Nº 17 | SPRING 2021
SPRING 2021
$5.99 | LOFFICIELUSA.COM
belt VALENTINO Jeans LEVI’S x VALENTINO Necklace BULGARI and jeans BALMAIN Necklace BULGARI DAVID: Coat, jacket, and shorts BALMAIN
ABOVE—FIEN: Shirt, shoes, and OPPOSITE PAGE—FIEN: Jacket
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belt VALENTINO Jeans LEVI’S x VALENTINO Necklace BULGARI and jeans BALMAIN Necklace BULGARI DAVID: Coat, jacket, and shorts BALMAIN
ABOVE—FIEN: Shirt, shoes, and OPPOSITE PAGE—FIEN: Jacket
44
Revisiting tradition can open important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery. But can pop culture craft’s recent revival stay long enough to impact our consumption habits, and ultimately how we treat one another? We are living in a post-industrial world—or at least that’s what my hair stylist, an amateur astrologist, tells me. People are going back to their hands, he says, because of a recent rare eclipse of Saturn and Jupiter. I nod obediently in the sink; but later I realize my agreement is more than absent-minded salon submission. Surely we all felt the tectonic rumble of a cultural tipping point over the past year: the shift from mass and fast to something more human. If it’s written in the stars, all the better.
For my own sake, I’d like to say yes. Online I see TikTokers making their own clothes and fashion designers, in response, releasing their patterns. Gen Z and millennial mentors are home-brewing herbal remedies for limited distribution. I see artists bringing marquetry, glass blowing, and bead working back into the gallery, as makers and curators. Take Fringe Selects, Katie Stout’s recent exhibition at the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, where the artist’s curation brought contemporary airs and new audiences to a traditional archive. Or Essex Street’s 2019 Shaker furniture inflected show, Concerning Superfluities, where works by Wade Guyton, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jackie Windsor were mixed in amongst rare antiques. Craft’s return is inseparable from the art world’s current preoccupation: the decolonization of its institutions. Part of this work requires addressing the schism between the words “artist” and “artisan.” In the West, the former’s work is lauded
By KAT HERRIMAN
Courtesy of the artist and The Gallery @, Los Angeles.
Upon further inspection, the shift turns out not to be as abrupt as it seems. It’s been brewing for decades, as curator Glenn Adamson asserted in the 2007 book Thinking Through Craft and Rafael Cardoso further framed in his essay “Craft Versus Design: Moving Beyond a Tired Dichotomy” a year later. According to both, Do-It-Yourself revivalism grew up alongside the digital revolution, gaining strength in the ‘90s and 2000s and becoming a lingua franca among video game designers, Etsy business owners, HGTV fanatics, Burning Man float fabricators, obsessive shut-ins, and hobby survivalists. Fueled by equal parts nostalgia and financial ruin, this movement was in prime position to explode in the impending next Great Depression. And it did—when in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 christened a new generation of crafters, otherwise known as ordinary people trapped endlessly indoors.
However, by August, the ranks of the DIY newcomers had thinned. Social media documented friends and defectors slowly tiptoeing away from the same ravenous sourdough mothers, gung-ho victory gardens, and ambitious home renovations they’d proudly touted weeks earlier. It made me wonder: does the plastics generation have the attention span to let craft and its handmade ethos lead the mainstream?
“AKA Ricky the Rat,” 2020, by ISHI GLINSKY
Revisiting tradition can open important portals into history, ecology, and self-discovery. But can pop culture craft’s recent revival stay long enough to impact our consumption habits, and ultimately how we treat one another? We are living in a post-industrial world—or at least that’s what my hair stylist, an amateur astrologist, tells me. People are going back to their hands, he says, because of a recent rare eclipse of Saturn and Jupiter. I nod obediently in the sink; but later I realize my agreement is more than absent-minded salon submission. Surely we all felt the tectonic rumble of a cultural tipping point over the past year: the shift from mass and fast to something more human. If it’s written in the stars, all the better.
For my own sake, I’d like to say yes. Online I see TikTokers making their own clothes and fashion designers, in response, releasing their patterns. Gen Z and millennial mentors are home-brewing herbal remedies for limited distribution. I see artists bringing marquetry, glass blowing, and bead working back into the gallery, as makers and curators. Take Fringe Selects, Katie Stout’s recent exhibition at the Shaker Museum in Chatham, New York, where the artist’s curation brought contemporary airs and new audiences to a traditional archive. Or Essex Street’s 2019 Shaker furniture inflected show, Concerning Superfluities, where works by Wade Guyton, Rosemarie Trockel, and Jackie Windsor were mixed in amongst rare antiques. Craft’s return is inseparable from the art world’s current preoccupation: the decolonization of its institutions. Part of this work requires addressing the schism between the words “artist” and “artisan.” In the West, the former’s work is lauded
By KAT HERRIMAN
Courtesy of the artist and The Gallery @, Los Angeles.
Upon further inspection, the shift turns out not to be as abrupt as it seems. It’s been brewing for decades, as curator Glenn Adamson asserted in the 2007 book Thinking Through Craft and Rafael Cardoso further framed in his essay “Craft Versus Design: Moving Beyond a Tired Dichotomy” a year later. According to both, Do-It-Yourself revivalism grew up alongside the digital revolution, gaining strength in the ‘90s and 2000s and becoming a lingua franca among video game designers, Etsy business owners, HGTV fanatics, Burning Man float fabricators, obsessive shut-ins, and hobby survivalists. Fueled by equal parts nostalgia and financial ruin, this movement was in prime position to explode in the impending next Great Depression. And it did—when in the spring of 2020, COVID-19 christened a new generation of crafters, otherwise known as ordinary people trapped endlessly indoors.
However, by August, the ranks of the DIY newcomers had thinned. Social media documented friends and defectors slowly tiptoeing away from the same ravenous sourdough mothers, gung-ho victory gardens, and ambitious home renovations they’d proudly touted weeks earlier. It made me wonder: does the plastics generation have the attention span to let craft and its handmade ethos lead the mainstream?
“AKA Ricky the Rat,” 2020, by ISHI GLINSKY
There WAS NEVER ANY COMPETITION between US. WE TOOK VERY GOOD CARE OF EACH OTHER and TREATED EACH OTHER like SISTERS. HELENA CHRISTENSEN
62
OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
BROOKE: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings TATIANA VERSTRAETEN Bracelet JACOB & CO. Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes ALTUZARRA Earrings, necklace, and ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress EMPORIO ARMANI Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. MAKEUP: Kale Teter THE WALL GROUP PRODUCTION: Daniele Carettoni ESPRESSO PRODUCTIONS RETOUCHING: Lara Chrome VIDEO: Nikita Kholkin PHOTO ASSISTANT: Ernesto Sempoll SPECIAL THANKS: Tony McHale and Jennifer Cooke at The Carlyle
There WAS NEVER ANY COMPETITION between US. WE TOOK VERY GOOD CARE OF EACH OTHER and TREATED EACH OTHER like SISTERS. HELENA CHRISTENSEN
62
OPPOSITE PAGE—BROOKE:
BROOKE: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress GEORGES OBEIKA Earrings TATIANA VERSTRAETEN Bracelet JACOB & CO. Dress BRONX AND BANCO Shoes ALTUZARRA Earrings, necklace, and ring HAMMERMAN HELENA: Dress EMPORIO ARMANI Shoes GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI Earrings JACOB & CO. MAKEUP: Kale Teter THE WALL GROUP PRODUCTION: Daniele Carettoni ESPRESSO PRODUCTIONS RETOUCHING: Lara Chrome VIDEO: Nikita Kholkin PHOTO ASSISTANT: Ernesto Sempoll SPECIAL THANKS: Tony McHale and Jennifer Cooke at The Carlyle
Dress MIU MIU VALENTINO Bracelet CARTIER Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE— Jacket CHANEL
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress
Dress MIU MIU VALENTINO Bracelet CARTIER Ring BULGARI PREVIOUS PAGE— Jacket CHANEL
OPPOSITE PAGE— Dress