Backstage at Rachel Comey. Images by Cara Stricker. The listless attention to color is what makes New York Fashion Week a black holiday. Cowering from a winter that never happened, the men stroll past in leather jackets, black knee-length skirts and steel toed boots, while the women flash lacquered black denim, baggy sweaters and platform boots as they nonchalantly mosey. Their eyes wander momentarily from their cellphones and are met with classic looks for the upcoming fall. While some rich tones debut, the dominating hue is, of course, black. -Ryley Tice The A.F. Vandevorst party Click "Read More" for additional images. Rachel Comey Costello Tagliapietra The A.F. Vandevorst Party

Maggie Harrsen is a photographer who lives between New York and Australia. I am personally am a huge fan of both her photography and her spirit, and her recent venture into moving images challenges my New York brain to slow to the pace of basic and fundamental nature. These four short videos, filmed on Long Island, seem simple at first, but look to teach us to maintain clarity of perception and to strengthen the cognition of the actinic processes and life currents. A study of the elements fire and water, here as light (fire) and rain (water) on glass. Fire essence is warm and dry, its energy is expansive. Water essence is cool and moist, its energy is stillness. Water calms fire and together they create balance, reflecting the simplest parts of earth. Filmed in Amagansett, NY Filmed in Montauk, New York Filmed in Montauk, New York Filmed in Montauk, New York

Harmony Holiday is a writer, dancer, and sound artist. Her debut collection of poems Negro League Baseball was published by Fence Books last year. Brian W. Rogers is an artist, writer, and musician whose work most recently appeared in the London group show "A Sunken Trembling Recalled Dimly." Together they have teamed up to form État de Siege (ÉSP) a production house whose work encompasses text, music, the moving image, dance, design, architecture, and curatorial platforms. In this project, they have focused their attention on the 70's cult horror film Ganja and Hess, about an archaelogist who gets stabbed in the heart and becomes a vampire. The video below includes poetry by Fred Moten, and is a preamble to their forthcoming re-imagined soundtrack for Ganja and Hess. Below that is an open letter to Bill Gunn, the director of the film, regarding certain propositions raised by his film, such as how one extreme of motion can lead to paralysis and what one must do to avoid this, such as enacting a bridge between classical myth and modal myth. The West is an insane asylum, a conscious and premeditated receptacle of black magic... every disappearance is a record (between checking-out and checking-in) {Ornette Coleman- To Whom Who Keeps a Record} 1. Are there some things you would like to say, but have not been able to, because no one asked you the right questions? [Être - Nicolas Jaar] 2. What are the politics of being ready to die, and what do they have to do with the scandal of enjoyment?  Of any action as one way ticket to the end of health? 'The love-recovery cycle that Barthes maps in his works is an ever refining self-fertilizing cycle wherein nothing must be wasted as it is needed in the next phase of the cycle,' impregnating the place where memory flinches and (esp.) begins and at once slows down and accelerates the metabolism of that commons, into the decadent non-territory of the idea of an “other” as an ego-ideal whom the self  can achieve through devotion. In those moments of precise forgetting, did you find the traumas and excitements that express the need for a modal myth most acutely? [Moodymann - I can't kick this feeling when it hits] 3. The statues in profile featured in the title sequence remind us of an experiment that Derrida proposes. Do you know it? ‘This is an experiment of acting as if you were dead. […] But what does it mean to be dead, when you are not totally dead?  It means that you perceive the object as it is or as it is supposed to be when you are not there. To see the vessel as such means to see the vessel as it would be without me. If I were dead it would remain the same as it is, the colour, the same consistency, and so on. So, to relate to an object, means to relate to it as if you were dead. That’s the condition of truth, the condition of perception, the condition of objectivity, at least in their most conventional sense’ (Will you give up your death for me?) And so, if life is endless, why not try to relate in this way, what is the risk. What is the cost that we are not willing to pay? On the other hand what is the pleasure of mortality or so-called loss that we refuse to admit in order to keep it sacred and free from principal, free from the colony of false nobility? [Rufus Harley - Queens] 4. If ultimately oblivion is abundant, one has reason to ask, 'on what grounds does one critique and propose an alternative to the brunt of exclusion and the sense of social shipwreck one suffers from?' Is it a form of suffering or a relief? Does our exclusivity relieve us? Are we absolved by a feigned turning against them—toward what? (‘I will not be punished, I will not be tortured, I will not be guilty,’ Hess decrees)— And from this can it follow that philosophy is a prison, that it destroys the uncustomary things about us? That the frontier is a prison? That the route past nothingness is to accept nothing in particular? That the vehicle driving us toward abundance is extreme stillness just as the route to paralysis is frenzied motion? [Julia Holter - Introduction] 5.  What tole does the yearning for ritual in a culture where trends often supress traditions, take/give in your film? Ideas of oblivion and tedium often unite in the sublime (transcendence of limits of the human condition) their inevitable destination, where they are turned into a solemn abundance that often shows up as ritual and the place where ritual and addiction meet and do not diverge (at once forgotten and remembered needs). Do you believe that ritual should engage variation deliberately in order to separate itself from addiction, bearing in mind that anything repetitive becomes a need no matter how sacred or pernicious? How do we improvise on a ritual and re-tell it to itself again and again ad infinitum, what role does the sacrifice play in that coiled and elastic dynamic, where does it enter its disappearance and reject it, live on? You can't enter into this dynamic except in exhalted states, elevated states. How do we conjure those states while at the same time resisting their capture? What is the economy of survival in Ganja and Hess? How is an addict’s labor different from a worshiper’s? [Monks of Bhutan - Silnyen played solo] 6. Is eternity an impervious horizon and do the acoustics of blood allow us to at once traverse and return to the forever that the blue myth of life eternal lures us across? Is the film a myth of/for black America, of/for America in general, the sole (soul/sold) myth retrieved as the ‘terror and terrible lure of vacuum?’ Voices from beyond the event horizon, trying to out-mode our oppressors, to translate our motion across that border? Creating an impossible space between origin and dream/out-dreamt origin, unoriginal dream, the lucid dream everyone wants to learn how to possess but is afraid to enter, a certain amount of traveling, deferred. Choreographer Alvin Ailey believes that movement is molecular revolution, ‘blood memory,’ future anterior, and that any black body in motion has experienced centuries of war and pain ‘no casual pleasure brought about those features.’ Hess says of Ganja, ‘Some great horde of peoples have had to suffer’ to bring about her beauty. In grappling with erotics of suffering (the does-my-distress-arouse-you rhetoric) what did you discover about our agency therein? What is peace in this context? What is justice? [Julian Priester - Coincidence] 7. One of the things that we are trying to inquire toward is the role of aural hallucination in Ganja and Hess. The way in which sound abducts away from the optic towards a kind of blind transversality, plothole in the lightsickness of the past three hundred years. This is to say that it (the one way border the recording is a portal across) is one of the conditions for the choreography of syncope, of possession, of being possessed and dispossessed at the same time. 1976: Julian Jaynes puts forth the Bicameralist theory of mind. If his formulations are just, it can be said that we have inherited a memory of experiencing ourselves as ghosts. We are haunted by exteriority only inasmuch as we fear (because we know) that we are a focalized twist of that exteriority, to hear is to be unbound toward it, that we are laced by it, that the real trauma is that we experience ourselves only as ourselves, rather than being no one. It’s not that minds changed, it’s that we evicted the ghosts. Hallucinatory fugitivity and it’s rush toward eternity; endlessness; devotional erasure; ambivalent rapture; the audial smudge; a voice followed to the other side of the event horizon-- [Theo Parrish- Love is War for Miles]

Molly Donahue, formerly of the band Love Story, recorded her first solo album this year, entitled Metal Alvin, which is due out at the end of this month. In addition to this, Molly also has a photo blog where she records her life separated into different segments- namely, "eats,"(food) "out of doors,"(nature) "animalia,"(animal friends) "noir"(spooky landscapes) and "people and places." Friend, fan, and fellow flower girl, Frances Tulk-Hart, sat down with Molly to discuss the inspiration behind her new project. Frances Tulk-Hart: Hey Molls, I had so much fun shooting you for your new up and coming album, Metal Alvin. Can you tell us a bit about it starting with the rather obscure name? Where did Metal Alvin come from? Molly Donahue: I had a blast shooting, too. Metal Alvin just sort of came out of nowhere one night, hanging out with Renn and Jason (Love Story band members) and leaving obscure comments on websites. I guess you could say I used it as a ghost name and it just sort of stuck. I like the way it looks on paper and think it rolls off the tongue nicely. People will hate it or not understand it and that's okay. Such is life. Frances: What was the inspiration behind the album? Molly: I’m at a place right now where I'm really missing the woods and open land and the quiet, and i think that is pretty evident in the songs. Oh, and birds. They make quite a few appearances throughout the album... Frances: This is your third album, but your first solo album. How was it working on your own as opposed to collabing with  your old band "the love story"? Molly: The Love Story was pretty magical. We fed off of one another easily and songs just formed out of thin air, no composing required. That's a pretty special thing and made it really easy to be in a band. It helps that they are two of my dearest friends. But I started out as an extremely shy musician. Still am, actually. My dad was my only audience until I began sending Renn Cassettes via snail mail. This album has been a long time coming. It's very quiet in comparison to The Love Story, which is on purpose. Frances: You are also a rad DJ. Which band or singers do you think you have a similar sound to? And where do you play? Molly: Hmm... Vocal-wise I've been compared to everyone from Dolores O'Riordan to Siouxsie. They're both huge compliments but I don't hear it at all. I just hear myself. It's hard to separate yourself from your own voice. And Metal Alvin live? We shall see. I have mind-buckling stage fright. Frances: If you could have any pop star, dead or alive, over to your house for a dinner party, who would it be? Molly: Oh man, Kurt Cobain. I was 14 when Nevermind came out. That's a shape-shifting age. How about I go with the less cliché answer and say Liz Phair. Exile in Guyville is a perfect album, start to finish. Her lyrics are brilliant. and she inspired me to learn to play the guitar. Frances: If the race for the presidency ended up being between Sarah Palin and Kim Kardashian, who would you vote for? Molly: Ha! Wow. That's a nightmare in the making. Politics are so depressing. If I have to choose I say Kim Kardashian. I'd rather the earth be plastered in makeup than covered in an oil slick, though I guess they are essentualy the same thing. Humans can be such monsters! Frances: And finally, what was your New Year's resolution? Did you figured one out? Molly: Just to live long and prosper. Is that a Star Trek quote? You can buy a CD, download an MP3, or buy a cassette by clicking here (yes, you read right. You can still buy a cassette). Photos by Frances Tulk-Hart

Photographer Katja Rahlwes describes her images as “Cool Women, or better: Femme Intense.” She re-phrases the perception of the female gaze, with her own unfaltering approach to shooting women who are in command of every shot. Her glamazonian subjects often subvert the idea of the classic pinup. Katja has contributed to independent publications such as Self Service, i-D, Dutch, Butt and Made in USA. She has also created works for the fashion houses Celine, Chloe, Miu Miu, A.P.C, Maison Martin Margiela and Gucci. Katja’s closest relationship to date has been with Purple. Her most recent collaboration was the Full Moon supplement for issue #16, comprised of childhood pictures, Polaroid snapshots and a number of her own collection of vintage postcards. The zine is rendered with a combination of black and white images next to a neon orange colourwash. With her numerous editorials, intimate still-life pieces and self-portraits, Katja's images make for a rich portfolio. Natasha Arnold: How did you acquire a taste for fashion photography? Katja Rahlwes: From an early age I was drawn to imagery through magazines. I’d cut out everything that triggered an emotion in me, made me dream, escape or move. I still have a huge collection of bits and pieces, photo cut-outs, postcards, entrance tickets. Natasha: How did you develop your attachment to still-life photography? Katja: It’s a very personal process for me to work on stills, I really love that moment when I start setting up a scenario, it’s quiet, there is suspense. My aim was to inject some new sense to it. It all started when I took more and more pictures of my personal environment. I did that to remind me of ideas or situations or set ups I liked. It was a sort of diary memo work. I then discovered the magic of mini photo sets, the way you would set up a situation inspired by the items you photograph. Great design has a lot of soul, so a fabulous pair of shoes can lead you in quite a storyboard. Natasha: You’ve had a strong connection to independent publications throughout your career. What is your main drive behind this line of work? Katja: Basically, independent publications allow you to develop your groundwork. You are more or less free to let run your creative thoughts. There is also something quite confidential about it, you work close with a team of people and you sense the passion everybody has for what they do, that is so important. Some magazines can become your house of thoughts. Natasha: You have worked a lot with Purple. I loved your recent supplement. Can you talk us through the ideas behind the display of intimate childhood Polaroids and vintage postcards? Katja: That book is a collaboration with Olivier Zahm and I guess we are still looking for who I am. I think we all are driven by a moment of time and images we never forget or helped us form a point of view. I am, for sure. I collected the vintage postcards at the time they were absolutely not vintage but they are today. Postcards help me to capture a moment of me being somewhere no matter where and what I do. A postcard is always the ideal representation of something. At least, I would say that is the intention of a postcard. For me, I sense a lot of loneliness from a postcard too. It really makes me think. Natasha: In your formative years you worked as a fashion illustrator, fashion stylist and studied fashion design at Studio Berçot. With such a multi-disciplinary background, is there a path outside of photography you’d like to pursue? Katja: I don’t know, but it is true I am thinking about it a lot, “What is my next step?” I love furniture and lamps, I would love to be able to just buy everything I discover in that domain and furnish a big house or an entire village! Natasha: Who are your art heroes and why are they important to you? Katja: I was actually really blown away by a recent show I saw in Paris at The Museum of Modern Art by Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch. I thought to myself: if you come up to such a high point of realization about our today’s today, what’s next? How can you move on and not go crazy? Super hyper lucidity, they are quite strong out there. Natasha: Could you pinpoint your personal influences? Katja: Really everything has an influence on me. Essentially it would be my dilemma and my strength. Natasha: Living between Paris, London, New York and then your home of Frankfurt- are there any tangible differences between each city? Do you have a favorite? Katja: No, no favorite, but a place like Frankfurt am Main is nice because it’s a ‘wannabe big’ city with all the wannabe clichés of a branded city like Paris or New York, but then its very provincial too. Those elements are very touching to me. I gain new headspace when I go there. I am currently working on a book called Paris am Main, the romantic drama of messed up perspectives. Natasha: What is your stance on the fashion industry today? Katja: There is a lot to say, it's a very reactive ground. I think its best to keep it in the open. Natasha: Do you think there is something a female photographer can access that male photographers cannot? Katja: I wonder is it really about making the difference? Because I think the work you do is due to the individual and the therefore each approach is different. Natasha: What is next for you? Katja: Going back to work! All Images, Katja Rahlwes

Born and bred in London, Phoebe Collings-James creates multidisciplinary works in sculpture, illustration, photography and video. Her art is thought-provoking, provocative and demands a reaction from the viewer. The twenty-something artist has exhibited in London, Amsterdam, Berlin, Milan, Beirut, Mexico, New York and most recently at the Miami Art Basel RiffRaff show. Phoebe was recently featured on Purple Television, alongside her friend Karley Sciortino AKA Slutever, with their film Tit Prints, an homage to Warhol star Brigid Berlin. Up next, she will come to New York to hold a residency at The Still House Group's Red Hook Gallery in March 2012. Natasha Arnold: Is there a tangible chain of events which led you to art - or do you feel it is engendered? Phoebe Collings-James: For as long as I can remember it is the only thing I have been compelled to do. I always enjoyed escaping in to other worlds and making things when I was younger. My house was full of music and dancing all the time which might explain why I like using sound so much, my dad had a ridiculous subwoofer in the living room that would make the whole house shake. He also had a darkroom upstairs, where I spent a lot of time in watching him work. I went to art school when I was 18, first to Byam Shaw then Goldsmiths. They were both eye-opening experiences but I am definitely happier outside of that system, it can be quite claustrophobic. It feels like a lifetime ago now. Natasha: I read a tutor at Goldsmiths deemed your ink drawings of bestiality to be pornographic and highly offensive, I’d assert that just because someone is offended it does not make them right. Would you say attempts to teach art within an academic framework are futile? Phoebe: I was livid when I first found out! Institutions are such funny things, some people seem to get fossilised in them and progress just passes them by. It was sad because I had really respected the work of that tutor and those drawings were quite clearly far from pornographic, most definitely not offensive. I don’t think education is ever futile. But I did have such a polarized experience of art school. On the one hand I had experiences like you have described, with old-fashioned ideas that ran all the way from what I was making to what I was wearing and the color of my hair. But then I also had some of the most stimulating conversations about art that really challenged and encouraged me. Choke on Your Tongue, 2010 Natasha: Would you say your work is deliberately provocative? Phoebe: I want it to have an impact on the viewer, I want them to be able to engage with it and as a tool quite often it helps to be a little provocative. Sometimes I think about it like a puzzle with a few missing pieces. I don’t want to give away the whole story, just make suggestions to encourage a thought or feeling. My work is not definitive, an important part is for people question what they are seeing, how it makes them feel and why, I want people to enjoy the experience. Whether it be emotional, silly, disgusting or even boring. Natasha: Does London play a role in your creative output? Phoebe: I grew up here, so London has my heart. Most of my friends and family are here. It is a very hard city, especially at the moment. The country is being crippled by cuts which makes it hard to stay optimistic at times. Saying that, I did feel very proud last week when I heard that 2 million had gone on union strike. Many of those people including my mum were under huge illegal pressure from their bosses to stay at work, so it must have taken a lot for them to make that stand. Natasha: Do financial implications affect your work? Phoebe: It some times affects the speed at which things can happen which is frustrating, but things always work out in the end. Natasha: You have mentioned that music is a key influence to your artwork. What are you listening to at the moment? Phoebe: Coastal Grooves by Blood Orange is great. I bought it as soon as it came out and have probably listened to it every day since. Sun Araw are getting to be another favorite too, I really want to work with them- maybe they will see this! Little Dragon is also fantastic. As for older stuff I started listening to Archie Whitewater’s Steam again recently, which I love. There really are too many to say! My Ipod is on all day so I am constantly flicking. Natasha: Who are your art heroes? Phoebe: I always find myself looking backwards, perhaps partly because works tend to build in pertinence over time. Particularly to the 70’s, artists like Carolee Schneemann, Stephen Dwoskin, Lynda Benglis, Yoko Ono...I could go on and on. Vito Acconci’s Seedbed is another work that springs to mind. I was actually speaking with Brenden from Still House quite recently about some work on show from that period at MOMA, I think it was from their permanent collection. We were both saying what an affinity we felt with the work they were making. I definitely have a feeling we are at a similar point now of massive social and technological change. Natasha: More general influences? Phoebe: Sun Ra, John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Rebecca Horn are all people I look to a lot. I think that growing up with a constant stream of TV, computers and cinema has had a massive affect on the way my brain processes and creates imagery. There is a pace to it that requires immediacy both when making the work and experiencing it. I sometimes find it hard to concentrate on art films for more than a few minutes, which is something that has probably filtered into my work. It is the predicted sensory overload of my generation I suppose. Having been saturated with digital screens we constantly require more to be sensually fulfilled. Natasha: Did this observation act as a catalyst to your piece ‘Broken Hearts Requiem’? Phoebe: Very much so. The gallery was shoebox small and as it reached crescendo the sound was so hypnotic that despite the near deafening wails people watched it through to the end. I was having quite a traumatic year whilst making that piece and the thought of sitting in front of a computer blubbing over a tiny, grainy youtube video seems ridiculous now. But actually, finding comfort in the inanimate, as futuristic as it sounds is the reality we are living in. I guess that’s what video often strives toward. Making the inanimate, animate. Broken Hearts Requiem, 2011 Natasha: How does the Internet inform your work? Do you feel it has had a positive effect on the art world? Phoebe: The Internet is a contemporary life force; it is incredible and naturally has a positive effect on art. Ultimately my work does come from life, I am looking at how we communicate fears and desires but I do find its possibilities very exciting. Natasha: What does Art Basel mean to you? Phoebe: Art Fun. I have never been, I have a picture of sunny skies and art dealers falling off boats drunk! The experience of viewing work at art fairs is usually pretty sterile, I think most artists I know going out there are planning shows that try to break away from that. Natasha: With Charles Saatchi recently describing the art buying world as 'vulgar, eurotrashy and masturbatory,' do you care about your audience and who buys your work? Phoebe: Well he would know, wouldn’t he? It’s yet to be something I’ve had very much contact with. Luckily all of my works have gone to happy, art loving homes. And it definitely makes a difference because, to go back to what I was saying earlier, art really should be about a conversation. There is no need for that to stop at the gallery. Natasha: You had a piece in the show ‘Riffraff’ with the Still House Group in Miami. What did you exhibit? Phoebe: I showed a piece called Splitting of the Phallus, Making of the God. It is a phallus splayed through the seam, swinging from a noose. Natasha: What message do you hope to communicate from that piece? Phoebe: The description creates quite a violent image but in reality it almost resembles some sort of bone. I was interested in the historical symbol of the phallus as protector, against evil spirits, as a protector of women and children. It is about breaking myths, freeing us from the shackles of certain charms and traditions. The split phallus is an effigy, a mini monument to the free. Splitting of the Phallus, Making of the God, 2011 Natasha: What motivated you to join The Still House Group? Phoebe: I love them! I went to visit their studio when I was in New York this year and I was really impressed by their attitude and the art I saw. They are working from an incredible space in Red Hook at the moment, it’s the size of a football pitch, right on the dock. I am going to do a residency with them in March next year and I can’t wait. Natasha: Would you say your gender is pertinent to your work? Phoebe: I don’t think there is an artist alive or dead whose gender doesn’t colour their work to some degree. I wouldn’t say it was pertinent but it is certainly visible. Natasha: Is the reaction to your work notably different when you exhibit in cities outside to London? Phoebe: I have really noticed it when works have been shown in London and then taken to another country. When I showed Primates last year in Berlin the reaction was far steelier than in London. People were not just uncomfortable but in some cases found it very offensive. And that’s where the power of suggestion comes in to play, the shame and disgust that are felt are dependent on the viewers’ own perception of what they are viewing and the connections they make. Natasha: What are you working on next? Phoebe: Lots of things all at once! But I am really excited about a new work I am making with Matthew Stone. It’s a performance piece that will happen in a Hammam in Marrakech during the Biennale early next year. Top Image: Phoebe Collings-James by Tom Ordoyno