Interview articles from December 2008

Interview archives from December 2008

Interview's editorial directors discuss ...(Discussion)
December 1, 2008... GLENN O'BRIEN: I was thinking about the cover lines for a long time. FABIEN BARON: Why? GO: I don't know. I just kept staring at the cover, and I had uh... cover line writer's block. Sometimes the simplest things are complicated. On...

Elle Erdman.(DISCOVERY)(Interview)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] AGE: 22. HOMETOWN: Bethel, Connecticut. CURRENTLY RESIDES: Bushwick, Brooklyn. OCCUPATION: Dancer and choreographer. DAY JOB: Waitress at La Esquina restaurant in Nolita. REASON FOR COMING TO NEW YORK: For a dancer...

Max Steele.(DISCOVERY)(Interview)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... AGE: 24. HOMETOWN: Alameda, California. CURRENTLY RESIDES: Wilhamsburg, Brooklyn. OCCUPATION: Go-go dancer, writer, performance artist, singer. REASON FOR COMING TO NEW YORK: To get as far away from Alameda as possible. Also, in California,...

Teresa Palmer.(View GIRL)(Interview)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Unlike a lot of young Australian actresses, Teresa Palmer didn't grow up pretending to be Nicole Kidman. In fact, the 22-year-old Adelaide native grew up in government housing and made pocket money by dressing up as...

Nicolas Duvauchelle.(View GUY)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A little more than a decade ago, a casting agent spotted Nicolas Duvauchelle doing some Thai boxing at his local gym in Paris. The French tough guy was soon thrust in front of director Erick Zonca, and fighter became...

We asked some of our friends to shoot the world from their phones and send it to us.(CAPTURE)(Brief article)(Photograph)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "A photograph from The Benefits of Looking Up, our new book of iPhone pictures coming out in December."--ANDY SPADE, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, PARTNERS & SPADE [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "We were pulling up to a ranch...

William Eggleston: the legend who brought a rebel color spectrum to the staid black-and-white art of photography swears he's never been in a fight, that all his drinking buddies are dead, and he just may be color-blind.(ART)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Unlike Southern militias, Southern artists are primarily considered poets, not rebels. It just so happens, though, that the South's greatest living photographer, William Eggleston, is both. Now 69 and a resident of...

Stephane Marais.(BEAUTY)(Interview)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... When Stephane Marais looks for beauty inspiration, he goes to the movies. "It's a huge source for me," the 48-year-old makeup maestro says. "Fritz Lang movies, old black-and-white films with smoky eyes, then Cabaret [1972] eyes... I could even...

The enemy UK.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... In 2006, a pair of English teens working a minimum-wage television salesmen ended a nightly trip to pub with a promise: They would do something different. Turns out it wasn't just drunken bubble. Singer-guitarist Tom Clarke and a pal he had met...

John Galliano nominates the class of 2008 from the Savannah College of Art and Design.(NOMINATIONS)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... "There are so many new stars, so much energy and emerging talent--fashion evolves, adapts, and saturates our society in so many ways. Some have already started their journey; others are just about to. There are many possible names to choose...

Dance off.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... PEOPLE COME TO NEW YORK TO DANCE--OFTEN LATE AT NIGHT, MAYBE A BIT DRUNK, IN CROWDED CLUBS AND AT SUDDEN HOUSE PARTIES. THE CITY IS A HAVEN FOR PROFESSIONAL DANCERS TOO, THOSE RARE BODY ARTISTS WHO PERFORM MOVES YOU ONLY THINK YOU'RE COPYING. A...

Gus Van Sant: Harvey Milk certainly wasn't the first gay politician to win an election in the United States, but he might very well have been the loudest. With his latest film, Milk, Director Gus Van Sant chronicles the unlikely rise and tragic fall of an American Revolutionary.(FILM)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Gus Van Sant's new film, Milk, tells the real-life story of Harvey Milk (played in the film by Sean Penn), who became the first openly gay person to be elected to a public office in the United States when he took his...

Art film by Lily Ludlow and Allen Cordell.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] New York painter Lily Ludlow and artist-filmmaker Allen Cordell are putting some of their favorite girlfriends on display in Sawing Circle, a video projection that will show at New York's CANADA gallery from December...

Floor lamp.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Cecilia Lundgren's "A Silent Drama" depicts a surreal act: a knocked-over lamp spills out and transforms into an area of carpet. The 26-year-old Swedish designer's startling project--in collaboration with two other students at Milan's Domus...

Anything-goes store.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Partners & Spade, the new brainchild from designer Andy Spade and ad exec Anthony Sperduti, crams as much creativity as possible into one physical space. Billed as a "storefront housing a transitional collection of...

8S-Keys' debut album.(AGENDA)(Sound recording review)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] As a producer, 88-Keys has worked with the likes of Kanye West, Q-Tip, and Mos Def. But with the December release of his debut album, The Death of Adam (Decon), the 32-year-old New York City native finally takes his...

Lacoste + Michael Stipe shirts.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For the latest addition to its annual Holiday Collector's Series, Lacoste is turning country club-casual into pure rock 'n' roll by screen-printing R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe's photograph of a concert audience...

Bar documentary.(AGENDA)(Movie review)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Siberia was the most depraved of dives, a lair of sordid memories for a cross section of New York's media cognoscenti. Before it closed in 2007, owner Tracy Westmoreland's Hell'S Kitchen watering hole was lovingly...

ICP's Year of Fashion.(AGENDA)(International Center of Photography )(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] On January 16, New York's International Center of Photography declares 2009 its Year of Fashion. To celebrate, its museum will host six exhibitions that run the rack on fashion photography. Curated by art critic...

Banana Republic + New Museum/NADA totes.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Fine art never looked so portable. Banana Republic is collaborating with New York City's New Museum and New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) to screen-print six artists' works on limited-edition tote bags. Featured art...

Tommy Hilfiger's punk-rock line.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tommy Hilfiger takes the original uniform of the American punk-rock scene way off Bowery with the brand's "Rock Scene" capsule collection as part of Hilfiger Denim for Spring. Inspired by the late, great music mag of...

Stephen Sprouse remembered.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The man who brought graffiti and Day-Glo to the forefront of '80s fashion gets a proper memorial in the new year with the release of The Stephen Sprouse Book. The neon-splashed, photo-filled monograph includes...

Global warming expedition.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some people talk about going to the ends of the earth to fix a problem. Eric Larsen is actually doing it. The 37-year-old explorer is bidding to become the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest and the...

Donald Sultan book.(AGENDA)(Theater of Object)(Brief article)(Book review)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A lot of art today is made with wire coat hangers, chewing gum, spit, hay, Styrofoam, and other cheap and dramatically desperate media, reflecting the angst and confusion of our time. But Donald Sultan's art aims...

Warhol covers.(AGENDA)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Andy Warhol would be happy to know that he's now more famous than ever. He would also be jealous that he's not getting his cut. Anyway, the seemingly endless stream of books on him are now more specialized, and we...

Ines de la Fressange: the French fashion muse has always had the right walk. And now she's got the right shoes, too, as she's helped to turn the iconic footwear brand Roger Vivier into the coolest thing since Ines herself.(FASHION)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Ines de la Fressange is French chic personified. The 51-year-old beauty was muse to both Mugler and Lagerfeld, a role model of a model whose appeal was as much about personality as cheekbones. How do you top being...

Late of the Pier.(MUSIC)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sometimes the people best qualified to re-create the past are those who never actually experienced it the first time around. This is true of the young synthesizer-wielding upstarts who make up Late of the Pier....

Bag ladies.(FASHION)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... SOMETIMES YOU WEAR ACCESSORIES, SOMETIMES THEY WEAR YOU. THIS SEASON'S BAGS ARE SO BIG ON PERSONALITY, YOU MIGHT HAVE TO ADJUST YOUR OWN JUST TO KEEP UP [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] COAT AND SCARF: ADRIANNE LANDAU. HAT: HAT SHO. GLASSES:...

Christopher Wallace Jr.: the only thing bigger than the rapper notorious B.I.G. is the gaping hole that his death left in the hip-hop world. Now, in a new biopic on the man they used to call big poppa, his son steps into his enormous shoes.(FILM)(Voletta Wallace interview)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Of course, nearly everything about the late rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a, the Notorious B.I.G., was grandiose--from his incredible girth to his explosive rhymes to the tragic piece of punctuation that his death...

Steven Soderbergh: with a new four-hour epic about the life of Che Guevara, the director paints a controversial portrait of one of the 20th century's most notorious Marxist rabble-rousers that's too big--and too bloody--to fit on a T-shirt.(FILM)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Steven Soderbergh has completed a two-part Spanish-language epic about the Marxist revolutionary and all-time best-selling T-shirt personality, Che Guevara, starring Benicio Del Toro in the title role. The first...

Sonia Rykiel: when the woman who practically invented left-bank chic celebrated her 40th anniversary, nearly every other fashion designer got in on the surprise party.(FASHION)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Sonia Rykiel's women have always been what the French call insaisissable or impossible to pin down. They're out of time: part '20s vamp, '50s ingenue, '70s hippie, and '80s glam; they're super-rich and yet barely...

Cam Archer.(FILM)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "My favorite art is the stuff that breaks my heart," says 27-year-old Santa Cruz, California, resident Cam Archer. "That pushes me to put work out there that does the same." The young director became a film-festival...

The Builders Association: technology didn't kill theater. Director Marianne Weems and her computer-friendly ensemble turn sets into channel-surfing high-speed wonderlands.(THEATER)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 1994, Marianne Weems and her then-new ensemble, The Builders Association, presented Master Builder, an adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play, on an upper floor of a New York City warehouse. She has since left...

Hot times.(WATCHES)(Buyers guide)(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... NO LONGER BIG AND BRASH, THE SEASON'S SEXIEST WATCHES ARE DISCREET LITTLE NUMBERS, EASY TO FORGET FOR A FEW MINUTES WHEN SOMETHING MORE URGENT HAPPENS TO COME UP [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] FROM LEFT, TOP ROW: NIXON, DAVID YURMAN, RADO....

Art.(art market )(Brief article)
December 1, 2008... Between October 9, 2007. and September 12, 2008, the U.S. stock market lost 84 trillion in value, So where does the money go? Does it implode into a sort of virtual black hole? A friend of ours once theorized that a crash is like losing weight,...

Richard Prince: he is one of our most successful and prolific artists. ......(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Richard Prince: he is one of our most successful and prolific artists. And a golfer, a car nut, a collector, and a connoisseur of the side of American culture they don't write about in books. He's a Hepcat who...

K.(Jeff Koons interview)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] WALT DISNEY MAY HAVE INVENTED THE THEME PARK, BUT JEFF KOONS IS THE UNDISPUTED ALL-AMERICAN MASTER WHEN IT COMES TO FILLING THE PHYSICAL WORLD WITH OUTSIZE WORK THAT DEFTLY REFLECTS ALL THE MIXED-UP DREAMS, ROMANCES,...

Cate: the fair chameleon Ms. Blanchett doesn't have anything against being a movie star. ......(Cate Blanchett interview)(Cover story)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Cate: the fair chameleon Ms. Blanchett doesn't have anything against being a movie star. But complaining about the paparazzi, offering empty platitudes about her co-stars, and ruminating on the differences between...

New York fashion.(Buyers guide)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] NEW YORK CITY is THE WORLD CAPITAL of ART, but LET'S NOT FORGET THAT IT'S ALSO ONE of THE MAJOR PLAYERS in FASHION. PARIS MAY HAVE COUTURE, MILAN TAILORING, and LONDON ECCENTRICITY, but NEW YORK'S GOT WIT, GRIT,...

Cindy Sherman.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE ULTIMATE SHAPE-SHIFTER POSES for US on the EVE of EXHIBITING a NEW SET of CHARACTER PORTRAITS at NEW YORK'S METRO PICTURES GALLERY. For "20 QUESTIONS" FRIENDS and COLLEAGUES oft he ARTIST were INVITED to POSE a...

Damien Hirst.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] FIRST HE OUTRAGED ART AUDIENCES in the EARLY 1990S WITH WORKS like his SHARK IN FORMALDEHYDE. (THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH BANNED one PIECE on THE GROUNDS THAT it MIGHT INDUCE VOMITING.) THEN he OUTRAGED...

15 for '09.(interview of 15 artists)(Interview)
December 1, 2008... IN WHAT MAY GO DOWN AS THE GREAT ART RUSH OF THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM. MOST OF THIS DECADE HAS SEEN AN ART WORLD FLUSH WITH MONEY AND YOUNG ARTISTS--SOME BRILLIANT, SOME GOOD SOME NOT SO BUT AMONG-THAT NEW CROWD, A FEW NAMES HAVE RISEN TO THE...

Mike Kelley: we all have things wiped from our memories. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not. But Mike Kelley's sculptures and installations are impossible to forget--he challenges what we see and how we see it. He plumbs the depths of childhood, repressed memory, psychoanalysis, and pop mythos--but that's just the starting point for an individual speculative universe where things make startling, weird sense.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It has been my experience that if a work of art, or a song, or even a person, confuses you at first, maybe pisses you off a little bit, then chances are it's really, really good. I remember that's how I felt the...

Rei Kawakubo.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] The ICONIC JAPANESE DESIGNER and FOUNDER of COMME des GARCONS says that SHE WORKS in FASHION and NOT ART. But, OVER the YEARS--with COLLECTIONS like that of THE INFAMOUS "BUMPS" for 1997 to the BLACK VINYL...

Urs Fischer: he excavated the concrete floor of a gallery and warned that the exhibition "involves the risk of serious injury or death." He favors materials doomed to decay--dust vegetables, cigarette packs, even cheese. And yet Urs Fischer's work revives the spirit of classical art. He's a master of meaningful spectacle who shows how memento Mori keeps it real.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] In late 2007, Swiss-born artist Urs Fischer took a jackhammer to Gain Brown's pristine white West Village floors. A gallerist has got to have a lot of faith in an artist to let him rip through the concrete, upend...

Raymond Pettibon.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THERE is ONLY one PLACE IN THE ART WORLD WHERE CHARLES MANSON, GUMBY, J. EDGAR HOOVER, a CARTOON MOUSE on ACID, SURFERS, BASEBALL PLAYERS, HOMICIDAL TEENAGE PUNKS, and TOPLESS GIRLS COULD all MEET UP, and THAT'S in...

Tony Shafrazi: art dealer Tony Shafrazi is the kind of cheerful transgressive who artists love--one for whom the business of art isn't just business as usual. In fact, the business of being Tony Shafrazi is an art in itself.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Tony Shafrazi is one of the world's best-known art dealers. He doesn't sell the most art; he isn't the most social dealer or the richest; but he may be the most artistic. He's the closest thing we have to a...

Laurence Graff: he made a fortune in rare, artistic gems. Now the dashing London tycoon is spending it to amass one of the most impressive contemporary art collections in the world. For this collector, you buy what you love. But love is usually complicated.(Interview)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Laurence Graft is sometimes called the king of diamonds, sometimes the new Harry Winston. This self-educated, self-made East End Londoner has bought and sold some of the most famous stones in the world and his...

The new L word: Libertine.(SOCIETY)
December 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Brigid Berlin, Andy Warhol's BFF, a decided Libertine ("L") in her day, came into her inheritance, she didn't race out and get coiffed. But she did wear a beehive of a ring from her mom, Honey Berlin, a tall...

January 1983: Jean-Michel Basquiat.(BACK PAGE)(Brief article)(Photograph)
December 1, 2008... BASQUIAT WAS ALREADY FAMOUS, BUT BEING INTERVIEWED BY HENRY GELDZAHLER, NEW YORK'S FORMER COMMISSIONER OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS AND THE MOST IMPORTANT CURATOR OF THE POP-ART ERA, WAS STILL A PRETTY BIG DEAL [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]