INTERVIEWS

From the concrete walls of East Dallas to the prestigious halls of contemporary art, Victor “marka27” Quiñonez has spent decades proving that the streets are a sacred archive. For Quiñonez, graffiti and skateboarding were vital survival mechanisms and an escape from an environment imbued with mass incarceration, violence and immigration enforcement. He was raised in a resilient community where neighbors looked out for one another during sudden deportations and street vendors offered free tamales to families struggling to get by. That upbringing instilled an unshakeable ethos into his practice. Those lived experiences serve as the spiritual bedrock of his current work, transforming grit and neighborhood solidarity into monumental, public expressions.What sets Quiñonez apart is his ability t...

The Van Gendt Hallen in Amsterdam, a historic industrial facility where locomotives were previously manufactured, is currently undergoing a major renovation to become the future DRIFT Museum. A small group of attendees recently toured the site, which is in the early stages of construction, as part of a rare experience organized through VIP Cardholder Access from Capital One and The Cultivist.Lonneke Gordijn, co-founder of the artist duo DRIFT, provided a walkthrough of the facility and explained the rationale behind the project. DRIFT is known for large-scale kinetic works, including drone performances and complex light installations. Gordijn stated that the studio identified a need for specialized infrastructure that traditional museums are often unable to accommodate. She explained that ...

In the industrial backdrop of Ridgewood, Brooklyn, Anna Park’s studio is less of a clean white cube and more of a high-pressure lab. At just 29, Park has moved at breakneck pace through the art world. She went from being a star student to a global name whose work now sits in major collections like the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Born in Daegu, South Korea, and raised in Utah, Park spent her childhood constantly adjusting to new environments. That experience of being a first-generation immigrant in the American suburbs gave her exclusive POV to the social "performances" people do just to fit in—a theme that’s embedded in her unruly, charcoal creations. After a stint in California, she landed at the New York Academy of Art, where she was discovered by KAWS during an open studio in 2019. Th...

For this installment of Through the Lens, we explore the practice of multidisciplinary artist Boris Acket through the eyes of his father, Rob Acket.For the past three years, Acket’s father has documented the studio’s inner workings, capturing the long hours of testing and the inevitable technical failures that define his practice. This arrangement carries a profound circularity. After spending his childhood following his father (a sound technician and designer) around various sets, Acket has now seen those roles reversed. His father is the one documenting Boris’s complex installations, filtering the work through a familiar, paternal perspective.This process is most evident in Acket’s latest collaboration for the Fred again.. USB002 tour. The project centered on an adaptation of his work “E...

Purchase the Slawn cover of Hypebeast Magazine #37: The Architects Issue.Ed Worley, better known as Opake, is sitting on a couch in the studio while the sharp hiss of a spray can cuts through. We are talking about the new Hypebeast Magazine #37 cover. Slawn made it clear from the jump that he wasn't doing it unless Opake was part of the process. It was a move born purely from brotherhood. For Slawn, there was no version of this cover that didn't feature the man he calls his twin.Opake started writing graffiti at 13, but his life became a decade-long blur of heavy addiction. He spent eight years living on the streets, consumed by drugs, and was by his own admission unemployable until he hit 30 and stepped in to be a father. That responsibility changed everything. He started working 19-hour ...

Hip-hop is a bicoastal game, at least that’s how it’s framed. Even decades after its founding, East and West back and forth roared over the constellation of regional scenes at the genre’s bedrock. Cities like Houston, Philadelphia and Atlanta pushed their own dialects into the national sonic lifeblood, yet Memphis is still one of the most unsung engines.Thousands of miles away, decades later in Paris, a young Christelle Oyiri took a liking to the gritty 808s, lo-fi drawl and raw, sinister subjects of Three 6 Mafia’s early tapes. Raised in a Christian household, she found something comforting in its darkness, something that resonated with her own uneasy relationship with faith and how it flourishes because of its many contradictions, not in spite of them.“I didn’t have much of a fixed idea ...

The spectacle of a global art fair often masks the myriad of environmental implications. From the massive wooden crates to carbon-heavy air freighters moving invaluable pieces across the globe, the "high-emission" reputation of art logistics has long been the industry's open secret. Enter Eythos.With a footprint that stretches from Hong Kong to Seoul, art logistics for Eythos isn't only about moving masterpieces. They aim to redesign the very framework of cultural exchange, with Rudy Bottin, Head of Sustainability, leading this charge. His work is rooted in the belief that in order for art to be truly timeless, its journey has to be sustainable. Bottin and his team have pioneered a "slow logistics" approach, "The larger and/or heavier the shipment is, the bigger the saving is with seafreig...