Nick Cave Soundsuits, Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Artist Nick Cave has been using his wearable Soundsuits in performances, collaborating with locals to create dynamic visual and aural sequences that are unlikely to be confused with the output of the other musician with the same name.

Nick Cave Soundsuits: Untitled, 2009 Digital c, print, Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Nick Cave: Meet Me at the Center of the Earth (travelling exhibition), Seattle Art Museum, Washington, March 10–June 5, 2011. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Cave’s work resembles moving sound sculptures that appeal to both kids and adults cross-culturally. He brings his Soundsuits to different cities and hires locals to perform in them, engaging the community. Recently he collaborated on a video with Dr. Dre beats and Fendi for a fashion sequence.

Cave is comfortable in the melding of art and fashion being the director of the graduate fashion program at the Art Institute of Chicago. But Cave has said that his first Soundsuit was created as an emotional reaction to the Rodney King beating in 1992, when he decided to address his response through art, creating a suit out of twigs that he later discovered made sounds. Since then he has created suits from various discarded and scavenged materials that borrow from African, Carnivale and high fashion traditions.

Nick Cave: Speak Louder, 2011 buttons, wire, bugle beads, upholstery, and mannequin, Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

Nick Cave Soundsuits, Soundsuit, 2011 dogwood twigs, wire, upholstery, and mannequin - Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery

For more information on where his Soundsuits will be traveling next visit: http://soundsuitshop.com/

Monegros County, Aragon, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 60 x 80 inches Edition 2/3 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of mines, quarries, oil fields, ships and airplane graveyards have transformed landscapes of devastation into a thing of beauty. His new photographic series depicts the earth from above, abstracting the terraced farming practices of Spain into a Kandinsky-like painted canvas.

Burtynsky is passionate about the environment, but his work attempts to frame the truth without judgment. Burtynsky spoke in general to me about the farming practices he’s photographed, citing that a country like China had been largely agrarian in the past. “80% used to be involved in growing food for the rest. Now with mechanical advantages…a tractor can create precise patterns with ploughing on gps.”

Burtynsky explained that only a tiny segment of the population, just about 2% in the USA, is now responsible for feeding the rest of the country, my assumption being that the rest of us are in media or finance busy manufacturing paper money… For my more detailed interview with Burtynsky, read here.

Monegros County, Aragon, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 48 x 64 inches Edition 1/6 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Edward Burtynsky - Aragon, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 39 x 52 inches Edition 2/9 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Monegros County, Aragon, Spain 2010, Chromogenic Color Print, 48 x 64 inches Edition 1/6 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Monegros County, Aragon, Spain_ 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 60 x 80 inches Edition 1/3 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

The exhibition at Bryce Wolkowitz Gallery features works shot in the gypsum hills of Monegros in northeastern Spain where the farmlands of barley and corn carve painterly patterns into the arid terrain. Farming the earth brings the white mineral to the surface which seem like dustings of fallen snow, but in fact are nutrients that enrich the dry land, helping the crops to grow without irrigation.

A second exhibition at Howard Greenberg Gallery Pentimento contains a retrospective of Burtynsky’s photographs exploring the tension between industry and nature.

Burtynsky’s work is also appearing in a group show Being American organized by School of Visual Arts (SVA) presenting responses by visual artists to ’some of the most pressing social issues in America today’, ranging from recent environmental catastrophes to the pervading effects of the economic crisis.

Castile-La Mancha, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 48 x 64 inches Edition 1/6 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Monegros County, Aragon, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 39 x 52 inches Edition 4/9 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Castile-La Mancha, Spain 2010 Chromogenic Color Print 39 x 52 inches 99.1 x 132.1 cm. Edition 3/9 photographed by Edward Burtynsky

Until December 10th 2011:
Dryland Farming: http://www.brycewolkowitz.com and
Pentimento at http://www.howardgreenberg.com/

From November 22 — December 21:
“Being American” at Visual Arts Gallery,
School of Visual Arts, 601 West 26 Street, New York City

Charlotte Rampling: photograph for SPREAD by Kareem Black, 2011

“Being ready at 9am in any country…” sighed Charlotte Rampling, smartly turned out in a black suit after a late night of revelry in the West Village. ‘The Look,’ had just premiered the night before in New York and Gabriel Byrne had popped out to greet her after the show. Byrne recalled how he’d sweated over how to impress her while on a first stroll through Central Park together, and seeing a night guardsman walk past, had quipped, “Ah, Night Porter!” Rampling had ignored his remark and had kept walking.

Later Byrne had asked, but wasn’t that funny?

“You don’t know how many fucking times people have said that to me,” Rampling had replied.

Paul Auster and Charlotte Rampling in a scene from Angelina Maccarone's documentary CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK. Credit: Kino Lorber/Les films d'ici

More prolific than ever, she has recently starred in Lemming, Swimming Pool, Heading South, playing conflicted, reclusive roles or evil, camp cameos, like in the sci fi flick Babylon A.D. She has also appeared in a Marc Jacobs fashion shoot, in an extended love fest with photographer Juergen Teller who played nude antics over a piano and gleefully peed into a flowerpot while Rampling, curled in bed, indulgently looked on. All the excavation and over-blown analysis into her enigma seems redundant when she is, more evidently, an artist committed to questing in life. While “The Look” is a bio-pic, featuring conversations with friends, it is tamer and less confrontational than past roles that explore darker aspects of her nature, revealing instead, a more contented side.

Charlotte Rampling photographed by Kareem Black, 2011 © Kareem Black

We share a couch near a lovely blazing fireplace at a lounge in Soho. I tell her that I wished she’d included a conversation with a younger woman, beautiful and successful as she had been when young, to create a tenser dynamic. Rampling fixes me with her hooded leopard gaze, “Hmm. I didn’t think of it…but it could have been good.” It was a bit early to talk about love, aging and mortality at breakfast, but I struggled to get past the platitudes.

KL: What about a crossover artist like Tilda Swinton?

CR: I don’t know her, though I’ve met her once. She’s certainly someone I would identify with; we are on the same sort of path. I feel in some ways she’s stronger than me, able to take on certain things I can’t take on.

KL: When you’re born beautiful you aren’t expected to do much more in life…

CR: It’s already enormous. What beauty brings is huge. It brings great privilege, great power and potential to do many things. If you are beautiful, doors open for you; people smile at you; you are accepted in places where others aren’t. So the relationship that people have with beauty, in a sense, is almost deforming.

Charlotte Rampling in 1974 film by Italian director Liliana Cavani, Night Porter

Anthony Palliser and Charlotte Rampling in a scene from Angelina Maccarone's documentary CHARLOTTE RAMPLING: THE LOOK. Credit: Kino Lorber/Les films d'ici

CR: Yes, because you know there’s a brutal end. However it will be. Her death was brutal and I had that in the face very young.

It sent me on a very deep search. Not necessarily to be rebellious or provocative. But it so happened, within that journey … it led me to get to the depth of something – a feeling, a life, or philosophy; to get my teeth into something, which made some sense, and which wasn’t just [sighs] beautiful and suddenly finished – and what are we here for, and what on earth is going on in the world and how are we supposed to live… I started to quest, and began my journey into life then.

KL: And you surrounded yourself with challenging men. Dirk Bogarde coined that expression about ‘The Look,’ you had. Was the film, in a certain sense, an homage to him?

CR: Yes, you’re completely right. The meeting of me and Dirk… it is an homage, this film almost could be made because of him. And because of the circumstances in my life then, I started something with him… And he was older. He became my master, my trusted friend, he and Tony [Bogarde’s partner]. They were that side of my family that were gone.

KL: Being in a place of vulnerability you had protection from the right people perhaps?

CR: Perhaps…and is it because one has the animal instinct to seek out the people that suits one – you see people that go on life’s journeys and get muddled along the way. If you look at their lives they’ve always gone with the wrong people… can you say it’s the wrong people – I don’t know…

I was working with these very iconic people, [like Visconti] who were able to inspire me into a way. You can choose many ways can’t you? Again, if you are beautiful and talented, and I had made films, and people were looking at me, and so I could choose.

Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling in 1974 film by Italian director Liliana Cavani, Night Porter

Louis XV by Juergen Teller, Charlotte Rampling

KL: Dirk Bogarde also explored a spectrum of sado-masochistic and gay roles … the Night Porter, the Servant, the Victim…

CR: He’s gone into dangerous areas that at that time had not been exploited; not been seen with homosexuality; with things that were beginning to come into the open.

KL: You are lucky you share this rich cinematic history with your public and with younger generations; it’s now part of collective memory. What about the personal impact of memory – is it a gift or a burden?

CR: I think you can choose…you don’t need the painful memories, because either you’ve resolved them – Denying always makes them want to come back. Denial is a mechanism that doesn’t work. But allowing them to come back in little by little, those memories, you can begin to be quite comfortable with them, and it’s even nice to have that as part of the map of your life.

KL: That’s wise…

CR: But as human beings, we do need to learn to become wise… because we all can, and it’s not something only given to wise old men with beards sitting on top of mountains.

Charlotte Rampling: photographed for SPREAD by Kareem Black, 2011, © Kareem Black

KL: Letting go of the fear of exposure can be liberating – and you were finally public about your father trying to suppress what your mother knew about your sister’s death, and having to go along with that for so long.

CR: By trying to control everything we become very neurotic, more and more desperate. It’s a huge tragic thing. The reason I talked about that when my mother died – because I wouldn’t say anything till she died, and then I realized in some ways, bizarrely, I did want to talk about it … but then you know, it’s always going to be talked about – but that’s what I needed to do, and I couldn’t not.

Now what happens with a lot of information is that it keeps coming back and back and back…[beating the couch emphatically] and soon as it’s out there, it sort of loops back through all the different channels and all the networks.

But what we need to do is go back to each time we do something and remember and respect why we did it.

KL: As long as it was a conscious decision and you weren’t drunk…

CR: Yes! And you weren’t forced into it.

KL: In the age of the internet, you’re not just separated from your public by film critics, people can access your films online, give immediate feedback, has that affected your relationship with the public.

CR: I find that a bit confusing and I suppose I am not that generation. Even for other things I don’t look at it. I get dizzy. Not even about myself, but generally. [laughs] It’s dizzying all this information.

KL: Do you think you’re more of a rebel in films than in real life?

CR: No, I am the same person.

KL: But perhaps you are straighter in terms of love; a serial monogamist? Are you a believer in true love?

CR: Ya, I believe – well I say now, because each love evolves very much over the years. I’ve always been monogamous – [within it] I’ve been in love with people, but very platonically. For me, monogamous love is about learning how to be able to trust someone completely; so you need to be able to think you can trust them. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have extraordinary feelings for other people and not feel guilty about them, but not necessarily go and wreck marriages and consummate, and you don’t have to do all that.

KL: It can be platonic, perhaps like with the chimpanzee in Max? I like the idea of living in solitude, but together. With desire though, it doesn’t necessarily change with age does it?

CR: That’s right, exactly. But I am able to somehow work through that differently because sexual desire, it’s not a priority…well it’s just less complicated, but I can quite understand why for other people it is.

Charlotte Rampling: photograph for SPREAD by Kareem Black, 2011 © Kareem Black

KL: I am curious about your paintings. I often write about art, and it says more about a person’s emotions than asking them to be literal about who they are in conversation.

CR: Those are my funny strange creatures I live with. One of my favorite artists is Giacometti. And I didn’t even realize that I was doing it, but those sort of Giacometti creatures come out of me…it’s the spirit of him, it could be his family. They are not sculptures but I work on materials with wood. I bring these people out of them that are rather like very strange lonely creatures that come out of the darkness. A person will come out… I’ve been asked to expose them, and I might, but I need to be more diligent and work on them a bit more.

KL: I am wondering about the film’s reception in the UK.

CR: I know, in your own country, you always sort of wonder – so it’s going to be very interesting.

KL: Hmm… a tough audience there, but perhaps next, a knighthood is in the cards?

CR: Knighthood! [chuckles] I am not qualified to be a Dame. To be Dame you have to represent England in a way that I don’t. No, I got the O.B.E because I represent England outside of England more…but thinking of me as an actor, I haven’t done all the classical theatre, all the great roles. Think of Helen Mirren and me. Helen, who I adore, is a friend – should be Dame. I am the rebel, the revolutionary on the side.

KL: The edgy icon? The daring Dame Rampling, you definitely deserve it…

Well, thank you, that’s very sweet. [peals of laughter]

Charlotte Rampling: photograph by Kareem Black, 2011 © Kareem Black

Charlotte Rampling: The Look, Directed by Angelina Maccarone, A Kino Lorber Release

Stylist: Jessica Van Niel at BA-REPS.com

Master manipulator, Erik Sanko Photographed by Bobby Fisher at His Studio, 2011 ©Bobby Fisher

Coming up post-Halloween is Erik Sanko’s pagan puppet premiere at BAM for Phantom Limb’s performance of 69°S.

The production dramatizes the explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton’s harrowing 1914 trans-Antarctic expedition in which his vessel, the Endurance, was stranded amid freezing ice-floes for an entire winter only a few miles from the South Pole. 69°S is the latitude at which the intrepid arctic pioneers struck peril. The ensemble, led by Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff, brings to life Shackleton’s adventure with elaborate hand carved marionettes in a series of tableaux vivants using music, film and photography to create a fantasy Antarctica.

Erik Sanko's marionettes. Photograph © Bobby Fisher, 2011

Erik Sanko. Photograph © Bobby Fisher, 2011

Erik Sanko's studio. Photograph © Bobby Fisher, 2011

An original score by Kronos Quartet and costumes designed by threeAsFour will set the stage for a magical tale of human generosity and collective sacrifice (Shackleton gave away his mittens and the last of his biscuits to save his fellow crewmen from starvation, while barely surviving himself with frostbitten fingers). The inspiring story is one of personal heroism triumphing over cataclysmic hardships.

Bobby Fisher’s captivating photographs for SPREAD are a behind-the-scenes revelation of the upcoming show at Erik Sanko’s Tribeca studio – a cabinet of curiosities, with a Gothic bestiary of taxidermy creatures and a coven of eerie, elegant marionettes that await resurrection through the hands of their lord.

Erik Sanko's marionettes. Photograph © Bobby Fisher, 2011

Erik Sanko. Photograph © Bobby Fisher, 2011

Sanko, a master manipulator of strings, is similarly musically inclined, having played with the Lounge Lizards, John Cale, Yoko Ono, and his own band, Skeleton Key. When he is not touring with his puppets for stage productions, he also performs more macabre marionette acts at the BOX in New York City.

For more information: BAM and Erik Sanko’s and Jessica Grindstaff’sPhantom Limb Company

Elizabeth Taylor Wearing a Chador at the Shah Cheragh Shrine, Shiraz , 1976: © Firooz Zahedi - Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

© Firooz Zahedi - Dressed as an Odalisque II, 1976, Printed 2011 C-print 48 x 36 in/ 121.9 x 91.4 cm, Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery

The muse of many artists, including Warhol, the late actress Elizabeth Taylor reveals a more candid side in an exhibit of photographs by Firooz Zahedi, in which she returns to the glamorous age of Cleopatra. A show with over 40 photographs from the actress’s travels to Iran in 1976, is on loan from LACMA, and can be seen at Leila Heller’s new downtown gallery till October 29th.

Firooz Zahedi had left Iran as a child, but together with Taylor, he returned to his country to photograph the culture made exotic once more through the lens of a visitor. Together they traveled to Persepolis, the once destroyed ancient Persian capital, to Shiraz, and to the tile-decked town of Isfahan, where Taylor, after visits to the bazaars, purchased the costumes for her transformation to an oriental odalisque.

Elizabeth Taylor in Persepolis with view of the Tent City in the background. © Firooz Zahedi Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

Before her death last March, Elizabeth Taylor said to her close friend Firooz, “Seeing these photographs brings back fond memories of my visit to Iran, a country blessed with a rich and colorful culture that dates back many centuries.” Zahedi, who now lives in Los Angeles, started his career in New York during the mid-1970s working with Andy Warhol and Interview.

Elizabeth Tayolor's BVLGARI Emerald Suite being auctioned at Christie's, New York

The BVLGARI Emerald Suite, a suite of emerald and diamond jewelry, were gifts from Richard Burton from 1962-1967. The necklace alone is estimated at $1,000,000 – 1,500,000. Elizabeth Taylor began her work against AIDS in the early 1980s and in October 1991, Taylor established The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation (ETAF). A portion of the monies generated by exhibition admissions, events and select publications related to the sales will be donated to her AIDS Foundation.

© Firooz Zahedi, Dressed as an Odalisque I, 1976, printed 2011, Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery

Elizabeth Taylor at Tomb of Saadi - Shiraz © Firooz Zahedi Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

Elizabeth Taylor Seated in a Meditation Room - Shiraz © Firooz Zahedi Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

Elizabeth Taylor Smoking a hookah at the Tea House © Firooz Zahedi Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

Elizabeth Taylor in Chador at the Shah Chirag Shrine -Shiraz © Firooz Zahedi Courtesy Leila Heller Gallery, New York

More information:
Elizabeth Taylor Foundation
Christies Auction of Liz Taylor jewels
Leila Heller Gallery Chelsea: 568 West 25th Street New York City

Fumie Sasabuchi, untitled., 2010, paper, oil on card-board, 50 x 70 cm / 19,7 x 27,5\

Japanese artist Fumie Sasabuchi exposes the decay beneath the surface of vanity in fashion magazines. Her aesthetic reflects a return to a Gothic and necromantic trend in fashion portraiture, and it recalls Alexander McQueen’s flirtation with thanatos, the Freudian concept for the death instinct.

Fumie Sasabuchi, Fashion Spread

Fumie Sasabuchi, 2010, untitled, oil, ball-pen, paper on cardboard, 60 x 50 cm

Fumie Sasabuchi, untitled, 2010, ceramic, plastic material, glass, wodd, 133 x 23,5 x 23,5 cm

Fumie Sasabuchi, untitled, 2009, oil, ball-pen, paper on cardboard, 50 x 40 cm / 19,7 x 15,7\

Aside from the collages Sasabuchi also creates fine art etchings and sculpture that reveal the body’s mortal framework. Enshrined in glass cases, they offer a different perspective, emphasizing beauty over the macabre.

Fumie Sasabuchi, Fashion Spread

An exhibition of Fumie Sasabuchi’s works can be see at Galerie Zink, Munich: http://www.fumiesasabuchi.de

A photo taken at Burning Man, David Art Wales 2010

Festivals have been sprouting love, peace and happiness across the planet, and some like the Festival in the Desert in the Sahara in Mali, Afrikaburn, and Burning Man which take place over several days, become watering holes for artists, musicians and a place to show off distinct styles.

Escape to New York was a festival organized in early August in South Hampton New York with installations, live music, performance art and experimental theatre. The organizers put up private teepees, suitable for glamorous camping, “glamping,” to accommodate the Hampton’s taste for sanitized partying – in contrast to the tents and wagons that spawn chaotically in the crowded fields of Glastonbury.

Escape2NY Festival 2011 © photo Kisa Lala

Escape2NY Festival 2011 © photo Kisa Lala

The festivals offer a chance to dress with imagination, but unlike the dressier Carnivals, masked parades and Halloween Balls, in these summery arenas, there’s more of the Byronseque aesthetic of the casual nomad.

Escape2NY Festival 2011 © photo Kisa Lala

Alison Lucek at Escape2NY Festival 2011 © photo Kisa Lala

© Iain McKell - “The New Gypsies” (Prestel)

Glastonbury Photos by Andrew and Joey Allcock © Glastonbury 2011

The festivals have archives that keep a record of spectacles from past years:
The Escape2NY festival
Glastonbury Festival
Burning Man
Festival in the Desert
Afrikaburn Festival

Gypsy woman showing her golden smile - Romania - © Photo Kisa Lala 2011

Living on the edges of townships in the grey zones between cities, the Gypsies of Central Europe stay off the grid. Myths, rumours, lies cloud their histories for they leave few traces and heed no rules, instead, they live off the land, and sometimes they beg, thieve and steal.

Count Kalnoky tells me, that at his residence, in the village of Miklosvar in Romania, where I was staying as a guest, he was indeed wireless: the gypsies had cut the cables to fence the copper for their lawless trade.

The roving life seems romantic, but it’s not for the timid. To winter in open fields, to bed in barns, wagons, trailers means Gypsies are strong in their will to be free. They barter for work and stow their riches in silver and gold, knowing it can’t burn like paper, or vanish when people stop believing in its value. Gypsies are always on the move but when they halt, they build silvery houses, knowing if all else fails, they can just melt the metals and leave.

Romanian Women © Photo Kisa Lala

The Romanies or Gypsies, were nomadic tribes that migrated from central India, probably Rajasthan during medieval times. I am told that the word Gypsy comes from the Greek for “Egyptian.” But their clans are frowned upon in cities because Gypsies are forever outsiders – much like the Jews were made pariahs for praying to a different god.

A silver Gypsy house Romania - © Photo Kisa Lala 2011

Rajasthani Women © Photo Kisa Lala

Walk anywhere in a straight line and pretty soon you will cross a gate, a fence, a road or come to the end of a field and reach the beginning of a town. It is hard to get lost when every inch of soil is mapped and watched through the cross-hairs of Google earth. Like the pirates of the seas, the Gypsies claim the right to rove. Walking on land means a series of roads followed by border crossings that only birds may ignore, because they perch wherever they land. The Gypsies have learned to do the same.

© Patrick Cariou - Gypsies - powerHouse Books

© Iain McKell - “The New Gypsies” (Prestel)

Some books out recently that explore Gypsy style are Patrick Cariou “Gypsies” that retraces the migration of the Romany people from India, and Iain McKell’s “The New Gypsies” inspired by the British fringe cult whose members are known as “horsedrawns,” who eschew modern city life and thrive as intercity nomads.

Varvara a Romanian woman lives off the land in ramshackle cottage - © Photo Kisa Lala 2011

Romanian Farmer © Photo Kisa Lala 2011

A Rajasthani woman cooking- © Photo Kisa Lala 2011

Photo by Jim Wright

East Village, New York City, NY  – Walking down a set of concrete steps and stepping into a small shop, you’ll find guitars hanging like trophies and vintage amplifiers leaning patiently against the walls. Cans of paint and various tools give the appearance of usefulness, and a friendly face greets you as you walk through the door.

That’s Jimmy Carbonetti. Born on New York City’s Roosevelt Island, he has found his true calling creating handmade, one-of-a-kind guitars. They are marvelous pieces that are both form and function, pushed to their limits; equal parts precious museum and gritty dive bar.

Jimmy wears this craftsman role quite well and pairs it with a passion for playing music, identifying with iconoclasts before him like Ronnie Wood, John Entwistle, and George Harrison; artists that made their solemn vows to music and kept them through life’s many ups and down.

Photo by Jim Wright

I was able to talk with him about his guitars and the journey to find his current band, Caveman, who are set to release their first album on September 13.

Ron Wood’s solo album, Gimme Some Neck, plays throughout our conversation and fades in and out of consciousness with pauses in dialogue.

SPREAD —- First question, can I have this guitar?

Jimmy Carbonetti:  laughs.  Yeah, sure!

Seriously though, these guitars are amazing. How did you get into this?

I started when I was 18 working at Chelsea Guitars, getting used to playing vintage guitars, and what made those better was the quality of the instruments – they were all basically handmade. Well, made in a factory, but each body was cut by one person. It was all personal and each one was different…

Old guitars had much better quality wood. A lot of it is now extinct, like Brazilian rosewood, you can’t use anymore.

The quality of the workmanship was way better then. It’s just gotten more and more mechanical. Paint turned into plastic paint, so it didn’t even matter what the wood was underneath.

The paint that they used, you can’t really use anymore, but it’s nice to use it like old nitro [editors note: nitrocellulose is a lacquer that was used by all the major guitar manufacturers in the 50s and 60s before Poly became the standard].

Something that has that love to it is just timeless, and will go on forever.

I feel that things are moving in the direction of handmade quality objects.

Absolutely. Everything became so disposable. Now people are coming around to the idea that, even if it costs a little bit more, it’s worth it to have a handmade quality item that will last you forever. You bought the fridge in the 50’s that cost as much as a car, but would last you until your kids got married.

You’re pretty timely in that respect with your shop.

Just going back to the basics, you know. Really old school. Not using huge machines – it’s all hand cut.

Where do you get the wood?

I’m working with this guy in Montreal, Brian Monte, an amazing guitar builder who has been doing it for over 30 years, and he offered to cut the necks and bodies for me.

He’s hand cutting the wood and roughing it out. Then I take it from there, shape it and make it perfect. You know, paint it and make it…mine.

So, how long does this process take start to finish?

So, I talk to Brian and get our shape and idea, then it can take about a month to get the roughs to me. From when I get the wood from him, it’s about 2 weeks of solid work. Once I have all the materials, I can get into the zone of coming in everyday from 10am to sometimes 3am until it’s done.

Its a lot of work. Going over every knob and buffing it out until I feel the shape is perfect. Perfect in my mind, at least.

Most importantly, they’ve got to play too…

I’m not sure which comes first, the builder or musician. It’s fun to have both hats, where I know what a solid guitar is. I’ve broken guitars on tour, so I’ve changed around designs, putting Fender, Gibson, and Gretsch together. So my guitars become a cool Frankenstein of everything that I love in a guitar.

You pick up a guitar and you know in five seconds if it’s for you or not. Like anything, you feel it and it feels comfortable, you don’t even have to plug it in. Trust in your hands, they’re the most sensitive part of your body.

With anything, you can’t deny the best

That’s what’s fun about New York too. There’s no middle ground. You either have the best of the best and you’ll last, or you have a pretty good spot and you’ll be out. You have to prove yourself to the New York City gods.

It’s that old cliché, ‘If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere’

It’s completely true. Some of the best guitar builders have been in New York. That’s some huge shoes to fill. [John] D’Angelico for instance. He was building guitars on Kenmare Street back in the 30’s and 40’s. He would build a guitar for someone he respected and they would invite him to the shows; so he was going to the best jazz clubs, watching his instruments being played.

When the Black Angels were playing my guitars, it was quite a feeling, because I really respect those guys. Such a great thing that they trust me as a builder.

What’s your thoughts on being a part of that – carrying on the tradition of a guitar builder as well as being in your band Caveman?

It’s really exciting, just being surrounded by the best talented people. All the guys in Caveman – I respect all of them personally and musically…To have that collaborative family in the city, back to old-school art community. Use everyone’s strengths and just collaborate as much as you can with no egos. It’s so important.

How did Caveman come to be?

Me and Matt were in a band called the Subjects that broke up. I’ve known Jeff since I was 18, and he was the bass player for Elefant. Stefan played in The End of the World. We all knew each other before Caveman even started. We were all fans of each others’ bands and hung out pretty much every day. For some reason, those bands didn’t work out… and it was fun to then come together with a completely different band like Caveman. Most other bands were straight forward pop and Caveman is way more open and ‘vibey’.

You guys have your first album coming out in September, tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, it’s called Coco Beware. We recorded with our friend Nick [Stumpf, former singer of French Kicks] in DUMBO [Brooklyn]. It’s coming out in September and we’ll be touring for it. Really excited about it.

Visit Cobra Guitars: http://cobraguitars.com/

Caveman’s track “Old Friend” is available for free download HERE

Catch up with them in Brooklyn at Cameo on August 19 or find more tour dates here: http://www.myspace.com/thiscaveman

Performance artist Marina Abramović collaborated with her favourite designer, the creative director of Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci, who she breastfeeds on a photo-shoot for Visionaire’s 60th edition, an issue which the designer has art-directed. Maternal anxieties have been a theme also in her latest project for the Manchester International Festival, ‘Life and Death of Marina Abramović,‘ which launches today. The play is directed by Robert Wilson starring Marina as her own mother, Willem Dafoe as the narrator, and has a soundtrack written by Antony of ‘The Johnsons’ Hegarty, who has also been a close friend of the artist.

The artist working with actor Willem Dafoe in her new work, 'The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic'

Wilson’s play focuses on Marina’s private life and not so much her artwork. While the artist has said that she likes complete control over her work, in this case she relinquishes creative direction to Wilson. “Once you give the details of your life to a director he can do what he wants with that: he can recycle, he can make it chronological, he can take the things he likes, so that your whole life is new to you,” she said in an interview to the Manchester Evening News

Though Abramović cannot control how she will die, and hopes that she will die ‘without fear, consciously and without anger,’ she has already decided on how her own funeral is to be presented. “A few years ago, I went to a lawyer and said I would like to have a funeral with three bodies – two fake and one real – and buried in three parts of the world where I have lived the longest: Belgrade, where I was born, Amsterdam and New York.”

“No one would know which was the real body. That is really a true story and [Robert Wilson] has created a version of that.”

The Life and Death of Marina Abramović will be performed at the Lowry Theatre, Salford Quays, on July 9, 11, 13, 15 and 16, as part of the Manchester International Festival. For tickets, call 0161 876 2198 or visit www.mif.co.uk