THE WORK ISSUE

Venus X
Linder Sterling
Céline Sciamma
Kakan Hermansson
Casey Legler
Nina Power
Myrza de Myunck
Leidy Churchman
General Sisters
Hanne Lippard
Felicia von Zweigbergk
Stav B
Clara T. López
Katarina Elvén

Cover:
Venus X
Photographed by Martien Mulder

Casey Legler

Casey Legler is a visual artist whose work is narrative-based. She believes in Joseph Beuys’ system of social sculpture and often uses her body as a medium for execution. Her most current public conversation is as the first woman to be signed exclusively to a men’s board as a male model at FORD models.

Photography by Agnes Thor

Nina Power

Nina Power teaches Philosophy at Roehampton University and Critical Writing in Art & Design at the Royal College of Art. She is the author of One Dimensional Woman (Zero, 2009). She’s also a review editor, editor-at- large, website editor, curator and
occasional writer for a selection of philosophical, political, art and film pub-lications, newspapers and institutions.

Photography by Christa Holka

Mari Ouchi

Mari Ouchi was born in Japan and travelled all over the world before ending up living in New York, where she’s been for the past 10 years. She used to work as a fashion stylist and is now owner/designer at jewellery brand FAUX/real since 2009, running the label together with Louis di Chicco.

Photography by Agnes Thor

Linder Sterling

Linder Sterling is a British artist and performer whose career spans the 1970s Manchester punk scene to her current collaborations with Tate St. Ives and The Hepworth Centre in northwest England. She has worked in a variety of mediums – from music (as singer/songwriter/guitarist for post-punk band Ludus) and collage (using a steady scalpel to splice pornographic images into feminist statements), to her current durational works. These include her 13-hour improvised dance performance piece Darktown Cakewalk and her most recent work, The Ultimate Form, a ‘performance ballet’ inspired by Barbara Hepworth, featuring dancers from Northern Ballet and costumes by Pam Hogg.

Photography by Devin Blair

Felicia von Zweigbergk

Felicia von Zweigbergk is the initiator of art foundation Sly Prop Otter (running the ‘art bar’ Lost Property) and founder of Butcher’s Tears brewery in Amsterdam. She also tours around Europe with grind / metal / punk bands like bINGO, Våld and Neolithium.

Photography by Mylou Oord

General Sisters

General Sisters is a place outside of home and work, where people congregate and engage in creative interactions. It is a general store – open and wide – designed so that a shared space is formed, shifting the emphasis from consumerism to that of producers. And, importantly, the possibility that all of us can be producers.

Kakan Hermansson

Kakan Hermansson is a Swedish DJ, TV and radio host, director and blogger who also happens to be an artist with an MA degree in Ceramics. She is passionate about issues concerning race, class and sexuality. In her MA project she set up the political nail saloon Girls Club, where girls could share stories about sexual abuse while doing nail art. Kakan is also the co-director, along with Roxy Farhat, of the beautiful video for The Knife’s single A tooth for an eye.

Photography by Märta Thisner

Venus X

To say that 26-year-old Venus X, née Jazmin Soto, is a DJ and club promoter is factually accurate – but it’s somewhat missing the point. GHE20 G0TH1K, the party she started in Brooklyn almost four years ago with some of her best friends (including Shayne Oliver, who’s behind the seminal clothing label Hood by Air), has the effect of an earthquake shaking up a stagnating New York nightlife marred by ever-tighter police regulations and a prolonged Sex & The City-era hangover of vapidness and cheesy drinks. Instead of bottle service and socialites, GHE20 G0TH1K offers clandestine locations, plastic cups, and an uninhibited, gender-fluid crowd of artists, designers, and musicians that once might have been described ‘downtown’ (except they all live in Brooklyn). But the glue that holds the queerclectic GHE20 G0TH1K scene together is the music – and Venus has an irreverent yet unerring way with it; casually mixing goth with hip-hop (as the party’s name implies), but also salsa, dubstep, Turkish techno, punk and ‘Jersey club music’, to name but a few. In a very short space of time, Venus has been catapulted to being one of the figureheads of a new movement that feels like a real space mirroring the digital space carved out by online publications like DIS, or by the video art of Ryan Trecartin.

Photography by Martien Mulder

Leidy Churchman

Leidy Churchman is an artist living in New York –  Arnisa Zeqo is an art historian based in Amsterdam. In this issue is a conversation initiated during Leidy’s residency in Amsterdam, focusing on how to immerge oneself in the work of the other.

Céline Sciamma

In just five years, Céline Sciamma, the smart and talented film director has become an indispensable star of  the cinema d’auteur. The middle child of an older sister and younger brother, Céline grew up in the suburbs of paris, where she lived a sheltered life until she was 20. She claims she discovered Paris as a city only when she moved there to study film. Her first feature film, Water Lilies, made her a star at the cannes film festival and her second movie, Tomboy, was an international success. Water lilies was shot in her childhood hometown, and tomboy had a similar suburban setting. She’s currently living with her girlfriend up the hill in Belleville, the bohemian eastern part of paris – without any pets. Céline has a dog phobia.

Photography by Estelle Hanania

Myrza de Muynck

Myrza de Muynck is a Dutch fashion designer who has recently graduated from the MA Fashion programme at Central Saint Martins in London. Her typical style fuses tomboy and sportswear influences with vintage couture-inspired, ultra-feminine, delicate hand-worked details.

Photography by Christa Holka

A life of beauty needs no market place

This conversation began when GIRLS LIKE US approached New York-based artist Caroline Woolard to talk about Trade School, a self-organised school running on barters, which she co-founded in 2009. In true collaborative style she refrained from having only her voice heard in the discussion and asked three women with whom she works – and who inspire her – to join the conversation: Pascale Gatzen, teacher of Integrated Design at Parsons, artist and pedagogue Susan Jahoda, and activist Cheyenna Weber. The red line throughout the conversation was the search for a more community-driven and communal life; the strategies to get there and – obviously – the question marks and downsides that are part of that process. In order to present all of these challenging ideas without losing the original spirit of the conversation, we chose to compile a reader with quotes loosely arranged around each topic they talked about.

Drawings by Sophy Naess

THE GENERATION ISSUE

Alice Carey
Anna Franceschini
Lizzie Fitch
Devin Blair
Kim Gordon
Annika Henderson
Melanie Bonajo
Marie Branellec
Elizabeth Orr
Holli Smith
Joke Robaard
Litia Perta
Marie Karlberg

Cover:
Alice Carey
Photography by Geoffrey Wheatley
and Sophia Wallace

Alice Carey

One day last Fall, we came upon the intriguing pictures of Alice Carey in Advanced Style, the blog of Ari Seth Cohen that features the extravagant breed of 60+ grand dames of New York. She was wearing a beautiful men’s tweed jacket that called for deeper investigation. A writer and style icon, Alice Carey has lived the majority of her adult life in the West Village of Manhattan, vacillating between the village and Cherry Grove, Fire Island, reputedly the nation’s first and oldest LGBT community. Alice and her husband Geoffrey Knox were deeply entrenched in the gay theatre community, politics, and culture of a pre-Stonewall, pre-AIDS New York. Alice casts a wide net traversing her impressions of a past era with liquid grace and charm.

Interview by Katherine Hubbard
Photo by Sophia Wallace

Lizzie Fitch

While residing in Paris last fall, we were amazed by the really fantastic exhibition Any Ever by Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch at the Musée d’Art Moderne. Their universum (Ryan as the image-maker, Lizzie as the set-builder and collaborator on their sculptures series) explores a shopping mall afterworld, where all kinds of props from our mainstream consumption world are given a totally new meaning. It’s really a brave new world, with all the roles reversed. Gender, generations, appearance, age, form and fiction all becomes one photosynthetic, kaleidoscopic rollerc-oaster. And what a ride it is. Lizzie, who’s entering her 30s and often works as a guest curator at DIS magazine, currently resides in a big house in Los Angeles, together with Ryan and a bunch of other collaborators.

Interview by Lauren Cornell
Photo by Ryan Trecartin

Annika Henderson on
meeting Kim Gordon

Annika Henderson – better known by her moniker Anika Invada – is a 25-year-old singer who grew up in Surrey, near London, and is currently based in Berlin. She studied political journalism in Cardiff, Wales, where she also moonlighted as a promoter of several music venues. By chance, she met Geoff Barrow – of Portishead fame – and ended up recording some songs with his group Beak. She released her debut album Anika in 2010. Her cover of Yoko Ono’s Yang Yang ended up being an underground club hit, with its subtle no wave intonations. Annika is a huge admirer of Kim Gordon, who she thinks still stands more or less alone as a jack of all trades, never trading in her integrity. An impression of Annika meeting Kim in Amsterdam, March 2012.

Words by Annika Henderson
Photo by Marianne Viero &
Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky

Elizabeth Orr

Elizabeth Orr is the daughter of the late Light and Space artist Eric Orr (1939-1998). Growing up in her father’s studio in Venice, Los Angeles, in the 80s, Elizabeth assisted him on many occasions and, after his death, helped augment his estate. And last year, she completed her documentary Crazy Wisdom. The Life And Work Of Eric Orr. But probably her biggest challenge to date came when she was invited to be part in the 2011 restaging of Guy de Cointet’s Five Sisters. The play embodies the 80s West Coast culture of health and beauty, and reads like a soap opera in which five sisters muse manically about plastic surgery, wardrobes, exotic holidays and sun tans. Eric Orr took care of both the set and lighting in the original play – the lighting plan acts as the main catalyst for emotion – and Elizabeth’s mum Peggy Orr played ‘Dolly’, one of the characters. For the 2011 edition, Elizabeth took charge of lighting; a double-take on her father and her own video installation work.

Interview by Jessica Gysel
Photo by Anna-Karin Loureiro

Note: On the left Orr is holding a poster she made in collaboration with artist Emma Hedditch. The poster is part of their performance series and is available for purchase. More information can be found here.

Holli Smith

Holli Smith is a hairstylist who’s been cutting the heads of New York’s finest queers for years. Kim Ann Foxman, Lizzie Trullie, JD Samson – all done by Holli. She learnt luxury styling by assisting Guido, one of the quintessential hairdressers of the OOs, yet didn’t shy away from learning a trick or two from barber shops. She also creates sculptured hair designs for editorial and commercial photo shoots for people like Hedi Slimane, Collier Schorr and Patrick Demarchelier – and loves to do the boys’ hair for shows by the likes of Patrick Ervell, Loden Dager and Christian Lacroix. We asked Emily Roysdon – premier feminist artist and longtime Holli client – to fire some questions her way.

Interview by Emily Roysdon
Photo by Collier Schorr

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Issue 4 will be launched this Saturday May 11th at Ludwig, Amsterdam. On the cover is Venus X, also our guest of honour at the party. The new issue will of course be on sale for a special one-off price. Music will be provided by Venus X, of course, supported by Strange Boutique and Lady Jane. Some more words on Venus X. She started her legendary party GHE20G0THIK 4 years ago in Brooklyn, mixing goth with hip-hop (as the party’s name implies), but also salsa, dubstep, Turkish techno, punk and ‘Jersey club music’. The party became a movement and catapulted Venus X to beingone of the figureheads of a new movement that feels like a real space mirror the digital space carved out by online publications like DIS or by the video art of Ryan Trecartin.

Check out the really interesting Curing Normality film series by the cool Frank Collective from Oslo.  We’ll be introducing director Jennie Livingston’s Paris Is Burning, a documentary that chronicles the drag scene in New York City in the mid and late 1980s, focusing on the ball culture. This heart-breaking, entertaining camp chronicle of a marginalized community presents a complex performance of gender, class and race. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 1990. Check out the full programme here.

More bookfair affairs. From November 15 – 18, 2012 we’ll be part of Offprint Paris which runs parallel to Paris Photo. Come say hi!

Bookfair time! We will be joining Offprint Amsterdam (Sept. 20 – Sept. 23) and The New York Art Bookfair (Sept. 27 – Sept. 30). Expect all issues of Vol. 2 and a fresh batch of Girls Like Us T-shirts. Please do come by and say hello!

New issue release party in collaboration with the London Calling festival in Paradiso Amsterdam. The new issue talks about generations so we’re very happy we got invited to host a new wave of female noise brut featuring a.o. live performances by Austra and Trust and dj sets by Lady Jane, Love on the Beat and Strange Boutique. Please come and dance with us.

May 18, 2012, midnight – 5 AM
Paradiso Amsterdam

Please join us Saturday April 14 for some sort film screenings and discussion on the theme of queer generations as part of the Fringe! East London Film Fest. The afternoon will bring together films from around the world along with a discussion between GLU editor Jessica Gysel and Lisa Gornick – artist, filmmaker and star of inter-generational lez drama The Owls. Girls Like Us paraphernalia will be on sale throughout the day along with a sneak peek of the new issue! Plus a talk by photographer and writer Holly Falconer on “Clubbing and Camp: A generation in club photography” examining what part clubs play in defining queer generations.

Curated by Nicole Emmenegger and Sandra Le with special thanks to the Cinenova archive and Peccadillo Pictures.

April 14, 2012, 2 -6 PM
XOYO Gallery, 32-37 Cowper Street, London

Please join us Monday March 19 for a Riot Grrrls Like Us evening with plenty of 90s nostalgia but also a look forward. Featuring a lecture by Sara Marcus (author of Girls To The Front), a Q&A, video’s, goodies, signed book copies and plenty of music.

March 9, 2012, 8 PM – 1 AM
Meneer Malasch, Postjesweg 2, Amsterdam

Please join us for a GIRL ALLNIGHTER featuring LA CHATTE (live), ANIKA, STELLAR OM SOURCE, STRANGE BOUTIQUE and FATIMA SUPREME. We’ll be hosting De Verdieping, while Sandrien is playing upstairs. BIG FUN!

Note! LA CHATTE performs at midnight, make sure to come on time!

LINE-UP:
23.00 – 00.00: Fatima Supreme (DJ)
00.00 – 00.30: La Chatte (live)
00.30 – 02.00: Anika (DJ)
02.00 – 03.30: Stellar Om Source (DJ performance)
03.30 – 05.00: Strange Boutique

LA CHATTE
Parisian based La Chatte plays a post-punk inspired electro-zouk; ryhthmic, dark, distorted and chocolate-flavored. The band is renowned for their head blowing performances, featuring outrageous outfits designed by the band’s lead singer Vava Dudu who’s a stylist in daily life and whose creations have been supported by oa Lady Gaga. Oh, and Vava was GLU’s last issue’s cover model. The girl with the banana on her head.

ANIKA
English bred, Berlin based journalist turned musician Annika Henderson recorded her first album ‘Anika’ with Portishead’s Geoff Barrow in 2010. She also moonlights as a DJ with a knack for the dark and twisted.

STELLAR OM SOURCE
Half French, half Italian Christelle Gualdi spent the last years in The Hague and Antwerp. She started out as a semi-ambient synth goddess but recently shifted towards sharp, very danceable acid house and proto-techno.

STRANGE BOUTIQUE
Amsterdam based Femke Dekker and Rotterdam based Nicole Martens have been stirring up dancefloors all over, making waves with their ecclectic, often obscure yet very danceable tunes.

FATIMA SUPREME
Feminist dance disco by Inssaf Uariachi, original GLUster Supreme.

February 25, 2012 – 11 PM – 5 AM
De Verdieping at Trouw, Amsterdam

Come and join us for a night over great performances and a little dance too!

SOPHIE (London)
Light Asylum protégé SOPHIE is a London-based musician and producer. SOPHIE’s music spins you upside down, dips you in water, flashes strobe lights at you, takes you on a slow incline to the peak and then drops you vertically down a smoky tunnel. It’s dance music that sounds very new and very high definition while at the same time hinting towards the familiar with a nostalgic streak. SOPHIE performed in different clubs and art spaces in both Europe and America and has an album coming out on London’s Huntley and Palmers label in January 2012.

Pashly (Portland/Berlin)
Originally hailing from Portland and now based in Berlin, Pashly waltzes her way through seductive-vocals, falling somewhere in between Björk and Tracey Thorn. A compelling vision, extravagant wardrobe, surreal projections act as a backdrop to this abstract-art-Cinderella, Machine-like disco beats and minimalistic pulses, straddling New Order, Kraftwerk, and the dance-club underground.

rRoxymore (Paris/Berlin)
Emerged from a circular cube of hot ice, rRoxymore is a solo electronic project of Hermione FRANK. She performs her sounds with bouncing tenderness. Her glittery wrestling cape hides her backline only to reveal her complex basslines, an extensible system of tribal pulses and sonant keyboards. She’s also part of PLANNINGTOROCK’s live band, taking care of all the beats.

http://soundcloud.com/rroxymore

When Harry Met Sally & TESSisMORE (Amsterdam)
Renowned DJ couple who need no further introduction.

December 16, 2011, 10 PM – 4 AM
Meneer Malasch, Postjesweg 2, Amsterdam

Girls Like Us in collaboration with Barbi(e)turix presents the official aftershow of No Bra, the German ex-London now New York based performer with no bra.

November 25, 2011, 10 PM – 2 AM
Le 9b, 68 Blvd. de la Vilette, Paris

Girls Like Us is taking part in That We Know / Wat men weet, 1994 –, a project by artist Hinrich Sachs, inviting three guests (Girls Like Us’ Vela Arbutina, Leontien Coelwij and Valerie Smith) to a public debate that takes place at a table on which all the September issues of the magazine ELLE are presented (28 editions). This magazine talk and live recording is part of the parallel programme Specters of the Nineties, an exhibition curated by Lisette Smits and Matthieu Laurette. The exhibition looks at the last decade of the 20th century through a selection of art works made in the period between 1989 and 2000 that could be considered as anticipating on the social and political constellations of today and the position of art therein.

November 12, 2011, 3 PM
Marres, Center for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht

Girls Like Us will be present at the New York Art Bookfair with a fresh batch of t-shirts and bags. Come by and say hello.

September 30 – October 2, 2011
MoMa PS 1, NYC

Girls Like Us at Vijzelstraatmuseum as part of Amsterdam Gay Pride.
3D installation on display, August 2011.

August 25 – 27, 2011, 8 PM
Vijzelstraat 72, Amsterdam

Screening of the lezzie porn movie ‘Community Action Center’ directed by A.K. Burns and L.A.Steiner. The movie – set in the larger surroundings of New York, is inspired by 60s and 70s male gay porn and moves away from porn cliches such as prefab dildo’s and butch fucks femme in police uniform. Instead, the video fucks with all the tropes and in the end is erotic, funny, weird and perverse.
Amsterdam premiere of acclaimed New York based band Light Asylum. The group, consisting of singer/drummer Shannon Funchess and synth player bruno Coviello, evokes echos of Ian Curtis meets Alison Moyet – or rather Grace Jones.
DJ entertainment by Love On The Beat and Lady Jane (Catclub Brussels).

Thursday June 2
OT 301, Amsterdam