Art Toulinov Jody Morlock Marko Velk Kiko Alcazar Alex

OMEN

No14 Fall 2015

Art Toulinov Jody Morlock Marko Velk Kiko Alcazar Alex AG Mariano Rennella Claudia Summers Joanne Dugan Maria Bacardi 14 Omen Magazine Marcus Leatherdale – Art Editor / AD Omen is a visual online magazine, an international showcase for multi- Jorge Serio – Fashion editor medium creativity. Paying homage to the strikingly visual in art, photography, James Caldwell – Graphic editor fashion and design, Omen also presents literature, music, hybrid and interstitial forms. The magazine aspires to explore and expose a vast array Correspondents of artistically forceful and thought-provoking work, much of which is off the Jorge Socarras – NYC Art Writer commercial radar, and that often eludes simple and hierarchal classification. Whether the artists are up-and-coming, widely recognized, or decidedly Art Correspondents underground, Omen focuses on the distinctive creativity of their work, the Alexandra C Anderson – NYC unifying context being the power of art to inspire. To this end, the magazine Martin Belk – London curates and juxtaposes a heterogeneous collection from sources and Paul Bridgewater – NYC contributors around the globe for a community that transcends geographic Walt Cessna – NYC parameters. Uniting the Omen audience is its enthusiasm for that which, Bunny Oliver – LA however renegade or variant in form, might be considered “beautiful.” Andrea Splisgar – Berlin

Fashion Correspondents Kim Johnson – NYC Jonathan Daniel Pryce – London Michael Schmidt – LA Rebecca Weinberg – NYC Cover Literary correspondents Venomous Christina Oxenberg – NYC Jody Morlock Claudia Summers – NYC

1 OMEN OMEN 2 Editor’s Note Contents

Asides from digital technology itself, if there is anything that predicates 5 Art Toulinov the experience of art in the digital space, it’s the curatorial aspect. No 25 Jody Morlock longer limited by the physical space of museums, galleries and salons, the 45 “Interface” / group show Leslie Lohman Museum ever expanding array of digital and social media is largely shaped and, in 59 Marko Velk turn, exerts its influence by way of curatorial choices. From the beginning, 77 Kiko Alcazar OMEN has attempted to give form to curating in the strongest, largely but- 93 Alex AG not-exclusively visual terms. It could be said that OMEN is as much about 113 Mariano Rennella curating as it is about art. This extends all the way to its audience, itself a 123 Claudia Summers mix of diverse backgrounds and histories, and involved in the discerningly 129 “Summertime” collective photo book by Joanne Dugan photo: Jonathan Daniel Pryce curatorial process of reading and visualizing, contrasting and integrating. 155 “Deseo” CD by Maria Bacardi 161 All artists online Omen 14 features artists whose work might also be seen as drawing from and playing on curatorial elements of art and art history: the religious and art- historical references of Art Toulinov’s photographs; the decidedly 21st-century re-thinking of 20th-century art evidenced in Jody Morlock’s work; Alex AG’s perspective-altering urban panoramas, and Kiko Alcazar’s savvy winks to kitsch – to name a few. On a vocal note, singer Maria Bacardi revisits her Cuban roots by interpreting period music in a style at once updated and authentic.

As Artist-curator Walter Cessna writes in his introduction to the show at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, “Although it’s easy to build an audience of enviable online numbers, it’s those who mix up their art like a cocktail that succeed— a little of this, a whole lot of that, and the viewer is left shaken or stirred….” Like an art cocktail, we hope OMEN 14 shakes and stirs our readers’ imaginations.

Marcus Leatherdale

3 OMEN OMEN 4 The Soul Imprisoned Art Toulinov

5 OMEN OMEN 6 by Carol Schaefer

Art Toulinov was born, February 22, 1960, in Tuapse, Russia, a seaport on the Black Sea. From a young age, he was sculpting, painting and drawing. He graduated from Moscow State University with a degree in law, which he practiced until he immigrated to the United States in 1991. Toulinov began photographing in 1993, but it was after a personal crisis in 1999 that his work took a more profound direction.

Toulinov began his latest body of work with the idea of exploring, in the tradition of Memento Mori, the beauty in death and the fact that our death is always with us and thus should be treated like a companion that enriches our lives, and not to be approached with fear. Toulinov attributes his comfort with mortality to having a twin brother, who died in infancy, as all his life he has had to seek answers to life’s mysteries in order to live with such a great loss. Then, when he re-carved an old crucifix that he found at the flea market, a whole new body of work, which he calls Parables, emerged, inspired by the Russian icons that fascinated him in his youth. Over time, the two bodies of work merged, as they began to naturally complement each other.

Preferring to make pictures rather than take them, Toulinov’s studio becomes a miniature theater, the backdrop always black and the image always square. Some images are inspired by a prop, more than likely found at the flea market, some by a song, or by childhood memories, his motherland, Russia, and growing up in the Soviet Union. Intuitively, he finds the right model to emotionally express his concept, models that come from all walks of life.

The images are photographed with a Hasselblad and printed in a refined silver gelatin format. His work is in the Brooklyn Museum’s permanent collection and has been shown in galleries in New York and Europe.

7 OMEN OMEN 8 9 OMEN OMEN 10 11 OMEN OMEN 12 13 OMEN OMEN 14 15 OMEN OMEN 16 17 OMEN OMEN 18 19 OMEN OMEN 20 21 OMEN OMEN 22 23 OMEN OMEN 24 Wink Jody Morlock

I have hungry eyes, and when they are not busy devouring the colored world before me, my brain is busy cutting, shaping, structuring, painting, drawing, and dreaming, the beauty and chaos in this complicated world.

An introduction becomes a makeover, a face becomes a caricature, a body a sculpture, a smile a landscape, trees swaying in the breeze, a ballet. Then when my brain finds all this input too overwhelming it shuts down and begins to count, 56, 57, 58, 59 and so it goes.

I confess, I’m a visual consumer, attracted to graffiti, fetish icons, African art, architecture, subliminal shortcuts in advertising and motion picture editing. I’m fascinated by the way film editing can have rushes of contrasting ideas and imagery that induce a multitude of emotions in a matter of moments.

The narrator of my work will say how much I love the irony and wit conveyed in the fashionable New York subculture. That my paintings are a playful schizophrenic blend of contrasting ideas and artistic styles, relating a story composed of poured colors, geometric curvaceous shapes, large brush strokes and Freudian, dream-like sketches. But to me, they are much more. They are my children, they are my soul, they are my urban hieroglyphics.

Art is my narcotic of choice.

25 OMEN OMEN 26 27 OMEN OMEN 28 29 OMEN OMEN 30 31 OMEN OMEN 32 33 OMEN OMEN 34 35 OMEN OMEN 36 37 OMEN OMEN 38 39 OMEN OMEN 40 41 OMEN OMEN 42 43 OMEN OMEN 44 Interface Leslie Lohman Museum

Curated By Walter Cessna

45 OMEN OMEN 46 Interface Leslie Lohman Museum

Art should be experienced as if you are falling down the rabbit hole and have no idea what to expect. I want it to slap me in the face with its correctness and tickle my brain with too many thoughts. I’ve never been shy with my opinion, as my fashion terrorist past will attest, but I was stumped a few years back about how to remix both my visual and verbal vocabulary in a way that allowed me to keep my voice in sync with a randomly targeted set of new images. This was exactly the reason social media was so appealing to me when I was searching for a new medium to showcase my writing and photography around 2005, back in the days of Myspace. I dipped my toe into the then-uncharted web waters and discovered that blogging was an art form in itself. Facebook, however, completely changed the game and opened a rare free portal for artists to literally reinvent the way art is shown and sold in the cyber age.

The Facebook wall is the perfect space for content, rather than just for socialization. After thirty-plus years of producing editorial content— photography and writing—for magazines like paper and newspapers like the village voice, I was tired of the medium and its inherent tediousness. The web offered immediacy and speed, no more waiting for a publication to come out. The typical three-month lead time was narrowed down to a few seconds. I started posting all my past photography and short stories, and I built a strong following. Then i started to shoot new work, and that’s when the online press noticed. Eventually galleries sought me out and finally publishers and collectors. All from posting a few pictures.

I also discovered that i wasn’t alone. Artists in all mediums were utilizing the internet in ingenious and often DIY ways—a virtual gallery of universal

47 OMEN OMEN 48 artists coming together in one easy-to-Google place. The benefits are many. No gallery markup, no censorship (on Tumblr at least, Facebook sadly lags in this department), direct communication with the viewer and hopefully collector; basically there are no “no’s.” Anything and everything goes, but only the truly unique and original seem to thrive. Although it’s easy to build an audience of enviable online numbers, it’s those who mix up their art like a cocktail that succeed—a little of this, a whole lot of that, and the viewer is left shaken or stirred. In other words 50% art, 25% content, 25% commerce. And it’s all free.

It was against this personal backdrop that i wanted to curate a show of work by artists who had a similar engagement with various social media platforms. My idea was simple: I wanted to assemble queer work made by mostly new york-based artists with active studio practices. I wanted them all to have (or have had) active relationships with social media. I wanted to understand how this truly 21st-century confection could create community and bring success to these artists.

Scooter La Forge is a good example of this online art phenomenon. His fans are legion—his one-of-a-kind t-shirts are everywhere. A viable scene emerged, and he has become not only a rising art star but an internet heartthrob, with as many fans for his often beautiful and bared body as his brilliant El Greco-on-meth paintings.

Slava Mogutin and his partner Brian Kenny also utilize the web, going even further showcasing their own, at times controversial but always correct work, as well as their collaborative effort, Superm. Superm has recently spawned one of the best-conceived and executed streetwear lines by artists in many years. Mixing elements of photography, collage, and illustration, the clothes benefit greatly from their basic styles allowing the printed artwork literally to jump off the fabric. Wearing an original scooter la forge, or donning a Superm

49 OMEN OMEN 50 ensemble, is to be transformed into a walking, breathing art exhibit on the runway of life. And it’s mostly available online only.

While some of the artists in interface also show their work in galleries and museums across the globe, it’s really their utilization of social media and online presence that generate a wider and more diverse audience. The year 2015 seems like the time when everything is hitting a zenith, and, because we are all becoming more and more connected, the entire way we view the visual world has changed. Some say for the worse, I say for the better. Kids today are exposed to so many amazing images, in multitudes of mediums, and also exposed to art and its history at an age much younger than in my generation. From the sheer amount of seriously awesome art I encounter on a daily basis, i have to say that the children of the internet age are turning out some of the most awe-inspiring work as they grow up and take the entire art industry down an entirely new path. And that is, as i like to say, #completelycorrect.

There are many mediums represented by the 30 artists in interface. Their work is arresting and almost maddeningly inspired by influences beyond new york city; but without question, living and working here influences their art making. I encountered almost all of these artists online first, and some have become good friends. I have collaborated, photographed, or posed for a handful—which only goes to show how strong the sense of queer community is and how social media has brought artists together who might never have met or come to experience each others’ work.

In truth, the show is a bit of a hodge-podge—painting, photography, illustration, video, installation, performance, sculpture, embroidery and needlepoint—everything But the proverbial kitchen sink. What i hope the viewer sees is how wide-ranging, diverse, truly unique, and heartfelt the current art scene is. Even though it seems like the mainstream art world is

51 OMEN OMEN 52 inundated with pieces that are too big, pointless, grossly extravagant, or just plain old ugly living-room wall pieces for well-heeled connoisseurs who lack any kind of original taste or true appreciation, the personal convictions of these artists give me hope. Although I hope that their work appreciates in value, i doubt that’s how any of them define success. They are all extremely generous in sharing their work and connecting with their followers. And it’s because of social media that these connections are more often and easily made.

When everything seems to come together at just the right time, as it did in the early- 1980s east village art scene with its ready-for-prime-time art heroes (especially Keith Haring and David Wojnarowicz), it becomes one of those moments that years later people look back on and wonder what it was like to be there. Without comparing any of these artists to their predecessors, it’s hard to deny the influence of that era’s do-it-yourself aesthetic and punk ethos in their work. An almost seamless current of creative energy courses through the streets, galleries, and, most importantly, on the internet today that didn’t exist ten years ago.

By utilizing social media as a viable alternative to the usual age-old route of finding galleries or museums to which to exhibit, artists can take their lives and career in their own hands. While some just post new work, others dig deeper. Natasha Gornik and Benjamin Fredrickson showcase not just their photography, but take the viewer into forays of daily life ranging from highly erotic scenarios (in which they often participate), to, in Gornik’s case, a gorgeous plate of half-eaten scrumptiously disturbing food. Call it the Nan Goldin school of personal documentation taken to decadent extremes of brutal yet beautiful honesty. God only knows how Goldin would have utilized the internet had it been around during her early years, but she along with contemporaries like Robert Mapplethorpe and Duane Michals certainly set

53 OMEN OMEN 54 the bar for exposing oneself in as raw and revealing a way as possible (albeit nicely executed and framed).

Just what constitutes queer art in 2015 does not necessarily rely upon sexually provocative images; rather, it is an extension of the multi-identities queer artists proclaim for themselves or simply allow their work to occupy. When you look at Erika Keck’s abstract painting, rose, there is nothing on the canvas that would identify keck as a transgender artist. The painting simply asserts that she is a very talented artist, and although she has a strong queer identity, the work is allowed to speak completely for itself and extend its dialogue with the viewer.

I came across keck on Facebook and we bonded quickly. Five years later she is, ironically, no longer utilizing social media, which makes even more sense for her inclusion in this show. Eventually, no matter how many clicks of the ubiquitous “like” button an artist might get, it will always be the one-to- one connection in the real world that resonates most. Nothing could make that point better than seeing all of this work together in one place.

Interface: queer artists forming communities through social media features Scooter La Forge, Slava Mogutin, Brian Kenny, Maria Piñeres, Joel Handorff, William Spangenberg, Leo Herrera, Ethan Shoshan, Muffinhead, Natasha Gornik, Isauro Cairo, Brett Lindell, Alesia Exum, Bubi Canal, Dietmar Busse, Benjamin Fredrickson, Derek Dewitt, Walt Cassidy, James Salaiz, Tom Taylor, Diego Montoya, Erika Keck, Gio Black Peter, Ben Copperwheat, Chuck Nitzberg, Jordan Eagles, Naruki Kukita, Adrian Carroll, George Towne, Todd Yaeger, and Chick Byrne.

55 OMEN OMEN 56 Walt Cessna Curator

Walt Cessna is the author of Fukt 2 Start With: Short Stories & Broken Werd (sixteenfourteen.com/fukt.html), photographer (waltcessna.tumblr.com), editor, and publisher of the annual art and literary journal Vaczine (blurb. com/b/5466251-vaczine-1). Interface is his first exhibition curated for the Leslie-Lohman Museum.

57 OMEN OMEN 58 Rising Through Marko Velk

59 OMEN OMEN 60 The Drawing as a Vehicle for Questioning by J.P.Plundr

On earth, a simple physical law manages to define, to the nearest point of experimental uncertainty, the conditions of the freefall of a body in space. The speed, the trajectory, as well as the drop point, are determined by an equation that makes the development of the action foreseeable. No surprise is possible, because everything is ordered by the relation between gravitational acceleration, the place of the body in relation to the ground, and the time of falling. This ballet is organized and complete; the gravity is a constant that we cannot avoid.

In a world already made marvellous by the physical laws that determine it, the imagination of the artist has to fight in order to compete with these laws which, after all, remain enigmas. Thus, in a series of drawing, Marko Velk builds up, with passion and persistence, propositions that defy the foundations of what we already know. His subjects float in the space of the paper or seem ready to fall; unstable equilibria fall apart, hybrid creatures are players in a human comedy, a shadow theater in black and white takes form with vivaciously cast strokes. In this staging, it is, without any doubt, a question of life, death and sex, of angels and demons. Sequences of a dream, or nightmare, seem to be running before our eyes at the speed of light; in the succession of images, it is now on us to grasp the logic permitting us to explain the rules of the proposed choreography. It rests with us to reconstitute the meaning, in the disorder of our perception, of what connects the presence of all these emblematic figures. What kind of conclusion can we draw from the meeting of a tapir and a hunter who takes aim, of that prehistoric reptile and that human form, of that ape-like and

61 OMEN OMEN 62 menacing face and the nativity? Or even of those human figures that emerge from a velvety darkness? Could it be a question of a version of the treatise on natural history challenging the schemas of human evolution, or of a catalogue revising scenes of the science of dreams?

The drawing as a system of representation has the power to set adrift the viewer’s mind. The efficiency of its technique puts us on a level footing with the intentions of the author and, in consequence, enacts a partition in which the projections of the artist’s subconsciousness flow as pure evidences. And so we start to believe, because it is the image that fascinates us, that those phantasmagoria have a foundation, just like the rational has one, and that the human species, perhaps, is not only defined by the genetic grid. But, not any drawing is capable of producing such effect; what it requires is an undefinable part that transcends representation and makes of it an enigma.

Marko Velk’s drawing belongs to that level of exactitude, not only because of the virtuosity of his technique (since to retain only that side of it would mean to misinterpret and devalue it), but because of his ability which belongs to a different register, the register of thought and its power of evoking and questioning.

63 OMEN OMEN 64 65 OMEN OMEN 66 67 OMEN OMEN 68 69 OMEN OMEN 70 71 OMEN OMEN 72 73 OMEN OMEN 74 75 OMEN OMEN 76 Yogurinha Borova Kiko Alcazar

77 OMEN OMEN 78 Kiko Alcazar by Jorge Socarras

There’s an ostensibly innocent enchantment to the work of Kiko Alcazar, a literally wide-eyed naïveté that belies his sophisticated artistry and ironic aesthetic. His portraits call to mind aspects of Margaret Keane, Pierre et Gilles, John Currin, as well as of animation and anime. As a photographer, Alcazar infuses his medium with painterly and cartoon qualities, blurring digital realism and fantasy to create ageless, doll-like portraits of his subjects, and distinguishing each with its own characteristic expressiveness. Their preternaturally huge gazes delight, seduce, and intrigue like disarmingly precocious children. Alcazar says his photographs are an extension of his imagination, but they also reflect the culture at large and its ironic contradictions: youth and age, innocence and sexuality, realness and artificiality.

Born and educated in Tarragona, Spain, Alcazar taught himself photography after leaving art school, which he felt wasn’t a good fit. Encouraged by an award from the Tate Modern, he dedicated himself to creating his own distinctive style, rendering Photoshop virtually into a fine art. Now Barcelona- based, Alcazar’s photographic subjects include some of Spain’s most acclaimed pop stars and celebrities. Having first discovered his work on Facebook, I’m fortunate enough to have my first real-world meeting with him in Barcelona.

79 OMEN OMEN 80 Obviously you take photographs to create your works, yet your work transcends photography per se. Do you consider yourself primarily a photographer? I consider myself a photographer exploring new horizons. Photography is the basis of my work, and from there I seek and develop new frontiers via Photoshop. I always want to go a little further. Perhaps what characterizes my work and gives it a personal stamp is the fact that I’m completely self- taught. I’ve learned through trial and error, evolving gradually without tutorials or lessons, and I believe this is an important factor in making my work recognizable.

How long has the evolution of your technique taken, and at what point did you realize you had found your own style? I believe I’m still changing my technique and I hope that’s something that will always go on. The developmental process is so important, and you can’t take anything for granted because then you die artistically. I remember that at first I created the photos for myself and didn’t show them, but some friends would see them and like them. They were fresh and different. I think that the moment I started to show my work to the public and see their reactions, I realized I was doing something unusual and that Photoshop had become my imagination’s best ally.

When I view your work, certain artists come to mind - Keane, Currin, Pierre et Gilles. Are any of these artists that you admire? What artists have influenced or inspired you? I love the work of Pierre et Gilles - particularly the imagery they utilize and the way they do it. I don’t think my influences come from particular artists but from everything in general. Everything around me, from television and the people I’ve known, to artists both eternal and new. In the end, what counts is being very open to outside agency and letting everything filter through me.

81 OMEN OMEN 82 For me, the representative form of my work is the closest thing to dreaming. It’s the escape route for getting somewhere and that you can’t in real life.

What can you explain about your working technique without necessarily revealing its secrets? More than technique, it’s inspiration and imagination. It’s having a photo in front of you and gradually taking it to that place you have in mind. For me it’s a very magical process; I totally lose the sense of time, enjoying each detail and each step. Creating a “photograph” this way becomes something fascinating that can be enjoyed from start to finish.

Which comes first: the photo or your vision? It depends on which photos. Sometimes I start with some very clear ideas of what I want or what I’m looking for, and other times I’ve a photo in front of me that I’ve already shot, and what I might do with it occurs to me right then.

You portray many of your subjects with a quality of timeless youth and playfulness. Do you see that in people, or is it something that perhaps tells us more about you? It could well be a mixture of both, but what I really look for is that magical air - an artificially perfect face on the border of photography and illustration. Perhaps a psychologist would say that I am afraid of growing old, and who knows - could be. (laughs)

Your work is very internet-friendly and translates beautifully on social media. Is this a consideration when you are creating? It’s more of a coincidence. I never looked at it from that point of view, but I suppose that my work has grown alongside social networks and may have benefitted from the concurrence, if unconsciously.

83 OMEN OMEN 84 You are postmodern in that you combine styles and techniques, as well as pictorial traits, such as the naive and the ironic. Do you create with a conscious sense of irony? I have always liked irony and ironic humor. I think it’s good translating this into one’s work, and ultimately it’s no more than expressing what we feel in a slightly hurtful way. All my work has an ironic background, from the use of color in an increasingly grey world, and the textures of the skin, to the “innocence” of photos that aim to test the viewer.

Do you think there is anything inherently “Spanish” in your style, or do you think it might have evolved the same way had you lived in Singapore or Seattle? There may be something Spanish in my work, but the truth is I’m not really conscious of it. Nowadays influences come from all over the world, so it would be difficult to affirm if there’s a particularly Spanish style or quality to my photographs. I think ultimately my style breaks certain taboos by merging photography with a more illustrative style, so I would have done the same in Singapore or Seattle.

You’re well-known in Spain, and have now set your sight on New York. What challenges does the New York present you with? I think that New York has much to contribute to my work and my artistic vision. Historically, New Yorkers have been a very tight society, and all the more so if we’re talking about art. That’s why I’m convinced that my style would go over there. Without a doubt the New York art market is a big challenge, but for me personally it means breaking through a big frontier and to keep fighting for my dream. It presents new challenges, but at the same time new satisfactions. And who doesn’t dream of New York?

(translated from Spanish)

85 OMEN OMEN 86 87 OMEN OMEN 88 89 OMEN OMEN 90 91 OMEN OMEN 92 Panos Alex AG

93 OMEN OMEN 94 Panos

Alex AG was born in Moscow Russia and for the last two decades resides in New York.

This website is dedicated to panoramic photographs, which are digitally modified to reflect different concepts and illustrates altered point of view. The artist believes that ability to recognize the existence of alternative views of the world is a key to enjoying art and the future of the humanity in general.

Alex’s works intend to discover beauty and harmony in everything: from wild nature to urban scenery. Most of Alex AG works depict urban sceneries in large cities: New York, Istanbul, Bucharest, however, large part of the collections is vistas of nature, or single depiction of people, animals and non- animated objects.

Another area to which artist is paying extremely close attention is methods of printing the artwork. Alex employs several processes, including printing on standard metal surfaces, custom print on materials such as leather, steel, stone... The separate area of Alex AG works is printing on transparent and semitransparent surfaces, including multi-layered prints on glass and prints on semiprecious stones, which require illumination for display.

Since AG has decided to promote his art, his works have participated in a number of events, including exhibitions, concerts. His works are currently part of permanent exhibition at MORA museum. Alex has started and continues the Pop-Up Gallery events for artists in New York.

95 OMEN OMEN 96 97 OMEN OMEN 98 99 OMEN OMEN 100 101 OMEN OMEN 102 103 OMEN OMEN 104 105 OMEN OMEN 106 107 OMEN OMEN 108 109 OMEN OMEN 110 111 OMEN OMEN 112 Go-go Dancers Mariano Rennella

113 OMEN OMEN 114 Go-go Dancers - Ibiza, 2002

I spent three summers in Ibiza as a photographer at Privilege disco, taking portraits of hundreds of party goers. Now I don’t want to sound ungrateful or mean and say the job didn’t satisfy me in a lot of ways, but it’s also true that it left other areas unfulfilled, the more intimate and personal ones. I realized that what happened on the dance floor and glamorous podiums had little to do with what was going on backstage. The dressing rooms of go-go dancers and drag queens hold a lot more interest than the actual dance floor, filled to the brim with coordinately happy people.

So I went backstage.

What I found was a kind of unstable, uneasy, heavy even, atmosphere. The halls, the couches, the resting areas were a heady mix of dissimilar and contradictory emotions, as was my own state of mind. I found something there worth capturing, something that seemed to me more ‘real’, if you allow me to use such a term. I spent hours roaming the hallways and dressers, trying to get the right images, at times striving for invisibility. There, euphoria and joy shook hands with vacant stares and utter boredom, the fragile limit between them only a voice ordering someone it was their time to go on. The sheer amount of suggestive details, mirrors and shapes and outlines, helped express the shifting mood of the place; this was what attracted me to it, this was what I tried to capture on film.

115 OMEN OMEN 116 117 OMEN OMEN 118 119 OMEN OMEN 120 121 OMEN OMEN 122 Works in Progress Claudia Summers

photo of Claudia Summers: Marcus Leatherdale

123 OMEN OMEN 124 1974 The light surrounded me as I passed through the kitchen doorframe. Ash blonde hair glowed in long waves framing a ghostly white face. Impassiveness smoothed the brow and lips. Low light pulled at the blue It was a still night. I awoke from a dead sleep and started moving. Nothing eyes but it revealed nothing. I watched as my hand rose and I slowly turned was on my mind. I was in that space where there are no thoughts, there’s my palm up in supplication. I wondered what I was doing. My body and the only a muted recording of the dark shadows that I moved through. As I kitchen lie before me in panoramic, cinematic view. Shadows blackened passed through my bedroom door, I started floating and left my body behind. the periphery of the room--obscuring the avocado appliances boasting of As I float above my body, I watch. There is no fear. I have done this many middle class milieu. The table held a lone white plate; dark crumbs dusted its times before. A white nightgown skims my ankles; my shoulders are bared. surface. My focus concentrated on the figure in white. The chest rose and fell In the darkened hallway I watch as I head towards the living room. My body almost imperceptibly with each soundless breath. One hand was raised and moves past the geometric shapes of the furniture. The window drapes hang open. Whether it was beseeching unknown forces, greedily drinking from heavy. A thin light glows from the kitchen and I watch as my body turns them or just maybe a languid pose, I don’t know. But I watched as my other towards the beacon. My body was contained within the space but I was hand lifted and gently curved around my neck. above and beyond it. I kept watching. President Nixon was caught in the scandal of Watergate. It was a complex There are events in life that are cataclysmic in shaping how you move web of crimes and deceit. In 1972, the Watergate Burglars were arrested through the world. It was 1974; I was 16. The world seemed a crazy place after security guard Frank Wills called the police. Wills had found the door to me that year as I tried to make sense of it and myself. David Bowie’s locks taped at the Democratic National Committee located in the Watergate Diamond Dog played over and over on my turntable. The song was of a Office Complex. It was, as Nixon said, “a third rate burglary.” Nixon began dark post-apocalyptic world. When he sang, “(there’s gonna be sorrow) a long, slow dance of obstruction, by 1974, that dance had become frantic try to wake tomorrow”, I surveyed the land and knew its language. During and desperate. I had long stopped marveling at abuses of power. I intimately suburban, black, still nights, my father would creep silently into my room to understood its existence and corrosiveness. I had watched it unfold both in touch me. And in another abuse of power, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th the world and in my home. President of the United States, thieved and lied to a nation.

125 OMEN OMEN 126 In 1972, my mother was diagnosed with liver and bone cancer. A few years I watch my body. A murky, low light halos it within the shadows. It seems earlier, she had had a supra-radical mastectomy to eradicate her breast frozen in tableaux. The shadows press in. I float higher and higher. The figure cancer. It went into remission--but the virulence had returned. Her first in white shrinks. I feel fear. I float higher and higher. The figure shrinks in a doctors told her there was no hope. Weak, bloated and initially defeated, dark and narrow tunnel. Panic overtakes my consciousness. For the first time she slept. I could feel her numbness and fear. I was scared. It was during ever, I notice a diaphanous white thin cord connecting my body to a point this time that my father started sexually abusing me. The abuse became a beyond my vision. As I rise higher, the cord stretches taut. I can’t stop. I fear secret. I feared my mother would die if she knew the truth. So, my father the cord will break and I will die. I’m no longer just observing. I’m fighting to and I entered an unspoken alliance of fear and hate. I never cried. Anger get back into my body. nourished me and numbness allowed me to function. Love became a messy emotion that I didn’t tangle with. Betrayal wounds run deep. By 1974, I had Never again would I float and watch my life unfold in front of me. changed. The seeds of anger, hurt and confusion had blossomed into rage and somewhere within me I found the courage to say no. 1974 was the year a cold anger took root in me. My father’s betrayal felt personal. Nixon’s betrayal felt mythic. It would take many years to untangle I never felt attached to the scenes that unfolded as I watched. It was a that root. heightened visual awareness. I felt no pain, no joy, no sadness, and no happiness. I just noted my body and the world as the minutes moved incrementally. To float high and just observe required no effort. There was no precise desire in my mind. I just did it. And just as effortlessly, I would return Claudia Summers to my body.

August 7, 1974, President Nixon was slumped in a chair in the Oval Office. He held a scotch in his hand as he stared out the window towards the Rose Garden. The roses would have been in bloom. I wonder if he saw their beauty. I wonder if he saw anything beyond his own pain. Kissinger relates that that evening Nixon sobbed and cursed everyone but himself. In an awkward moment, Nixon implored Kissinger to join him in prayer. The two men sank to their knees in that hallow room symbolic of absolute power and prayed to their Supreme Being. Nixon cried. The next day, he resigned. Kissinger viewed Nixon as a tragic figure. At 16, I was not so generous.

127 OMEN OMEN 128 Summertime Joanne Dugan

“Summertime” collective photo book by Joanne Dugan Book: www.summertimebook.com

Deep Bay © Cig Harvey www.cigharvey.com

129 OMEN OMEN 130 Summertime By Joanne Dugan

It turns out that my first summer love was not a person but a place. My earliest memories of the season float very near the water’s edge, first at the ocean in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, a typical East Coast boardwalk tourist town, and then later on the bay in Orleans, Cape Cod, which is at the elbow of the 65-mile-long flexed arm of land that juts out into the Atlantic Ocean.

I spent most of my childhood summers in the first town, but remember the second much more clearly. My most vivid memories come from gazing at the watery horizon line right outside the door of our splintery vintage beach house, set right near the edge of a beach called Skaket. The dramatic shifting tides in front of us changed twice every twenty-four hours, like clockwork. And because there weren’t any clocks that I can remember, the watery rhythms gave those loose summer days a structure, and we sat, impatiently waiting on the water’s edge not like children, but as children, for the show to begin.

During the shift to low tide, the water would rapidly roll past our line of sight, mysteriously disappearing more than two miles out, away from the shoreline and to exactly where, we weren’t quite sure. Once a day and sometimes also in the not-yet-quite-dark evenings, depending on that week’s tide schedule, we would suddenly find a just-made beach, covered with a tapestry of tide Race Point Beach, Provincetown, MA © 2004 John Arsenault pools that served as perfect, child-sized animal viewing stations. The pools www.johnarsenaultphotography.com were filled with young hermit crabs, silvery minnows and narrow transparent glass eels, all of whom seemed a bit shocked that their habitat had in less than an hour changed from being the watery height of an adult human to that of just a few inches.

131 OMEN OMEN 132 We dashed from pool to pool, staring down at the multiple sets of eyes that seemed to follow ours, each species contemplating the movements of the other. We sometimes stepped into the pools without looking and leapt out when a crustacean decided to hook onto our toe or we stumbled onto the spikey shell of a horseshoe crab, primordial with its spikes and armor. We filled up buckets with various members of this wet menagerie, keeping them just long enough to look at and sometimes touch every minute detail. I remember the miniature crabs that would stay frozen still, corpse-like, when I placed them on my flat hand, only to watch them shake and turn in backwards circles when dropped back into the temporary pools where they had taken up residence.

Eventually, we always, gently, poured all of our captures into the tide as it began to swell towards the land again and both the pools and their former tenants disappeared back into that shifting, growing sea. As we walked back to our house in the dusk, we turned back around to face the ocean to see that the mirrored surface of the water had picked up the hues of the sunset sky. The lines between land and sea blurred in front of us and only then did we stop, mostly because we knew that another version of the same scene would be waiting for us when we emerged the next morning.

This childhood image sits at the clearest edge of my warm weather memory Floating Reds archives. Some years ago, I decided to revisit Skaket and its surrounding © 1985 Roger Camp, All Rights Reserved www.rogercampphoto.com beaches, and this joining of my childhood past tense with the adult present one proved to be immensely satisfying. Even though I am now a staunch city dweller, I still remain at my happiest, or at least my most inspired, when in Cape Cod, and I think that the re-visiting of this vivid and repeated memory has much to do with those feelings. It has gotten to the point where I think less about the exact place I was in and more about how I felt when I was there.

133 OMEN OMEN 134 My summertime recollections were about those tide pools in Cape Cod, but in having conversations with many photographers and writers about the theme of this book, I soon realized that many of them have a different, but related version of my story somewhere in their memory banks. What became clear was that the most vibrant of summer memories seem to most often occur at or near the water’s edge. Summer and water are inextricably related.

Whether from a sagging inflatable kiddie pool, a deserted swimming hole, a rocky Pacific beach, the shores of East Hampton or even a gushing city fire hydrant, we track our summer, and also our lives, based partly on the water we sit by. We smell it, taste it, love near it, write about it and cast our gaze out past it. We make important decisions near it and also use it to forget, just for a time, those things we don’t want to think about anymore.

Our relationships with water are as varied as our relationships with each other. Some experiences are a quick fling, a mad dash, soon to be forgotten. Others, like my tide pool moments, etch themselves into our psyches forever. As adults, we tend to revisit, or at least long to visit, what we have most loved, and if we manage to arrive there again, find comfort in the repetition.

In thinking about our deeper connections to water, I realized that it was also the original shield that protected us from the outside world before we were ready to arrive. I believe that perhaps we all continue to seek this protection and that it is the warmth of summer, combined with the primal need to be sheltered, that creates the feeling of comfort we can’t quite explain when we sit by, look at or touch the water. It may be this that keeps us returning to it again and again. And we ourselves are made mostly of water, so not only are

135 OMEN OMEN 136 The best part of putting this book together was the realization that practiced photographers seem to intuitively connect with the deeper meanings of water and are able to translate this meaning into their own version of summer as it relates to being near the water’s edge. Their images of the water can be profoundly universal because we, as viewers, automatically feel our own stories by experiencing theirs. I invited the perspectives of many talented photographers in because I felt that no single viewpoint could do this experience justice.

My own photography helps me to more closely experience a place and I also do it to remember. Generally speaking, when photographers are around summer, water comes into the picture, both literally and figuratively. And this book is about all of that. In the end, we photographers make these pictures as proof of a life well lived and this book features some of those most moving, simple moments, caught in the fractional seconds of a camera’s shutter. It is a special skill to convey a universal feeling without being contrite or cliché and I feel that the artists featured in this book achieved this task magnificently.

Each photo is a version of that tide pool love story I first felt in Cape Cod. We all have memories like this, somewhere. Water is the thread that connects our lifetime of summers. And I hope that by spending time with this book, Wade you can access the part of yourself that still can wander, wide-eyed, through © 2013 Miriam Finkelman www.miriamfinkelman.com the constantly shifting tides.

145 OMEN OMEN 146 Fireflies in Namasia, Taiwan Rio © Rich J. Matheson © Micheal McLaughlin http://thetaiwanphotographer.com www.michealmclaughlin.com

153 OMEN OMEN 154 Deseo Maria Bacardi

Music Link https://soundcloud.com/breakingrecords/como-fue

155 OMEN OMEN 156 Maria Bacardi is an actress, singer and artist was born in Cuba. She fled the island in 1961, as a young child, to be brought up and educated in Europe. She landed in the New York in of 1977. She was riveted by the pulse of the Artistic youth.

Like her, they tried to elevate Humanity by creating, together, a Terrible Beauty to live-by.

She currently lives and works between East Hampton - where she raised her family since 1990 - and New York City.

Maria Bacardi has been on stage all her life. In the past couple of years, she has embarked on the path of a new creative endeavor, which took the form of song. This venture adds to her artistic, theatric and directorial oeuvre and marked her first professional foray into singing. Beginning with the traditional Cuban songs her mother sang while in exile in Spain, Maria Bacardi released her first, full-length album, Deseo, in early 2013. It is available on I Tunes, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, CDbaby.

Deseo was pre-nominated for the American Grammys in 2014.

She is in the process of recording with David Oquendo and Edgaro Productor n’ Jefe, a new album which fuses the gems of the Old -School Cuban compositions with contemporary beats, in a fresh frame of mind. This genre is unique, never before created. We named it Neo- Feelin’.

Maria Bacardi is also the Founder and Artistic Director of Oddfellows Playhouse, a not-for-profit artist’s theater company, which instigates new work and uses alternative indoor and outdoor stages throughout many locations in the Hamptons.

157 OMEN OMEN 158 She founded and spearheaded the Community Board of Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center, in Watermill, Long Island. She created a number of workshops and events, which invited the participation of the Latino children of the Hamptons year-round community.

In the past thirty years, she has played numerous roles in many theater productions in New York City and in the Hamptons including Woyzek by Georg Büchner, at BAM directed by Robert Wilson, One Thousand Avant Garde Plays, by Kenneth Koch, Cote d’Azur Triangle, by Harry Kondoleon, Joan of Arc, by Uni Dahr and John Morrow, Behold and Reflect and Systole and Diastole by Maria Pessino (Maria Bacardi), The Lost Lesson by Joan Marie Moossy, as well as directing many productions of Oddfellows Playhouse.

159 OMEN OMEN 160 Artists

Art Toulinov – Russia / NYC www.ArtToulinov.com

Jody Morlock – NYC www.jodymorlock.com

Interface – NYC www.leslielohman.org

Marko Velk – NYC www.markovelk.com

Kiko Alcazar – Barcelona, Spain www.kikoalcazar.com

Alex AG – Moscow / NYC www.orbvista.com

Mariano Rennella – Argentina www.marianorennella.com

Claudia Summers – NYC www.facebook.com/claudiasummers.9

Summertime – NYC www.joannedugan.com

Maria Bacardi/Deseo – NYC www.mariabacardi.com

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