This is a note for Martha Nelson Thomas, RIP. Written by Claire Milbrath

Kim’s compositions have all the equations of a blockbuster: Cults! Perversion! Sex! Schoolgirls! One ticket, please! At Foxy Production, sculptural puzzles made of wood are built into the stretchers of two paintings hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room, like little easter eggs holding up the canvas. The subject matter of the two shows can be split into four categories: starlets, theatre sets, workers, and voyeurs. The starlets and voyeurs entertain, while theatre sets and workers elicit the feeling that we’re being granted a behind-the-scenes look at the world Kim has created—and implicated in it.

One of the most important political stories in 2018, I think, was the stripper strike in New York City. By which I mean to suggest that strippers are often not legible as agents of politics.

By which I mean to suggest that when New York strippers were photographed by Jonathan Turton for Dazed Digital in March, alongside a feature, it could never be enough, however stunning. Red fishnets, immaculate weave, see-through platform heels, leather whips, acrylic middle fingers in the air, plastic cups with drinks half full—the accoutrements of performance (which index not actual lives but imagination and fantasy) carry stories uncapturable by the average camera, no matter how hard technologists try.

Melissa Juratowitch stars in Kurt Johnson’s homage to Ryuko Azuma’s Doorknob Girl—does it turn you on? But it’s only a doorknob!

Published in Issue 19 Interview by Claire Milbrath Images courtesy of the artist and Anton Kern Gallery   I asked Julie Curtiss for an explanation of the four recurring symbols that make a painting a Julie Curtiss painting: hair, cigarettes, fingernails, heels. To say her work reminds me of Rorschach inkblot tests seems a bit…

With shifts in consciousness and a warming world, we are grappling with gradually losing all we had hoped the environment could offer. The natural world becomes, increasingly, fodder for a fantasy—a refracted chimera of buds, vines, and plump fruit. Caroline David’s work reminds me of my favourite video game, Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Rayman—though a bit of a simpleton—occupies a landscape that is ethereal, mysterious, and abundant. Bouncing plums, sparkling lums, teensies and Globox, this dreamworld feels safe because it’s so far removed from reality. It subsists despite human intervention, is ever-lush and effervescent.

Jasmine Armani is a model, musician, and poet. Better known by her Instagram moniker @bbyafricka, Armani has been a muse for LA design house No Sesso, and recently posed for David LaChapelle’s Spring/Summer 2019 Kenzo campaign, just before the birth of her son, Shavo. In addition to her many talents, Armani is a new mommy! We talk to the iconic matriarch about what it’s really like to give birth.

In The Darby Bonarsky Story, Dasha Nekrasova plays a melodramatic, self-destructive actress whose commitment to her craft is only rivalled by her love of alcohol and schoolgirl skirts. It’s one of many canny, close-to-life performances over the past few years that have in many ways made Dasha the crisis actress of the moment. A Russian ex-pat raised in Las Vegas, with a degree in Lacanian Theory, she has since made a name for herself in all forms of contemporary celebrity: model, podcaster, meme icon, aspiring it-girl, and—with the release of Eugene Kotlyarenko’s Wobble Palace—movie star. Dasha reaches each triumphant milestone with her signature charisma and charm.

Freaky, and a little bit demented, the current exhibition on view in New Jersey at Harpy Gallery features the work of Nick Payne, Andrea Lukic and Trevor Baird. Each of these artists makes eerily personal work. Looking at it feels as if we’ve entered their bedrooms, stumbled on a crusty sock or a conspiracy theory…

XGirl Lola shot in horse-girl style by Manon Macasaet

Instability, a globe like ours, resting
on a pedestal of vacuum, a ping-pong ball…

Eugene Kotlyarenko is the most relentless auteur of millennial indie. Since the release of his tour-de-force 0s & 1s—a multicam post-internet fable of a young man’s quest to be reunited with his laptop—Eugene has consistently been making films that showcase the rising personalities of the avant-garde, propelling them onto increasingly bigger screens.

Not a perfect romance. But nothing ever is.

PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 19 PHOTOS BY DUSTIN HENRY It’s undeniable that Etienne Gange has got the look! We asked the Montreal skater what makes him tick. Photos by Dustin Henry. Special thanks to Vans for making it happen!