Issue # 25
Archive stories

A conversation chaired by Madeleine Willis Food, as a product, is tied to identity, status, notions of luxury and hedonism. It’s also a basic human need and deeply implicated in the environmental concerns shaping our future. In celebration it can bring us together, but as an everyday, concrete expression of our cultural values, we’re fragmented…

In 1999 Vinca Petersen published her first book, No System, a compilation of photographs documenting a decade of her life as a nomadic raver travelling throughout Europe in a series of repurposed vans and buses. Although never conceived as much more than a good way of recording her travels and life spent on the road…

Athens: The first time I saw Lena Platonos was on the cover of a record in a Madrid shop. ‘Look at this’, Nikos, my Greek husband, said excitedly, holding the vinyl up to my face until I was eye to eye with Lena’s pale-blue gaze. ‘Thirty euros. Do you know who this is? Do you…

Pittsburgh: The sculpture of Thaddeus Mosley started with an appreciation of the wooden figures that appeared in Scandinavian design, a binding element that brought together the interiors he saw in books and department store displays. These images sparked in Thaddeus the idea that he too could try his hand as a sculptor. Looking also at…

My first memories of the house are of summer. The journey through the Gotthard Tunnel in our father’s car was a ritual beginning, a portal to another world. The blue, glittering lake would suddenly appear behind the tall pine trees along the highway, and we knew we were close. We would arrive in July, all…

Barcelona: Amèlia Riera lived right in the centre of Barcelona, in a majestic building in Plaça de Catalunya that used to house well-off families, but nowadays is used as office space for several international companies. Despite the bustle of the offices that went on to occupy every floor, Amèlia’s apartment, with its enormous rooms, high…

London: Gary Card makes magic with masking tape. The prolific artist studied theatre design at Central Saint Martins before building a cult following as one of the most original and imaginative set designers of our times. He is inventive and un-precious, motivated by principle and process more than prestige. That said, he has created props…

Austin: Andy Coolquitt started working on his house in Austin when he was in graduate school at the University of Texas. Thirty years later, it’s still very much a work in progress. But life, as we all know, is nothing if not a work in progress. And as an artist, you could say that life…

Concept by Apartamento Studios              

San Francisco: In the roaring ‘20s Bobbie’s parents—her father a lawyer, her mother a pianist—lived in a free-for-all San Francisco. The city was full of anarchists, and Bobbie’s father was a lawyer for many of them. In the ‘40s, following the Great Depression, Bobbie was left alone with her mother, Lil, who gave piano lessons in…

Jina Khayyer in conversation with Etel Adnan and Simone Fattal, two artists who have shared their lives and worked beside one another for more than 40 years. For the first time, Adnan and Fattal give an interview together, discussing what it means to be: an artist, a poet, a painter, a sculptor, a woman, an…

Mexico City: Carlos Matos and Lucas Cantú, founders of Tezontle, live and work in the historic centre of Mexico City, El Centro. Despite being the busiest and most hectic part of the city at certain daytime hours, at night it turns into a sort of ghost town, where dark cantinas and famous taquerías consort in…

Toronto: When you spend time with the pre-eminent Canadian artist Michael Snow, you can’t help but notice how much he laughs—at himself, at something you’ve said, or at a memory that pops into his head. At 91 years old, he has lots of stories to recount. Like how he worked as a professional jazz musician in…

In Chicago, on the border between Old Irving Park and Kilbourn Park, a 20-minute drive from the Loop, a rundown former textile factory, which had been dormant for the past decade, was thoughtfully rebuilt and combined with two adjoining properties. In the fall of 2018, shortly after it was completed, the newly renovated storefront windows…

Chiang Mai & New York City: My first conversation with Rirkrit Tiravanija was at a Thai restaurant with a group in the East Village. Rirkrit and his friend Antto Melasniemi, the Helsinki-based chef, were discussing their idea for a cookbook that would compile the ‘bastardised’ recipes they had conceived throughout their friendship. I mentioned that…

Pantelleria: I first met Geneviève and Gabrio Bini at dinner in Pantelleria two years ago. They arrived at home with their dog, Agung, and a few bottles of their wine. I didn’t care much about natural wine then, and I still do not care about it much now. Unless when I remember what Gabrio Bini,…

We spent a whole day with the architect Sam Chermayeff (NYC, 1981). We met at his office, which is in a concrete building designed by Arno Brandlhuber, with whom he shares the space. Sam used to live upstairs. There’s a quasi-monastic mood of silent work,... Read more

By Frances Beatty as told to Hannah Martin Long Island: Conversations with Ray Johnson were never ordinary. You wouldn’t ask, ‘How’s your family?’ Or, ‘Do you want some lunch?’ He spoke like a collage. He would just start saying things and it was like jumping on a wave and surfing on the language. It was…