#bookmarc

Bianca, 49

“I’m wearing a Simone Rocha skirt, vintage Nirvana tee, Marni basket, Ripetto mary janes, and Simone Rocha headband. Recently my looks have evolved dramatically. I’m 49 now and I’m rethinking what I want to convey as a vessel of joy. I like to bring my A game everywhere cause I love seeing people have fun with fashion. You’re never too young or too old to be fabulous. I’ve been shopping in my closet cause history repeats itself and it has again. My peek youth was spent in the 90s so I have lots of authentic 90s pieces. I was going to meet Linda Evangelista at Marc Jacob’s book store so I wanted to bring a bit of 90’s back in a fresh modern way.”

Best art book store in Manhattan imo…

Seen: I had a dream you married a boy

Who: Valerie Phillips / instagram

Where: Book Marc, Harajuku

When:  October 9 - November 5, 2020Valerie Phillips documents young women with a vivid, engaging eye showing their individuality, independence, defiance- and at times, vulnerability- in a way that most male photographers would miss.  

Listen- her stuff in this show- another one-on-one session with a young woman- this time swedish model Arvida Byström is extremely now. Not being able to shoot in person, their shoot was over skype with Phillips’ iPhone screenshot function employed as the camera. These images, with their glorious smartphone saturation and wifi-skipping artefacts, were then printed large and matted and framed for the walls of the gallery. I already like the subversity in that- but to add to it are the rows of original prints- affordably priced- along shelves out in the open. No dense MFA paragraphs here, either- the only text is in the form of messaging app exchanges between Valerie and Arvida. 

The whole thing shares space with Marc Jacobs Heaven collection shown in a trippy late-90s installation. It’s fun. My friend’s 9 year old daughter loved it. (and the two-headed teddy bears.)

Valerie’s pictures are very much about the present and they make me, a 40 year old white guy, feel like I’m on the outside of an in-joke between her and her subjects and I really, really like that.  Heaven forbid photography have to adhere to some tepid “fine art” schematic or even worse, have to appropriately be for everyone, all the time. Her pictures are for her and the ladies in them and then for anyone who wants to feel something from the images. That’s how you do it.

I find the screenshots clever- not as a “concept” but in how she’s doing digital photography “right”. I have zero interest in people with digital cameras laboring to get “film vibes” as if it's some preset aesthetic. If you want film, then just shoot. film.  In art, I’m interested in how true respect of a particular medium- and its “limitations”- results in something that’s not just about what the image is about, but also the way it is about that. So yes, the camera does matter. And here, it’s been employed brilliantly.  It’s all very much NOW.  Even down to the opening reception with Valerie and Arvida in two different countries talking to a gallery full of masked Japanese fans in Tokyo via Zoom screens. It does not get more 2020 than that.