KALEIDOSCOPE

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ISSUE 43 FW23

KALEIDOSCOPE's Fall/Winter 2023 issue launches with a set of six covers. Featuring Sampha, Alex Katz, Harmony Korine, a report into the metamorphosis of denim, a photo reportage by Dexter Navy, and a limited-edition cover by Isa Genzken.

Also featured in this issue: London-based band Bar Italia (photography by Jessica Madavo and interview by Conor McTernan), the archives of Hysteric Glamour (photography by Lorenzo Dalbosco and interview by Akio Kunisawa), Japanese underground illustrator Yoshitaka Amano (words by Alex Shulan), Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (photography by Nicolas Poillot and interview by Daria Miricola), a survey about Japan’s new hip-hop scene starring Tohji (photography by Taito Itateyama and words by Ashley Ogawa Clarke), Richard Prince’s new book “The Entertainers” (words by Brad Phillips), “New Art: London” (featuring Adam Farah-Saad, Lenard Giller, Charlie Osborne, R.I.P. Germain, and Olukemi Ljiadu photographed by Bolade Banjo and interviewed by Ben Broome).

FROM THE CURRENT ISSUE

ISA GENZKEN

For her retrospective exhibition at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie, Isa Genzken has presented 75 sculptural assemblages from across her career to celebrate her 75th birthday. On this occasion, we sorted through her archive of invitations cards—historical documents which double as allegories of communication and traces of an unfixed identity.

HARMONY KORINE

With a career stretching from the pre-9/11 nihilistic hedonism of New York City to the gamified, small-screen fictions of TikTok’s psychedelic everyday, American filmmaker and artist Harmony Korine is emblematic of America’s aesthetics. His latest film, Aggro Dr1ft, combines worldbuilding and AI into a heightened, hyperreal, dreamlike state, pushing narrative cinema to its glitching limits.

ALEX KATZ

Born in New York, where he still lives and works, Alex Katz has been painting for 78 years. Across these decades, he’s maintained a revelatory and playful eye for the essence of the image: whether it’s a landscape, a self-portrait, flowers, his wife, or images appropriated from advertising, there’s a glossy, stylized truth at the heart of the work.

TREND REPORT

The most ubiquitous of fabrics, with a history dating back to the 17th century and a lead role in many subcultural revolutions, denim has recently been dominating the stage once again, undergoing a new transmogrification. Paying homage to its undying relevance, this report explores the startling ways in which designers are reconceptualizing denim through the warping lens of luxury fashion, emancipating it altogether from its material base.

SAMPHA

The long awaited sophomore album from Sampha, Lahai, released this fall to universal acclaim. Titled after the artist’s middle name—a tribute to his grandfather—the record is an exploration of loss and healing, reflecting on the passing of his parents, the birth of his daughter, and the inevitably cyclical nature of life and memory.

EGYPT

The Faiyum Oasis is a small sanctuary of life springing out of the harshness of the desert in Egypt. Led by a desire to reconnect with his own roots, British-Egyptian photographer Dexter Navy spent time with the Bedouin tribes who populate the region, navigating existence with graceful frugality.

ESCAPE TO MIAMI

The most southernly city in the US, Miami exists in the tropical recesses of the American imagination: land of celebrity, thunderstorms, Tony Montana, and Art Deco architecture. Here, we meet the latest generation of Miamians—committed radicals in the fields of art, fashion, and music, who are dreaming up new narratives for the city they call home.

CAT POWER

In a career stretching over 30 years, Chan Marshall, under the moniker of Cat Power, has established herself as one of the most acclaimed singer/songwriters of the century, creating some of the most emotionally powerful music ever recorded. Among her talents, she can turn cover versions into moments of transcendent beauty.

ANDREW DOWNTOWN

Nick Katz, Pres Rodriguez, and Adrian Douzmanian met when Nick was building a community skate park and Adrian and Pres were hosting parties at a nightclub that shared the same space. Together they formed Andrew, a skate shop and apparel brand named after the most devastating storm to hit Florida.

NITE OWL DRIVE-IN

Miami born and bred, Nayib Estefan has been running creative cinematic endeavors for over a decade. At the Nite Owl Drive-In, nestled between neon-lit high-rise condos, he shows 35mm repertory prints ranging from classic to guilty pleasure while, at Dream Arcade, he’s building an interactive piece of lysergic art.

SUSAN KIM ALVAREZ

Born in Honolulu and raised in central Florida as part of a Cuban, Vietnamese, and Jewish household, Susan Kim Alvarez returned to the Sunshine State after graduating from art school. Now based in Miami, she makes rich, abstract compositions, exploding with strange figures and fantastical narratives.

FARED MANZUR

Built in 1905 and left uninhabited for decades, artist Fared Manzur has turned Rice Hotel in Downtown Miami into a studio space for himself, and a gallery of sorts. Here, leaving the architecture of the space largely untouched and bare, he welcomes artists from across the world to work, exhibit, and experience the city.

NEW ART: LONDON

The art world’s compulsion to categorize by the yardstick of “hot or not” has historically been the driving force behind the market and the gallery system. Commerce is intertwined with this metric, spurred on by the insatiable appetite to find talented young things to build up. This system is uninteresting: what’s in vogue rarely reflects those operating at the cutting edge. Who are those young emerging artists making work against all odds—work that is difficult and costly to make, store, exhibit, move, and sell? These five individuals typify this path. Working across video, sound, installation, and sculpture, they march onwards, carving out their own niche—exhibiting in empty shop spaces one day and major institutions the next. For them, making is guided by urgency, and persistence is motivated by blind faith.

ADAM FARAH-SAAD

Working in a range of media and performative gestures, Adam Farah-Saad dwells on various ephemeral and poetic moments in order to open up critical reflections and connections. His works revisits and explores past experiences revolving around the mnemonic and a process of mapping.

CHARLIE OSBORNE

Working across video, performance, sculpture, and sound, Charlie Osbourne’s films have been screened alongside artists such as Ryan Trecartin, Mica Levi, and Tai Shani.

R.I.P. GERMAIN

Drawing from Black experience, R.I.P. Germain’s practice delves with double meanings, deep resonances, and a tension between accessibility and occlusion.

OLUKEMI LIJADU

Focusing on moving image and sound, Olukemi Lijadu is an artist and DJ who uses the power of cinema to take listeners on sonic journeys weaving between cultures and time.

LENARD GILLER

London-based artist Lenard Giller explores the life-spans of time-based technologies and their translations into language, memory, and perception.

KAYODE OJO

Out of cheap jewelry, wigs, mirrors, fake fur, and counterfeit luxury goods, New York-based artist Kayode Ojo makes precarious, luminous sculptures—delicately arranged accoutrements of fake glamor. Titled “Eden,” his latest exhibition at 52 Walker is both a reference to the mythic garden of Bible legend, and an exploration of America’s history and present politics.

TOHJI

The hip-hop artists of the Reiwa era emerge from a tangled mesh of cultural references that Japan has imported, exported, and re-imported again, in an endless loop of cultural osmosis with the West. None exemplifies this more than Tohji, whose new-wave music and potently nostalgic Y2K asthetic seem to fulfill the broken promise of a futuristic utopia.

SARA SADIK

KALEIDOSCOPE hosted a solo exhibition by Marseille-based artist Sara Sadik (b. 1994, Bordeaux), in November 2023 at Spazio Maiocchi in Milan, with the support of Slam Jam. Inspired by videogames, anime, science fiction, and French rap, Sara Sadik’s work explores the reality and fantasies of France’s Maghrebi youth, addressing issues of adolescence, masculinity, and social mythologies. Her work across video, performance, and installation often centers on male characters, using computer-generated scenarios to transform their condition of marginalization into something optimistic and poetic.

FROM THE SHOP

FROM THE ARCHIVE

230321 MKE KALEIDOSCOPE Shot 10 032 RGB HD

THE (UN) OFFICIAL PREPPY HANDBOOK

TOSH BASCO

MARK FLOOD

MANIFESTO

In 2023, from June 22 to June 24 during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris, KALEIDOSCOPE and GOAT presented the new edition of our annual arts and culture festival, MANIFESTO. Against the unique setting of the French Communist Party building, a modern architectural landmark designed by legendary Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the festival will bring together visionary creators from different areas of culture across three days of art, fashion and sound. The 2024 edition will run from June 21 to June 23.

CAPSULE PLAZA

In April 2023, a year after the launch of the magazine, Capsule introduced Capsule Plaza, a new initiative that infuses new energy into Milan Design Week by redefining the design showcase format. A hybrid between a fair and a collective exhibition, Capsule Plaza brings together designers and companies from various creative fields, bridging industry and culture with a bold curation that spans interiors and architecture, beauty and technology, ecology and craft. The 2024 edition will run from April 15 to April 21.

ANDREW DOWNTOWN

INTERVEW BY PAIGE SILVERIA

PAIGE SILVERIA

I first met you guys in 2018 when I had a “Good Taste” art show a few doors down in the Design District. You lent us tools, helped with production questions, took us and the artists out around town. You were super hospitable.

NICK KATZ

We are very passionate about the city we come from. We really take pride in showing visitors a perspective of Miami that’s not often seen. The media’s cultivated this image of our city; it’s that flyover scene from the Atlantic Ocean, where the camera pans up to reveal Ocean Drive, the Colony Hotel, nightclubs. It’s very much part of the culture, but there’s an entire other world that’s less explored.

Other cities have a lot of brands representing them, and Miami seems to be coming into its own in that respect.

PRES RODRIGUEZ

It’s the biggest exporter of talent in the US. Anywhere you go, you’ll find people from Miami that are successful or in positions of power, who left because there was no way to really live up to their potential here.

ADRIAN DOUZMANIAN

Before, if you had a cool little brand in Miami, you ended up going to New York and working for Supreme or something. There wasn’t a place to express yourself creatively, outside of superstars like Gloria Estefan. A lot leave, build business elsewhere, and come back to retire. Unless you’re a real-estate scammer speculator, it’s been hard. But I think that’s changing.

How so?

There are way more spaces catered towards local people, versus an obvious attempt at a cash grab from tourists. That’s the key. When you talk about wealthy opportunists moving here, it seems their main motivation is to take advantage of the financial opportunities: no taxes, undervalued real estate, etc. while leaving the rest of us in the lurch. These people don’t care about our culture or community; they take more than they contribute. While bigger companies are moving their offices here and offering higher-paying jobs, the cost of living is going up and pushing locals out. It’s a fucked-up situation. Luckily, there are the transplants that have come and invested in the community by opening music studios, art galleries, residencies, etc. Hopefully, this influx will have a more positive impact as the city continues to grow and the good will outpace the bad.

Real Miami people always support and show up for those creatives who are trying to push the city forward. We are starting to see more young creatives sticking around now, which makes me hopeful for the future.

What have you been up to lately? That collaboration with the Dolphins was insane.

That in particular was really cool for us, because, if you’re from Miami, you know how important the Dolphins are to the city. Whether you’re low-income, middle-class, or wealthy, you played football at some point in South Florida. Football is king. When you’re here, you’re going to run into somebody with Dolphins gear on. It’s the ultimate way to represent our city. We want an Andrew T-shirt to be a similar form of representation. So for Andrew and the Dolphins to collaborate, it was as “Miami” as you can get.

More recently, there are local visual references and things from my childhood that I see fading away. A lot of that makes its way into our graphics and storytelling. That’s my contribution to this project: bringing in some of that stuff that, if you’re not from Miami, you might just think it’s a cool graphic or get a little bit of the reference. But if you’re from here, it hits different. I love working with legacy material. One of our objectives is to elevate and honor the institutions that make Miami what it is. We have a collaboration with Slip-N-Slide Records that we’re releasing during Miami Art Week. It’s not only Miami though. We’re also working on something with Harmony Korine for Art Week too.

How did Andrew get started?

I started DJing when I was 17 and already super into a lot of diverse music. I went from doing little parties at this place called Purdy Loungeon to DJing clubs in Downtown. Me and Pres started a party called Peachfuzz in 2011 with our other partner, Raul, and that became a big thing, and it was a big catalyst to starting Andrew.

Around that time, Al Moran opened a small venue in Downtown called Bar. Raul and I were brought in to run the place, and it became a breeding ground for a lot of talented people to hang out. We worked with different artists every quarter to completely reimagine the space, nothing was off limits or went untouched: the menu, pool table, seating, bathrooms.

That place birthed brands, bands, projects, businesses that we still see the impact of today. In its year of existence, Bar did more for Miami’s creative community than pretty much any other space in existence.

I started skating when I was ten. The second I got on the board, it changed my life. Downtown became my skate utopia. I’d meet these kids from all over the place and every once in a while would interact with different pro skaters. When I gradu- ated high school, I moved to Long Beach, Cali- fornia, where there was a DIY spot, Cherry Park, that I skated almost every day. When I moved back, I got obsessed with this idea of creating a DIY place for Miami. I started promoting at this club, Grand Central, in 2010. And in an adjacent vacant lot, at a place called Grand Central Park, I got to start my first DIY build. This is where the three of our paths really first crossed; I was pro- moting and building the skatepark while Pres and Adrian were doing their first Peachfuzz events at the same venue.

What is a DIY skatepark exactly?

After the crash in 2008, a lot of skatepark initiatives around the United States got killed. Investment into public infrastructure during the national housing crisis wasn’t something that local governments were investing in. So skaters started finding vacant lots and building places with their own money: you go to a hardware store and buy cinder blocks, cement, and angle iron and build skateable elements out of everyday things. Miami, up to that point, had never had a real public skatepark. My bosses at the nightclub had this public park across the street from their venue that they used as extra event space for festivals and outdoor shows. I basically convinced them to asphalt about 10,000 square feet of what they had and allocate it to me. Then I pulled whatever money I had in my savings account together and built all of these small obstacles, mostly ledges, and a mini ramp. Once word got out there was a place to skate, free from the cops, every skater in the city started showing up.

Then, of course, you were able to create Lot 11.

In art school, I got highly influenced by Theaster Gates and his idea about public space being considered art. The skatepark was my BFA thesis project. In 2012, I started what would become Skate Free, my nonprofit organization, with pro skater Danny Fuenzalida and restaurant owner, Richie Effs. The success of Grand Central Skatepark led us to building a real concrete park, which would become the Lot 11 project. Since its opening in 2019, Lot 11 has really helped put Miami skateboarding on the map.

People don’t realize how important skateparks and shops can be for communities.

Grant Central Park really gave me that opportunity to pursue building Miami’s first public skatepark. But one of the other things it gave me was my relationship with Adrian and Pres. Without that place, we wouldn’t have Andrew. For a guy like me, you grow up with the dream of owNing your own skate shop. So when Pres and Adrian said they were down to get involved, we put our resources together and decided to go for it. We had me, with the skate background and the connection to the city; Pres an incredible graphic artist with the experience to be a real creative director for a brand; and then Adrian, who was the face in the streets, where everybody knew him from DJing; it was kind of a perfect fit. And here we are six years later, and, I mean, it’s kind of insane what’s been able to transpire from this 1,000-square-foot skate shop in Downtown Miami.

Last words?

We want to shout out the other members of our team that make everything possible: Fellah, Khari, Bussout, Elias, Thirty, Rezza, Wolff, Elijah Odom, Marnez, Anay, Pad Dowd, Bradley Carbone, Zoogie, Katie, Elsa, Julian Cousins, Kyle, Dan, Joel Mienholz, and all the customers worldwide that support us and buy our gear.

Named after the most devastating storm to hit Florida, Andrew Downtown is a Miami-based skate shop and apparel brand founded in 2019 by Nick Katz, Pres Rodriguez, and Adrian Douzman.

Paige Silveria is a writer and curator based between Paris, New York, and Tokyo.