Stories by name

Los Angeles: Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s deceptively straightforward studio portraits often depict himself and his circles of friends and lovers in various stages of undress and interconnection. These distinctive, classical, multiracial, homoerotic images have hit a cultural nerve and are celebrated at museums and galleries all over the world. His sensibility strikes a delicate balance; he creates…

Amadora: Pedro Costa’s cinema is intimately linked to homes and inhabiting. His first full-length work, O Sangue (1989), starts with an outdoor scene in which a father abandons his children. It’s as if the home has been destroyed, and this is the opportunity to reconfigure it. Nino, the youngest of the children, wants to move the…

New York City: One leafy night, I was strolling down Mulberry Street in Soho when I ran into Paul Moakley, the nicest person in the photo world. The people of New York were enjoying the splendours of outdoor dining, and Paul had just left a downtown bistro accompanied by a friend named Melissa. They were reuniting,…

Accra: Born in 1947 in a small village in the Akwapim area of Ghana, Paa Joe is a name familiar to those well versed in the country’s visual and material culture. Beginning his training at 15, under the tutelage of his maternal uncle in Teshie, Greater Accra, by age 25 he’d been promoted to master…

Mexico City: A hundred years after its birth, Colonia Roma, the charming European-inflected neighbourhood developed in the early 20th century for Mexico City’s emergent bourgeoisie, is many worlds at once. While its northern section surrendered to a constant flux of tourism and foreign residents, its leafy sidewalks filled with concept eateries, fake mezcalerías, design shops,…

Remain in light New York City: Peter Halley has lived most of his life in New York as an artist in the purest sense. His constant exploration—either through his own work as an important painter and writer, or as a professor of painting and the director of graduate studies in painting and printmaking at Yale University—has…

Petra Collins is a 23-year-old photographer, actress, model, curator, and director. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Petra now resides in New York City. She comes from a dance background that ended with a knee injury, which turned her creative energies towards photography during her mid-teens. And she has not stopped shooting since. From her earliest photos…

Saint-Georges-sur-Allier: I met Patrick 10 or 11 years ago while tasting wine in another winemaker’s cellar. Why is he immediately likeable? I think it is his laugh and his earnest interest in others, even me, then, despite my terrible French. He recommended I go to the 10 Vins Cochons, a wine tasting held locally that…

Barcelona: I first met Paloma 15 years ago through Fotolog, the first social network in Spain. This means I first met her visual universe when we were teenagers, and a bit later on I met her gestures and her particular way of articulating words—details that I return to in her apartment today. When the digital…

Why did I spend eight years working toward a goal that, if achieved, would efface the evidence of my effort? What could possibly make this an incredibly fulfilling obligation? If the project is the restoration of 101 Spring Street, Donald Judd’s home and studio in New York City, the answer is unambiguous. Within this 19th-century…

The mayor of Los Angeles Los Angeles: Over coffee and the hand-built omelettes of Donna Shire, Peter Shire, Ryan Conder, and I talk shop, LA history, and we daydream of a Malibu with a more romantic crowd in the water. Breakfast is in the courtyard at Peter’s studio, a colourful, garden-lined outdoor space with funky vessels of…

Concept by Ana Dominguez & Omar Sosa              

Everything that Philolaos didn’t like he designed Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse:As a kid growing up, your house defines what a house is, and coming to grips with the fact that other people live in structures that are radically different from yours takes time. Yurt-dwelling Mongolians consider their tents to be the quintessential home, as do McMansion-bred kids from Florida….

Concept by Apartamento Studios              

Jan Lindenberg My friend Jan Lindenberg is showing me around his apartment on a cobbled, leafy street in the Neukölln district of Berlin. There’s something about this place that always impresses me: a thoughtful austerity, something German and post-materialist (Jan is a sustainability researcher at the Institute of Technology), but also Japanophile, studious, ethical and…

Home schooled Buenos Aires: One afternoon I went to a small library of some friends of mine and, upon entering, a new bag they had made caught my eye. In the centre it had a drawing of a girl reading a book that covered her face. When I asked who the illustrator was, they said, ‘Pilar…

Studio, Factory, Bachelor Pad New York City: Philip Crangi’s grandmother used to tell him every dog has his day. Lately, it seems his day has arrived. Two years ago he won the prestigious CFDA/Vogue fashion award for best accessories designer and his life has been non-stop ever since. I met him at his loft in New York…

London: Penny Martin is one of the founders and editor in chief of The Gentlewoman, an independent biannual women’s fashion magazine. The Gentlewoman is an intriguing, compelling voice in an otherwise stale market. You might be well acquainted with it already, and it’s likely you are familiar also with her previous work as editor of…

The celebrity of freedom The actor Paulo César Pereio has a huge participation in the Brazilian scenic arts. He has been a controversial person all the way back from the small city he originates, Alegrete, Rio Grande do Sul. He acted with and dated a few of the most notorious Brazilian actresses, which has only…

San Francisco: From the early ‘70s to the late ‘80s Armin Hagen Baron Freiherr von Hoyningen-Huene pursued a lifestyle that very few had attempted before or have attempted since. Armin dedicated all his time exclusively to the pursuit of sexual satisfaction and streamlined every action, decision, and all creative output to be in the service of…

Have fun! Getting ready for Halloween            

Paris: Pierre Le-Tan is one of the most famous atypical artists. Not just for his cross-hatch drawings with light hints of watercolour, which have been published on the cover of the New Yorker and in the most elegant magazines, but also for his mysterious personal aura. Pierre is wrapped in his own legend, protected by a…

Sydney: People say Australia has no culture. That’s not actually true. It has a strong Indigenous culture and a vibrant immigration culture. It’s just that the traditions struggle to meet in a fashion that capitalises on both narratives, and we Australians come off as a bit lost. That doesn’t mean a cohesive outlook doesn’t exist; it…

My great-grandfather bought the house in the ‘30s. Coming from a humble family in the nearby village, he was sent to the capital at age 16 and made his way at the Parisian department store La Samaritaine, like in a Zola novel. He went from sleeping on the counter in the basement, as an apprentice,…

The other day I stood in the kitchen of a little house in the quiet countryside, baking an apple cake. I looked out the window to the apple tree in my backyard, whence the apples came. After a while though, the feeling of accomplishment and country kitchen triumph faded into the realisation that I am…

Concept by Ana Dominguez & Omar Sosa            

Almost 27 years have passed since his death, and finally today we can affirm that the extraordinary work of Patrick Angus is in the process of being rediscovered and is once again proving of great interest to the contemporary public. Two retrospectives of his work have been exhibited in Stuttgart and Los Angeles, and an…

New York City: I had long heard the almost mythical stories of the life Peter McGough led with his collaborator and one-time partner, David McDermott—their super-dandified, mega-queer, and pointedly bratty meddling with time, class, style, and life/art conventions were handed down to me as legend upon arrival in NYC as a young gay artist. But…

            We’ve all enjoyed the childish game of making a stack out of seemingly inappropriate materials, and though it might be more for kids, it’s nevertheless a lot of fun. For most of us it’s an occasional pastime, but for Apartamento it’s a duty, involving serious research, lengthy shopping trips,…

Concept by Ana Dominguez & Omar Sosa          

Things: Speakers made by my dad when I was a teenager. A sheep skull found on a grass verge in Cornwall next to an abandoned train carriage, somewhere either near a dam or a motorway flyover—it’s hard to remember. A cast of my girlfriends teeth when she was a teenager before she had them fixed….

Tomo says that my images have the air of post-sex. This is precisely my intention when I meet her on one very grey day in Tokyo. Intimacy in photos is what matters to me most. I try and make pictures that you can look at and actually feel the moment, where you feel the presence of the…

Karin Thermaenius Home of: Karin & Bertil Thermaenius, 1 cat and 5 hens since 1975 Date: February 30th, 2009 Location: Bromma in Stockholm, Sweden. A 2-floor house (b. 1927) with 4 rooms and a garden. Indoor plants in total: 32 on ground floor, 2 on second Species: Living room; 4 Christmas Cactus, 3 Clavias, 1…