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Hosted by TheWrap editor-in-chief and CEO Sharon Waxman and the first-of-its-kind coffee table book’s executive editor, Stefano Tonchi, the invite-only rooftop fête attracted luminaries from across Los Angeles in a bustling, shoulder-to-shoulder atmosphere.

The event, which was coproduced with Frieze Los Angeles in the lead-up to the annual art fair’s opening night on Thursday, beautifully toasted contributing “TheWrapBook” artists including Richard Phillips, Guy Stanley Philoche, Catherine Opie, Salomon Huerta, Fawn Rogers, Aryo Toh Djojo, Theodore Boyer, Marilyn Minter, Konstantin Kakanias, Laurie Simmons, Marco Walker, Jeffrey Gibson, Francois Berthoud, Stefan Ruiz and Kendall Bessent.

Guided by the vision of Tonchi and Waxman, “TheWrapBook” chronicles a year in cinema through artful collaborations between fine artists and Hollywood’s leading talent. 

Timed for release ahead of the Academy Awards on March 10 and Frieze L.A. Feb. 29–March 3, “TheWrapBook” features an exciting cross-section of artists, filmmakers and writers, including filmmaker Martin Scorsese, works by Phillips and Opie and essays by feminist author Salamishah Tillet and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas.

Catch all of the fun from the launch event in TheWrap’s exclusive photo gallery right here.

Kris Bowers & Sharon Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Michaela Dosamantes, Andrew Wren & Jeff Vespa, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jamie Clayton, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Christopher Williams & Shannon Cavanagh, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Andrew Matarazzo, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jeff Vespa & Edward Menicheschi, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Michaela Dosamantes & Sharon Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jonathan Frydman & Maïa Morgensztern, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Claire Uhar & Hannah Gottlieb-Graham, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Joe Zee, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stefano Tonchi, Andrea Franchini & Marco Walker, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Alex Prager & Simon Dargan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Elizabeth Fiore & Christina Krause, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stacey Weitz, Andrew Weitz & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Cameron Porsandeh, Nabilah Jiwani & Mitchell Waxman, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Andrew Wren, Michaela Dosamantes, Jeff Vespa, Michael Slenske & Theodore Boyer, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Daniella Villegas, Michaela Dosamantes, Stefano Tonchi & Sami Hayek, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Gordon Veneklasen, Adrien Pia, Cynthia Wornham, Ann Philbin, Kevin Croxford, Pedro Corvo, & Santiago Pazos, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Humberto Petit, Mr. Sarah, Gregory Alexander & Andrea Franchini, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Steve Pond, Kris Bowers & Briana Nicole Henry, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Claude Memmi, Michael Kosasky, Aaron Jarboe, Shannon Barrero-Watkins, Carmen Rivera, Laura Ehrhardt & Thadd Williams, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Stefano Tonchi, Sharon Waxman, Victoria Brynner & Catherine Opie, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Oganes Akopyan, Michael Kosasky & Claude Memmi, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Bobby Hoppey, Kenneth Ye, Claire Uhar, Yvonne Randolph & Nicole Landau, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Guest, Daniela Villegas, Sami Hayek & Sayuri Tanabe, TheWrapbook Launch Party 2024

Shinique Smith, Jeff Vespa, Frances Pennington & Madeleine Hulstrom, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Arthur Greenwood, Ana Morales, Lorena Cisneros & Salomón Huerta, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Salomón Huerta, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kristen Schadt, Shannon Cavanagh & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapbook Launch Party 2024

Alessandra Codinha & Jason Janego, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

David Maupin & Shinique Smith, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Jenn Perlman, Kenny Y & Bobby Hoppey, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Victoria Brynner & Gino Sullivan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Sharon Waxman & Kareem Daniel, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Catherine Opie, David Maupin, Alex Prager & Simon Dargan, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Lynne Segall & Alex Von Bargen, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Fawn Rogers & guests, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Sharon Waxman, Alex Von Bargen, Debra Downing & Molly Downing, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kenny Y & Yvonne Randolph, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Kedric Francis, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

Arthur Greenwood, Ana Morales & Lorena Cisneros, TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

TheWrapBook Launch Party 2024

The post ‘TheWrapBook’ Launch Party: Art, Fashion and Film Worlds Collide at Frieze LA | Exclusive Photos appeared first on TheWrap.

We invited some of the art world’s most talented to create portraits of some of Hollywood’s most fabulous. Delving deep beyond the oft-photographed visages, these artists bring to their subjects a unique depth of perception. Their art goes places a headshot could only dream of

MARGOT (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: MARGOT ROBBIE

RYAN (2024) 

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: RYAN GOSLING

Richard Phillips 

Artist Richard Phillips debuted his first celebrity portraits at the apotheosis of the paparazzi era. And there were no doubt some sent to capture the opening of his 2010 exhibition at White Cube gallery in London. The show’s title, “Most Wanted,” simultaneously distilled the sentiment of that moment while prophesying its swift downfall with the dominance of the camera phone. A frozen slice of the 2000s celebrity fanaticism, the exhibition marked an important body of work for an artist who’d achieved his pop cultural consciousness via sallies into the entertainment arena: a cameo on Gossip Girl, a guest spot on Jeffrey Deitch’s early reality show, Artstar. 

It was a continuation of the question that first propelled Phillips to fame: Where is the place for careful, labor-intensive painting in a culture with an insatiable hunger for and an ever-steady supply of images? Phillips had started off this inquiry by painting images of the pornography of his youth–which was now infinitely available via the internet. If Andy Warhol was interested in disconnecting the person and the emotion from the image, then Phillips’ goal was to restore those connections. He wanted to create paintings that held all the desire and obsession that the advertisement wants to mask. He wanted to bring the human back into focus and showcase the absurd pressure put on top of these individuals to be idols. 

For TheWrapBook, Phillips returned to this iconic series to catalog the actors behind this year’s most impressive performances. Executed more than a decade after the originals, they read differently. In our self-taped age of “candid” photography, the red carpet imagery feels formal, perhaps even uncomfortably (a register Phillips like to occupy). Rather than darkly humored, they feel nostalgic, like us, and that is the most startling thing of all. —Kat Herriman

CILLIAN (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: CILLIAN MURPHY

EMILY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: EMILY BLUNT

BRADLEY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: BRADLEY COOPER

CAREY (2024)

CHARCOAL CHALK AND PASTEL

ON GREY TONED PAPER

SUBJECT: CAREY MULLIGAN

BARRY (SALTBURN)

(2024) CASEIN AND FLASHE ON DYED CANVAS

SUBJECT: BARRY KEOGHAN

Theodore Boyer

When Theodore Boyer moved to Los Angeles from New York a decade ago, his painting practice was steeped in abstraction that invoked everything from ancient archaeological sites and JPL satellite trajectories to GPS mapping systems. But after the pandemic forced everyone indoors, the Seal Beach-born artist returned to his first love: figurative painting, which he’s shown everywhere from Istanbul’s Sevil Dolmaci Gallery to Praz-Delavallade in Los Angeles. “My paintings are allegorical and deal with the unconscious mind, they’re about where your psyche attaches to the tangible, and that’s how I approached these films,” says Boyer, who painted Rosamund Pike and Barry Keoghan from Saltburn. “When painting these actors I was sort of putting myself in their shoes, entering the psyche of the characters and recontextualizing them within my psychedelic milieu.”—Michael Slenske

ROSAMUND & BARRY (SALTBURN)

(2024) CASEIN AND FLASHE ON DYED CANVAS

SUBJECT: ROSAMUND PIKE, BARRY KEOGHAN

GIVE US OUR FLOWERS (2024)

MIXED MEDIUM WORKS ON PAPER

SUBJECT: COLMAN DOMINGO

Guy Stanley Philoche

Haitian-born modern artist Guy Stanley Philoche immigrated to Connecticut when he was 3 years old. As the middle child of three boys and coming from a family of sports enthusiasts whose passion he didn’t share, Philoche turned to art as his calling. While remaining close to his Haitian roots, he now lives in New York City. For the past 15 years, Philoche has been attracting international attention with his work and his impressive roster of solo shows. As an artist, Guy’s palette is strong and sophisticated. His layering technique has created a body of work so richly textured that one can hardly hold back from reaching out and touching them. Here, Guy turned his eye to Colman Domingo in Rustin. “My work exists because these people exist in me,” he says. “As an artist, it is important to listen to their stories. The intention is to celebrate and give people recognition, love and respect every day. Too often we wait to honor people when they are gone. We should be saluting and toasting the people in our lives today and give them their flowers on this side, while we can. The paintings are appreciation and giving flowers now to incredible people.” —Claire Uhar

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL AND BLOOD ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: LEONARDO DICAPRIO, LILY GLADSTONE

Fawn Rogers

Raised in the wilds of Medford, Oregon, Fawn Rogers has utilized photography, painting, film and sculpture to explore everything from her Cherokee heritage to the dichotomous nature of human life in the heart of the Anthropocene. The L.A.- based multimedia artist’s work has been shown internationally at Galerie Marguo in Paris, Nicodim Gallery and Lauren Powell Projects in Los Angeles and Hong Kong’s K11 Musea. “My ancestors on both sides of my family—my mother is Cherokee, my father is Jewish—have been victims of genocide,” says Rogers. “So I took this opportunity to paint the leads in Killers of the Flower Moon—in blood and oil—because the story is about genocide, greed, power and blood for oil. Native Americans are by far the most underrepresented people, and this speaks to the atrocities still happening in America and all over the world today.” —Michael Slenske

NORA AND HAE (2024)

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: TEO YOO

NORA AND HAE (2024)

ACRYLIC ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: GRETA LEE

Aryo Toh Djojo

“My work is steeped in ufology and reincarnation—my next show touches on the idea of a past life or where we came from within the spiritual realm— so it was serendipitous that I was asked to paint Greta Lee and Teo Yoo,” says Aryo Toh Djojo of his portraits capturing the Past Lives stars. The Indonesian-American artist’s dreamy airbrushed paintings investigate Southern California architecture, car culture, Hollywood celebrity, vacant David Lynchian landscapes and extraterrestrial encounters and have been the subject of several solo shows in recent years at Stems Gallery in Paris, Sow & Tailor in Los Angeles and Perrotin Tokyo. He’s also exhibiting new work in L.A. as part of Wilding Cran Gallery’s 10th anniversary show. As with all of his other paintings, you’ll find a UFO floating in the background of these portraits. “Maybe this is the characters watching themselves,” adds Toh Djojo. “From a past life.” —Michael Slenske

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: MARK RUFFALO

Salomon Huerta

Born in Tijuana, Salomon Huerta grew up in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East L.A. before earning his MFA at UCLA. His paintings—from portraits of models and rock stars and the backs of anonymous heads made with palettes invoking fashion magazines to psychological still lifes depicting his father’s revolver next to afternoon snacks brought to him as a child—have been exhibited at the Smithsonian and the Whitney Biennial and reside in the permanent collections of LACMA and MOCA. For the inaugural issue of TheWrapBook, the artist painted Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo from Poor Things and “looked to Frida Kahlo’s surrealist paintings as a guide,” says Huerta, who is currently exhibiting a suite of his fantasy poolscapes at Harper’s Chelsea in Manhattan. “The painting of Mark was more of a collaboration with the book, but for Emma, I used Frida’s self-portrait with her monkeys.” —Michael Slenske

UNTITLED (2024)

OIL ON CANVAS

SUBJECT: EMMA STONE

The post Artists by Artists appeared first on TheWrap.

_{Natalie Wears White Pear Diamond (28.71 Carats) Earrings with White Baguette Diamonds Set in White Gold by Graff and Top by Fendi. Julianne Wears White Pear, Marquise and Round Diamond (42.34 Carats) Flower Earrings Set in White Gold by Graff, Julianne Wears Dress by Cdlm.}

In May December, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman embody psychologically complex and manipulative characters entwined in a cerebral game of cat-and-mouse. To pull it off, they found in each other simple honesty and trust

By Missy Schwartz

Photography by Marilyn Minter

There was no time for rehearsal. The 23-day shooting schedule barely allowed for the actors to get to know one another, much less exchange copious notes about their process. But when Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman arrived on the Savannah, Georgia, set of May December in 2022, they slid easily into their characters. They are, of course, consummate pros with nearly 60 years combined experience and a Best Actress Academy Award each. And they had director Todd Haynes’ assured distillation of how he saw this movie (written by Samy Burch) taking shape. 

As reference points for May December—Haynes’ fifth film with Moore and first with Portman—he shared a list of more than 20 movies that included Ingmar Bergman (Winter Light, Persona, Autumn Sonata), Billy Wilder (Sunset Boulevard), Mike Nichols (The Graduate), John Schlesinger (Sunday Bloody Sunday) and Robert Altman (Three Women). “We were watching all the same things, so that really put us in the same place,” said Portman, who is also one of May December’s producers. “Todd is such an extraordinary conductor. He communicated his inspiration and his vision so well.”

Portman stars as Elizabeth, a TV actress who has been cast in a movie to play Gracie (Moore), a Mary Kay Letourneau-inspired figure whose sexual relationship with a seventh-grader when she was 36 landed her in prison. To study this perplexing ex-con with an iron will and a closet full of frilly dresses, Elizabeth insinuates herself into the ostensible domestic bliss that Gracie has built with the now-adult Joe (Charles Melton) and their three teenage children. Her presence has a destabilizing effect: The two women lock into a subtle power play that forces all three main characters to look at who they really are—sometimes quite literally: A series of visually daring scenes plays with mirrors and doubling. Whether the characters accept what they see in those reflections is another matter. At its core, May December is a deft exploration of human beings’ willingness to lie to themselves.

On a late November afternoon in downtown Manhattan, Portman and Moore sat side by side in the airy studio of artist Marilyn Minter, who had just photographed them for TheWrapBook. Relaxed and upbeat (despite, in Moore’s case, a cold), they talked about their first, but probably not last, cinematic collaboration.

May December is the first time you’ve worked together, but you knew each other’s work, and Julianne, you and Todd have a long history. How was it, putting all these pieces together?

Portman: Well, I’ve admired Julie forever. I worship her work, and I’ve always dreamed of working with her. It was so exciting and scary to encounter someone you admire so much because there’s always a chance they can’t live up to the pedestal. But she was so extraordinary as an actress and so brilliant to watch. Luckily I got to in-character study what she was doing. And she is also so generous and kind. I felt like an interloper in this club that she and Todd have. When we all got together, I was like, Oh my God, am I going to be the odd one out? And they both immediately put their arms around me and Charles and all the rest of our cast. 

“It was very intimate. It’s a moment of real closeness and seduction, which is also a power move, right?”

Julianne Moore

Moore: But that’s what Natalie’s vibe was too. You don’t know what someone’s process is going to be like or what their affect or attitude is going to be on set, but she was really easy and open and present and supportive. She was so much a colleague. For a relationship in a film where the characters are so combative and vying for dominance, it was a very easy, completely nondominant relationship. I hate antagonism. It shuts me down. I’d rather leave.

Portman:  Save the drama for the screen.

Moore:  Yeah, exactly. 

The movie explores the idea of how we all perform to some degree every day. Natalie, you play an actress who isn’t quite at your skill level.

Portman:  (Laughs) Thank you!

She is a performer by trade, but she’s also acting throughout the film, showing different sides of herself depending on who she’s talking to. How did you approach those different types of performing?

Portman:  It was, first of all, so beautifully written by Samy Burch. Talking to Todd, one of the things that was most helpful was to make Elizabeth really down-to-earth when you meet her so that you trust her. It was tempting to come in in a stereotypically actressy way to a small town, but Todd pushed against that. And that was a key to it because even that’s performance, to be, like, “I’m just like one of you! I can hang at a barbecue!” (Laughs) So she’s almost a detective in this story to observe Gracie and Joe…and you go with her. And then that unravels.

Right. We think she’s our proxy, but that shifts. Julianne, your character is not an actress, but she certainly performs.  

Moore:  Talk about somebody who’s performing gender. I would say she swallowed gender culture whole—that kind of performative femininity. Her narrative is a rescue narrative. Her prince came along, but he was 13 years old, so that means she’s got to elevate that prince to being a man and remain the princess. So she’s a little girl with an apron on pretending to be a mom. She does feel that she is naive, she does believe in fairy tales. She does believe in romance. The projection of that narrative and the reality of (her) transgression, they’re so far apart. That’s where that emotional volatility comes from that Samy wrote so beautifully. In her private moments, she’s hysterical because it’s just too much. She’s built this whole story, and wait a minute. It’s not gonna hold anymore.

Where did the idea for Gracie’s lisp come from? Todd has commented on Mary Kay Letourneau having not a lisp but a “lazy tongue.” 

Moore:  Yeah, there was (archival) stuff that I looked at, but I was also thinking clinically about what I could do physically that Natalie would be able to imitate. We still have associations with baby-talk or lisping as being very childlike. So I called Todd and…we were both very unsure, frankly. But I liked it because it was an outward manifestation of her story. When someone says to you over and over again, “See me this way,” I think it’s interesting.

Speaking of Elizabeth’s imitation of Gracie and the theme of duality, several stunning scenes use mirrors. There is one in the clothing store, where you sit next to each other, chatting and sizing each other up as you look at your reflections. And Gracie is reflected twice. Was shooting that as complicated as it looked?  

“I felt like an interloper in this club that she and Todd have. When we all got together, I was like, Oh my God, am I going to be the odd one out?”

Natalie Portman

Portman: Just to piggyback off of what Julie was saying, that was a real gift to have these very identifiable traits that I could mimic because it was very scary going into that without rehearsals. It’s the acting I admire most that Julie does because it’s so fearless and, like, extreme choices. (Both laugh) Todd and I were living for the mirror scene in the dressing room when she says, (lisping) “Precisely.” It’s so amazing. And it’s so human—it’s real and felt. And then the mirror stuff was technically very complicated. You were looking at marks in the lens, so you have to absorb the artifice of what you’re doing, and then look at marks for yourself, each other, and Gracie’s daughter (Elizabeth Yu). But the beautiful thing was that it was so much about performance and identity and reflection and how it affects our identity. That reflection is performance and these two women mirror each other in ways that attract and repel.

Moore: It was technically really challenging because it all had to be one take. 

And then there is the scene in front of a bathroom mirror, where Gracie does Elizabeth’s makeup. Natalie, your character is much more vulnerable here, especially when Julianne smooths your hair. 

Portman: That scene was most surprising to me in the writing, that it revealed itself in ways when we said it that I never got reading it or preparing for it. I understood things in the silence when it was happening.

Moore:  It was very intimate. It’s a moment of real closeness and seduction, which is also a power move, right? 

Portman: It was so wild, too, because a great director, whose name I won’t say, once said to me, “All American drama is about the father-son relationship.”

Moore: Oh my god. (Groans)

Portman: And I asked, “What about the mother-daughter?” And that was one of the things that revealed itself in that scene. It was all about these women’s experiences with their mothers. Even for an actress, who’s used to having someone put makeup on her, there is a memory of a mother (in that intimacy). Both of them are sharing their mother’s stories.

Moore:  Like, who are you? Who did your mother tell you to be? You say your mother was a scientist and I say my mother was beautiful.

Portman: It was really affecting; it was so deceptive on the page. “What was your mother like?” “Beautiful.” It was the most tragic line. You could tell where these callous, manipulative women’s origins were and where their hearts were broken.

The tone of May December is masterful. Amid the tension and drama, there are moments of dark comedy, like your “hot dog” line, Julianne. (During the barbecue, the camera zooms in on Gracie and Marcelo Zarvos’ unnerving piano score kicks in just as she opens the fridge and says, “I don’t think we have enough hot dogs.”) It lands so perfectly. How hard was it walking that tonal razor’s edge while you were shooting?

Moore: Tone is one of the most important things. Whenever I start a job, I’m like, Oh, please, let’s all be in the same movie. It takes a great director to establish that and the kind of people that Todd draws around him, the sensibilities, I think everybody understood the inherent drama and that these are funny lines. “Hot dog” is just funny. I mean, if you say “hot dog,” it’s gonna get a laugh. And it’s the zoom and the music. It’s that deliberate sense of doom. Right away, the audience goes, Oh, wait. What? This feels off. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Why does it feel dangerous? I always love that feeling in movies. What is truly dangerous? Is a monster dangerous? Not really. But when it’s behavior that’s dangerous, I think that puts us on edge because I don’t trust that person. I don’t know if they’re telling the truth. They’ve crossed a boundary and I know it’s going to happen again. I think with all of them, they feel like truly dangerous people! (Laughs)

Throughout the movie, Elizabeth absorbs Gracie’s mannerisms. Near the end, Natalie, you deliver a monologue to the camera as Gracie, reciting one of her old love letters to Joe. Not to ask a head

exploder, but you’re an actress playing an actress who is imitating a woman, played in real life by another actress. That’s a lot of layers to navigate.

Moore: Tone is one of the most important things. Whenever I start a job, I’m like, Oh, please, let’s all be in the same movie. It takes a great director to establish that and the kind of people that Todd draws around him, the sensibilities, I think everybody understood the inherent drama and that these are funny lines. “Hot dog” is just funny. I mean, if you say “hot dog,” it’s gonna get a laugh. And it’s the zoom and the music. It’s that deliberate sense of doom. Right away, the audience goes, Oh, wait. What? This feels off. Why do I feel uncomfortable? Why does it feel dangerous? I always love that feeling in movies. What is truly dangerous? Is a monster dangerous? Not really. But when it’s behavior that’s dangerous, I think that puts us on edge because I don’t trust that person. I don’t know if they’re telling the truth. They’ve crossed a boundary and I know it’s going to happen again. I think with all of them, they feel like truly dangerous people! (Laughs)

Throughout the movie, Elizabeth absorbs Gracie’s mannerisms. Near the end, Natalie, you deliver a monologue to the camera as Gracie, reciting one of her old love letters to Joe. Not to ask a head exploder, but you’re an actress playing an actress who is imitating a woman, played in real life by another actress. That’s a lot of layers to navigate.

Portman: (Laughs) All of us are performing in so many ways. Women, like Julie was saying, have a particular feminized way of performance: how we present ourselves, how we want other people to see us physically, how we want other people to see us behaviorally, the emotions we are allowed to show or not. And of course, actresses are the (perfect) example of that because we’re performing on top of all the feminine performance. And in that scene, that’s something that we talked about, Todd and I. For someone who’s always performing, what if their most true is when they’re literally performing? What if the most honest they ever are and the most free they are is from the artifice? The mask can free you the same way that at a mask party, people would go wild. There’s freedom in the mask.

Credits

Photographer Marilyn Minter

Fashion Editor Celia Azoulay

Production Anabella Cassanova And Sage Price For Vacation Theory

Photography Assistants Bill Miller, Johan Olander, Genevieve Lowe, Marianna Paragallo, Dulce Lamarca

Fashion Assistant Amber Rose Smith

Natalie’s Makeup Lisa Storey

Natalie’s Hair Mara Roszak

Julianne’s Makeup Hung Vanngo

Julianne’s Hair Orlando Pita.

Marilyn Minter

The incomparable visual artist Marilyn Minter is known for provocative and visually arresting works that explore themes of sexuality, beauty and the female form. She has enjoyed solo exhibitions throughout the U.S. and internationally. Her work is in the collections of museums worldwide, including MOCA, MOMA, the Tate, the Guggenheim, the Whitney and more. We’re thrilled to have her original pieces featuring May December stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman on our pages.

The post Deception Perception appeared first on TheWrap.

Setting the Scenes

In 2023, you could go just about anywhere you ever wanted to at the movies: the rural American Midwest of the 1920s; a Lisbon-originating luxury sailing vessel making port calls in Marseilles and Alexandria; the hallowed nether regions of Carnegie Hall and through the Leonard Bernstein estate; and even a dreamy parallel universe in which a pink-outfitted, Mattel-branded icon can accomplish anything…until emotions get a little too real. It’s all thanks to talented production designers whose vision can make the imaginary real and the real, well, beyond imagination. Here’s a look at some of the most memorable cinematic tableaus of 2023 as interpreted by artist Konstantin Kakanias

Poor Things

Oscar-nominated production designers James Price and Shona Heath re-created an oceanliner on a soundstage in Budapest to convey the otherworldly feel of Yorgos Lanthimos’ globe-trotting tale of a re-animated young woman (Emma Stone) and her quest for independence.

Maestro

This drawing room provides the setting for Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre’s (Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan) emotional blowout as they navigate their marriage. And yes, the production team led by designer Kevin Thompson even threw in a Thanksgiving Day parade Snoopy for levity.

Barbie

Gliding into her dream car, Barbie’s (Margot Robbie) world is dictated by one visual dictum: Pink and lots of it. So much that Academy Award-nominated production designer Sarah Greenwood said that they cleaned out the inventory of a specific blend of flourescent pink paint.

Priscilla

Production designer Tamara Deverell brought Graceland back to life on a Toronto soundstage in only 30 days and on a very small budget, delving deep into the colors that defined Elvis Presley’s ethos: lots of creams, whites, blues and golds.

Killers of the Flower Moon

Veteran production designer Jack Fisk just earned his third career Oscar nomination for Martin Scorsese’s visually captivating Osage drama. His team turned to the rich, troubled history of the Osage Nation as well as to period photographs, county records and classic Westerns to re-create this harrowing time in 1920s Oklahoma. Here, owls serve as specters of death, a belief rooted in Osage tradition.

KONSTANTINE KAKANIAS

When we invited artist Konstantin Kakanias, we knew the results would be delightful, as you can see in “Scene Setters,” in which he reimagines the work of the production designers responsible for Poor Things, Priscilla, Maestro and more. The L.A. artist’s work has been exhibited worldwide and graced the pages of The New York Times and Vogue, and he has collaborated with Christian Dior, Cartier and Christian Louboutin among others.

The post Setting the Scenes appeared first on TheWrap.

Dressing The Part

Six celebrated costume designers weave their unique brand of enchantment into some of the year’s most fashion-forward films

Artwork by François Berthoud

By Ingrid Schmidt

Priscilla

What a banner year 2023 was for wardrobe at the box office. The simultaneous release of Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig’s fantasy adventure Barbie spawned a viral “Barbenheimer” as fans hit theaters wearing disparate looks inspired by tweedy physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and the iconic doll (Margot Robbie). Other sartorial standouts include Joaquin Phoenix in Ridley Scott’s Napoleon, Cailee Spaeny as Priscilla Beaulieu Presley in Sofia Coppola’s biographical drama Priscilla, Emma Stone as woman-child hybrid Bella Baxter in Yorgos Lanthimos’ mad comedy Poor Things and the oil-rich Native American Osage women in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon.

Robbie’s meticulously assembled Barbie looks contrast with Stone’s jumbled Victorian-influenced outfits in Poor Things, yet both dress codes underline independence and fuel fashion fantasies. “Barbies dress for the occasion and for themselves and their friends and because dressing up is creative and fun, not because they are trying to fulfill someone else’s idea of what they should look like,” says Oscar-winning British costume designer Jacqueline Durran, adding that a strict palette of colors in micro combinations was her secret to creating impact within Technicolor Barbie Land. Durran pulled archival Chanel pieces to supplement Robbie’s wardrobe, including skirt suits and jewelry from Karl Lagerfeld’s spring 1995 collection, and the French fashion house specially designed a ski suit for Ryan Gosling’s Ken.

Killers of the Flower Moon

While Alasdair Gray’s novel Poor Things was set in the 1880s, British costume designer Holly Waddington chose 1890s leg-of-mutton sleeves as Baxter’s signature style. “They were like massive balloons that were empowering, so they fit with the story that she takes a huge amount of space wearing these sleeves,” says Waddington. “Transposed with highly textured fabrics that evoke the feeling of living, breathing organisms, they push forward the idea of her being quite creature-like.” Discordant dressing captures Baxter’s childlike instincts “to never follow sartorial rules and disassemble because children seem to quite like being nude,” says Waddington, pointing to underpinnings (bustles, petticoats, chemisettes) worn outright as apparel. Surprisingly, she reveals that Mark Ruffalo’s Duncan Wedderburn—not Baxter—wears a corset, along with padding on his chest and rear, to mimic an “exaggerated, pompous posture with the puffed-out chest and slightly upended bottom inspired by satirical cartoons of men in 1890s newspapers.”

Baxter’s look evolves from innocence to assuredness, as does Spaeny’s midcentury wardrobe as she progresses from age 14 to 27 in Priscilla. Costume designer Stacey Battat utilizes crinolines to create “a fuller, more childlike silhouette” on Spaeny’s petite frame. The silhouette shifts to slim skirts, while flats advance to heels and dusty pastels morph into brights as the film progresses. Battat calls out the Immaculate Conception High School uniform in “an otherworldly color” of seafoam green, based on an original sent from Memphis, as a favorite design. In the mix are Anna Sui dresses, E.las sweaters by Colin McNair and a wedding dress designed by Chanel’s creative director Virginie Viard, inspired by a swatch of archival lace.

Statement hats are a pivotal piece for both J. Robert Oppenheimer and French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. “Oppenheimer is an empowered leader at that moment in time in Los Alamos,” says Emmy-winning costume designer Ellen Mirojnick. “He walks out, puts on the hat, picks up the pipe. It was very purposeful. He knew that presentation was important. His hat had a pork pie crown and a wider circular, cowboy-type brim that we recreated out of a natural dyed felt from South America. Another signature was the leather belt with the sterling silver engraved turquoise buckle that he wore continually throughout his New Mexican time.”

Barbie

Despite the five-decade timespan of the film, Oppenheimer’s distinctive suiting silhouette never wavers. “Because of his physique, he lost weight easily, so everything looked a little voluminous on him, which created a style by happenstance,” says Mirojnick, noting that gray flannel was his go-to outside of Los Alamos, with a mix of texture-rich tweeds, worsteds and cavalry twills in New Mexico, all anchored by blue shirting.

Oscar-winning costume designer Janty Yates teamed with costume designer and military history expert David Crossman for Napoleon, set in the early 18th century. “Joaquin [Phoenix] is vegan, so nothing could be made in leather or wool,” says Yates. “His five styles of hats were made of tree bark fabric from Africa by our milliner in Rome. We used moleskin for the jackets, waistcoats and britches. The boots were vegan leather.” Crossman adds that Phoenix kept some of the hats that were “made to dimensions found in the Mus.e de l’Arm.e in Paris,” as well as his green Chasseur colonel’s uniform. Crossman crafted nearly 4,000 military uniforms for Prussians, Russians, Austrians, British, Cossacks, Egyptians and a 20-year span of French army uniforms using antique originals as models and produced in mass by Hero Collection in Poland. “An extraordinary amount of work went into copying Jacques-Louis David’s painting “The Coronation of Napoleon” as completely as we possibly could,” says Yates. “The trains were extremely long and heavy, all hand-embroidered in gold bullion with detail verbatim.”

Napoleon

For Killers of the Flower Moon, set in 1920s Oklahoma, costume designer Jacqueline West brought on Osage wardrobe consultant Julie O’Keefe and collaborated with Pendleton Woolen Mills to reproduce 500 blankets. “Pendleton had archives of the actual blankets and color palettes sold to the Osage in the ‘20s at trading posts in Pawhuska and Fairfax (Oklahoma),” says West. “They even recreated the original labels. Julie calls them “the mink coats of the Osage,” as they were very expensive in their day. She knew all the nuances you can’t find in research, of how the blanket is worn in different situations—whether you fold the fringe in or out, how you hold it, when to wear it as a shawl. That subtlety meant a lot to Lily (Gladstone, as Mollie Burkhart).”

In the wedding scene, the women wear elaborate Regency-style military coats and top hats (a tradition originating as gifts from President Thomas Jefferson’s generals to tribal council members in the 1800s, according to West) customized with silk ribbon appliqu., dyed feathers and traditional silver pins—reconstituted peace-treaty medals also worn at the neckline to symbolize marital status. West handcrafted twisted chokers out of Czechoslovakian glass beads. Native American artisan William “Kugee” Supernaw of Tulsa created the silver jewelry and pins, and 400 pairs of Osage moccasins were handcrafted. “Altogether, we made about 4,000 costumes,” says West.

Oppenheimer

Poor Things

The post Dressing The Part appeared first on TheWrap.

Artist Marco Walker has created a portfolio of images where his nostalgia for postmodern iconography and his memories of Hollywood are the stage for the winning accessories and best clothes of the season

Hilary Rhoda wears earrings by SORDO, coat by BRUNELLO CUCINELLI, sweater by THE ELDER STATESMAN, tights by WOLFORD and shoes by JIMMY CHOO

Hilary wears sunglasses by JACQUES MARIE MAGE, earrings and silver cuff available at PAUMÉ LOS ANGELES, knit top and skirt by BOTTEGA VENETA, organic oval and silver rock bangles by DINOSAUR DESIGNS, boots by JIMMY CHOO.

K.i.s.s.i.n.g red lipstick by CHARLOTTE TILBURY.

Hilary wears earrings and necklace by TIFFANY & CO., swim top, skirt and towel by HERMÈS, shoes by JIMMY CHOO. sunglasses on towel by JACQUES MARIE MAGE.

Red shoe by PRADA

Hilary wears earrings by SORDO, vest by ISABEL MARANT, pink swimsuit by ARAKS, blue swimsuit, bag and bracelets by CHANEL, rock bangles and silver rock bangle by DINOSAUR DESIGNS, shoes by NIKE.

Sunglasses by JACQUES MARIE MAGE.

Hilary wears earrings by ISABEL MARANT, jacket by CELINE BY HEDI SLIMANE, sweater by THE ELDER STATESMAN, pants by ISABEL MARANT, shoes by JIMMY CHOO.

Mule by VERSACE

Hilary wears earrings, necklace, scarf, bodysuit, belt, gloves, cuffs, skirt and shoes are all SAINT LAURENT BY ANTHONY VACCARELLO.

Small Ghiera bag LORO PIANA.

Credits

FASHION EDITOR AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR: MICHAELA DOSAMANTES

MODEL: HILARY RHODA AT IMG

PRODUCTION: ANABELLA CASSANOVA AND SAGE PRICE FOR VACATION THEORY

MAKEUP ARTIST WENDY MARTINEZ

HAIR STYLIST JOERI ROUFFA AT THE WALL GROUP

CASTING BY KEGAN WEBB

PHOTOGRAPHY ASSISTANTS: DENIS FAGUNDES AND NICK MORA

PRODUCTION DESIGNER/FABRICATORS: KATHRYN REDIGER AND EILEEN SETON WITH BUDDY SYSTEM LA

MARKET EDITOR: DANIEL VICTORIA GLEASON

FASHION ASSISTANT: RACHEL POLLEN

INTERN: HANNAH LOEWEN

LOCATION ROUGHOUT RANCH, NEWBERRY SPRINGS, CA

SPECIAL THANKS TO AMBER SCHWARZ, ZOE WALKER, LEAH SILVERSTEIN AT IMG.

MARCO WALKER

An image maker working within the boundaries of photography, collage, alternative print methods and immersive photographic installations. His unique style as an artist has attracted projects that span from luxury fashion houses such as Saint Laurent to installations at off-beat art festivals to gallery shows in London and New York.

The post Cinemascapes appeared first on TheWrap.

The SAG-AFTRA and WGA labor disputes of 2023 put tens of thousands of people out of work for more than half the year, but the psychological impact was as great as the economic one. The ripple effects continue to reverberate through all of entertainment 

Artwork by Alexis Chivir-ter Tsegba

By Sharon Waxman

The labor actions of 2023 were a once-in-a-lifetime event. For eight months, the entertainment industry ground to a halt as the lifeblood of entertainment content—the writers—and the faces of movies and television—the actors—left the playing field and instead picked up picket signs.

It had been decades since management faced off with the creative community, and it was ugly. It was emotional. It was public. It was nasty. At TheWrap, we covered the daily grind of the strikes minute by minute, week after week, month after month. The following is a timeline of the signature moments of a landmark year.

May 1 It begins. Hollywood writers fail to reach a deal for a new contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers by a previously set deadline. The leadership of the Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) unanimously approves a strike on the eve of May 2, the first of its kind since the 2007–08 strike upended the industry.

May 2 The Writers Guild strike launches as 11,500 screenwriters put down their pens. Hollywood, largely expecting this development, braces for what looks to be a long fight.

May 11 In solidarity, Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik exits the final week of taping of the game show’s 39th season, joining the likes of Drew Barrymore, who steps down as the host of this year’s MTV Movie & TV Awards for the same reason.

June 5 Second wave coming. Nearly 98 percent of the Screen Actors Guild votes to strike if it cannot reach a deal with the AMPTP by June 30.

June 23 The Directors Guild of America agrees to a new contract with the AMPTP with wage increases, better residuals and some protections against artificial intelligence tools.

July 12 As the clock ticks down to a contract deadline for the Screen Actors Guild and AMPTP, no word from the two sides or a federal mediator. As midnight passes with no deal, the industry waits. About 45 minutes past the deadline, SAG-AFTRA issues a statement that they have walked away from the table.

July 13 SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher issues a scathing jeremiad to the Hollywood studio chiefs, taking them to task for their greed, their selfishness and their overall chutzpah. It is probably her greatest performance, made more convincing by the fact that she surely means it: “We are the victims here. We are being victimized by a very greedy entity. I am shocked by the way the people that we have been in business with are treating us,” she says in a video that goes viral.

“I cannot believe it, quite frankly, how far apart we are on so many things. How they plead poverty, that they’re losing money left and right when giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs. It is disgusting. Shame on them. They stand on the wrong side of history.” 

That same day, SAG-AFTRA joins the ranks of the WGA and authorizes its own strike, putting several movies and TV shows on indefinite holds and resulting in the cast of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer walking out of the film’s U.K. premiere.

Split screen: Meanwhile, Disney CEO Bob Iger sticks his foot in it while ensconced in the Loro Piano luxury of Sun Valley at the Allen conference. The private jets are lined up on the tarmac. The Patagonia vests are in abundance. Iger says the studios could not possibly have made a deal with the guilds because their demands were “just not realistic.”

“It’s very disturbing to me,” Iger says to CNBC. “We’ve talked about disruptive forces on this business and all the challenges that we’re facing and the recovery from COVID—which is ongoing, it’s not completely back. This is the worst time in the world to add to that disruption.” Guild members are angry and insulted. Other studio executives are pissed off. People who know Iger are totally confused since it’s very unlike him to put a foot wrong when it comes to public appearances. (He later tells friends in private that he knew what he was doing and was only telling the truth.)

July 24 Social media influencers are told they will be barred from SAG-AFTRA if they accept work from blacklisted studios or streaming services during the strike.

July 26 Rally in Times Square with leaders and members of both guilds. Brian Cranston takes a megaphone and yells: “Give us our dignity!” Nobody thinks Brian Cranston is starving, but the punch lands and the video goes very wide.

July 27-28 Wall Street is getting restless. Analysts put out guidance saying the studios have handled this poorly, appear to all the world like a bunch of greedy fat cats, and they should sit down and make a deal.

Hollywood publicists begin to freak out as their businesses dwindle to nothing. Their clients cannot work—cannot do red carpets, cannot do any media appearances at all. Planning for the fast-approaching fall season is in full disarray. Panic is beginning to set in as August looms.

Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festivals are all moving forward, but with no guarantee of any acting talent being permitted to appear. The publicists ask for and get a meeting with two of the union leaders on strike and feel that they are being asked to “sacrifice” like everyone else. All feel disrespected.

July 31 After three weeks of nonstop pummeling in the press, the studios decide to get their act together. The CEOs meet over the weekend and resolve to figure out how to move forward. Monday, their labor negotiators roll up their sleeves again to come close to a consensus on the thorniest issues—for the writers, the minimum work engagement and mandatory staffing; for actors, the AI issue—as well as residuals. TheWrap breaks this bit of news, which is followed the next day by the AMPTP inviting the WGA to discuss returning to the negotiating table.

August 4 Fizzle. The two sides meet and—stalemate. No progress is made. Strike continues. No view to a path to progress. WGA representatives meet with studios but fail to reach a deal, saying AMPTP was open to increasing offers on a “few writer-specific TV minimums and talk about AI” but wasn’t willing to engage in screenwriters’ issues and other proposals. 

August 7 Fran Drescher says AMPTP has not reached out to go back to the table. In other words: no news.

August 9 Liz Hannah, producer and screenwriter of The Post, tweets: “Day 100. If you’re feeling down, feel it. You’re not wrong. It’s scary. But we are all here together. You are not alone. Fuck those guys.”

Entertainment journalist Mark Harris tweets: “Every day these strikes continue is a fresh reminder of the void of ethical, moral, and business leadership at the top of the AMPTP. They are inadequate custodians of a great industry, chasing the chimera of endless Wall Street growth at the expense of decency and common sense.” 

It’s not going so well for the studios.

August 22 The studio CEOs determine that they simply
must end the strike. The deadline in mind—the outside date to get this done—has been Labor Day. They request a meeting with the Writers Guild leadership to press the case that the studios have made significant concessions around minimum guarantees for the writers rooms, guaranteed transparency in streaming data every quarter, and firm assurances on copyright as it relates to artificial intelligence.

To their surprise, the guild leadership tells them it’s not good enough. In frustration, the CEOs decide to release their offer publicly—to what end is unclear, but it succeeds in infuriating the guild leadership and membership. It is read as a move to divide the union. The strategy backfires, and the guild membership is furious. “They made an enormous tactical error because they just made everybody mad,” showrunner Mike Royce says. “They are trying to leapfrog over an important part of the deal-making process by going around our negotiating committee.”

The guild condemns the move and later issues its formal response.

At this point, the two sides are negotiating by press release. The trust, already frayed, is broken. This new breakdown leads to two more weeks of utter silence. And no direct talks.

August 30 Venice Film Festival opens without any Hollywood stars. Bradley Cooper misses the premiere of his new film, Maestro, in which he plays composer Leonard Bernstein and on which he is cowriter and director. Though technically he could attend as the director, he chooses not to come in solidarity with his actor colleagues. The festival goes on, with one major film premiere after another, including director luminaries such as David Fincher, Sofia Coppola and Ava DuVernay—but no actors.

September 1 Cavernous, yawning silence from Hollywood as the two sides continue their standoff. No talks are happening and no leaks to the media.

September 8 Toronto Film Festival opens with no actors except a handful—Nicolas Cage, Jessica Chastain and Peter Sarsgaard—who received waivers.

September 11 Hollywood showrunners are anxious with staff unable to work. They request a meeting with WGA leadership. The guild cancels the meeting, and showrunners, including Kenya Barris (Blackish) and Noah Hawley (Fargo), are furious and demand more movement on the strike talks. Drew Barrymore calls her talk show back. So does Jennifer Hudson. So does Bill Maher. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls him a scab. Lots of social blowback for everyone.

September 14 After nearly a month with no talks, WGA invites AMPTP back to the table, finally setting a date for the following week.

September 20 At long last, the WGA and AMPTP meet to start working sessions on the strike issues. In attendance: Disney’s Bob Iger; Warner Bros Discovery’s David Zaslav; Netflix’s Ted Sarandos; NBCUniversal’s Donna Langley. No deal.

September 21 Guild leaders and CEOS are back. They negotiate until 8 pm. No deal.

September 22 Both sides are back, all day. Still no deal. Word comes that they had a deal at 5 pm, but rumor spreads that the retired, hard-as-nails former chief WGA negotiator David Young has sent the negotiators back for two more points. True or not, no deal.

September 23 The deal is so close, the whole town can taste it. It’s Saturday, and the lawyers are hammering out language. Word is a deal is coming. But the day ends for negotiators at 9 pm and still: No deal.

September 24 It’s Yom Kippur Eve. Now is the time. Everyone in Hollywood has their eyes trained on “how the Yom Kippur eve deal got done.” The informal deadline is sunset Sunday,
when the Jewish holiday takes half the town (and half the negotiators, and at least one journalist, me) offline for 24 hours. Sunset inches closer. Sunset comes. Still no announcement at all. Finally at 7:15 pm, as the sounds of Kol Nidre begin to ring through the synagogues (where Donna Langley, David Zaslav and
Bob Iger could reliably be said to be), the announcement comes: We have a deal.

October 2 SAG-AFTRA leaders meet to negotiate with the four Hollywood CEOs for the first time in more than a month.

October 13 After five direct meetings over 10 days of talks, the AMPTP suspends negotiations. “The gap” is “too great,” they say in a statement issued over a new demand for a $1-per-subscriber streaming service fee that would go to the guild. Hollywood sinks back into panic.

October 28-29 SAG-AFTRA and AMPTP work all weekend. The studio side tells TheWrap before the weekend that if an agreement is not reached in a week, they’re giving up until after the new year:

“According to an individual with knowledge of their thinking, the studios believe that if they can’t reach a deal in the next week with the Screen Actors Guild, which has been on strike since July 14, then no new production will be able to start before 2024. 

If that is the case, the studios further believe, then the fall television season is lost, and new movies won’t be able to

come out until next summer. In this scenario, early November would be the drop-dead date to salvage any ability to put television or movies into production. Once the calendar hits Thanksgiving, it is unlikely any project would begin production, pushing off everything to the new year, this individual said, killing the studios’ incentive to push for a deal.”

November 8 After many more days of stomach upset, tattered nerves and reports of “almost there,” the two sides finally make their way to a deal. 

In the end, the issue of control over how AI would be used in making entertainment was the final barrier to agreement.  As Drescher put it: “AI was a dealbreaker. If we didn’t get that package, then what are we doing to protect our members?” 

The protections would remain issues of dispute among members for weeks after the deal was done. But the deal got done, with the union valuing the new contract at over $1 billion. 

After 118 days on the picket line, SAG-AFTRA won pay hikes, streaming residual increases, greater visibility into streaming and protections against artificial intelligence.

The AMPTP calls the agreement the “biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union.”

SHARON WAXMAN

Award-winning journalist and bestselling author Sharon Waxman is the founder, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Wrap News, the leading media company covering the business of Hollywood. A former Hollywood correspondent for the New York Times, her WaxWord blog and “TheWrap-Up” podcast are among the most respected references in the entertainment space. Given that perch, there was no one with a better perspective of last year’s tumultuous writers’ and actors’ labor stoppages, and her “Diary of a Strike” chronicles how it all went down.

The post Diary of a Strike appeared first on TheWrap.

Frieze takes a drive through Los Angeles with artist Sharif Farrag

by Stefano Tonchi
Photography by Jeff Vespa

The renowned international art fair Frieze has its roots in the contemporary art magazine of the same name founded in 1991 by Amanda Sharp and Matthew Slotover. The pair went on to launch the groundbreaking art fair in London in 2003, capturing the attention of an international audience that continues to this day, with outposts in New York and recently in Seoul. The first edition of Frieze Los Angeles took place in February 2019, reflecting the increased attention and appreciation shown for art on the West Coast and following the acquisition of the brand by the L.A. talent agency WME. For each edition, the Fair presents an ambitious artist-driven program of events and talks and produces site-specific installations and performances.

Returning in 2024 to the Santa Monica Airport (February 29 to March 3), Frieze Projects has invited for the second consecutive year the nonprofit Art Production Fund to curate “Set Seen,” a free public exhibition of interactive works by mostly Los Angeles artists including Sharif Farrag, Derek Fordjour, Cynthia Talmadge, Ryan Flores and Pippa Garner. This expansive exhibition through the airport grounds presents artist projects in dialogue with the rich history of set design in L.A. and offers onsite performances that speak about local constructed environments such as highways and cars.

As an Angeleno, Farrag perceives the relationship with his car as more than a mere tool for transportation: Akin to a secondary home, the car is a reliable friend and a means of survival. For this project, the artist, whom we visited in his studio on the eve of the opening of the fair, has transformed radio-controlled cars into embodiments of human experience, envisioning them as a post-human representation that reflects our societal shift toward unity with technology. Comprised of sculpted terracotta rats fitted atop the chassis of RC cars, Farrag’s Rat Race serves as an allegory for competition and capitalism, symbolizing the relentless pursuit of work, money and survival. During the hours of the Fair, he is inviting VIPs and a group of lucky visitors to join the rat race by experiencing his moving sculptures and race against each other on the airport’s athletic field, with awards for the winners.

The post The Last Picture appeared first on TheWrap.

THE INSTANT DECORATOR (PINK AND GREEN BEDROOM/SLUMBER PARTY) (2003) FLEX PRINT

All Dolled Up

Laurie Simmons

Artist Laurie Simmons’ body of work uses dolls to explore themes of feminism, sexuality, body imagery and gender identity. This special portfolio presents a selection of pieces inspired by and referencing movies including Barbie, Oppenheimer, The Little Mermaid and more

by Rochelle Steiner

Critics Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry and Alexandra Schwartz at The New Yorker named 2023 “The Year of the Doll.” They noted how last year’s movies and popular culture brought us worlds filled with dolls transformed into humans (Barbie), women living as dolls (Priscilla), artificially created beings (Poor Things) and the spaces they inhabit. But for visual artist Laurie Simmons this is nothing new. For close to five decades, dolls and their worlds have featured in her work long before our attention turned to Barbie and the like. In Simmons’ words, “While dolls burst into pop culture with the Barbie movie, they have always been there. The last year was less of an explosion and more of an awareness.”

Simmons began her career in the 1970s working with familiar figurines, models and other playthings. As a young girl, she never played with dolls, rejecting Barbie for fashion and boys. In her work, however, dolls provide a way for her to explore consistent themes: women and interior spaces. There are paper dolls and mannequins. A suburban home and other objects sit atop sinuous plastic female legs. More recently, masks, contemporary sex dolls and other avatars have appeared. (With only one exception, Simmons never uses the actual Barbie, but rather what she calls “imitation Barbie.”) She dresses dolls up, creates sets and poses them in various configurations, alone and together—all to photograph them in captivating, thought-provoking images.

Simmons started working at a time when artists (and particularly women artists in New York) turned the camera on themselves and considered their roles in society by looking at images found in popular culture, advertising and the movies. She deployed dolls as surrogates for the female body in highly choreographed examinations of gendered politics. In her early work, dolls performed stereotypically domestic twentieth-century female roles: posing in the kitchen, a dressing room, a teenager’s bedroom and at the pool. On display are markers of her generation, race and class—when the identities of girls and boys, women and men were well inscribed. Her 2006 film The Music of Regret—a puppet musical—was a seriously funny work with dolls standing in for humans. The visual stories she creates deconstruct the interior and exterior lives of women by pointing to—and poking at—femininity, fashion, beauty and architecture.

Over the recent decades, Simmons has looked across cultures and generations, noting shifts in attitude and embracing new technologies. This provides her with expansive and fertile ground to consider representations of women as well as identity and gender more broadly. Cosplay (or “costume play”) and a deep affinity to anime and manga have entered her work through masks, makeup, prosthetics and an array of characters. Here the fluidity of gender, age and identity are on full display. Equally, Simmons embraces the proliferation of digital technology, including AI, which opens a portal into “the interstitial space between human and doll, fact and fiction.” Her range of images of women has expanded to include explorations of skin tone, body type, transgenders and hyperreal surrogates.

What might at one point have seemed like—and, if so, been mistaken for—a nostalgic reinforcement of gender norms with female dolls appearing in the kitchen has been upended by Simmons’s voracious experimentation. Her feminist lens is consistently pointed towards the complexity of women, from body image to eating disorders to pornography to nonconforming gender and gender misidentification.

Poised in the roles we assume—in life, art, fashion and in the movies—Simmons’ dolls reveal the fluidity of feminism today.

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