From New York
Sandy Kim & Maggie Lee : Pretty Kool-A
Power friends NYC! My buddy Sandy Kim and I just shot and modeled for the cover for the new issue of Vice Magazine. We also have a full spread called Pretty Kool-A, based off Japanese purikura photobooth pics. They just hit the streets, yoink em' while you can. Thank you! -Maggie Lee
From Los Angeles
Natasha Ghosn
Sparkle and shine, Natasha Ghosn's work is so fine. Her artwork goes by the name of Mondo Mondo. It's also darling, it's so special, and it's oozing with the sweetest of the sweetest.
Where are you from and what are you doing now?
I am from Texas. I live in Los Angeles now. Right now I'm winding down from a long day of hand modeling.
Where did you go to school and what did you study?
I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. We didn't have majors so I got to study all sorts of things. I focused mainly on fashion history, fiber arts, and drawing.
What is Mondo Mondo?
Mondo Mondo is my website. It started out as a T-shirt line. The word "mondo" connotes sensationalization. It also means "world" in Italian. I could say its my sensationalized view of the world.
Can you tell me about the mind blowing rave T-shirts you were making a while back?
Haha, cool, thank you. I made them about four years ago. In 2008 I think. At the time I was living in New York and the trend was being spooky; upside down crosses, studs, leather, etc. So I went out on a limb and made something for the marginalized flower power people. They are a mix of digital collages and a lot of hand dyeing and painting on a heavy cotton t-shirt.
Do you feel like your artwork changes according to where you live?
No, I think my artwork changes according to where my heart is.
How would you describe your experiences form each city and what inspired you when you lived in Chicago? NY? L.A.?
I love Chicago for its authenticity, New York for its romance, and L.A. for the peace of mind and the weather. I will say that most of my dreams take place in New York.
What were you wearing as a little baby?
I have a picture somewhere of me wearing a yellow bikini. I just googled "baby bikini", it's really cute.
What was your favorite outfit when you were a child?
I was really inspired by the Olsen twins when they were detectives.
How about when you were a teenager?
I was lucky because my mom had a really cool store. She carried brands like Miss Sixty, Fiorucci, and Fornarina. So I wore a lot of that. I was also pretty into the mod thing back then.
As a young adult?
Like a sixties-nineties thing inspired by
Lady Miss Kier from Deee-lite.
And now?
I feel like I'm doing me from the heart. I've moved away from looks that are decade derivative. Less of an idea and more of a feeling. I try to buy things that are high quality that I'll love for a long time.
How do you imagine yourself when you're elderly?
I hope to be healthy with a lot of energy and surrounded by the people I love. I wouldn't mind having suede Gucci loafers in every color.
What is your work ethic when you're making drawings and collages?
I'm lucky to have my studio at home. First I make a coffee or a tea. I usually listen to a comedy or a spiritual podcast while I work. Music usually distracts me. Sometimes I forget to put anything on and then I realize I've been sitting in silence for 6 hours!
Top three scents:
Sunscreen, sweet grass, and the smell of bread baking when you walk by a Subway.
Top three records:
Paris by Malcolm Mclaren, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, Music Selector is the Soul Reflector by Deee-lite.
Top three novels:
My Antonia by Willa Cather, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West.
If you were a fabric or material, what would you be?
Rayon. Semi-synthetic, semi-natural.
Can you tell me a story about LUV?
Is that an acronym? Is it kind of like SUV? I drive a Nissan Versa. I love it. It has great gas mileage. But for fun sometimes I drive my boyfriend's Volvo station wagon. I pretend like I am driving a boat down the streets of Los Angeles. The end.
HAHA!
What are you looking forward to next in the world of Mondo Mondo?
More and more.
Thank you Natasha! xo, -Maggie Lee
From New York
Viviane Sassen & Assembly New York & Libraryman
I'm obsessed with Viviane Sassen's Parasomnia, Sol & Luna, and Various Photographs (and I need to see more). Luckily, Assembly New York and Libraryman will be having a launch for her new book, Die Son Sien Alles. I wonder what this series is about. Her work is so natural and compelling. See you at the book opening to find out! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Ryan McGinley at Team Gallery
Ryan McGinley has done it again! Today, Wednesday, May 2, get ready 'cause the streets of SoHo are gonna get shut down for this blockbuster show. Simultaneously, Team Gallery will be presenting two new bodies of work by McGinley. Animals is a series of photographs about wild creatures and their interactions with human bodies (located at 83 Grand St.) and Grids, a body of work that studies the faces of fans at concerts (at 47 Wooster St.). -Maggie Lee
From New York
Jon Bocksel's New Super 8
How fun must it be to cruise in this joyus season of Spring? Jon Bocksel's new short film, Table Scraps, is a collection of various 8mm clips from NY, SF, and Philly. I'll watch this in the morning to get psyched for the day. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Irina Cocimarov
Irina Cocimarov is a Peruvian Swiss designer from Miami based out of NYC. We studied together in school and I was and still am, always, into seeing her new work. I would say classic Irina style involves noise, bein' cute, contempo culture, and distortion. Perfect combo. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Lily Sheng
Native Shanghai baby Lily Sheng grew up and moved to the United States in her early childhood. Her work—whether it collage, photo, or video—relates to the traditional culture of her Chinese heritage. I am so drawn to these collages and photos. There is such authentic wealth in imagery and color. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Abby Walton at JF & Son
Tonight from 5-8pm, JF & SON will be hosting a nail art event at their store with designs by Abby Walton! I am so excited. Abby's style is original and it's like getting your nails done by a best friend, who is insanely scrupulous and crafty. Take a look for yourself in her nail art gallery. Make an appointment, I bet they're gonna fill up fast (email abbywalton@yahoo.com). Lickity split, ya'll ! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Bad Day #13
Turn that smile upside down and drag yourself to Bad Day #13's release party at Printed Matter (195 10th Avenue) tonight. Mick Barr is gonna speed shred on his guitar while you flip through the pages and read interviews with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Jim Drain. There will be a photo story by Peter Sutherland, and more features. The design is great and Bad Day only comes out twice a year. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Antonia Kuo and Anjuli Rathod
Antonia Kuo's landscape drawings are of the most lush marshes and
Anjuli Rathod's drawings are of the most unkempt bedrooms. These two have come together to create an overly stimulated collaborative drawing of great detail. You can distinguish each artist's hand by the careful line work. Close up, Kuo's style is forming dark and wild activity, then Rathod's illustrative poetic hand comes in to develop the perfect balance of light, line, and space. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Susan Belle
Susan Belle (yep that's her real name) comes from the land of pastry puff where she lays on a bed of marshmallow cream pie and wears a dollop of meringue on her head with a maraschino cherry sitting on top, and some sprinkles. I bet she nibbles on heart shaped chocolates that have a winking face on them and fruit marzipans when she makes her sweet drawings, and I bet her sweet drawings only smell of the sweetest gumdrops. What a treat it is to look at her illustrations, yum! -Maggie Lee
From San Francisco
Katie Miller
Corridor of Dreams, Mirage, Catholic Guilt, Catch Me if You Can! These are the titles of Katie Miller's personal photo series. I'm looking at her portfolio and it feels as if she has just reached out of nowhere and taken my hand, pulling me into her strange and wild chase filled with fantasy and illusion. In reality, I'm just on her website. Man, whatta trip! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Colin Dodgson
The subjects in Colin Dodgson's photographs are all so cute and silly and the quality is always so soft and luminous. He's really good at bringing out his subject's playful vibe while capturing it. Here's a photo of Kay, one of Colin's muses you will find floating about in his work. She's a funny one. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Todd Jordan
An artist to check out right now is Todd Jordan. In his photographs, he takes you to serene landscapes and shows you the people and places he knows and loves. My mind is at peace when I look at his work. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Georgia's Asemic Club
If you wanna listen to a bunch of weird sounds from around the globe that revolve in and out of space, weaving through time, turning inside out and outside in again, Georgia's new record, Asemic Club, is the jam to spin to get spun. Weeeee! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Kat Geran
My friend Kat Geran is a city kid and was once my intern. I had first met her when she was 17 and I'll interview her every few months to see where she's at. I'm really into her vibe. She has been taking a lot of photos of chillin', the kicks of getting ready, and girls nights. Her current series, Teen Angst, reminds me of quick snapshots we have all taken of our friends, yet her photographs are well planned out from the models to the style, and the location.
Sup Kat! How old are you and where do you live?
I'm 18 and I live in the Bronx. :D
What's your artwork about at this moment?
My artwork is photography. When people see my photos I want them to get lost in them and feel nostalgic for a time that no longer exists for the rest of the world—but still exists in my world.
Through my photos, I try to not only show me as a person but my ideas, beliefs, and what I'm going through in life. Being different is not easy, especially when there are very few people in the world that will actually get you and your creative point of view, while at the same time managing to be on the same wavelength as you mentally.
Right now, all I shoot are girls, so feminism as well as '90s teen angst naturally play important roles in my photography. I'm all about girl power and showing how important it is to be a woman growing up in such an un-female friendly society—especially as a teenage girl. I love how Gregg Araki, Larry Clark, and Harmony Korine showed all of the rawness of being a teenager and how messed up it was but also the unexpected beauty in it all. Teen angst meets the teenage apocalypse.
A lot of the imagery is based circa 1994, but you were only a 1-year-old at that time. So if you were born in 1993, how are you so aware of style and culture your work revolves around? Over the past few years it has just been something that has become apart of my life. I breathe and live for the '90s. It's like... you know when you're really into something, you just "get it"? It's almost as if the information was already placed in your brain but you just needed something to trigger the memory, and once that happens everything just makes sense.
What do you think of the '90s generation?
I feel like the '90s was the best decade to be a teen. For me, it's not just about the clothes or fashion, but it was like a whole lifestyle and way of being that surrounded everything, and it was real.
What do you think about your generation?
This generation is really hopeless—nothing and no one is authentic. It's all about the way you look and what social group you fit in. No one has any substance, it's just a bunch of teens and twenty-something year olds that act like teens, tumblring and tweeting about stuff that doesn't even matter. Nothing is real, everything is made up.
So basically, this generation is all online tweeting about nothing that is happening? That's kind of cool though, no?
LOL, not at all. some teens are so consumed with fitting into the twitter and tumblr world that they are forgetting who they are in the "real" world. They're losing the ability to differentiate the real from the fake.
What do you think about the future generation?
I personally have no hope for the future, but who knows... everything is changing so fast, some for the good, and some for the bad. Things are changing in the blink of an eye.
What's your dream shoot?
My dream shoots would basically look like movie stills from a Gregg Araki, Larry Clark, and Harmony Korine movie, but not all at once.
Trash Humpers or Mr. Lonely?
Gummo!
Kids or Bully?
Both!
Nowhere or The Doom Generation?
Both!
Where do you pull your outfits for your shoots? They're always mostly my clothes, but sometimes depending on the persons style, I will mix some of my clothes with their clothes. Like, one item that I probably will continue to use are these platform Luichiny Spice Girls sneakers that my mom used to wear in the '90s that she gave to me. Unfortunately, they don't fit me so I try to compensate for that by using them in my shoots.
Thanks Kat! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Jon Bocksel
Welcome to Jon Bocksel vision—serious precision with a touch of destruction. The gouache type is so tight! Wall St. is my favorite painting of all time. I like reading all the text on the walls, "EQUAL RIGHTS" and "BLACK FLAG"! -Maggie Lee
From New York
A New York Thing Spring / Summer 2012
A New York Thing, also known as aNYthing, teams up with the sweet and savviest DJ Venus X for their Spring / Summer 2012 lookbook. Be on the look out for this swagged out gear. Only for men and the baddest chicks out there. #NYC_represent #Woman_Power #GHE20GoTH1K. -Maggie Lee
From New York
Decathlon Books at Printed Matter
Wiggle yer little book worm tush over to Printed Matter (195 10th Avenue) because it's T.G.I.Friday. Tonight marks the launch of Padraig Timoney's book, which is also the last piece of the Decathlon Books puzzle we have all been waiting for. Risograph posters of the artists' work will be exhibited, eee! -Maggie Lee
From New York
Jonathan Horowitz at Gavin Brown's Enterprise
Roy Lichtenstein's iconic mirror paintings are known for their description of a reflection rather than their function as a mirror. Another key component of his work is the immaculate imitation of mass production. Riffing on these classic works, Jonathan Horowitz recontextualized Lichtenstein's series in his show titled Self-portraits in Mirror #1, now on view until April 21 at Gavin Brown's Enterprise (620 Greenwich Street). Horowitz commissioned 20 individuals, including himself, to recreate a large scale mirror painting using only acrylic and brush. This series in turn created a collection of mirror paintings that describe and reflect each particular artist's hand while simultaneously conveying a reflection of the artist's self perception. -Maggie Lee
