Comfort Magazine Issue #1 Sneek Peek

Editor’s Letter

Co-Editor-in-Chief Robert Leblanc CO Editor-in-Chief & Creative Director Yudo Kurita Beauty Editor at Large Sara Tagaloa Contributing Editors Morian Thomas Nicholas Amato Andrew Wren Cover Design Cameron Morse

COMFORT is and always will be FREE.

Logo Design Lucas Grassmay

Featuring 550 BC AJRadico Antoine d’Agata Audrey Nuna Aurel Schmidt Avi Gold Caleb Flowers Chineway Okona Clinton Van Arnam Damar Davis Daniel Regan David Donald Sutherland Ernest Rareberg Fawn Rodgers Frank Nesbit Ivana Dama Joshua Gordon Kucka Kyle Keese Lynssey Adario Maria Dora Mason Silva Nathaniel Mary Quinn OAA Roman Kamalar Ryan Preciado Topaz Jones

Contributing Stylists Avigail Collins Kailee Takashima Karolyn Pho Niambi Moore Nicholas Amato Sebastian Jean Shaojun Chen

Contributing Photographers Andrey Tarasov Antoine d’Agata Caleb Flowers Daniel Regan Hiroyuki Seo Joshua Gordon Korth Avens Lynssey Adario Mason Silva Micaiah Carter Michelle Corvino Nayquan Shuler Nori Rasmussen Yulissa Benitez Zachary Harell Jones Zong Li

Thank You to: Arc’tryx Arc’tryx Veilance Brownstone Carhartt WIP Georgia ic25 Helmsleyway Huf Maiden Noir Murmurs LA Nike The North Face PRMTVO Rapha Salon Recordings Visvim

Contributing Beauty Sara Tagaloa Tammy Yi Tiago Goya Contributing Writers Andrew Wren Essence Harrden Frank Nessbit

Welcome to issue 1 of COMFORT MAGAZINE. Moving forward we will aim to present an ever evolving magazine circulating around our genuine curiosities and cultures we move within. The magazine will use it’s ideas as it’s foundational aesthetic and evolve visually with each issue. We view our magazine as an art object. As we move deeper into the age of digitalization we find it important to create and share “media” that is truly tangible. As the world continues to spiral we hope that this can be a place to discuss ideas openly , with a focus on unity over division.

We are deeply grateful to the individuals who contributed their work to this issue and are truly humbled by the generosity they showed by giving us their time and allowing us to showcase their work. We hope you enjoy our first issue.

- Robert LeBlanc & Yudo Kurita

Spring/Summer 2021

INDEX

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73

76

98

112

136

138

156

158

166

186

188

208

220

232

234

242

270

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289

304

322

334

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366

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392

404

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422

438

LYNSSEY ADARIO

portfolio Lynsey Addario has dedicated her life to telling the human side of conflict. Creating images over time that have told a countless number of peoples stories.

In 2009 she was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting. Lynsey has the ability to connect the viewer with the subject almost immediately. Something that seems to be of the utmost importance when telling the stories of people who are going through extreme situations, without this connection it’s easy for us to ignore these realities. But what Lynsey does is destroy this ignorance with each photograph.

They are quite literally impossible to ignore.

The following photographs are a collection of images from Lynssey’s career up until now.

Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan 2009

Italian sailors rescue 109 African migrants coming from Gambia, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Nigeria. The Italian Navy has several ships patrolling international and Italian waters at an attempt to rescue migrants and bring them safely to the Italian shore. Since the beginning of 2014, roughly, 120,000 refugees have landed in Italy, more than doubling the amount for the entire year of 2013.

Sea between Italy and Libya 2014

HAIR & MAKE UP Tammy Yi

SPACE

PHOTOGRAPHY Yudo Kurita

AUDREY

NUNA STYLIST ASSISTANT Niki Friedman

STYLIST Avigail Collins

previous pages: ACNE t-shirt MIKIO SAKABE jacket

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CONG TRI patent coat

SIMONE ROCHA head scarf KIDS OF BROKEN FUTURE jacket & pants suit

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Baja, MEXICO Venice, California, USA Watts, California, USA 9400 Arrondissement Paris , FRANCE Takawa Bay Logos, NIGERIA Port Royal, Kingston, JAMAICA Hackney Downs, London, UK Dalston, London, UK LES, New York City, New York, USA

A Life in Debt

Newport News, Virgina, USA Venice High School, California, USA Imperial Courts Housing Projects, California, USA Tompkins Square Park, New York, USA Oakwood Park, California, USA Marina del Rey, California, USA Malibu, California, USA

A Film by Daniel Regan

Score & Edit by Jo “22” Orso

isolation as a cathartic visit to a world prior, an earmark of the way we once were. Honoring tradition, ritualistic behavior, and our basic human need to be nurtured and nurture one another. The inception of the title derived from an over-

NATHANIEL MARY QUINN in conversation with No Wedding, No Cake; No Prom, No Date, 2020. Oil paint, paint stick, oil pastel, gouache on linen canvas stretched over wood panel, 48 x 48 inches, (121.9 x 121.9 cm) NQUIN 2020.0013 GAGOSIAN

ESSENCE HARDEN

Nathaniel Mary Quinn

EH: I want to open our conversation with this essay by Fred Moten I was just reading, “The black topological experience.” The essay is many things, chiefly a rumination on Arthur Jafas exhibition A Series of Utterly Improbably, Yet Extraordinary Renditions. But it’s his thinking on blackness as this expansive site, curving onto and outside of itself that intrigued me.

The dimensionality in your paintings have this endless curving, bending, and geometry; a type of topology as described by Moten. Does this sense of an expansive and winding blackness resonate for your practice?

NMQ: I will answer that question with a story. When I finished grad school at NYU, I moved to Chicago for one year so I could save some money to get back to New York. During that time I remember reading about and being deeply impressed with Kehinde Wiley, Wangechi Mutu, and Mickalene Thomas. And I thought well, this seems to be a suitable pathway that my work will respond to American blackness. If I make works like that, I will improve my chances of being acknowledged, you know?

He Brought This Upon HImself and Hides with Self-Pity, 2019

Now at the same time, I was still contending with my tumultuous upbringing in Chicago. Losing my family at a young age,dealing with issues of separation and abandonment. And there wasn’t anything about my black skin that gave me any sense of relief from that pain. During this period I had also met my now wife, we were dating, and you know, I was a broken person. At one point she said if we’re going to continue on then you have to go to therapy. I complied, I didn’t want to lose her. And It was the best thing we could’ve done in my life.

Because of therapy, I spent a lot of time becoming more introspective and taking a real hard courageous look at the makeup of my identity. I began to relinquish myself from whatever sense of need or responsibility to make works about “Black people” and instead began to make works that explored the spectrum of humanity. I take a more introspective look in the creation of my portraits.

You know what I mean? So that’s my way of exploring blackness. The whole fight here really is to establish a truth. And the truth is that we, all people ought to be treated with the same sense of humanity and we are far more complex than the fantasies attached to one skin color.

While my paintings look jumbled, broken apart and reassembled there’s also a harmony present and that to me is a real reflection of life. So when you look at my work as anybody of whatever race you’re actually looking at a reflection of yourself. This is what you look like. This is you. This is us. We all look like this because we’re all built this way. And that’s, I think that’s the best way I could respond to your inquiry.

COMFORT

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VUARNET sunglasses NOON GOONS jacket AKNVAS pants BURBERRY shoes

Ryan Preciado Mr. Wren & Friends A Creative Studio based in Los Angeles, California

Photography by Yudo Kurita

I’m not sure you can be labeled as a furniture designer, as your output is very diverse and the objects you create could be considered more sculptural. Given your work is so sensory would you think of yourself more as a fine artist? Or do you not really care how you’re labeled?

I’m not entirely sure how I would label myself. Maybe just as a “Curious Person.” Although, if I’m not entirely sure how to label myself I can’t be too mad if someone calls me one thing or another.

Ryan Preciado

Do you feel there is a decline in people using their hands as a craft?

Or maybe it’s the opposite now that we’re definitely seeing a resurgence in people wanting to do something more tactile and rewarding.

I’m usually in my bubble when I’m working or talking with friends, so I’m surrounded by individuals who often work with their hands fortunately. I think you’re right though, It seems like a lot more people are picking up trades.

YOU ARE STANDING IN A BURNING FIELD

Close your eyes, you are standing in a field. Take a moment to soak in the details and the environment you are standing in. What do you see?

When I ask myself this question I fall back on the images I captured in 2019 and 2020. They depict the culmination of a perfect storm, which launched the United States of America in to pure chaos. A mixture of political madness, national division, massive natural disasters, a pandemic, and the veil being pulled back from masking the ongoing racial injustice within our country to the masses. These two years, for me, became a mark in history where things spun out of control.

On assignment I found myself embedded with the extreme right, including Bikers for Trump and the now infamous Proud Boys. Sitting in bars as they got black out drunk and shouted about how Michelle Obama was actually a man and that Donald Trump was the best thing for America since sliced bread. Relentlessly attempting to convince me the only way to battle the left and all the “snowflakes” was to take physical force, and that their liberal way of life was the demise of this “great nation.”

After this time I finally escaped the chaos of political indifferences, but found myself in the midst of one of the largest wildfires in U.S. history and shortly after knee-deep in the aftermath of a hurricane that overtook an immigrant farming community. The wealthy neighborhoods, only 15 minutes away, now had power and dry homes, as they keep up with the Kardashians and the housewives of New Jersey. While here in this neighborhood I’m with a mother and son sitting in their flooded home without any level of aid. Later a young man shows me a photo of his precious pet chihuahua, then continues to show me another pho-

by Robert LeBlanc

to of his companion decapitated by an unknown assailant. Because the focus of support was with the affluent neighborhoods the lack of power, food, water, and shelter were only the beginning of this community’s worries.

Eventually I made my way home to Los Angeles when COVID hit. A pleasant ingredient to the already existing powder keg waiting to explode. I spent days in a local Los Angeles morgue as employees are surrounded by 60 to 70 bodies with more on their way. The rush of bodies is so intense that the employees spend 12 hours a day moving them around like Tetris blocks. Attempting to navigate through back rooms, preparing individuals for funerals or being boxed and sent out for cremation. The inside of the morgue is madness and the outside is deserted. Like a scene from The Walking Dead, you expect to see the last survivors of the apocalypse poking their heads out around corners or peering through the window blinds. The quietness is eerie and discomforting compared to the buzz I have become so accustomed to hearing while living in this vibrant city.

Then came the chanting and screams of protesters, George Floyd was just murdered. The silence is now broken and replaced by anger. The sound of tear gas and bean bags being shot at protesters. The sound of protesters crashing against riot shield. The sound of store front widows being smashed. All accompanied by the constant hum of helicopter blades chopping through the air and a steady stream of lights from above, as if God is controlling a spotlight from the stars to highlight how we all have failed immensely.

When I close my eyes I see a field, the field is on fire, and if we continue down this path there will be plenty of gasoline to keep it burning.

Bright pink fire retardant rains down along the tree lines during the August Complex Wildfire, California’s largest fire in history.

Trump supporters and opposer’s clash throughout the park around the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. A child plugs his ears as the arguments continue.

DON’T GO TELLIN’

directed & written by TOPAZ JONES + RUBBERBAND, creative direction by ERIC JMCNEAL cinematography by CHASE IRVIN, ASC, still photography by CHASE IRVIN, ASC. + JASON FILMORE SONDOCK, costume design by ERIC MCNEAL, produced by LUIGI ROSSI, edited by J.M. HARPER + NATE KATZ, production design by MADISON HATCH, casting by KATHERINE MATEO + NOURI HASSAN, for XYNE.CO, executive produced by KEVIN STORY a SMUGGLER + BWGTBLD GMBH presentation in association with FRENZY PARIS + Section 80

YOUR

MOMMA

Topaz Jones

“ The making of this album and the film that followed happened in parallel to a very personal struggle with identity. It required me to thoroughly interrogate all of the factors -cultural, economic, societal- that lead to my understanding of blackness and black manhood.

I broke bread with friends and had conversations with family and collaborators regarding the mixed messages we had received growing up. My hometown of Montclair, NJ was known as one of the most coveted school districts in the tristate area. Kids fortunate enough to have a relative’s address they could claim as their own would hop off the 28 bus at “The High” from Newark, East Orange and other surrounding towns at the behest of anxious mothers.

From the jump I was aware of the advantage I had over others when it came to education. What I didn’t pay mind to -what I couldn’t- was that the majority of my education was actually happening outside the walls of Rand Elementary, Renaissance Middle and Montclair High School. It was all around me. It was projected at me. It was blasted from car stereos. It was shown on screens big and small.

In it’s essence this project is about all of the teachers I’ve met, tests I’ve taken and lessons I’ve received that didn’t occur between 8 AM and 2:33 PM on a weekday, for better or for worse.”

- Topaz Jones

274

COMFORT

Portrait by Jason Filmore Sondock

275

Evan at the Lafayette curbs / New York / May 2020 Andrey Tarasov

290

Journal

COMFORT COMFORT 291

In a studio / Los Angeles / June 2020

Beatrice in Los Feliz / Los Angeles / March 2021 303 COMFORT COMFORT 302

Journal Andrey Tarasov

A

photographed by Yudo Kurita

styled by Nicholas Amato

Akwsi wears MAIDEN NOIR

A Life Time

338

Cam wears all LADY WHITE

SILVA

MASON Mason Silva self portrait, 2021

Skateboarding can lead to a life of non-stop movement, constant change in environment, and hours spent in the streets, which is why photography and skateboarding go hand in hand.

Mason Silva has followed in the footsteps of Ray Barbee, who taught him to process film for the first time, and is making photography a part of his life.

His photographs project a raw and honest perspective of his experience. You can sense a level of carelessness somehow juxtaposed with relentless perfection, similar to his skating.

THIS PAGE Tyson Peterson, Riverbed Crossing, Santa Ana, CA 2017 OPPOSITE PAGE Louie Lopez, After Party, Brazil, 2019

356

COMFORT

AVI GOLD

How Are You Feeling?

CREATOR OF BETTER GIFT SHOP

How are you feeling?

Despite the world being on fire I’m actually feeling pretty good.

tle down in a really low key part of LA away from everyone and sort of just do my own thing and not worry about work. It’s definitely something to work towards, I’d say that is what utopia looks like!

Where is home?

Toronto, Canada however I’m a frequent visitor to many other places.

How do you stay sane?

Nintendo Switch

Where did you first find your love for gift shops?

When I came up with the original concept of starting my very own gift shop. It enabled me to push the boundaries of design, showcasing art, putting my friends on and creating a retail setting that would be unmatched. I traveled a lot when I was a child and that’s really what inspired my craft of creating and coming up with wild ideas.

What does originality look like to you in the 21st century?

Not having a smart phone and not being on social media. Pumping out original ideas. Seems like most people these days are all just doing the same things, it’s not that inspiring I hate to say it. I know there’s definitely a group of kids coming up that will shake things up.

Is there anyone in particular who has inspired you the most throughout your life?

Several people but in no particular order; Definitely my girlfriend Gabriella and without question all of my amazing friends that make art and keep things innovative. Nick Atkins, P Shines, Shaun Crawford, Liam Macrae, Paul Labonte, Bobby Dekeyzer, Earsnot, Chito, Rhett, Shay Semple, Nihar, Lopez, Adrian Joffe, Virus, Panda Sex, AOI Industry, Oliver Payne, Teen, Michael K, Teflon Tom...there are so many others. My experiences in communicating with these people and being fortunate to work with most of them has helped make me who I am today and I’m thankful for that.

What advice do you have for anyone pursuing design?

Think outside of the box, don’t be afraid to take risks and push the boundaries. t What makes you uncomfortable?

A few things actually but for the most part the following; groupies and fan boys, people that follow trends, old heads that can’t let go of the past, I always gotta be moving forward. Also brands that over produce products and cause waste.

Whats next?

Hopefully a gallery of some sorts and more exciting brand partnerships with Better Gift Shop.

What does utopia look like to you?

It’s so hard to say but at this point I’d love to just set-

366

Portrait by Zong Li

COMFORT

367

AUREL

SCHMIDT

TRASH DOLLS is an ongoing series by Aurel Schmidt. Each drawing highlights characters of New York City, that she has encountered throughout her life, depicted with the items that equally make the city what it is and the characters who they are.

Aurel Schmidt

408

Trash Dolls

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COMFORT

409

550 BC

Pouria Khojastehpay

550 BC

434

Pouria Khojastehpay

COMFORT

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427

© Antoine d’Agata / Magnum Photos.

Lock-down 2020

Paris, France

COVID - 19

Antoine d’Agata

“VIRUS is a series of 13,000 images, shown in exhibition as a 1,111 frame installation, and published into an 832 page book.

An autonomous gesture inside an a gesture.”

VIRUS

First day of lock-down, a deserted city. Wandering through the abandoned city, not knowing what’s the right attitude to adopt. The politicians dictate rules to follow. The unheard of dimension of the pandemic is the context. What is at stake is profit and loss. For the first time, a plague threatens the global community. No way out. We all share the same fear, uncertainty, fragility and impotency. Faceless figures occupy abstract spaces. Psycho-geography of the city: worried fleeing passers-by, imposed distance between bodies, anguish of those who have nowhere to hide. Defenselessness wounded beings. Going in forgotten territories where life hides, on the fringes of social life, where those without homes, junkies, and prostitutes continue to live despite the lack of access to commodities. Over the days, the behaviors change, become more aggressive. The repression toughens on those who cannot attest an honorable function. A farce of rules and regulations. To walk, photograph during weeks, months. Gestures - not words or ideas - define what one is. To make my own rules, live under my principles, make my way through the darkness. Struggles, doubts, risks, mistakes, refusals to compromise. The difficulty is to stay lucid, responsible and independent. To go as far as my strength allows. Lock-Down. Tension growing. Authoritarian figures : medics, cops, journalists, guards. The urge to document more than the surface of things, to look at beings and objects from the inside. Seeing too much. The situation is not spectacular but extreme. To experience a reality that is violent but imperceptible to the naked eye. Facing a non-tangible threat. Thermography, a technology invented by astronomers and developed by the military, to locate and monitor deviant figures, disembodies it’s subjects by dispossessing them of their envelope of flesh and the singularity of their features. It could become the tool for a sensual quest for the essence of beings, measuring the mass of heat produced by humans and buildings and therefore make it permeable to vision, expressing the porosity, the vulnerability of beings and objects, capturing the fever of the living which it transforms into light waves. The mystery of incarnation replayed on the very surface of the images, the camera apprehending the viral nature of superstition, giving a tangible form to the dissolution of identities, to the obscenity of the economic context. Photograph the tension, the collapse of the bodies. The somewhat obvious symbolism of fever as a symptom. The camera measures body heat. The heat proves to be a symptom of the drive to resist and survive. Thermal images distorted with luminous halos allow a relationship to the invisible truth. Shooting in a frenzy the time of agony in a space where all contacts are now prohibited. The low definition of the electronic files, as a sacrifice of some sort, translates the range of intensities. Reaching a certain degree of abstraction, searching other levels of reality, undoing the fabric of our senses, portraying a space and a time where life and death merge. Fear. Our responsibility is to be here. Walking the streets feels like a privilege. There are no longer any gestures that link the bodies to each other, no tangible form of social bond. The flesh abandoned to it’s solitude. In the hospitals and the streets, plunged into silence, recumbent figures and penitents, everywhere. In the hermetic space of the intensive care unit, not to contemplate the spectacle of suffering but the fragility of humanity, the medical rituals, the desperation of fragile beings. Suddenly opened up an abyss in their little lives that swallows them into darkness.

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