Innholdsfortegnelse for issue 20 i Lampoon Magazine International

The attitude of a contemporary day — beyond equal rights, beyond pride, and beyond shame: we are fluid. The word defines an identity that is undefined. Not gay or straight nor male or female. Water flows between our fingers in the light of the day. Not only is the demand of a definition unfair but so is the question. The image of fluid is simply water that cannot be held in our hands. There is nothing more discourteous, less well-mannered and less modern than asking a person who they are with or making an assumption about it. The word fluid is now used around the world — from pop culture, to gossip, to children’s music — everywhere. It could also appear to be that celebrities use fluid to conceal some…

Irish linen used to be moon-bleached. Artisans would spread linen under the moonlight for a year until they achieved the shade they sought in the fabric. The village of Upperlands, situated in county Londonderry in Northern Ireland, is acquainted with the technique, owing its existence to the linen industry and the Clark family, who established the first linen mill there in 1736. Amidst green hills and vast wetlands, divided by various rivers, the small village offers the perfect grounds for what later became one of the most precious materials in the world. Home to the last beetling factory standing, William Clark & Sons has bleached and finished linen, marketing it in most parts of the world for almost 300 years since Jackson Clark had spotted the ideal location for a…

The challenge of contemporary physics lies in trying to reconcile Albert Einstein’s general relativity with quantum mechanics. One of the theories that tries to do this considers space-time as fluid: there are those who speak of a superfluid and those who call it foam. What this means is that what has passed has not stopped being, but continues to exist elsewhere. When Einstein’s Italian friend Michele Besso died, the Nobel laureate wrote that the watch is our salvation in this illusion: fluid or not, we perceive the passing of time, and this instrument marks the daily transformation of the future into the past. It is impossible to look at a watch and think about lost time: the ticking keeps you anchored in the ‘here and now’ and what could happen…

Andrea Kerbaker’s place is a book lover’s paradise: thirty thousand volumes sprawled out everywhere, on shelves going up to the ceiling, stacked on the floor, crammed into every nook and cranny, in the kitchen, and in the bathroom. Books from every period, language, workmanship, and format, divided according to the logic of the owner: antiques and from before the twentieth century; with dedications; foreign; poetry; art books and books on cinema. All browsable, “to overcome the reverential awe that is often felt towards collections,” explains the homeowner. It is impossible to stop the eye from darting from posters to photomontages, illustrations by Guido Scarabottolo, and works by Francesco Musante, Tullio Pericoli, Mirò’s plates, paper sculptures, ceramics and movie posters. There is also a section dedicated to children’s workshops where they…

The protagonist of our story is Helen König — affectionately nicknamed Lenci by her circle of friends. Austro-German origin, she was born in Turin in February 1886. Her family had moved from Germany the year before after her father had been appointed the head of the Royal Agricultural Station — but his premature death left his wife and children in a difficult economic situation. Helen grew up with an eclectic spirit and an inclination towards art. She traveled throughout all of Europe studying different subjects and taking on various professions, eventually graduating from Düsselfdorf with a degree in teaching photography. Upon the outbreak of World War I, Helen returned to Italy where she married Enrico Scavini in 1915. Three years later, she began a working partnership with the artist Sandro…

May 2018: a reclining nude by Amedeo Modigliani was sold at auction for nearly $160 million US dollars. There are those who feel Modigliani was not innovative enough or rigorous conceptually, while others swear by his imagery as an archetype of modern beauty. Why does his vision of male and female seem ever more pertinent to our present age? His work is more beloved than ever and has appeared as the subject of films, cartoons, and innumerable copies. The use of the reclining nude, in even the most conservative of interiors, no longer causes the batting of an eye. Merely a few decades ago, the sight of pubic hair scandalized a Parisian public so much that Modigliani’s nudes were banned from the public eye. While compatriots with similar Art Deco…

In a studio three flights above Chinatown’s Elizabeth Street, Hillary Taymour sits at a table hosting a sewing machine and enough deadstock fabric to expand the length. It’s 7:15 pm and Taymour’s head is down and hands busy with a sneaker in one hand, glue in the other. The Collina Strada founder is working to complete a custom pair of sneakers for Spanish singer and songwriter, Rosalía’s upcoming Grammy appearance. “Sustainability is a journey” — Taymour confirms. Based and manufactured in New York, Collina Strada’s core transcends its collections as its DNA is imbued with catalysts for change. Self-declared as a platform for climate awareness, social awareness, change and self-expression, the brand offers itself as the medium to which Taymour has been able to express her social, political and eco…

Cristóbal Balenciaga Eizaguirre, the Basque fashion designer born in 1895 in Getaria, northern Spain, sees the light in a proletarian family. His father, a fisherman, passed away when he was just eleven years old. His mother was a seamstress working at Palacio Aldamar, the summer residence of Blanca Carrillo de Albornoz y Elio, Marquise of Casa-Torres (who would be the first patron and supporter of Balenciaga when he opens his first atelier in San Sebastian at only twenty-two years old). The coastal Basque location is soon followed by boutiques in Madrid and Barcelona. In 1937, he takes to Paris, leaving the horrors of the Spanish Civil War behind. He opens his showroom on 10 Avenue George V and explodes internationally. Balenciaga’s style is imbued with all the contradictions and the…

This conversation took place two days after the United Kingdom's general elections. Boris Johnson’s Tories had won over Corbyn’s Labour party with a vast majority. Like all depressing thoughts and facts, the win needs to be processed before writing something about it; no matter how pro-EU David Nicholls and many other UK writers may be, an author has to offer a wider perspective. At the moment, it may be way too soon for anyone to have one. This sense of nostalgia is moved by a novel set in 1997, at the dawn of the European Union and with a newly-elected Labour government after years of conservative leaders, one of which was Margaret Thatcher. 1997, pre-digital era. It is June; the last day of the last year in school with its…

Cornelia Lauf: Your project as a whole had been crafted for Italy, a country you have worked in numerous times, and which you clearly love. ....the Illuminating Gas referred to the The Large Glass by Marcel Duchamp, swirls in neon by Italian painter Lucio Fontana, and the palm trees of Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers. At the same time, the exhibition had the dryness of a very British, if not the lyricism of a Welsh production. In short, a deeply European show, but one that would not have been possible without the scale or media choices of American artists of the last century. Such as neon, or the scale of an Alexander Calder mobile. What do you think about nations and geographies, at this point in the twenty-first century? We have…

The Stibbert Museum was founded by Anglo-Florentine collector Frederick Stibbert. Paraphrasing the name of an exhibition held at the museum in 2016, a once modest villa in the Montughi district of Florence — formerly owned by the Davanzati family — was transformed to become a 19th-century wunderkammer. The Cavalcade of twelve antique, Italian and German suits of armor on display in the European Armory room was designed by architect Cesare Fortini in 1880 and decorated by Gaetano Bianchi. The collection continues with naturalia and ephemera, souvenirs, costumes from several ethnic groups, furniture from different periods in history, buttons, fans, tapestries, Middle Eastern, Ottoman and Balkan arms, and Samurai katanas and accessories. The love of Japonisme — also a favorite with Count Premoli in the Rome of D’Annunzio — is clearly…

In other parts of the world such as neighboring Southeast Asia or the poorer Africa, the blame on the West for colonialism is diluted in current affairs. In India, the flow of traffic that evidently violates all highway regulations condemns Europe to its historical shame. Udaipur. Walking along the lake that runs from the castle to the jungle, one understands the height of the dam overlooking the forest below. In Rajasthan, European troops once made alliances with local maharajas who guaranteed privilege in exchange for wealth from their lands. Over a morning stroll, Lucio Bonaccorsi points out how one would have ended up in the colonies: either been on the run or the younger children of noble families in order to leave their family heritage intact in the hands of…

”We're from the world and not just Lebanon,” says David Raf-foul. Along with Nicolas Moussallem, the designer duo try to spend fifty percent of their time in Milan and the remaining back home. “It’s important to be both in Beirut and in Europe.”›The current economic depression in Lebanon means that banks have set a low cap on how much money can be withdrawn, spent and transferred each month, pausing all transactions and putting the luxury industry, which very much relies on imports, in standstill. At the port, inbound and outbound shipments have also slowed down and customs taxes have increased. For Raffoul and Moussallem two show openings in Beirut were postponed in light of the situation. Still, while local businesses suffer, they are grateful that much of their projects come…

Orkney, also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, characterized by wild nature, sweeping views, and unapologetic Scottish weather. Once a year, in the island of›South Ronaldsay mothers and fathers delve deep into their attics and cupboards, proudly assembling their children’s costumes for a tradition believed to be unique to Orkney dating back to at least the early 19th century: The Festival of the Horse, with its Boys’ Ploughing Match — a pagan ritual, still very popular among the rural families of Orkney. In the early days boys would do the plowing competing for who managed to do the most straight and most even furrows. The girls would dress up as horses, sporting spectacular outfits made of collars, hats, belts, pom-poms and fringes.…

In the heart of the historic Marais district in Paris, on a street opposite the musée Carnavalet is a bookshop — collectors and tourists travel to it yearly. This is Le Comptoir de L’image, home to over two thousand photography and fashion books and magazines and, founded in 1993 by photographer Michel Fink. Unlike any bookshop, upon opening the door, hoards of books stacked like towers form a path to the barricaded owner of the shop. Unable to see his figure behind mountains of books and magazines upon entering, he offers a quiet hello. Fink had worked as an assistant for Richard Avedon and Hiro in 1996 in New York. He had sent a letter to the Ave-don Studio in 1965 because he knew the big American photographers would be…

Nestled on a quiet street of an otherwise bustling area between Central Park South and the Upper East Side is a stately neoclassical building — Bergdorf Goodman, the Plaza Hotel, the Apple Store, and the once glorified, now disgraced Barney’s are all within a few blocks. In one of its duplexes it houses Thomsen Gallery. In stark contrast with its parquet floors and bay windows, Thomsen’s collection comprises Japanese artworks and ob-jets d’art from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. I met with co-owner Erik Thomsen on a Monday morning to talk about his upbringing and his love for Japanese art. The Danish dealer was born in Chicago to Danish parents and, when he was three months old, the family moved to Japan. “My father was a Lutheran missionary,” he says.…

A collection of antiquities, made up of 620 cataloged pieces, which, in chronological order, was the last royal Roman collection created. It was inaugurated in 1876 when the pope (who was no longer king) was by then closed within the high walls of the Vatican, while the Savoys established themselves in the Eternal City and on the throne of the newly born Italy. The Torlonia Collection is a compendium of many elements of classicism that merged together into a single entity thanks to the will of a single patron and collector — Prince Don Alessandro Torlonia. The collection is the focus of an exhibition at Palazzo Caffarelli, at the Campidoglio, which opens in April 2020. Entitled The Torlonia Marbles: Collecting Masterpieces, the show is curated by Salvatore Settis and Carlo…