 drawings made between 1975 and 2019 that showcase his wholly original approach to illustration.

Read the Full Story at Blind

Categories: 1970s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions

Tom of Finland: The Darkroom

Posted on April 29, 2021

*Tom of Finland, Untitled (Gavin), 1987, Tom of Finland Permanent Collection ©1987-2021 Tom of Finland Foundation*

Wars, for all their horrors, have been known to foster a sense of brotherhood among the men who fight in them. This was certainly the case with Tom of Finland – born Touko Laaksonen (1920–1991) – who was conscripted to serve in the Finnish Army during World War II and rose to become a lieutenant, beloved by his platoon for treating them with kindness and respect. The son of a country choral master, Tom seized the opportunity to strengthen the bond between his men and created the first men’s choir in the Finnish Army.

“They had a lot of time sitting around waiting for the Russians to attack them so Tom taught all of the men in his platoon how to sing,” says Durk Dehner, president and co-founder of the Tom of Finland Foundation. “He could take on initiatives that came out of his own inspiration and yet he had this sensibility of not having to stand out and be noticed.”

Flying under the radar, quite literally, Tom established a cottage industry selling drawings through his mail-order business, while also working a day job at an advertising firm. What few people know is the role photography played in Tom’s artistic process. Now, the new exhibition Tom of Finland: The Darkroom, opening April 30 at Fotografiska New York, brings together photographic portraits the artist used as reference images for his legendary and hugely influential drawings. Organised in conjunction with Tom’s 101st birthday on May 8, the exhibition explores this little-known aspect of the artist’s work, which was confined to his home studio and darkroom so as to protect him from persecution, prosecution, and imprisonment.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

*Tom of Finland, Untitled, c.1986, Tom of Finland Permanent Collection © 1986-2021 Tom of Finland Foundation*

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Photography

Iringó Demeter: She is Warm

Posted on March 26, 2021

Hailing from a tiny Transylvanian village of just 200 people, London-based photographerIringó Demeter remembers growing up surrounded by nature and animals. “It was very lonely but that pushed me to observe and question everything around me,” Demeter tells AnOther. “I relate to being an observer: looking at things as they happen, listening to them, and wondering why they are that way. A piece of grass blowing in the wind – there is so much beauty and so much quietness about it.”

Demeter’s fascination with nature serves her well in the creation of a series of female nudes brought together in the new book She Is Warm (Libraryman). Included as number 12 of the publisher’s quarterly Seasons Series, which draws inspiration from Kim Ki-duk’s seminal film Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring, the book showcases Demeter’s original perspective on the nude, one rooted in the idea that our bodies are our first home.

Over the past four years, Demeter has amassed a collection of works crafted from what could be described as “slow” photography. “I would never carry a camera,” she says. “I look at all of these things, then maybe a day or a year later I photograph a body and think back on that experience. I work with single images. I always say that if I take away one good image, I am happy. I don’t have expectations that every it has to be good – no, that’s way too much pressure. I focus on single images and when I have it, I’m like this is great!”

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Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography, Women

Mona Kuhn: Works

Posted on March 8, 2021

As a young girl coming of age in 1980s Brazil, Mona Kuhn discovered the power of photography when she received a Kodak Pocket Instamatic camera for her 12th birthday. “Photography is a modern, fast-paced medium and in a way that is what I like because I have a very restless side to me – but at the same time it scares me,” Kuhn tells AnOther in advance of the April 6 publication of Mona Kuhn: Works (Thames & Hudson), her first retrospective monograph chronicling a quarter century of work, selections from which are now on view at Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York.

Since she was a teenager, Kuhn had been drawn to figurative work, particularly that of painters including Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele. After meeting Braziian artist Mário Cravo Neto, who used figurative photography to investigate the Afro Brazilian heritage and mysticism in Bahia, Kuhn embarked on her first study of the human form.

“I always wanted to go against how fast-paced the medium is, and work with nudes as a way of stopping time,” Kuhn reveals. “I was interested in the nude because it wasn’t limited by fashion; it was open-ended. It was not an easy thing because nudes have been done a lot, maybe in ways I do not think are best. At the time I was in college, in the early 90s, Helmut Newton and Herb Ritts were iconic, but it was not how I wanted it to be.”

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Categories: 1990s, AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Irving Penn: Photographism

Posted on January 15, 2021

*Irving Penn. Girl Behind Bottle, New York, 1949.*

In 1996, Vasilios Zatse began his journey with Irving Penn, starting as an apprentice to the master photographer and rising to become the deputy director of the Irving Penn Foundation. Zatse remembers arriving at Penn’s Fifth Avenue studio for the job interview, expecting to see the most modern equipment, only to be whisked back in time.

“When you stepped into the studio, it was as if the outside world didn’t exist. You were in Penn’s world,” Zatse says. “It felt like an atelier. It was a studio with very plainly painted walls, white and battleship grey, and creaky worn wooden floors and some of the cameras that dated to his beginnings at Vogue magazine, going back as far as the early 1940s or early 50s.”

Penn never fixed what already worked, but he constantly sought new solutions to old problems. “Penn was not one to accept given formulas, approach a task or an idea in a very elemental fashion,” Zatse says. “On more than one occasion he built his own cameras for specific concepts or ideas. Penn was not shy about thinking outside of the box.”

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*Irving Penn. Two Hairy Young Women, New York, 1995.*

Categories: 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Fashion, Photography