Artists to Watch: Meet the Emerging Talent From our Latest Issue of L'Officiel Art
In our latest issue of L’Officiel Art is dubbed The Danger Issue - and for good reason. Throughout the issue, artists reflected upon the last decade's upheavals, and what lies ahead for the coming ten years. Even though this decade is off to a rough start - Kobe's passing in January feels like eons ago - the immense talent in the issue are here to share the things that inspire them. This group of emerging creatives, artists, collectives and initiatives are changing the rules of the game, by means of their talent and innovative nature. We asked them to share some of the things that inspire them, like Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast, the Riverdale Season 3 Finale, and Sissi Club in Marseille. Scroll to read up on the cool and talented creatives to be on the lookout for in 2020.
The 25-year-old Los Angeles-born, New York City-based artist and recent Columbia University graduate, has an eclectic sketchbook at hand. From sculptures, paintings to poetry, Serpas, a community organizer and activist since high school, is largely concerned with questions that surround racial inequality and structural inequality. "My political education communicated that black and brown artists don’t get bought, sold, or circulated, just mood-boarded," said Serpas in an interview with Ravelin magazine. Serpas finds inspiration both from podcasts and exhibitions, including Roh Projects Jakarta @AAAAHH!!! Paris Internationale 2019, Trillbilly Worker’s Party podcast, and Ionna Tsulaia’s studio at VA[A]DS Free University Tbilisi, Georgia.
Founded in 2018, NVSHU is an all-female DJ collective from Shanghai. They offer deejaying lessons to femme, non-binary, and LGTBQ+ individuals in the local electronic music scene. Their goal is to empower marginalized people through music education.
Shu Shu is the cutest rockstar and very cool style to boot. The singer gets much of her inspiration from dreamy scenery. "I went on a little road trip with friends in the north of France to shoot the ‘my crown’ music video. We kinda didn’t have a clear plan, that’s how we encountered the best things that you never expect, like the sea, the sunset, the carpet. The North of France is solid." She's also been inspired by the One Punch Man, and by Soft Sculpture by Thomas Liu Le Lann.
Mitchell Anderson is an artist living in Zurich where he runs the project space Plymouth Rock. One of his most cherished memories is the Speedparade 19 at Mikro, Zurich. "This annual weekend-long party in a humble shed of an exhibition space/music venue was ecstasy. Walid El Barbir, Flavio Audino, Luca Digilio and Nicola Kazimir run a club without members and toxicity: doors are open and music is the bouncer. Dancing until Sunday night my heart honestly felt like it was going to explode, then a bunch of us left to see Parasite." He's found inspiration in watching the Riverdale Season 3 Finale, and reading Eva Kenny’s "Privilege Nostalgia: Reading Beckett During Brexit."
Queer Is Not A Label is a recurring party in Paris since 2019. Founded by Kévin Blinderman (artist, member of the run-space Treize in Paris) and Paul-Alexandre Islas (artist, DJ), these noisy, aggressive and emo parties put forward DJs who place questions of identities at the heart of their musical practice. Queer Is Not A Label has found inspiration from watching the first episode of Tensei Shitara Slime Datta Ken and Venus Liuzzo’s Youtube Video. They've also found inspiration from Soundcloud mixes by TORMENTA and Scintii.
Not Manet’s Type (NMT) collective is a female friendship loose group of artists, art historians and writers working on collaborative curatorial projects, exploring contexts of exhibition, and upholding cultural activism. The group finds inspiration from Black Mass publishing, the @zouk.vintage Instagram account, and NMT x ENSAPC, a curatorial intervention from May of 2019.
Death Panel is a politics and culture podcast and artist project comprised of Beatrice Adler-Bolton, Artie Vierkant, Emily Barker, Philip Rocco, and Vince Patti. The group has been inspired by the following: Health Justice Now by Tim Faust, Thomas Heatherwick Studio’s “The Vessel,” and the General Strike in Chile and Worldwide (“Viva la revuelta proletaria a la huelga general par todo”).
Juliette Marchand is the Associate Curator at the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles and EXTRAMENTALE Founder and Artistic Director, a curatorial platform devoted to adolescent symptoms in contemporary art. Based in Arles, France, Marchand says she's found inspiration from the following books and exhibits: Full Surrogacy Now: Feminism Against Family by Sophie Lews, David Wojnarowicz: Photography & Film 1978-1992 at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, and I Wake Up every morning in this killing machine called America: David Wojnarowicz and Marion Scemama at New Galerie, Paris, and Life Forms, Apr 25 - 27 2019, Haus de Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, and John Tresch.
Tarek Lakhrissi is a visual artist, poet, and writer based in Paris. He’s part of the 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020). He finds inspiration in places like Sissi Club in Marseille, the song "La misere est si belle" by the rap group PNL, and the movie Atlantics by Mati Diop.
Christelle Oyiri (also known as CRYSTALL-
MESS) is a French music producer, DJ and multidisciplinary artist based in Paris. "I was growing increasingly bored of rap being polished and contained and then Miami rapper Saucy Santana shook the 2019 table with their single ‘Walk Em like A Dog’. The revenge bop every femdom fantasize about – and add to that a New Orleans bounce beat and you won me over! Also I do believe Saucy Santana is going to be the first LGBTQ and non-binary rapper to break out in the mainstream."
Oyiri has been inspired by Miami rapper Saucy Santana, artist Steven Traylor, and the moment the Louvre removed the Sackler family name from its walls.
Amalia Ulman is an artist based between L.A, NYC, Shanghai, and Gijón. Her practice includes performance, installation, video and net-art works. When asked to reveal something that inspires her, she said "Exquisite Mariposa by Fiona Duncan is an amazing book. I love it, not only because I’m in it and she says wonderful things about me, but because she has managed to craft something new and fresh that was much needed. It is emotional for me to read this book because I was present during the making but I think anyone can enjoy Fiona’s writing, it’s simply brilliant." She's also been inspired by the film Non Fiction by Olivier Assayas, and by Vincent Macaigne.
Bob Bicknell-Knight is an artist, curator and writer based in London. He is interested in ideas surrounding automation, utopian ideologies and surveillance capitalism. He's sought inspiration from the book Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin, the exhibition Symptom Machine by Kate Cooper at Hayward Gallery, London, and the animated TV show Tuca & Bertie.
Billy Tang, the senior curator at Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, has found inspiration in many different places. He mentions Opera for Animals at Para Site in Hong Kong, as well as Wang Xu: Garden of Seasons at Vincent Price Art Museum in Los Angeles. He also mentions the Closing Ceremony Magazine Launch of the Issue ‘Americano’ at Bank in Shanghai.
