EDITOR'S LETTER: After Nyne Issue 10 Out June 29th
Some time between 1966-76, Richard Diebenkorn wrote 10 notes on beginning a painting, number 9 on this list read “tolerate chaos.” The course of Diebenkorn’s career moved swiftly from abstraction to figuration and back again, often disregarding the popular styles and trends happening around him — if this process was a dance, I would step along with elegance and ease. If ever there was an instance where the soles of my feet avoided collision with broken glass in my elegant dance around chaos, it wouldn’t be without the guidance of our managing director, Claire Meadows. Claire’s phenomenal ground-work at the genesis of After Nyne has allowed me to step in safely into a position where I can invest new ideas, explore a few strange ones and implement the final findings in first-rate quality.
When we first explored the concept of the Avant Garde for Issue 10, much of the team took a rejective stance on whether the Avant Garde was still relevant; a few were interested in how it’s evolved since it’s conception, some wanted to focus on which of our contemporaries had taken traditional methods from old masters and re-invented them. And me? I wanted a tongue-in-cheek insight to the theory that ‘it’s all been done before.’ And though it may have all been done before, I certainly knew it hadn’t all been done in the same way.
The Oxford Dictionary defines avant garde as “favouring or introducing new and experimental ideas and methods.” To this end, we have adjusted accordingly. You will find new concepts for columns, new uses of colour, dynamic new page designs and bold ideas about how to compose headlines, new typefaces… you will also notice the name of a new design co-ordinator in our masthead. I will resist the impulse to lavish praise on Tim’s efforts, in the interest of letting you discover for yourself what he has accomplished.
Having said that, modern art often seems subdued when cut off from the ambient praise and chatter usually accompanied it’s presence. The mystery of abstract art, or the intangible lure of performance art, may both be said to occupy the gap that lies between a set of ideas and their realisation in art. To sense it, one needs access to the ideas as well as the object. As Benjamin Murphy suggests in an essay on the exploitative works of Santiago Sierra, the pieces themselves can appear reductive – even disappointing – without some knowledge of the political and even spiritual beliefs that contributed to their conception.
In honour of the vanguard, we sought to produce a magazine that would be unusual, surprising and original but not wholly unfamiliar — our content is still as riveting, our Q&A’s still as intimate and our reviews most certainly still as critical. We took to Issue 10 with the hammer and screw, and a few jolts of lighting. To wit, lightning is a metaphor for human emotions such as fear, reverence, creativity and much more. Witnessing lightning has a tendency to churn up a whole slew of internal reactions. In essence, lightning ignites our deeper selves. These bolts of energy can potentially tap into our most primal, basic emotions… from Charlotte Colbert’s penchant for the surreal, to Ernest-Pignon Ernests artistic protests against abortion and the antediluvian references of our cover story… welcome to the Eve of the Avant Garde
Issue 10, The Eve of the Avant Garde will be available for purchase from 12pm June 28th, 2016
Cover Credits/Acknowledgements:
Models: Virna Pasquinelli, Alex B, Emma Gruner
Creative Director / Photographer: Carolina Mizrahi Editor in Chief/Art Direction: Luciana Garbarni Light Technician / Digital Operator: Evlyne Laurin Stylist: Arianna Cavallo
Bespoke Florist: Yan Skates Make Up Artist: Scarlett Burton Assistant MUA: Amelia Thompson Hair Stylist: Jake Gallagher
Assistant Hair Stylist: Jekaterina Mirmanova Nail Technician: Nickie Rhodes-Hill Special thanks to the following designers: Peaches and Cream (Lingerie), Transparenze (Tights), Virna Pasquinelli (Head-piece)
