Since it first opened in 2005 in accordance with its sister show Art Basel, Design Miami has become my favorite design fair, where I visit every first week of December almost religiously. It is Design Miami that showcases the most intriguing directions and materials in design, juxtaposes the vintage and the contemporary and has since become a “must” for discerning collectors. Design Miami showcases designs, which are conceptual, unexpected, of experimental materials, and unique vocabularies. The show is held bi-annually in December in Miami and in June in Basel, Switzerland.

The year 2011 marked the seventh anniversary of Design Miami as a global forum for design, and this time it took place in a temporary structure, erected adjacent to Art Basel. On show were some important mid-century French design, Brazilian and California Modern, Scandinavian mid-century design, Postmodern Italian, French work of the 60s and 70s, Korean craft/design, Artists-designed jewelry and mainly contemporary design by established and by emerging designers. This year is also marked by the appointment of a new director, Marianne Goebl. I have met her to discuss the current state of collectible design, the mission of Design Miami, its new directions, and to chat on design.

Before joining the Fair, Marianne Goebl held a position as Head of International Public Relations and Partner a role in which she was responsible for Vitra’s international public relations strategy, brand collaborations and partnerships. At Vitra, she was responsible for the exhibition concept, execution, and media relations campaign for “VitraHaus,” along with the brand collaborations and communications strategy for “Vitra Campus.” As Director for “Vitra Edition,” Goebl worked closely alongside world-renowned designers including Ron Arad, Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, Konstantin Grcic, Hella Jongerius, and Jasper Morrison, among others.

the interview:

When did you first develop a passion for design?
I have been interested in objects and in the way they are made since the time I remember myself. While I started my career in the art world, working in art museums, I can clearly recall that one single event that came to shape my love for design. I was in my early 20s, when I had first visited the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, the annual furniture fair in Milan. This visit had definitely marked a turning point in my life, and had made a great introduction to the world of objects. It was direct and tangible, thus in Milan I came across the relationship between the conceptual and aesthetic characters of design. This led me to my job at Vitra.

Tell me about working with Greg Lynn, whose remarkable Ravioli Chair Vitra has produced since 2005.
Greg’s approach of computer-based design and manufacturing methods are almost utopian. The Ravioli Chair was designed in computer simulation that came to expand the flat square surface into three-dimensional form. It can be manufactured only in a semi-mass production, and it was challenging to translate the form into mass production in a factory environment.

This year marks the seventh anniversary of Design Miami. It is the second year that the fair in its Miami edition is taking place in a temporary structure erected adjacent to the Art Basel Miami Beach Fair, rather than in Miami’s design district. What is the mission statement of Design Miami?
Design Miami is a global forum for design. It is dedicated to presenting the best collectible of modern and contemporary design in the world; it seeks to provide a platform to the world’s best design galleries. I believe that the medium of collectible design is still in its infancy and to a certain extent, it is a field yet to be uncovered and discovered. It is the role of Design Miami to give this territory a platform, a showcase on the highest level that it deserves.

What are the boundaries of the design displayed at Design Miami in chronological terms?
We show design produced from the early twentieth century to this day.

But I see that the majority of material presented here is dated from the postwar period onward, and that contemporary design is taking the primary place. I have not seen objects dating back to early modernism, Art Deco, or to the interwar era, and personally, I think that lacking that type of material is taking away from the ambition of showcasing the story of modern design. When you open auction catalogues by the major auction houses Phillips de Pury, Wright, or Sotheyb’s, I find that it is the juxtaposition of all periods that gives a sense of depth and broad aesthetic personalities, which is exactly what characterizes design collections today.
You are absolutely right in your observation. One of our main efforts is dedicated to bringing early material to Design Miami. Six month ago, at the edition of Design Miami in Basel, Switzerland, we had French Art Deco and work done at the Bauhaus School shown. It is strictly the strategic decision of the galleries that comes to determine the final choice and selection of work at the Fair.

Design Miami has expanded tremendously this year, with a 50% increase in participating galleries, with satellite exhibitions and many off-site exhibitions and events. It seems that the fair is also moving beyond the object design boundary into the territory of architecture. I particularly liked the restored Buckminster Fuller Fly’s Eye Dome and the reconstructed Dymaxion Car that are shown together at the design district. The opportunity to see an architectural structure by this visionary is a fresh addition to the vast contemporary design we see at the show. Can you illuminate on the new directions that Design Miami has been taking since you have taken the role of its Director, and where are you looking to further expand?
I believe that Design Miami has an educational role. Its mission is to offer our visitors the opportunity to view the entire picture of design. By showing vintage along with contemporary design, we create the link between the historical and the current, and that link is central and important to us. In contemporary design we are showing what I call “contemporary antiques,” meaning the antiques of the future, the design that in the future will be looked at as reflecting out time.

Can you give me an example of what you consider a “contemporary antiques”?
The work of Studio Job is an example of such.

I assume that it is the desire of many design galleries worldwide to take part in Design Miami. What are the guidelines for galleries to be eligible to participate? Can you tell me about the process of selection?
Design Miami established clear guideline, which is undertaken by a committee that oversees the selection of participating galleries. Every gallery represented in the Fair has to submit a detailed proposal, which includes not only a description of the pieces it plans to show, but also the program of the gallery, list of exhibitions, publications, and other details that illuminate the professional stand of the gallery. Whether the gallery collaborates with art museums is essential to this process. The members of the committee then make the selection and decision based on that proposal.

Who are the members of that committee?
The committee is composed of representatives of the participating galleries who bring their expertise to the selecting process. Just to give me an example, Galerie Patrick Seguin’s specialty is in French Postwar design;  Kreo, in contemporary design; Demish Danant brings expertise in design of the 60s and 70s, and so on.

Isn’t this a conflict of interest?
Not really. We have modeled this system on the process undertaken at the Art Basel Fair. But the selection of the galleries marks just one step in the entire process. Once the galleries set their booths before the opening night, the vetting begins. We bring experts from museums and auction houses, specialists who are dealers, curators, and collectors and they go through the show to make sure that all objects on display are up to the level of integrity that we require. So we are having two committees at Design Miami. The first determines the curatorial strategy and the second affirms the ultimate quality of the pieces on display.

I remember that a couple of years ago, a gallery from Japan brought new editions of furniture by Shiro Kuramata that have been recently issued by his widow. All of these pieces were taken off the floor on the night of the opening.
We have a clear policy when it comes to the original work versus reproduction, and here, at Design Miami we strictly show only what falls under the category of “original” design. We only show original work. Re-editions, even when done legally, are not accepted.

Could you make a clear definition of what would be considered reproduction or re-edition? Would a piece of ceramic by Ettore Sottsass, which he designed in the 1980s and produced in 2005, be acceptable?
When a production is interrupted and objects go back to reproduction, we will not allow showing them at Design Miami. We are aiming for historic value and we wish not to confuse the audience and the collectors. What Ettore Sottsass produced during his lifetime would be accepted.

When Design Miami first opened seven years ago, it showed a large portion of modern twentieth-century design. This was quickly changing, and contemporary design became the dominant material at Design Miami. Now, with new participating galleries, we see that you are moving to that balance again. What is the portion of contemporary design within the fair that you are looking to achieve?
We are looking for a balanced dialogue between vintage and contemporary. This contextualization that we want to achieve is essential to us. We want to offer the visitor a chance to understand the story of modern design.

Talking about contemporary design, in your work as the Head of International Public Relations & Partnerships at Vitra, you had worked closely with some of the designers that have a strong presence in Design Miami, such as Konstantic Grcic, Hella Jongerius, and Jaspar Morrison. Sometimes it seems that it is a very small community of key designers whose work in the limited edition arena is shown at Miami and that their industrial design work is particularly celebrated. These individuals came to be known as “design stars.” Who determines who is in and who is out and how is it possible to break into this elitist list? Can you give an advice to young designers?
In our world, most designers are wearing at least two hats, that of the industrial designer and that of the designer working in the collectible design, limited edition arena. Whereas their mass-produced design is shown in shops and department stores, their later work belongs to galleries and museum exhibitions. Designing an object for mass production is a complex process, which often takes years to develop. And if we consider the fact that there are not that many great manufacturers who are willing to allow emerging designers the opportunity to substantiate their visions, creating collectible design, either one of a kind objects or limited editions is a way to experiment. Those galleries that are engaged in production, allow the designers they represent to try, to experiment without having the long list of restrictions that define the work at the factory. On the other hand, there are designers who don’t need a presence at the collectible design arena. Jonathan Ives, for example, doesn’t have the urge to develop an experimental piece of furniture. But Hella Jongerius needs the work in collectible design. She is at her best in that arena. As a designer of products, Zaha Hadid is mainly active in the collectible design territory, but she has done a couple of projects for Alessi, while Konstantin Grcic is first and foremost an industrial designer, who also creates collectible design; the Bouroullec Brothers do both.

Design Miami is a young venture that in a relatively short time has secured its position as the leading fair for contemporary design, a trendsetter. Why? What makes Design Miami more significant than other fairs?
First of all, we focus on design. We don’t show any other form of art, but design. Second, we are dedicated to quality. We grow slowly as long as we show the best design by the world’s best galleries. Quality is our message, it’s our philosophy, and we will not compromise.

It seems like the same galleries are showing here year after year. Do new galleries have chance to enter Design Miami?
This year we have introduced a section called Design on Sties, a new format which provides platform for new galleries to show contemporary design. These galleries are permitted to bring solo shows by contemporary designers in small booths of 30 square maters size. This time we are having a gallery from South Africa for the first time.

What should we expect to see next year in Design Miami that we have not seen this time? How do you plan to further enrich the fair?
I cannot tell yet, but it is a work in process. I would like to bring more historical material in order to tell the story of modern design.

Valerie Steele hardly needs introduction. The Director and Chief Curator of The Museum at the Fashion Institute of technology (MFIT), I’d last interviewed the prolific, doyenne of fashion in 1999. She’d guest-edited, then, the “Desire issue” of aRUDE, in print. As her current exhibition, Daphne Guinness draws to a close; I trust that this will be a reminder, a last-call of sorts for those of you who haven’t seen the exhibition, to go see it. It is a spectacular show indeed. Moreover, this all encompassing interview charts Dr Steele’s curatorial practice, philosophy, strategies, passion, vision and style.

the interview:
What is the name of your current exhibition and how did it come about?
I began working on the Daphne Guinness show about two years ago. When I met Daphne, I immediately asked if she’s willing to co-curate a show with me about her personal style.

The idea came to me because there are so many exhibitions about great fashion designers from Yves Saint Laurent to Alexander McQueen but very few exhibitions about individual women of style. And yet these are the people that make clothes come alive off the runway, in the real world.

In planning the exhibition, what role did Ms. Guinness play?
I think that Daphne Guinness is today’s most inspiring fashion icon. She was very much co-curator of the exhibition. My colleague, senior curator Fred Dennis, and I chose most of the objects, but Daphne also suggested particular garments, and she styled each and every outfit.  How did you flesh out the framework of the exhibition?
Daphne is very well organized. Her clothes are all on a computer database. The first thing she did was to send me a disk with thumbnail pictures of her collection—about 2500 images — that we printed out. So Fred and I made a selection from these. Then Daphne came into the office and reviewed them and said that it was all fine.

Ultimately we finally chose about a 100 looks for the exhibition. I decided how to organize them based on two years of looking at Daphne’s clothes and interviewing her to get a sense of her style, because I did not want to organize them by designers—McQueen, Chanel, Alaïa, etc.  Instead I wanted to show aspects of her style.

Thus, one platform was Dandy, the influence of men’s clothes; another platform was dedicated for her love of armor, etc. 

In planning the exhibition, what role did Daphne play?
Daphne let us borrow whatever we wanted. And she made additional suggestions of things that we should include. When I chose a single item, such as an Azzedine Alaïa jacket, I asked her how she would wear it,with what shirt, skirt or trousers or leggings, etc. She chose the other clothing components and accessories. She personally styled every look in the show. She asked if I wanted it the way she first wore it or the way she’d wear it today, and I said the way she would wear it today.

She styled the whole show, with her costume jewelry and accessories. The only thing I had to insist on is that there be no real diamonds, no rubies in the show. 

So, she was a sort of co-curator?
From the beginning I wanted Daphne to be a co-curator of the show, because I wanted the exhibition to be about her personal style – and who could do that better than she?

If you can clarify again, in what order was the exhibition arranged?
The exhibition was arranged in seven categories: the first was the introductory gallery, which featured an iconic catsuit and cape by McQueen. This was surrounded by about a dozen pairs of shoes and other accessories, together with a lot of images, such as a video interview with Italian Vogue and her film, Phenomenology of the Body.

In the big room, there are six categories: dandy, armor, daytime chic, evening chic, sparkle and exotic. In addition we have two films—one that Daphne directed, another that she starred in. And finally we have a para hologram that we made with Daphne especially for the exhibition, which is projected on a life-size scrim that hangs from the ceiling.

Would you say that Daphne is a passive consumer, in collaboration with the designers or she buys what she likes or even commission dresses?
Daphne says—and I think that she’s right—that she’s not a muse, that she isn’t associated with any one designer — although she was particularly close to McQueen. She says she more like “a bee that flies from flower to flower”. So she will buy things from different designers. Sometimes she will buy things off the runway because she’s a sample size. Sometimes she will commission a piece. She will also buy things from a store. She never felt that it was necessary to know the designers to appreciate their work.

She’s far from being just a consumer. She collects fashion the way one would collect art or stamps from the point of view of connoisseur who knows the important things in fashion.

What is the oldest and latest pieces from her collection that are in the exhibition?
Everything in the exhibition is from the last 15 years or so. We didn’t include anything from her earlier life.

[watch unabridged interview in video format]

What happens to the clothes after the exhibition?
After the exhibition the clothes will go back to Daphne’s closets.

Is she going to donate some of her collections to your institution?
I don’t know. I certainly hope that we can get something from the show for the museum. She has donated some pieces in the past. I think that she’s talking about doing an auction at some point in order to start a Foundation to protect and explore how Isabella Blow’s collection can best be shared with the world.

How does this exhibition compare or contrast with your usual Museum program?
The exhibitions that we do at FIT vary a lot. Many of our shows are thematic: on subjects such as The Corset or Gothic: Dark Glamour. Sometimes we do an exhibition on an individual designer, like Madame Grès or Ralph Rucci. Many years ago, Richard and Harold Koda did a show on Tina Chow who was also a collector of haute couture and a woman of tremendous style. So, I will say that this exhibition fits in very well with our program of exhibitions.

What are the general and particular objectives of fashion Museum for the contemporary audience?
The Museum’s mission is to advance knowledge of fashion through exhibitions, publications, and public programs.

How have you gone about fulfilling these objectives and how successfully?
In order to advance knowledge of fashion, to get fashion taken seriously as a real cultural force, we collect, conserve, document, exhibit and interpret fashion. We focus on fashion that I think that is artistically and historically significant—particularly fashion that is directional, i.e. that points fashion in new directions and influences other designers.

Interesting term that you’ve employed here, “directional fashion.” How would you define directional fashion?
Directional fashion is fashion that sets the course of where fashion will be going. It is fashion that other designers look at and by which they are inspired.

For example?
Well it could be…for example the work of designers like Jean Paul Gaultier, especially his gender-bending designs, such as skirts for men… or it could be something like the romantic dark glamour of McQueen’s work. We try to identify who the important designers are – and we also look for designers that we think may be important in the future. This is true of Daphne as well; in addition to getting things from blue-chip, top-of-the-line haute couture, she also works with younger designers who she thinks are especially creative, like Gareth Pugh. He has a very small company, but she believes in his vision. We’ve also being buying things from Gareth Pugh and from Rodarte and other young designers whom we think are going to be important.

And when you say important, how do you measure a designer’s importance? Is it from the press they get, from their sales, workmanship…how do you gauge importance in a designer? Please explain.
When we look at which designer to collect, we are looking at those whom other designers admire and watch, people like Rei Kawakubo. And we look for the collections of theirs which have the greatest influence on other designers, and/or on the course of fashion history. So it doesn’t matter if their sales are negligible. In fact, many avant-garde designers are so far ahead of their time that they don’t sell very much and they don’t make very much money. For example, in the early-to-mid-1980s Vivienne Westwood did collections with bras on top of shirts. Her pioneering version of Underwear as Outerwear didn’t make much money, but a few years later many people were copying that. So we made the effort to get some of those original pieces by Westwood that launched the trend for underwear as outwear.

What is the disparity or gap between the Museum program and popular magazines?
There are many different venues and many media that are devoted to fashion. Of course there is the fashion media—the magazines, websites, newspaper articles, blogs, etc.; there are also the retail stores, which provide another way to experience fashion. Increasingly people experience fashion via the Internet by watching videos of fashion shows or by buying clothes from Ebay. The museum is just another medium whereby people can exposed to fashion, but it’s one that looks at fashion from a somewhat different angle. It is not as overtly commercial, it is not trying to sell you something and it can get you to look beyond that particular season’s trend and maybe get you look at other bigger themes in fashion.

There is a general public perception that the institution of the museum intimidates with its scholarly and academic aura. Is this something that you are keenly aware of and is it necessarily true that one need to possess a certain degree of education in order to appreciate your exhibitions?
I think that for museum directors, bringing in a large and relatively unsophisticated public is a big issue. You want to bring in visitors who are not necessarily those who go to museums. What’s nice about running a fashion museum is that everybody thinks that they know something about fashion. And, indeed, I think that members of the public are surprisingly knowledgeable about fashion, so they don’t find it threatening.

By contrast, with contemporary art, many people think, “I don’t know what it is,” or “I have never seen that.” But people are keen to see and talk about contemporary fashion. So I think there is none of the intimidating factor that you have with contemporary art museums. People just love to go to fashion exhibitions.

If the public perception of the museum intimidates, how do you assuage this anxiety and win them over?
I don’t think that people are intimidated by fashion exhibitions. I think that they come in quite happily. I think that what’s more of a challenge is getting people to think that a fashion exhibition is more than thinking a bunch of pretty frocks. So you try to provide context for them, by giving information. You try to pitch the exhibition labels so they will appeal to the members of the general public, as well as to designers and fashion connoisseurs, so that everyone, no matter their  level of knowledge, can get something from the exhibition.

For example, one can argue that live fashion shows are more popular than fashion museums in terms of the public excitement with the former.
Live fashion shows are obviously very accessible to people, at least emotionally, but they are inaccessible to people in as much as fashion shows are not open to the public. So most people cannot attend fashion shows, and the only way they can get close to those clothes is to go to an expensive store and see them.

So it is a “live factor” then.
One difference between a live fashion show and a museum exhibition is that clothes at a museum are not worn on living, moving bodies—they are worn on static fiberglass mannequins. Some people have a problem with that. Fashion is a part of life and when it is in the museum, it is slightly removed from that. But I don’t think it is a significant problem, because the museum provides you with another way to look at the clothes.

What have been your five most popular exhibitions whereby, the audience were considerable broader in range in relation to socio-economic, class, education or lack thereof, social backgrounds, etc.?
The Ruben and Isabel Toledo exhibition was very popular. Because we had Michelle Obama’s inaugural dress, which was designed by Isabel, that exhibition attracted an extremely large number of African-Americans and Latinos. What was very cool about it was that they came in, initially, to see Michelle Obama’s dress and they stayed to see all of Isabel and Ruben’s things and were very enthusiastic about the show.  Another exhibition they attracted a large and diverse public was Gothic: Dark Glamour. That brought in lots and lots of young people and sub-culture people. Many of the visitors said that they were enthusiastic, because we respected Goth style. London Fashion also brought in a lot of young people because we had Punk clothes and all kinds of outrageous clothes. That was very cool. The Corset brought in a lot of people, because the corset is the most controversial garment in the history of fashion –and corsetry is about the body. And of course if there is an exhibition which has a celebrity factor, like when we did the Bob Mackie show that brought in a lot of people because they had seen Cher’s clothes and Carol Burnett’s clothes on television.

Returning back to the issue of live fashions, is it possible to use life models in an exhibition?
You really cannot use live models in an exhibition with clothes that are part of a museum collection. It is completely unacceptable by international museum standards. You can do a  sort of live fashion show, where you borrow clothes from a designer and then have models parade through the galleries of the museum; the Victoria and Albert Museum has done this, so that people can view a kind of mini fashion show, which they call “Fashion in Motion.”.

Do you think that the phenomenal popularity of Alexander McQueen’s exhibition will help lure the general public to attend/participate en masse, fashion exhibitions at institutions such as yours?
The extreme popularity of McQueen’s show certainly helps any museum, which is putting on fashion exhibitions. But you should also recognize that even before McQueen, there have already been many blockbuster fashion exhibitions. McQueen is so far the biggest. But there were hundreds of thousands of people who went to the Armani show at the Guggenheim; who went to the Chanel show, etc. There was the Yves Laurent’s show in Paris that drew enormous numbers of people.

How many exhibitions do typically execute in a year and how long doe it take you to plan the average show?
We put on two special exhibitions per year — like Daphne Guiness; we also mount two exhibitions in the Fashion History gallery; so these are four major fashion shows per year. We also work on a small show with the graduate students at FIT, so that’s five. And then we do another dozen student and faculty exhibitions around the campus or in Gallery FIT. With the large special exhibitions, we tend to work at least two years in advance, the Fashion History exhibitions require about one year of work. We do two Fashion History exhibitions a year, and each of these stays up for six months. The special exhibitions last for about four months.

You are VERY busy then.
Yes we are VERY busy. It is an INSANE exhibition schedule.

For the future, what kinds of exhibitions are we to expect from your museum?
After Daphne’s show, the next exhibition is IMPACT: Fifty Years of Fashion Council of America. Patricia Mears will be curating that. It was the idea of Diane von Furstenberg to showcase the great American designers who belong to the CFDA—those are still living and those like Halston who are deceased. Then in the fall, Patricia will be doing one on Ivy Style, which is about Ivy League or preppy style. And in the fall 2013 Fred and I will be doing a big exhibition on Queer Style— about the influence of gays and lesbians on fashion for the past hundred years.

In addition, in the fashion history gallery, our upcoming exhibition is The Great Designers. It is in two sections, beginning in November 2011 with Part One and continuing with Part Two in May 2012. We will be featuring a selection of masterpieces from the museum’s permanent collection in conjunction with a publication of big book by Taschen called The Great Designers.

What would your ideal show—if you have the financial means to pull it off?
Before McQueen died, Daphne and I were talking about the idea of doing a McQueen show, but he said to her, “Isn’t it a little early for a retrospective?” Now the one that I’m working and focusing on is the one on queer style. It seems like a no-brainer. I can’t believe no one has done this show!

Click to watch ‘Music & Revolution’ on YouTube

Mahatma Gandhi‘s passive resistance was rooted in the idea that the greatest revolutionary act is borne in the quiet of one’s mind. Resistance manifests itself in manifold ways, sometimes with anger and aggression and other times in stillness and silence. What all revolutions have in common is the resolute mindset of each participant: to resist and remain standing. Standing up against tyranny and oppression is  a rebellious act, an irreverent, irrepressible act.

While it has become an accepted Truth that ‘The Personal is Political’, the reverse also holds true; ‘The Political is Personal’, and nothing is more personal than the music one chooses to live by, to be inspired by, and be guided by. Music and revolution walk hand in hand, and while each Revolution aspires to its own unique ideals, music is one thing they all have in common.  Whether RiotGrrl or RudeBoy, singing “We Shall Overcome” or “Occupy D.C.”, all Revolutions are fueled by words that are poetic, raw, and real – whether they’re scrawled on walls or carefully articulated in Mantras and Manifestos. Throughout history, protesters have marched to songs that speak to their individual as well as collective pain, purpose and philosophy.

In today’s virtual landscape of crowd-sourced revolution, we’ve become used to the images of ‘Revolution’, the ones that typically make the headlines: photos of protesters pressing together en masse, compressed in their fury and urgency. Our collective histories tell the visual tales: The French Revolution, The American Revolution, The Industrial Revolution, The Egyptian Revolution, The New Feminist Revolution – Great throngs that have gathered to stand up against tyranny, oppression, ideology, regime.

On a macro scale, from a bird’s eye perspective, all Revolutions look the same. They move in amorphous waves of peo ple ebbing and flowing, armed with their hand-drawn banners, flags and fists waving, all heading toward and away from some symbolic place: a central square, government building, a scene of terror, tragedy or toppled monument. By virtue of the intense force of their cause and action, people who take part in protests become physically and psychically connected, unified in their resistance, forsaking their uniqueness to assemble and become part of the group of people who’ve gathered in revolt and rebellion.

On a micro scale, when the camera zooms in, the crowd disappears from our view. Close up we are able to glean the emotions on individual faces, their anger, terror and their fury. Revealed is the individual protester: the enraged citizen, the empowered union worker, the marginalized, the victimized, the disaffected, the disenfranchised. This close-up view reminds us that at its root, every Revolution begins as a unique and intensely private experience. It is at this micro level of the individual that the light of every revolution is ignited, when at some moment in time, a person makes that decision to take a leap into the unknown: that great leap which, beautifully or terrifyingly, leaves them no choice.

As Gil Scott Heron poetically and prophetically stated, The Revolution Will Not be Televised: it will, however, be hash tagged, texted and uploaded. The Revolution will be poeticized, memorialized, internalized, personalized, and will forever take its place somewhere hidden in the heart and mind, in a place so private no camera can penetrate and no pundit can analyze.

For my own, personal Revolution, I would choose ‘Seven Nation Army’ by The White Stripes

I asked friends, fans, and colleagues, those from the fields of Science, the Arts, Technology and Politics, to select one song that would lead their own personal revolution. Along with their words, here are their choices.

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Jonathan Bewley, President, SnapShots Foundation

I would choose the first movement of “Don Juan” op. 20 by Richard Strauss, as my song to lead a revolution. The piece is just brilliant. It speaks to the human condition through struggle and the will to triumph and to fight a new day. Strauss had such humanity in his writing; he must have known something of life’s challenges to write such music.

“Don Juan” op. 20 by Richard Strauss | YouTube

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Paul Burston, Author

I’ll have to say ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’ by Tracy Chapman. I saw her perform it live at the concert for Mandela at Wembley in 1988, and it captured the mood perfectly. After Live Aid, there was a lot of cynicism about pop and politics. Nobody really wanted to hear Bob Geldof sing ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’ again, even if it was for a good cause. And people knew that it would take a lot more than a concert to “feed the world”. But the Mandela concert was different. There was a clear message, embodied in this extraordinary man who stood for a principle everyone could identify with. It wasn’t only about the appalling injustice of apartheid in South Africa, it was also about the right of political prisoners to have a voice, and the responsibility we each have to fight against injustice and oppression. Change was in the air, and when Tracy Chapman sang that song, it felt as if everyone in that stadium was part of it.

‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’, Tracy Chapman | YouTube

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Greta Byrum, Poet, Thinker

Poly Styrene showed people (girls especially) how to be powerful and smart and scary and yet beautiful, and to have fun while doing it. She was an amazing poet. This video to me shows how the revolution begins: “We presume our power, not our powerlessness.” (as a friend of mine likes to say) http://alliedmedia.org/amc2011/principles-allied-media-projects-network – on every level, starting from deep within. In “Identity/It’s the crisis you can’t see” Poly Styrene is breaking through the mirror. As brash and bright as possible, she is telling us that she isn’t afraid of anyone, not even of herself. And yet her more revolutionary song may be the most literal one of all: “Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard./ But I think…/ Oh Bondage Up Yours!”

‘x ray spex identity’, Poly Styrene | YouTube

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Neil Charney, General Manager, PGSI at Microsoft

At first the phrase “personal revolution” sounds like an oxymoron. But given that every revolution starts with a movement, and every movement starts with an individual who does something that may first appear entirely irrational –almost non-sensical –going against the norms, the expectations, the status quo, the question makes perfect sense and the answer can be somewhat surprising. If you want to lead a movement, consider what makes people dance. Dancing always struck me as an amazingly dissonant thing to see –spontaneous, irrational, unlike so much of everything else in our day to day lives. A vestige of some “primitive” past? Consider that first moment when the music comes on and the dance floor is empty or perhaps filled by 1 or 2 brave souls. The first thought may be to judge, dismiss, laugh. Somehow 4 hours later you’re covered in sweat, euphorically holding your hands in the air, moving against a hundred souls equally ecstatic and lost in their dance –the movement. Tomorrow they’ll all be back behind the desk, pushing the paper, the broom, the electrons but tonight they’re dancing like some tribal, communal ritual. There’s an energy and a passion that comes from such collective experiences –a celebration and expression of the human spirit.  And that’s what revolutions can be –a yearning and expression of the human spirit –a cry against the norm where the norm somehow diminishes or denies that which we can truly be.

‘Can’t Hold Us’, Macklemore | YouTube

……………………………..

Bruno Galindo, Poet, Performer

“Nothing’s gonna change my world”. Can’t think of anything stronger, more beautiful and powerful than that Lennon/McCartney line. Well, maybe the music. That one always made me cry. And always will.

‘Across the Universe’, The Beatles | You Tube

……………………………..

Collin Kelley, Novelist, Poet, Playwright

In the summer of 1995, I was in London and Paris for the first time. My head was filled with new sights and sounds, but the sound that kept repeating was Bjork’s “Army of Me.” The song seemed to be playing in every cab, on every sound system and even in the shopping arcade under the Louvre. I was undergoing a personal transformation and this trip would revolutionize my writing. A book of poetry and two novels had their genesis in 1995 and every time I think about that summer, I hear Bjork singing “self-sufficient, please, and get to work.” It’s still my mantra.

‘Army of Me’, Bjork | YouTube

……………………………..

John Marsh, Vocalist & Founder, The Beloved

As an unreconstructed believer in the power of love and mutual respect my revolutionary anthem has to be one that espouses those ideals …

Many songs fit the bill but this is one I especially love.

Garnett Silk ‘Love Is The Answer’

A simple message, beautifully expressed by an incredible voice

“I will always do the good I can for an hatred I can’t stand
And I hope you feel the same way too
The goodness of your works will carry you through
Do good unto others and Jah will do the same for you
Give it a try my friend and you will prove what I m saying is true”

personally I don’t feel the need to allign my moral compass with Jah, or any other god, but the values are universal and will hopefully spur on a Velvet Revolution….

‘Love Is The Answer’, Garnett Silk | YouTube

……………………………..

Donna Masini, Poet, Novelist

When I heard your question the first thing I thought of was John Lennon’s “Imagine” and then, as Blake’s words from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” came to me — “What is now proved was once only imagined.” – I knew why I’d chosen that song. Because of John Lennon of course. But also because it’s through an act of imagination – being able to imagine the other, a new life, a new way of being — that we truly change.

‘Imagine’, John Lennon | YouTube

……………………………..

Thomas Leo McGrath, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Database/Web Developer

The song in question is The Dog Days are Over by Florence and the Machine. A line in this song that spoke to me was:

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too. oh.

It sounds somewhat negative doesn’t it? Yet it relates to what I need. I drive myself hard, and I need a lot from the people who are close to me. I need passion, intensity, drive and joy around me. I need to push myself to exhaustion, and push again when I wake up.

In this life, you are either growing or you are diminishing. If you are growing, then part of what gives you your drive is your hunger, your thirst, your aching to be more than what you are. When you act on those appetites in a positive way, it creates in you greater needs and longings. The challenge is to answer these passions in a positive way and share what you have. It also is a question of recognizing that you are never a “complete” person and that this is a good thing. Once you start moving towards the answering of your hunger, then eventually you will come to realize that the Dog Days are truly over, and that the days that will follow will be filled with wonder, power and joy.

‘Dog Days Are Over’, Florence and the Machine | YouTube

……………………………..

John Siddique, Poet, Author

There is only one revolution worth having, that is a revolution of the self. To be radically honest about our own greed, hatred and delusion. Be honest about what really moves us, what we find to be beautiful, to say that we don’t know something when we don’t instead of spin doctoring. To not wear the anger, justification and false pride of the victim, deciding by a process of practical radical honesty with oneself to find ways to make small steps each day. We need to stop being seen to do the right thing and learn to do them, anything else leaves both ourselves and the world shallow, empty and governed by mediocrity.

The track I have chosen to accompany my personal revolution is The Carpet Crawlers by Genesis from The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway record. This was the tune that first woke me up to a need for personal responsibility when I was young. We do not have to move with the mass, our lives can be beautiful and worth something, and yes there is a cost in that, there is risk and uncomfortableness often. Perhaps we can train ourselves a little bit each day with a small amount of risk so that we can do something radical like love someone else, or bake some bread, or read a poem and not defend our own lies by spinning them into law.

‘the Carpet Crawlers live’, Genesis | YouTube

……………………………..

Josh Warner, president and founder of Feed Company

“The Call-Up” by the Clash is a great theme song for my personal revolution. It came out in 1980 and starts with a US Marines marching chant. The song has a dark, ominous groove that makes it danceable but is a cautionary tale against blind patriotism. It’s an anti-war song seeped in the colors and contradictions of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. The lyrics, by Joe Strummer, are a specific plea :”It’s up to you not to heed the call-up. You must not act the way you were brought up.” But the song is wistfully ambiguous at the same time: “There is a rose that I want to live for. Although, God knows, I may not have met her.” It matched the mood of the country. Ronald Reagan just got elected, John Lennon was killed, and the US failed to free hostages in Iran. Times seemed bleak but you had the Clash questioning authority and pointing out injustice as a counterpoint to a general toe-the-line malaise. It reminded me to pay attention to other parts of the world and not just worry about what I was paying for gas.

‘The Call-Up’, The Clash | YouTube

Dappled by sunlight filtering through sycamores and cypress, a circuitous road in the hills of Los Feliz near Hollywood suddenly reveals the 1922 Taggart House, dominating a corner covered with succulents and wildflowers. Sprawling over hills near Griffith Observatory, the Los Feliz neighborhood is considered congenial, yet because of the topography, intensely private, appealing to various actors and musicians–Casey Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna. Although an adult when her parents bought their home in Los Feliz, Tina Chow, model, designer, and style icon was no less luminous than the Taggart House where her parents lived and she placed her own imprint.

Architect for film stars in the 1920‘s and 1930‘s, Lloyd Wright designed the Taggart House which has a complicated genealogy. Built in 1922 by the son of Frank Lloyd Wright (FLW), the architect was confusingly named Frank Lloyd Wright Jr. but known as Lloyd Wright. An eminent architect, he trained as a draftsman in his father’s Oak Park Studio in Illinois and studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin. Lloyd and his brother John moved to L.A. in 1912 or 1913 where Lloyd began working with an early proponent of modernism, Irving Gill. Following his employment with Gill, Lloyd worked at Paramount Studios as a production designer, and as a landscape architect with Olmstead & Olmstead, of New York City Central Park acclaim. Lloyd worked with his overbearing, ultra egotistical father on the Hollyhock House. To understand how self absorbed FLW was, it’s worth noting that when he wrote letters to his sons, he always signed them, not father or papa, but Frank Lloyd Wright!

At the turn of the twentieth century, Los Angeles was incredibly exciting for an architect. R. M. Schindler and Richard Neutra had moved to California from Vienna and American architects Irving Gill and FLW were building brilliantly modern residences. FLW worked with textile block modules, designing houses for the wealthy, including oil heiress Aline Barnsdall.

Lloyd Wright also worked with textile block, but in 1922, designing a home for Helen Taggart’s mother, Martha Taggart, he worked with cast concrete using board and batten detailing, and an open plan. Having produced many of the renderings of FLW prairie houses for the Wasmuth Portfolio published in Berlin, Lloyd absorbed the principles of this total design concept. Bookshelves and light fixtures are built in. While the interior seems inspired by Japanese architecture, the exterior utilizes stepped pyramid motifs associated with Mesoamerican architecture. The Taggart House was perfect for Walter E. Lutz and his wife, Mona Miwako Furuki, parents of Bettina, Tina, and Adelle, or Bonny, Lutz when they moved to LA. Hardwood floors and unusual detailing plus a dramatic two story living/dining space were enhanced by their collection of Frank Lloyd Wright furniture. Tina and her husband Michael Chow, originally an architect and designer before becoming a restaurateur, collected the FLW furniture as they avidly collected art deco. Korean porcelain, and of course the Lutz bamboo collection complemented the austere interiors.

Walter Lutz, trained as a minister, met his wife when he was stationed in Japan after World War II. They married in Kobe but were forced to return to the United States so Mona could retain American citizenship. Discomfited by the Midwest, specifically Cleveland, Ohio where their daughters were born, they returned to Japan in the late 1960’s. From the moment they met, they had shared a passion for bamboo, and began collecting during the 1940’s when Asian antiques were widely available due to the chaos of war.

Tina’s parents filled the storage spaces and outer buildings of the Taggart house with a spectacular bamboo collection. Clearly, Chow’s interest in bamboo stemmed from her childhood, during which her father became so enamored with the material he became a prominent purveyor of bamboo window shades and other items in the U.S. During the 1980‘s Bergdorf Goodman’s Tina Chow boutique featured quartz crystals and amethyst pendants encased in bamboo, a spare and elegant line of jewelry.

The Lutz collection is one of the finest in the U. S. and a portion of their collection is now displayed at the Denver Art Museum. Their love of the material is evident–cherishing even broken and cracked bamboo vessels that had been repaired according to Japanese aesthetics (the repair is evident rather than concealed). Adelle remembers embarrassment about her parents’ preoccupation; it was an oddity in the 1960s in Ohio where she grew up. Adelle, and probably Tina as well, began to appreciate the collection only after they traveled to Japan and experiencing bamboo in its cultural context.

In the early 20th century numerous architects were influenced by Japanese architecture, which was extremely minimal. FLW even designed a hotel in Tokyo, characterized by typical surprise elements found in Japanese architecture. By the time Tina Chow’s family purchased the Taggart house, it was a classic, and more importantly, it had never been modified.

A fusion of east and west, Bettina “Tina” Chow was an icon of beauty, sleek and talented, Chow and her sister popularized the use of Eurasian models in the 1960’s, initially appearing in Shiseido advertisements while living in Tokyo with their parents. Tina met and married Michael Chow in 1972, and they moved to LA where he opened Mr. Chow LA. Tina continued to be a muse for designers such as Issey Miyake and Yves St. Laurent. Her life changed after Mr. Chow’s restaurant opened in New York City and she developed friendships with artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Chow’s spare elegant personal style was the result of absorbing Japanese aesthetics via her parents and her own experiences. She began designing jewelry in the 1980‘s. Crystal, quartz and bamboo were her preferred materials. She worked with artist Kosuge Shochikudo, who produced baskets used in tea ceremonies. Enveloping the stones in black bamboo, Chow’s jewelry was an authentic expression of her Eurasian heritage. She probably met Shochikudo through her parents, who collected his baskets as well as those made by his father, Chikudo Shochikudo.

Vogue US, August 1987 quoted Tina, “I like the idea of wearing very personal jewelry and not so much decoration,” Working with raw crystals and other stones, Tina remarked, “Uncut stones are so wonderful, why muddle about with them?” Her jewelry was packaged in small pouches wrapped in Japanese mulberry paper cartons.

The Taggart house, while the Lutz’s lived there, was the perfect expression of their unique vision, the bamboo collection, the natural landscape, and jewel-like interior spaces. The same could be said for Tina Chow’s work.

the interview:
In your own words, how would you describe yourself as an actress?
I’m not sure how to answer that.  I’m not sure that who I am as a person is different from who I am as an actress.  For me it’s all the different sides of me, that aren’t always expressed on a daily basis, coming out to play.

I’m always curious about an actors’ path into the industry. When did you know this was the career for you and how did you get going?
I knew when I was about 3.  I just always knew.  But knowing you want to do something and having the conviction to actually head out and pursue it as a career are two different things.  I was a double major in college.  Theater and Chinese.  The semester that I was going to study abroad in China  I was offered the role of May in the Sam Shepard play “Fool for Love” at Middlebury on the mainstage.  It’s such a great part and the professors said to me that if I didn’t do it they weren’t doing it at all because they felt I was the one for that part.  It was a very hard decision at the time.  My parents weren’t supportive of their well educated daughter being a starving actress when I could have had  a very high paying job using my Chinese right out of school.  And I was scared of it too.  So I chose to go to china.  That 6 months in china is what made up my mind to be an actress.  I had friends, who living in a communist country, were told what work they would have for their lives.  Here I had the freedom to choose and I wasn’t taking it.  So I decided to become an actress.  I always say now, “sometimes you find your destiny on the path you choose to avoid it.”

It is a dream for a lot of actors to book a national TV commercial campaign – especially one as funny and engaging as the Orbit ads. How has that experience informed your career?
Well, I didn’t really even audition for commercials when I booked that.  It was kind of just luck.  It was incredibly fun to help create a character that has become so iconic, so engrained in pop culture.  Everyone who ever watches TV knows my face, more so than most actors on TV shows,  but in real life no one ever knows its me.  So that has been a real blessing because it has afforded me the opportunity to have two very separate careers, my film and TV work and the commercial one.

I read that you were born in London but that you studied in the US. It seems like you’ve moved around a lot. This can be quite a hard but handy experience for an actor. Would you agree?
I LOVED moving around. In fact I can’t stay put now.  I’m rarely in one place for longer than two weeks.  And as for acting it’s amazing in many ways.  Mostly because I have the ability to truly see that life can be completely different, and I mean COMPLETELY, depending on where you are living.  Rules that we have here, don’t apply elsewhere.  It’s very freeing and as an actor you incorporate in your body the absolute knowledge of something different, not just the imagining of it.  And of course it has helped greatly with accents and languages.

Does all the work you do come from your agent/manager directly or do you find material independently sometimes?
No sometimes it has been through other avenues.  Direct offers, people I have worked with before and all my work in China has come through word of mouth.

What draws you to the characters you play?
That’s a very esoteric answer I am afraid.  I love playing CHARACTERS.  People who are VERY different from me, who are more extreme, that physically you wouldn’t picture me playing. Not always but most of the time.  It’s a kind of thing that happens when I read a part I just know if it sparks in me.  I either feel kind of bored or extremely excited and that’s when I know that I respond to it and want to play it.

There’s an idea that the difference between an English actor and an American one is that the English work from the outside in – using physicality to inform emotion – and the American’s work from the inside out – creating an emotional life and allowing it to imbue the physicality of their characters. Being an actor who works cross-continentally would you agree with this observation?
Actually yes i would.  It’s a good observation.  I use the American version but I notice my English friends doing just that.

Lee Strasburg is often credited for the American/inside-out approach to acting. Have you had any experience with the “Method” and other forms of Stanislavsky training? Or do you come from a completely different school of thought?
I studied Strasburg, Stanislavsky, Hagen, all of it when I was in school.  I don’t know if I follow any one school or really ever did.  I learned from them all and then kind of do a mishmash approach of my own.

There are many schools of thought that say acting is a god-given talent and that it cannot be learnt. What is your opinion of this? Do you agree? If not, what would you say makes a great actor?
I believe that actors can become better for sure.  But I do believe that it is a talent and something you are born with.  That’s the same with anything though.  You can go to see many doctors, some may be good and others great, or financiers, anything you can learn but some people are born with specific gifts.

How do you feel, personally, about your own abilities as an actor? Do you see room for improvement? If so, how does a busy, working actor like yourself continue to work on your craft?
I actually have been feeling recently that I am nowhere near reaching my own potential.  That I have not worked hard enough at examining what can be better. SO I am in the process of doing a lot of that right now.  I am not in any class currently, but I was in NYC doing a play reading for the theatre associated with my college and many alums and my wonderful professor Cheryl Faroane and it was so reinspiring to remember how much I love language and the true drama of the stage.  Helps to keep my mind and passion for it fresh.  I also tape myself a lot and watch it to really learn what works and what doesn’t.

The style of acting on camera has changed quite remarkably over the past fifty years or so. What would you say has been the biggest shift in technique?
That we no longer use the mid atlantic accent. Dead movie star speech.  I want to bring it back.  I do it sometimes with my friends.

Something that interests actors and non-actors alike is how to cry on cue. Have you ever been asked to do this? If so, how did you approach it? Do you have any tips/tricks?
Yeah, I have to do it a lot.  It’s misery for me.  I have to conjure up all the worst things and then I feel miserable for like two hours afterwards.  You have to find your own way in.  But don’t be afraid on set to take the time you need.  Ask how long it will be till you will be needed to being that place and prepare.  You can actually use up all the emotion too or I can and so I pay attention to which are the master shots and which the close ups so I can be in it deeply when needed.

Is there anything you have been asked to do as an actress that you flat-out said “no!” to? What was it? And, do you regret it?
Yes.  His name was George.  I deeply regret it.  No actually.  I’m a yes girl.  The riskier the better as far as I’m concerned.

I read that in addition to speaking fluent French that you also speak fluent Mandarin Chinese. There are some amazing, Chinese filmmakers today, have you had any opportunities to meet/work with any of them?
I have done three films in China with some great filmmakers and one long time kungfu master.  Working in china is an extraordinary and grueling experience.  I’m not sure it’s for everyone.  But for me it was amazing. I’ve worked in the middle of nowhere where filming stops for a goat herder and his goats.  I’ve crept out of a car over a 2000-foot drop with no safety restraints to get a shot.  It’s always an experience.

Who are the actors that most inspire you – those whose films/plays you will always see without necessarily knowing anything about the productions?
Judi Dench, Micheal Caine, Meryll Streep, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Chastain, Ryan gosling.

What’s the best business advice you’ve been given as an actor?
To learn how to see myself as a product, and learn how to sell that product.

What’s the best craft advice you’ve been given as an actor?
Micheal Caine’s book on film acting.  It’s wonderful.

What are your aspirations as an actor?
To be happy. My aspiration in everything.

Being in the industry, we can be surrounded by a lot of unsung talent. Are there any up-and-comers that you’re aware of that you’d love to see get more opportunities?
Not really an up and comer but I saw Jessica Chastain in the Help the other day and she is truly the next Meryl Streep.  Unbelievable.

If you ran into a young you who was about to embark on this career, what advice would you give her about acting? The industry? And her/yourself?
I would tell her to be a dancer first and then go into acting.  I would have loved to be a dancer.  Never took any classes but I know it now.  And I would tell her that so many fun amazing things were going to happen.  More than she imagined, in so many ways.  I would also tell her to take her own ideas about what she could and couldn’t accomplish away at a younger age.  I held onto too many for too long, and I think it held me back a great deal.  Until recently, even.  And then just enjoy the ride.

And finally, to channel Proust, “What is your favorite motto/quote?”
“When I was young and naive, I used to admire clever people.  Now that I am older and more clever, I admire kind people.”

Place of birth:
Lunéville, Lorraine. Date of birth: 10/1/1966

Where are your restaurant/boutiques?
We have twenty international boutiques: from Paris, Cannes, London, New York to Tokyo and Hong Kong.

What is the most exiting, receptive city for today’s executive chefs? 
In terms of places where there are a lot of great restaurants and top chefs, Paris is really interesting, as are Tokyo, London, and Hong Kong; New York, especially for its madness and its gastronomical diversity.

Would you steal a special recipe from another chef?
Of course! Those of my grandmother and my mother

If you could cook for anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?
Nelson Mandela.

Who is the first veritable modern culinary equivalent to Coco Chanel?
Alain Passard; he is a real artist, a taste creator.

Using fashion as a social index, what is the range of designer labels one finds from people that come to establishment?
We see ladies wearing Chanel, to Lanvin to Sandro….

What do you price the most money cannot buy?
My 1984 degree, officially naming me a pastry chef, chocolatier, confectioner, and ice cream producer.

What was the single most shocking incident to happen in your restaurant/boutique?
The retirement announcement of Robert Linxe, the founder of La Maison du Chocolat.

How does eroticism feature in some of your dishes?
In the subtle balance of flavors, in the finenesses of textures and in the elegance of my creative decorations.

What is the food equivalent of a drug high?
Dark chocolate cakes

Do you agree that National boundaries or identities no longer inform or define a chef’s style?
I believe that a chef will be and has to always be influenced by his origins.

To what extent is Escoffier important to a contemporary chef?
Escoffier is to chefs what Robert Linxe is for chocolatiers. Both great contemporary and classic chefs have at least one thing in common: a keen understanding of Great Master Escoffier.

Is Spain’s Farran Adria displacing France #1 position in culinary supremacy?
I don’t necessarily think so. Adria has become the first chef that has revolutionized the new cooking of the 1980s, through a new style that is (or was) “molecular gastronomy”.

Are you orthodox about using natural ingredients as opposed to synthetic ones?-
I could never use synthetic or artificial products.

What would be your last meal?
A Quiche Lorrain prepared by my mother followed by my grandmother’s Lorraine flambéed.

The Huffington Post Game Changers Award ceremony recently concluded here in New York. It has become quite a great, distinct event in comparison to many other award ceremonies. Clearly focused in its objectives, it’s become THE arena where “100 mavericks, visionaries and leaders” who think differently and influence our lives are each rewarded with much deserved award.

The event program began at 8pm thru 11pm, went as such:

• Mario Cuomo presenting Game Changer of the Year Award to Governor Andrew Cuomo
• Jann Wenner presenting to Tom Freston
• Brian Williams presenting to Kelly Meyer
• Grace Hightower presenting to Bob Cunningham
• Cindi Leive presenting to Kim Kardashian
• Nora Ephron presenting to Elaine Wynn
• Gayle King presenting to the “1973 Models of Versailles”
• Nora Ephron presenting to Elaine Wynn
• Gayle King presenting to the “1973 Models of Versailles”

We look forward to the 2012 The Huffington Post Game Changers Award ceremony. Be inspired, perhaps, you too, can be the next Game Changer!!

PHOTOGRAPHY: Billy Farrell Agency

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A life in the arts started at such an early age for you. Your earlier work belies a sense of sheer determination and self-confidence. Can you go into some detail about the drive you had to become involved in music?
It’s been an improvised life, my involvement with music was entirely the result of circumstantial coincidence.    

You have worked with a number of notable musicians and artists from Paul Bley to Salvador Dali. Is there one artist that really left an indelible impression on you in all your years as a musician?
Albert Ayler and John Cage because they liberated music in the way that Jackson Pollack did painting.
A number of your albums (particularly the ones released during the late 70’s/early 80’s) carry strong influences of hip-hop, which was a burgeoning scene at the time. What are some of your thoughts on this particular influence in your music?
By 1973, I was living in the UK, and when hip-hop began to kick into the consciousness of the culture in ’85, I’d already recorded and released albums with raps as early as 1968, and work in ’78 and ’79, featured lengthy rap tracks that were later sampled by hip-hoppers, though I’ve never sampled.   

You would heavily dip into the hip-hop/rap waters throughout the 80’s on a number of albums, following albums like X-Dreams, The Perfect Release and Sky-skating. What are your ideas on the hip-hop music being made today?
Seems either to be a product manufactured by a core of producers collaborating with a strong female personality, or a young, sexy object fronting an impressive production; or the indie, urban world of ominous male driven ego.  But I haven’t heard anything to eclipse or even equal the immediate impact of imagination and content I first heard on Public Enemy’s Fight the Power, Eminem’s Lose Yourself, or even Biggie Smalls Hypnotize.

You have been experimenting with electronic elements most evidently in your music since the release of I’m the One.  Later on Sky-skating and I Have No Feelings. In which ways do you think electronic music has helped to expand your sound?
I was able to persuade Robert Moog to give me a prototype, because real music hadn’t yet been made with his synthesizer.  It was a new dimension to inhabit and I wanted to be a pioneer on the frontier of its exploration.  Every instrument has its unique set of properties and possibilities with which to interact.

When I hear a number of your albums, I am surprised at how far ahead of their time some of them sound.  You have currently begun to reissue your early albums. What do you suppose someone from today’s youth might discover in a piece of work you created 30 or 40 years back?
Anyone can relate to intensity and emotion, especially when we’re young, but I think it’s a combination of the “WTF?” factor, and that feelings and truth are timeless.  Life’s scenarios and challenges remain the same for each generation whenever, it’s just the sound environment that may date.  When I’m The One was recorded I was aiming at au courant, not avant-garde. Of course now I realize that I’d overshot the target by about 40 years, and it’s currently having the response that I’d expected it to have at the time of its original release in 1972.

Because your work is highly personal and often skirts musical conventions, what kinds of problems, if any, did you encounter when you were first on major-labels? What kinds of challenges did record companies present you with?
Those that defined my character: Large companies are resistant to change, and big machines can’t accommodate exceptions.  Major labels would promote my work and make it well known, but if artistic integrity is the trade-off, I can’t see how the result could be considered a success.  I chose freedom—it’s more rewarding than money, so I’d never be willing to sacrifice it.

Who are some of artists that you think are currently making some very exciting and interesting music today? What are some artists that you would most like to work with?
It’s an endless avalanche of output that seems a rather disappointing assault of eclecticism, in which I find little originality.  Of course I believe in freedom of speech and artistic expression, but if you’re going to demand attention I think you should have something to say.
I like to work with great musicians.

Having come from an era where people experienced music in hardcopy format (be it vinyl or CD), what are your own opinions on the digital revolution that has taken hold of the music industry? What is your own personal interaction with digital media in relation to your music?
Must be the same for anyone producing creative content – it’s an asset and a liability.  Obviously, it’s a liability because, it makes it possible for everyone other than the artist to make money and benefit from the artists work.  If people download your music cheap from an illegal parasite Russian site, who claim to be legitimate and to pay the artist, which they aren’t and don’t; or they grab it for gratis, it can put the artist out of business.  I mean, it’s cool if a blogger shares one track on site to download, but please realize that it’s definitely painful to post the entire album.  C’est pas juste.  How can one finance new independent recordings without an income?  Studios, musicians, mastering, printing and pressing are all very expensive processes and everyone wants to get paid, even the initiators of the software that exploit creative content got paid. I wish I made furniture.

On the other hand, It’s an asset, because the internet makes it possible for an artist to be autonomous and accessible.  The net is ubiquitous and random – anyone can discover you.  Orders have come from places I’ve never heard of, or exotic places of which I seldom hear, and I pause in amazement to wonder what in this world led a person from Singapore or Cyprus to find the album.  I like that the net also facilitates informal, direct communication, like Facebook. People who have a relationship with my work feel free to write and tell me how it’s impacted their lives.  I appreciate this personal contact – it’s inspiring and motivating.

Music has always had a visual component, more evident now than ever with the artists that dominate much of mass media. Yet you have never actively sought to interact with that more visual component. What are your ideas on the ways in which the state of music is currently surviving in an image-obsessed culture?
Society has always been enticed by manufactured icons and the language of image.  It’s a good business to be in if you enjoy being a focus.   If music is an art form, there may possibly be a future for it, because our culture is made of individuals, and in it there will be those who seek the pleasure of music for its own sake and substance.

More recent albums like 31:31 still communicate a very bold femininity and sensuality that you really began to explore on X-Dreams onwards. What do you think about the ways in which some of the female artists are expressing sexuality in music today?
Most of them aren’t primarily composers, so they use what they have. Nothing is new about a woman making a living by using the ephemeral appeal of her body.  Actually, that approach always works so it’s a good plan.

Your lyrics in the beginning veered toward the esoteric, opting for existentialist and political musings. Later, you would experiment much more with word-play and the playfulness of language. Where is your headspace now in terms of what you sing about?
Music is the effortless part, though I struggle with words to say clearly, something I feel needs to be said.   

You have for some time been running your own label, Ironic Records. What new material are you currently working on and what directions are you taking your music in?
I’ve reissued I’m The One, so my focus should be on promotion, but it isn’t. I’m obsessed with writing, and a great deal of work has accumulated from which to draw.  Even so, I’m not certain what I’ll record. Habitually, I’ve believed that each album released was exactly right for that time, but they’d always end up being 20 – 40 years ahead.  I’d really like to get the timing right at this juncture, because doubtless I’ll be deceased in 30 years, and no artist can enjoy a posthumous success.

the interview

What is the first work of art you recall seeing?  Which work of art or artist has had the most impact or inspiration on you and your art?  Your take on Manet for the MOMA piece, “Le Dejeuner Sur l’herbe:  Les Trios Femmes Noires”, that was in the window of The Modern in 2010 reprises the odalisque seen in Western art for centuries.  What is the significance of those images for your art that features only ethnicity?
In 1994, I was living in Portland, OR and I saw a traveling show by Carrie Mae Weems at the Portland Art Museum. That was the first contemporary work I’d seen by an African-American woman.  I was particularly inspired by Ms. Weem’s 1990 “Kitchen Table Series”, a multimedia piece that uses photographs of people seated around the table to explore the complexities of gender, marriage and family relationships.

However, a whole range of artists who span the history of the artistic cannon also inspires me.  I believe that history is important whether it is art history, political history, or cultural history- it allows you to gain an understanding of the language that has developed and where you might contribute to the discussion or dispute what has come before.  Of course, I could choose to enter into the discussion at any historical point but art from the late 19^th and early 20^th century is of particular interest to me both because I see it as the root of the formal discussions still happening in art today and also because it really marks the time when female models started to assert their own identity and presence through the gaze.  Around this time, at least in the contemporary discourse, the sitters for the classic genre nude cease to be anonymous props and begin to insist on their individuality with their gaze.  Because I began my work as a way of representing figures largely absent in the canon, African American women, I feel a kinship and imperative to interact with these pivotal figurative painters.  As my work has developed, I return to the past as a way of determining what is missing, what I can add, to the conversations in painting I find most interesting.

Talk to me about your models and how it evolved that your mother is a major presence in your work.  What are you looking for in a model?
Most of the women I work with are friends and family members. My mother has been one of the main subjects of my work since 2001. I started working with her as my model for a photography class I was taking at Yale. Over the past few years, I have started to include women I have met through friends as well as casting women from agencies or Craigslist. Some women I have worked with for many years while others I have only worked with once or twice.  One of the things I look for in a woman is a unique and sometimes unexpected interpretation of what it means to be a woman. I enjoy watching powerful women walk into a room and own it! It’s a privilege and honor for me to photograph powerful women that possess their own particular strength and charisma.

The primary difference working with my mother as opposed to other women comes when I am looking for a model to work with in the nude.  Because there is such an inherent level of respect and non-sexual love in the daughter-mother relationship, I feel that working with my mother frees me from certain worries concerning exploitation and intimacy.  Similarly, in the past I have worked with lovers and felt that doing so gave the work a more sensual and romantic resonance.  There is also a level of comfort and lack of self-consciousness that my mother is able to achieve with me that I think comes a little bit harder for other models.  Because of this, the photographs of my mother are often some of the most psychologically revealing and complex of my work.

In some of your paintings you are your own model.  How is this point of view and subject a different statement than when you use models?  Does it comment in anyway on the age-old artist practice of self-portraiture?
The original reason that I used myself as a subject in my work had to do with ideas of self-portraiture, artifice, and identity constructs.  At the time, I was interested in exploring these ideas using my own body and also working with my mother.  As my work shifted and became more about other women and broader ideas of portraiture, I continued to use myself only when necessary- I will always be the closest model that I have access to!  At this point, I’m mostly uninterested in having myself continue as a subject in my work.  I think that when an artist’s work becomes very involved with the artist’s body, issues of narcissism and self-reflection begin to be fore grounded and those are not necessarily ideas that I’m interested in exploring at the moment.

Do you have a muse or muses?
There are several women that I have worked with for many years: Din, Qusuqusah, and, of course, my mother, Sandra.  I think of them as my muses in as much as the artist-muse relationship is a type of collaboration.  This collaboration really happens during my photo shoots when I’m working with these women and trying to capture their own sense of sensuality or power.

For decades now, painting has been declared dead.  Yet contemporary artists are still painting.  Do you consider yourself a painter (even though you use photography and there are collage elements to your work) and why do you feel painting is still a medium of expression for you and (if you can speak for them) artists in general?
I definitely consider myself a painter.  Even when I’m working in other mediums like photography or video, my thought-process is very painterly.  I am always thinking about color and composition in relation to the history of painting and the larger art historical cannon.  I have never doubted the relevance of painting in the contemporary art world.  For as long as people are able to express themselves in their own way and communicate their particular vision through the medium of painting, there will always be a place for painting in our world.  The possibilities of painting are endless and to say that they have been exhausted is like saying that music or literature have been exhausted.  That’s a very narrow argument that I’m simply not very interested in.

Your use of Swarovski crystals has coincided with the explosion of that material in art, fashion, design, architecture.  When I met you in 2003 during your Artist in Residence at Studio Museum in Harlem you were a newly minted Yale MFA graduate and were already into the crystals.  How and why did you choose them as a major component for your paintings?  What do they signify for you?
Aboriginal and Impressionist Art heavily influenced my early paintings and drawings that I made during undergrad.  I was obsessed with pointillism and started making aerial views of landscapes with a Seurat technique.  Since undergrad I always used untraditional materials in my work, from found objects to glitter. Once I started graduate school I continued to use glitter but wanted to work with a material that more closely represented pointillism.

So I started to experiment with rhinestones to make images. During the past few years the rhinestone’s meaning has shifted. In the beginning they were just materials but over time they became more seductive. I started to relate them to ideals of beauty and how we present ourselves in the world; what it means to cover up or enhance our beauty to be noticed. The symbolic use of the rhinestones deals with notions of beauty and artifice. I’m interested in how we are in a constant state of transformation with our physical selves. I’m always inspired and challenged by the perception of what is real and not real.

Talk to us about the re-occurring fabrics that appear in the sets you create for your models.  Do they have a personal resonance or are they a reference to a specific time in history/style/aesthetics?
The fabrics that I use for my installations come from a lot of different sources, both literally and conceptually.  I still have some of the fabrics from my very earliest photographs that I selected mostly with the intention of reconstructing elements of my childhood and the aesthetic of the 1970’s.  Over time, I have collected fabric from many different sources and have been inspired in my selection by formal concerns, work from other artists that I admire like Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, and an interest in recurring visual themes in my own work.  I am very interested in creating spaces that use pattern to give a feeling of a patched-together living room aesthetic while simultaneously using pattern to complicate and break-up the picture plane.

How old were you when you realized you were an artist?  How did it manifest itself and how did your family/teachers or friends respond?
I came to art relatively late.  I was living in Portland in the early 1990’s, working as a paralegal and studying law.  However, most of my friends were artists and musicians that were doing interesting things around the country in pursuit of their work.  Gradually, as I spent more time watching my friends’ work develop I became more interested in pursuing and developing my own expression.  I began a body of work with the encouragement of some of my friends that eventually grew into a portfolio with which I applied to art school.  I was accepted to both Pratt Institute and San Francisco Art Institute.  I elected to attend Pratt because it is located in Brooklyn, NY and, at 25, was considerably older than many of my peers at the school.  I think all that experience that I had as a young adult, not studying art and just living in Portland, has really been instrumental in my development of such a profound respect and feeling of gratitude for the opportunity to make my work.

If you were not a fine artist, what would be the profession you most likely would have chosen?
I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else with my life.  I had thought that maybe I would be a lawyer but after working in that world for a couple of years, it became entirely clear that it’s not for me!  I am so grateful that I get to spend my time pursuing a career that is thoroughly rewarding on so many levels that I really don’t know what else could offer this kind of satisfaction in my life.

Is there a place you can go physically or psychologically that opens your mind’s eye and inspires you?  What is your favorite New York Museum and your favorite museum you have visited so far in the world?  What is your favorite painting or work of art?
I have been fortunate to be able to do a lot of traveling in the last couple of years and this has had a strong creative impact on my work, most notably, in my developing an entire new body of work with the landscape and interior paintings.  I also see a lot of art that inspires my own studio practice but the place that I go to be inspired is actually the studio.  I am a great believer in a strong studio practice as the most generative and productive place for thinking of and making new work.

I love the Brooklyn Museum of Art.  Every time I go there I see something new or something that I hadn’t considered before suddenly has a new relevance.  As an institution, the Brooklyn Museum of Art is constantly looking for new ways to engage the surrounding community and involve younger artists.  Plus, when I visit the Brooklyn Museum I get to see my painting, “A Little Taste Outside of Love”!

You have a great personal style.  Who is your favorite clothing designer that you wear?
Right now, I am completely in love with Paul Harnden, an English designer with incredible hand-made shoes and funky wool pajamas.  My perennial favorites remain Commes des Garçon and Maison Martin Margiela but my favorite new young designer is the fabulous Jose Duran!