5 posts tagged "Jean-Michel Basquiat"
See and Be Scene: Jeannette Montgomery Barron on Her New Book
From Warhol’s Factory to Basquiat’s studio, throughout the eighties, downtown Manhattan was the place for young creative types to be. Photographer Jeannette Montgomery Barron was there, and her new tome, Scene, is a sort of yearbook of the time, documenting the likes of Cindy Sherman, Keith Haring, Francesco Clemente, Willem Dafoe, and more early in their careers. “I was just a fly on the wall,” recalls Montgomery Barron, speaking at Indochine, one of her old haunts. (“It looks almost exactly the same, but there were a lot of drugs happening in the bathrooms back then.”) This afternoon, she’ll sign copies of Scene—which, in addition to the snaps, features personal anecdotes about each artist—at Bookmarc, and starting tomorrow, a select group of her black-and-white photographs will be on display in an exhibition at ClampArt. Here, Montgomery Barron discusses her book, and reminisces about shooting Warhol, working out with Bianca Jagger, and spending time with Basquiat.
How did you find yourself in the center of the eighties New York art scene?
I was just lucky. It’s not that I went out and said, “I want to record every artist from A to Z.” It was more like I’d photograph Francesco Clemente, and he’d say, “You should really go photograph my friend Kenny Scharf.” It was very organic in that way. And, I mean, I knew I could drop a name. I’m sure I said, “Hey, I’m a friend of Andy Warhol. Can I shoot you?” I guess I’d get an adrenaline surge.
In the book, you mention that you could just call up Andy Warhol and ask to take his picture. What were those sittings like?
The first time I photographed him was at the Factory in Union Square, and he wouldn’t even let me out of the outer lobby. When I met Bianca Jagger and we became friends, he warmed up. He never really talked much, but he always made you feel like you were the most brilliant person who said the most profound things. Continue Reading “See and Be Scene: Jeannette Montgomery Barron on Her New Book” »
On Our Radar: GLASS
When it comes to swimwear for gents, there’s a new kid on the beach, repping a hip breed of shoreline swagger: New York City’s GLASS. “I kept thinking, What would both Gianni Agnelli and Jean-Michel Basquiat wear [to the pool]?” founder John Glass told Style.com. The designer, who grew up between New York, Martha’s Vineyard, and London whilst studying history and, as of late, working in branding at Tom Ford, is a man of varied interests. While in the U.K., he hung out with a Savile Row crew—even tagging along on trips to tweed mills in Scotland, obsessively educating himself on tailoring along the way. “I started the line because I felt that swimwear is like a blank canvas, allowing for creativity and originality across one product,” says Glass. His swimsuits are a departure from the formal three-piece looks of his past, but the designer’s wares boast a wide scope of studied, albeit quirky, prints, like a lo-fi Crayon Paisley and an Egyptian-funky Hieroglyphic Stripe. “Wear them anywhere you want to be happy,” suggests Glass. “From a sailboat in the Mediterranean to a hot day in NYC.” Glass debuted his line only last month, but he’s already planning for next season—keep your eyes peeled for potential pop-ups at Art Basel in Miami and Rio’s Carnival.
GLASS’s new trunks are available, starting today, on Moda Operandi.
Fame For Sale
Art and celebrity, celebrity artists, the art of celebrity—it’s all a big blur. But an intriguing blur, nonetheless. Starting tomorrow, online auction house Paddle8 will play to our fascination with art, celebrity, and everything in between with Somebody, a fame-themed sale. Launching in collaboration with Interview magazine (i.e., the magazine that Andy Warhol—the grandfather of celebrity/art cross-pollination—founded), the auction will offer 40 celeb-centric works by the likes of Richard Avedon, Mario Testino, Richard Prince, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Warhol himself, and more. You can browse the sale, and its famous faces, until it ends on March 27.
Nonstop Marc
Marc Jacobs was the guest of honor at the WWD CEO Summit dinner last night. With Proenza Schouler’s Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez, Olivier Theyskens, and Pamela Love, among other New York design stars, looking on, Jacobs sat down with WWD’s Bridget Foley for an engaging interview that ranged from subjects like his favorite living designer (Miuccia Prada) and current projects (a beauty line with Sephora) to his recent absence from Page Six (“Kanye and Kim have taken my thunder,” he said) to the virtues of living in New York City in the pre-cell-phone age. “Everything felt like a first. It didn’t get tired,” Jacobs said. “Now it’s different, but then there were places where young artistic people could live. Madonna performed at the Roxy before anyone knew who Madonna was. Or Jean-Michel Basquiat. So many people were coming up. There were pockets of creativity. And all of that seemed new. And it was pre-computers, too, so people actually talked to each other, and they did go to clubs. I don’t think there were iPhones or text messaging, so everybody either talked to each other or ignored each other, but they did it face-to-face.”
Describing the nonstop work as “like one prolonged day” between now and the Louis Vuitton show in early March, Jacobs alluded to an upcoming meeting about his Louis Vuitton contract. “So the contract,” Foley said, pressing him for more information, but Jacobs demurred. “We’re discussing that this week,” he said, as if to indicate that anything could still happen. When his boss at Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault, came up another time, Jacobs was more forthcoming. “I always feel like Babe the Pig, with the farmer, where Mr. Arnault will say, ‘That’ll do, Pig.’ He was very pleased with [Daniel] Buren [our Spring collaborator], and he was very pleased with the train [from Fall 2012]; he’s been a lot more forthcoming. But there’s been a good ten out of fifteen years where it was, ‘That’ll do, Pig.’ “
At the end of the interview, Foley invited the audience to ask questions. Martha Stewart was among the guests who spoke up. “I asked my Twitter followers what they’d like to know,” she began, “and they asked, Who’s your greatest inspiration? And if you cook, and your favorite color.”
“I love red, I don’t cook at all, and who inspires me? Well, all of the people I work with inspire me, and my friends inspire me. I couldn’t give you one name.”
Stewart pressed, “They also asked, Who’s your favorite porn star?”
“Well, my favorite ex-porn star,” he said, “is a guy named Eddie.”
The Bowery Boys: Nicholas Taylor’s Photos of Basquiat
Nicholas Taylor introduced Madonna to Jean-Michel Basquiat in the early eighties, starting a tumultuous relationship between the pop icon and late artist. It was just one of Taylor’s daily adventures as a member of pre-punk band Gray, which he played in with Basquiat. Last night in London at the opening of Jean-Michel Basquiat Through Nicholas Taylor, an exhibit of Taylor’s black-and-white images chronicling those heady years, the musician-slash-photographer was quite logically in memory-lane mode. “Jean-Michel and I hit it off right away, even though he was a few years younger than me,” said Taylor. “An average night for us consisted of stealing beers off tables at the clubs. Then we would get into the subway and he would discreetly pull out a marker and start doing his graffiti thing. It’s like he had a twitch and had to be drawing all the time.”
Continue Reading “The Bowery Boys: Nicholas Taylor’s Photos of Basquiat” »