Interview

The 76th issue of COLORS magazine celebrates the lives of Internet addicts, one-legged prom queens, muscular young men shaped like bats, and people who fancy themselves vampires. It's just the global network of adolescents in 2009, as depicted by the everyday-feature quarterly for its "Teenagers" theme.

COLORS is a magazine sponsored by—but operationally separate from—United Colors of Benetton, so the magazine's interest in rainbow-striped diversity is less surprising that it might seem. This being the magazine's 18th birthday, it was naturally the moment to celebrate coming of age. And like any gear-hungry teenager, the latest issue of COLORS comes with new technology. Select pages of COLORS are marked with a Lego-like graphic; readers orient these in front of their webcam and "augment" reality by activating the page's story as a video.

Erik Ravelo, COLORS' Creative Director, explains that the magazine's web site began as a way to interface with users, encouraging readers to share stories of "other-ness." As readers and editors came to work with increasingly complex and integrated technologies, the project became more and more an exploration of the limits of print media. Says Ravelo, "Wow, we even changed the invention of the magazine itself."

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Brendan Fowler is best known for his performance work under the name BARR, a project that involves spinning long-winded, humorous, self-deprecating, and self-reflexive songs about such topics as his relationships and what he is currently singing. His series of silkscreened posters are similarly arranged-stacking frames of imagery, covering information, and sharing discreet bits of his personal life. On the occasion of his debut solo show at RENTAL Gallery, Fowler picked out one piece and talked about how his email inbox and the gazebo at his mom's house informed the work. Read the full article at Art in America.


Brendan Fowler's exhibition is on view through December 6. RENTAL Gallery is located at 120 East Broadway, 6th Floor. He performs at the gallery as part of Performa, November 15, 1–6 PM.

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One important thing to know about Rob Pruitt's First Annual Art Awards at the Guggenheim this Thursday, is that the artist likes award shows—so the ceremony isn't meant as any kind of affliction for an art world given over to popular insincerity. Asked to narrow award shows down to his favorite, he says, "I like the Teen Choice Awards, and the MTV Music Awards and MTV Movie Awards and the Oscars and the Grammys, and the Tonys."

The night will follow the Academy Awards close to the letter, with performances and dance routines planned. Categories follow the Academy Awards' lead, and include awards for Best New Artist and Lifetime Achievement. Artforum publisher Knight Landesman, high-profile artists Cecily Brown and Nate Lowman, Sofia Coppola and Mary-Kate Olsen will all present awards. Pruitt is particularly excited that Kylie Minogue and Julianne Moore will present, although he reports it was event sponsor Calvin Klein that got both involved, rather than any pull of his own, or the art. Read the full preview on Art in America's web site.




PHOTO BY KAI REGEN. COURTESY THE GUGGENHEIM.

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Portrait of Ray Petri, Courtesy Arena Homme+

The Winter/Spring 09/10 issue of Arena Homme+ is dedicated to stylist Ray Petri and Buffalo, the visual imaging company (and subsequent myth) he created that just so happened to overlap with his close-knit group of friends. Looking up Ray Petri, Google returns very little helpful information beyond speculation by Armand Limnander that the legendary stylist informed some of the major spring 2007 collections, and a piece (also by Limnander) written for the Times in tribute. Buffalo was named for Jacques Negrit, the bouncer at nightclub Bains Douches whose employees wore a jacket that read "buffalo," a rather fearsome homage to the race-conscious Bob Marley's song "Buffalo Soldier." Buffalo, in the 1980s, was a look often involving radical, excessive juxtapositions of tribal prints and rough, American West-inspired materials; and street casting with a flare for the androgynous. Buffalo also involved a rather prolific clique of stylists, photographers, artists, and models—a veritable industry of self-sustaining UK talent, most of whom have survived Petri to occupy very many pages on Google.

The present issue of Arena Homme+ is the most comprehensive tribute to date, and it comes from the estate, as it were, from a magazine that branched out from now-defunct Arena. The latter magazine was founded by Nick Logan, who previously opened The Face, where Petri made probably his most enduring mark. Arena Homme+ Editor-in-Chief Joann Furniss collaborated with creative director Neville Brody, who commissioned much of the initial Buffalo work, beginning with The Face, on the issue; she claims that in fact Petri and Brody were the reason Arena was founded.

The tribute re-unites Petri's crew, among them photographer Jamie Morgan, who co-founded Buffalo; stylist Mitzi Lorenz, Petri's longtime assistant; designer/stylist/muse Judy Blame; and a young model/Jehavah's Witness, in front of whom no one dared swear, named Naomi Campbell. Furniss sees the continuing awareness of Petri in the fashion industry, particularly in the continuing elevation of stylists, represented by Nicola Formichetti. She also sees broader relevance to the cult of Buffalo in a renewed optimisim about pop culture's global-improvement mission, embodied in the body of one much Gossiped-about cover star:


FURNISS: Have you seen the Ed Westwick cover?

GARTENFELD: I did. Why was Ed the cover that you chose to match up with Ray?

FURNISS: There were two covers—a limited one, which is really very limited, that's the Buffalo cover, which features the Bains Douches bouncer Jacques Negrit; and the other with Ed.

GARTENFELD: So you've done the limited edition, and that seems like a natural choice because Jacques Negrit was somebody who was crucial to the Buffalo set, but what about the choice of Ed?

FURNISS: Well we thought, "What would be a cover of The Face for an issue like this." We decided it's Ed Westwick.  And I worked quite closely with the Alasdair McLellan, and he said he wanted to photograph Ed Westwick.

GARTENFELD: So what's interesting about him?

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