The MoMA PS1 Performance Dome

This Sunday in Long Island City, New York, Pitchfork and MoMA PS1 will present ‘From Scratch’, an improvised and continuous five-hour performance choreographed by electronic music producer Nicolas Jaar. The event celebrates the launch of Clown & Sunset Aesthetics, a new multimedia culture house that Jaar established along with film producer Noah Kraft, which is the parent company of Jaar’s record label Clown & Sunset founded in 2009. The innovative event will take place inside MoMA PS1′s geodesic performance dome.

American-Chilean artist Jaar will collaborate on the live performance with musicians Will Epstein and Sasha Spielberg (both signed to Clown & Sunset), as well as Brooklyn-based guitarist Dave Harrington (Jaar’s Darkside partner). It will also encompass a movement piece by Lizzie Feidelson and live video art by Clown & Sunset Aesthetics’ resident filmmaker, Ryan Staake (from Pomp & Clout), who will use original and found footage, as well as a live feed from the center of the dome which will be projected in the unique building. The multidisciplinary approach to the performance showcases what Clown & Sunset Aesthetics is all about – cohesively bringing together creative people from all fields.

Later this year, Clown & Sunset Aesthetis will release its first ‘product’ – an integrated album and art object featuring an array of Clown & Sunset artists.

Check out Jaar’s track ‘And I say’ featuring Scout Larue and Epstein released last month:

The event is free with admission to MoMA PS1.

Words: Ingrid Kesa
www.momaps1.org
www.nicolasjaar.net
www.csa.fm

Former member of Gowns, Erika M. Anderson (aka EMA) is currently in the middle of her Australian tour for Laneway festival, which comes to Sydney this weekend. According to her website, Erika ‘grew up in the dive bars and rotten graveyards of South Dakota’, which sums the artist up perfectly. She’s down to earth and loves herself a Hot Toddy (whiskey and hot water) while on tour, but at the same time, she’s completely unpredictable. Despite being dubbed one of the most blogged-about artists of 2011, the Internet weirds her out sometimes and to watch her on-stage, you’d never guess that she used to teach Kindergarten.

Rosie Dalton: Hi Erika, how are you?
Erika M. Anderson: I’m doing good, how are you?

I’m good. Are you working or relaxing right now?
I wish I was relaxing, my house is really messy so I’m supposed to be cleaning it. I’d much rather be relaxing.

Have you ever been to Australia before?
No, I haven’t.

What’s your impression of us?
Well, I think there are aspects that kind of run the gamut between extremely sophisticated in terms of arts, festivals and food, but then the people also seem very down to earth and like they love to party.

What about your influences, do you have any main musical influences?
You know, I’m really excited by all different sorts of music. When something is done well, it doesn’t really matter what genre it is.

Your sound has been compared to everyone from Siouxsie and the Banshees to Cat Power and Sonic Youth, how do you feel about comparisons like these?
Well, one thing I love about that is the fact that it’s so varied; I would feel much worse if I was compared to just one person over and over.

Yeah, it’s a huge compliment. So what is it like to play in the band with your little sister?
Oh man! [Laughs] You know, it’s pretty good. Except that we fight a little bit, but overall it’s cool. When I started this band I really wanted to have people I knew and trusted around me. Not all those people want to be in a rock band that tours six months of the year though, you know. So it’s good.

You’ve been described as one of the most blogged-about artists of recent times, how do you feel about that title?
Well, it’s great to receive all this awesome critical praise but the only thing that I don’t want is for people to be intimated by that, or by me. I’d hate for anyone to think I’m too cool for them or anything.

Do you like to browse the net or are you more about the old school?
The Internet weirds me out a bit. I mean, it’s cool but you can feel so overwhelmed and drained if you’re on it for too long. It’s kind of like the universe and you’re reminded that you’re a speck in the universe [laughs]. It’s just that there’s so much shit out there and if you plug in too much it can be a bit of a mind-fuck.

Plug in like the Matrix?
Yeah! Well, actually, not even like the Matrix because the Matrix is orderly, this is like a chaotic wormhole or something; there’s no system, it’s just crazy. I mean, it can be good and bad. On one hand, it’s awesome but if I do too much of it, I get a hangover.

You mentioned that you’re into reading, do you think books will stick around much longer or eventually die out?
Actually my bandmate gave his grandma an iPad and then she gave it back to him, so we had this iPad on tour and he was downloading heaps of books while I was hauling around the real thing. I’m not a very material person, though, I don’t like to have a lot of things, so maybe I’d be fine with just an iPad or something. Then again, I like to read the newspaper rather than stare at a screen forever so I like both I guess.

If you’re not a material person, what would you ask for in your ultimate festival rider?
I usually have hot water and whiskey to make Hot Toddys, but I’ve been drinking so much whiskey! [Laughs]…I’m shuddering a little bit. I don’t know, I think I’d like to have something that someone cared about in there. Maybe food that someone has put a lot of care into or something. That’s exciting, I think.

Is whiskey your favourite drink?
[Laughs] I don’t really drink whiskey when I’m at home, I’m not the type to knock off and go ‘Alright, It’s time to hit the whiskey’ or anything. But I like to chill out with some white wine — which Australians and New Zealanders do pretty well — and I also really like sparkling water, ‘adult’ water.

What do you think you would have been if you weren’t a musician?
I was a teacher for a while.

Really?
I was a substitute teacher.

Teaching what?
Oh, everything, Kindergarten through High School. But I have actually been waiting for someone to ask me this question, because one day I’d really like to be a mum!

Check out the playlist EMA curated for us over on The Festivalist.

Words: Rosie Dalton
www.cameouttanowhere.com

Irina Lazareanu and Blur bass player Alex James front the Spring 2012 campaign for Aubin & Wills. It doesn’t really look like a campaign, though. The images look more like the kind of lazy Sunday you might dream about during the week. It almost feels like you’re peeking at the photo album of some (well-clad) couple who sketch each other in Moleskines and have heated debates about their favourite novels over cups of tea. Describing itself as “modern British design inspired by the past living in the present,” Aubin & Wills’ collection this season is infinitely wearable, practical and timeless.

There’s also a fittingly grainy video shot on 16mm film to accompany the campaign images, set to the backing track of Lazareanu’s song ‘The King’ (How unfair is it that she looks like that and can sing? Be a little less talented and beautiful already):

See the complete campaign here, featuring wallpapers as good as the prints:

Words: Ingrid Kesa
www.aubinandwills.com

Michael Miller is responsible for some of the most iconic hip hop images of all time. Although the LA native grew up in the surf, punk and skate scenes, he was listening to RUN DMC, Doug E. Fresh Slick Rick. After a stint in Europe (where he shot major campaigns for labels like Cacherel), the photographer returned to LA in ’88, where, along with shooting three advertisements for Vogue, he shot his first rapper, Arabian Prince.

When a little known group called Cypress Hill approached him to shoot the cover art for one of their demos, it was the start of something big. Miller captured the scene as it exploded from the inside, shooting everyone from 2pac and the Thug Life crew, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Warren G, N.W.A and House of Pain.

This weekend, Known Gallery in LA will launch Miller’s first book, West Coast Hip Hop: A History in Pictures featuring his most famous images. To coincide with the book launch, 43 of Miller’s photographs will be exhibited, a majority of which have never before been shown to the public. West Coast Hip Hop will be available from mid-February, and can be per-ordered at the show or online. Details of the show are below:

Words: Susannah Maylon
Images courtesy of Michael Miller
www.mikemillerphoto.com
www.knowngallery.com

Freja Beha Erichsen is the latest big-name model to star in a Free People lookbook. Dressed in easy breezy dresses and separates, she effortlessly makes the switch from tomboy to feminine free spirit. The collection features frilly dresses and pheasant-style detailing, floppy hats, embroidered shorts, distressed denim and flares – basically all the stuff you wish your mum had of kept from the seventies.

Free People’s January 2012 lookbook featured Karlie Kloss and Jessica Hart roaming around the streets of New York and Los Angeles. Comparatively simple but beautiful all the same, the February shots are lensed by Joshua Allen.

Words: Hannah Ongley
www.freepeople.com

Bec Parsons shoots Rachel Rutt for Shakuhachi’s AW12 campaign. Called ‘California Dreaming’, the new collection is in-store now and features popping pink, patent and pyjama pants, as well as batik prints and crop tops. Inspired by beatniks and the sixties, there’s a sense of easygoing elegance and Rutt – fresh-faced, tousled hair, hanging in the sun – typifies the Californian spirit that the collection represents.

Words: Ingrid Kesa
www.shakuhachi.net

Summer vacation in Italy with the Coppola clan anyone? Okay, so pigs will fly before that happens but a girl can dream. Francis Ford Coppola, with the help of famed French interior designer Jacques Grange, has restored a 19th century palazzo in Bernalda in southern Italy – the place from which his grandfather immigrated to America in 1904 (providing us with generations of talent) – and the results are awe-inspiring.

Only fifteen minutes from the Ionian Sea in the Basilicata region, the interiors of the hotel scream hazy summer days waking up beneath high, ornately detailed ceilings, reading on the terrace overlooking the grounds, lunching in the middle of a lush garden with plenty of wine (hopefully from Coppola’s vineyard in Napa Valley), swimming in the pool and wandering through the lush scenery surrounding it… perhaps followed by a stroll through the small, charming town of 7000 people. And, of course, a siesta. La dolce vita…

Coppola paints the scene with words as expertly as he can with a camera in his films on the unfinished Palazzo Margherita website:

“The Palazzo Margherita for me is a dream come true. Its magical gardens, the family gathering in the magnificent salon for whatever purpose; celebrations, intimate teas or evenings of films. It is a painted palace with frescoes on its ceilings and walls, palatial rooms with countless details, modern in terms of its systems, music and cinema available like hot and cold water; yet the patina of its epoch is preserved, and when the children are there, delight is everywhere.”

The details and scale are impressive. With nine bedrooms (each with an Apple TV), an interior garden, a pool, a grand salon with a movie screen so you can watch The Godfather after your perfect, quintessentially Italian day, a private bar, a public restaurant, Cinecetta, and plenty more, the “summer palace,” as Grange describes it, is all fresh, country-style furniture offset by more lavish detailing including scenes painted onto walls, blue chevron flooring, bold wallpapers, patterned tiling and Tunisian-style ceilings inspired by Coppola’s heritage (his grandmother was Tunisian).

Oh, and Coppola’s children got to design a suite each, which means we get to satisfy our voyeurism and take a peek at the interior design aspirations of Sofia (in the image below), who married Phoenix frontman Thomas Mars on the estate in August of last year. Sigh.

Words: Tara Rivkin
www.palazzomargherita.com
Via Wall Street Journal

Last season’s campaign took Abbey Lee as muse, and this time Dree Hemingway plays dream girl for cult jewelry label ManiaMania. Photographed by Stacey Mark and with Creative Direction by ManiaMania designers Tamila Purvis and Melanie Kamsler, the new campaign for ‘The Modern Utopian’ collection comprises a series of beautiful, softly-lit, tripped-out images.

Californian communes and cults in the late sixties and seventies, and the juxtaposition between the spirituality and hedonism of these eras, provide one source of inspiration for the collection. This can be seen in the use of materials like smokey quartz crystal and black wooden carved tusks, which represent the opposing forces of Apollo (the God of sun dreams and reason) and Dynoisus (god of wine, ecstasy, intoxication). As an extension of the eternally-popular ‘Immortals’ story, this time the pieces are done with crystal ball shaped stones, referencing Anita Pallenberg’s witchcraft practice. ManiaMania also delves into new territory with this latest offering, introducing the label’s first handbag. Called ‘Magick’, it is crafted from leather and features tusk closures in fossil crystal stones or heavy metals.

See the complete campaign here:

‘The Modern Utopian’ collection is available for pre-order now.

Words: Ingrid Kesa
www.themaniamania.com

If you suffer from epilepsy, look away now. For AW12, Jeremy Scott continues his love of perverted patriotism and DayGlo brights with another vivid collaboration with Adidas Originals, modeled here by the equally effervescent Charlotte Free.

American flags are mixed with elements of fetishism, while slouchy football shirts and red-hot Jukebox dresses incorporate more sequins and spandex than a Mardi Gras parade. American iconography perseveres in classic Firebird Track Jackets printed with stars and stripes or fringed with cowboy leather, proving that no Original is spared from Scott’s wild child touch. Even those legendary JS Teddy Bear sneakers have been given an urban jungle makeover . If you were unsure about wearing them on the basketball court you can now wear them on your shirt instead, though if you were a fan they’ve now got a cousin — the JS Gorilla. The (obscenely good-looking) boys are visibly lacking in rainbow hairspray, but Superstar jackets embroidered with guitars ensure they’re not left out of all the fun either.

Also check out our social snaps by Hobogestapo from the Jeremy Scott x Adidas launch at Espionage on Tuesday night:

Words: Hannah Ongley
www.adidas.com
www.jeremyscott.com

Prada takes the retro Americana, auto-erotica vibe up a gear with their Spring 2012 campaign video. Natasha Poly, Meghan Collison, Elise Crombez, Guinevere van Seenus, Ymre Stiekema and Katryn Kruger are cruising at the gas station, the car radio tuned to the collection’s nostalgic garage-inspired style, picking up snippets of Duck and Cover, Tobacco, Sleigh Bells and Ariel Pink. Photographer Steven Meisel has given the models (four wheeled and two legged) the high gloss wax and shine treatment so those jewel tones and pimped-out accessories really sparkle on film.

If only all roadside stops looked this good:

Words: Susannah Malyon
www.prada.com