One of the beach suites with a private pool at Alphonse Island

Keith Rose-Innes is an environmentalist and globally renowned fly-fisherman. Having first travelled to the Seychelles as a fly-fishing guide, he is now the Managing Director of Alphonse Island, where he continues to promote sustainable travel. Here, he speaks to Chloe Frost-Smith about falling in love with the Seychelles, building an eco camp and his predictions for the travel industry after lockdown

Keith Rose-Innes. Credit Nick Kelly

1. Your passion for fly-fishing has taken you all over the world. What has been your most memorable moment from your travels?

My first trip to the outer atolls of the Seychelles is still my most memorable travelling experience. Google Maps didn’t exist in the early days and we would arrive with old nautical charts. It was incredible knowing that you could be the first person to guide a fly-fisherman on that particular flat, and that you might discover an incredible spot at any time and then personally, name it for guests to experience in the future.

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Sustainable tourism provides the opportunity to form partnerships that can protect places such as these. Unlike many other fly-fishing driven conservation efforts, we have never been focussed on solely protecting the marine environment; we have also contributed equally to the protection and preservation of the terrestrial ecosystems of the outer atolls. The Alphonse Fishing Company, Blue Safari Seychelles, Islands Development Company and Island Conservation Society have joined together to form a partnership to manage and execute strategies and projects to protect the species and environments through means of public funding, which is collected via donations and fundraising initiatives. These funds are then donated to the foundations of Alphonse, Farquhar, Cosmoledo and Astove. These are specific to the individual atolls to oversee the funding of the projects operated by the Island Conservation Society. Each destination has a weekly presentation that provides a detailed update of the progress the various programs are making and also provides the opportunity for guests to discuss the environmental topics with qualified environmentalists and marine biologists.

An aerial view of Poivre Island, one of the Seychelles’ outer islands

2. Other than the obvious, what made you decide to settle in the remote atolls of the Seychelles?

I cut my teeth as a fly-fishing guide in the Seychelles 22 years ago and guided full time for 17 years before co-founding Alphonse Fishing Company and now our latest initiative, Blue Safari Seychelles. The years I’ve spent promoting and establishing the remote atolls of the Seychelles as one of the world’s best saltwater fly-fishing and ecotourism destinations have been the best years of my life. Although I travel extensively and have a second home in South Africa, my real home is on the remote atolls of the Seychelles. If I had to hang my hat anywhere in the world, it would be in the Seychelles. Living how I do comes with obvious perks, not least of which is access to the various incredible ecosystems on my doorstep. I have been lucky enough to be the first to fly fish and guide trips to numerous of the now well-known outer atolls of the Seychelles. Many would call it pioneering, but I see it as school fees. I know the outer atolls of the Seychelles so well and I love every day that I get back out on the water.

3. What was the inspiration behind Cosmoledo Eco Camp, and do you have any plans to create similar concepts anywhere else in the future?

The purpose of the Cosmoledo Eco Lodge is to establish sustainable ecotourism in line with the Blue Economy, as well as to conserve and monitor the area. One of the most important reasons for the camp is to have a year round presence monitoring the environment to deter foreign, commercial fishing activities which have been taking place. During the months from May to November when the Eco Camp closes to guests, a team of Island Conservation Society rangers and scientists stay on location with our skeleton crew to monitor the area.

The temporary and minimalistic camp was constructed with recycled containers that were retrofitted in South Africa, shipped to Seychelles and then placed on plinths and opened up to form a front deck and back bathroom. The entire container is covered with a sail to create shade and cover from the rain. It’s a concept that I hadn’t seen done anywhere else and echoes a sense of responsibility as almost everything used in the building was recycled.

The feeling you get when staying in a very comfortable, air-conditioned and full glass front container is unique. It’s almost like the cabin of a ship placed in a nature wonderland. The bird sounds, untouched vegetation and view over the lagoon are incredible. The main central area is a tent that is placed on the sand and placement of the camp was selected where there were foundations from buildings erected in the past. The entire camp can be removed completely without leaving any trace of humans behind.

A beach villa at Alphonse Island

4. What were the main challenges of turning shipping containers into entirely eco-friendly pods?

Initially, it was difficult to imagine how we’d fit all the necessities in such a small space, but once completed, we realised how little you actually need. The next hardest aspect was fitting everything onto three barges [for transportation] and building the camp in only 21 days. We couldn’t fit all of the necessary furniture onto the barges, so we decided to build some it on site from the recycled pallets and timber, which were used to brace everything inside the containers when shipped.

Read more: How Andermatt Swiss Alps is tackling climate change

5. How do you think travel has been impacted by the current lockdown, and what will travel look like once this period ends?

I think it’s still too soon to comprehend the outcome as we are only starting to feel the far-reaching ramifications of a total lockdown of the worldwide tourism sector. It has affected our business immensely as we have hibernated all islands. We are, however, in a strong position and we will open up when things are safe to do so.

My outcome is somewhat positive as smaller to medium-sized private hotels should excel and especially, in destinations that have not experienced any cases of Covid-19. Hotels that have an emphasis on safety, social distancing and health protocol will be focused on.

I do feel that long-haul travel will be somewhat impacted from a health concern point of view and vacation travel may become less frequent, but as the focus shifts towards wellness it is quite possible that travellers may choose longer periods at a destination that caters to all needs, whilst avoiding busy airports and numerous flights. Without a question, there will be a renewed focus on family time, wellness, authenticity, environmentally-friendly travel, well-being and nature. After lockdown, family time will be key, which is why I believe small eco-lodges with family-based activities will excel.

A guided walk on Alphonse island. Image by Anthony Grote

6. Have you seen any positive effects on the environment during lockdown, and if so, are there any sustainable steps which can be taken to ensure these continue?

We haven’t seen any direct environmental positives that directly relate to Covid-19 other than less air pollution. There are some negatives as a weak economy prevents our ability to fundraise for the foundations that protect our atolls.

There has, however, been a huge silver-lining. My life’s work has been to try to assist in protecting these amazing places and on the 26 March 2020, the President of the Seychelles, Danny Faure, officially signed the bill demarcating 30% of the territorial waters of the Seychelles, legally binding Marine Protected Areas as part of the large-scale Seychelles Marine Spatial Plan. This is a first-of-its-kind initiative, exchanging national debt relief in exchange for ocean conservation policy co-designed by the Nature Conservancy, Seychelles Government and the World Bank. The Alphonse Group, Desroches, Farquhar, Poivre, Cosmoledo and Astove are all included in the gazette, culminating in a five-year project led by the UNDP-GEF with Island Conservation Society, Blue Safari and Alphonse Fishing Company as some of the key partners amongst others who are specifically focused on protecting the unique and pristine tropical marine ecosystems of these remote atolls. The policy designates the offshore waters up to 1km from the outer coral reefs as protected ‘Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty’. These designations seek to conserve the exceptional biodiversity and natural value of these marine areas whilst ensuring the enjoyment of sustainable ecosystem services into the future. We are blessed to have the Seychelles Outer Islands in a prestige state that has changed very little since the early days and now, it’s up to us humans to protect it.

Find out more: bluesafari.com, alphonse-island.com

Ballet dancer, actor and entrepreneur Sergei Polunin. Image by Alex Kerkis

Tattooed, athletic and outspoken, ballet maestro Sergei Polunin has a way of keeping everyone on their toes. LUX talks to the dancer, actor and entrepreneur about his internet-breaking video for Hozier, working with Kenneth Branagh, and dancing in virtual reality

1. Can you describe your style of dancing?

It’s a combination of having trained in two different countries: Russia, with its classical training, precise technique and good clean positions, and England, where there is a lot of acting and expression in every movement.

2. Are you a rule-breaker?

I actually enjoy following the rules when it comes to ballet. When you’re training, you need to follow a very strict path, but in order to perform, you need to feel free. During performances, I try to discard the rules and translate what I feel for the audience.

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3. Your feelings about ballet institutions seem untraditional, though?

I’m trying to build an alternative system to compete with the old theatre system, which has been going since the 1800s, where ballet dancers are signed up and then are told exactly what to do for their whole career. They’re not allowed any representation or to negotiate for money or to choose their next project – like old Hollywood. I’m working with the government to offer dancers more money and freedom and to create some healthy competition.

4. What is the biggest misconception about male ballet dancers?

That they are silly or feminine. I was never bullied for dancing, though; I’ve always considered it a man’s job. Boxers learn dancing to improve their flexibility and to hide emotions. Just as a dancer never shows how hard they are working, a fighter hides where his next punch is coming from. Also, if you choose to study ballet, you’ll be surrounded by girls! That would never happen with football.

5. Did you expect Hozier’s ‘Take Me to Church’ video with your dance to go viral?

Not really, no. When they filmed the video, I had been thinking about quitting dancing for acting, so I wasn’t in the best shape at the time. I’m happy that so many people appreciated it but I still see lots of technical mistakes!

Here and above: Sergei Polunin photographed by Morgan Norman

6. How do you connect with the audience when you are dancing in an arena?

Performing for that many people gives me more energy. I could actually dance larger, perform bigger! It’s important to show that ballet can work for big stadium audiences, too.

7. What great traditional ballet roles are left for you to perform?

So many amazing dancers have already performed these roles, I don’t think I could add anything. I want to create new things instead.

Read more: Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicolas Bos on the poetry of jewellery

8. Are there any stories begging to be made into a ballet?

Many! You can turn anything into a ballet. Imagine a Marvel or DC comic and dancing as the Joker or the Penguin.

9. How about a ballet about the Kardashians?

Absolutely! Dance has no boundaries. You can dance as a chess piece, a planet, a myth, a god.

10. What do you think is the future of dance?

Virtual reality and 3D technology are the perfect mediums for dance. Once a dance is done, how can the performance be saved forever? I think virtual reality is the answer.

11. You’ve acted in films directed by Kenneth Branagh and Ralph Fiennes. Did they give you any acting advice?

They didn’t have too many corrections on set. I think as an actor you transfer your personal energy into the role. Some actors just make you want to look at them, like Mickey Rourke or Marlon Brando on screen – I don’t care what they’re doing or saying, I just look at them.

12. Can you imagine a life without dancing?

Dance is my centre and my core. I always come back to it. It comes easily to me, but I don’t spend time thinking about it. I pursue other things like acting and I’m building a foundation to bring together financing, resources and people to develop and fund creative projects. I want to support different kinds of talents – choreographers, lighting designers, costume designers, painters, film directors, playwrights.

Discover more: poluninink.com

This interview was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue. 

The Göscheneralpsee reservoir west of Andermatt is fed by the Dammastock glaciers.

Climate change is creating challenges for mountain resorts the world over. In Switzerland, a new luxury resort is leading the way in incorporating ecologically sound design into every aspect of their development. Jenny Southan discovers the innovations and advances being made in Andermatt

We all know that climate change is a problem, but for ski resorts, which rely on consistently sufficient snowfall, the challenge is particularly pressing – as snow, especially at lower altitudes, decreases, many will be forced to shut down (hundreds have already been abandoned across the Alps). And as the number of ‘snow-certain’ destinations dwindle, there is the added problem that by 2050, half of Switzerland’s 4,000 glaciers are forecast to have disappeared.

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However, the good news is that humans are incredibly innovative, and if serious steps are taken now to combat carbon emissions, the negative effects of climate change could be mitigated. Leading the way in Switzerland is the Andermatt Swiss Alps (ASA) development project, which is one of just a small handful of resorts that is taking serious steps to up its eco credentials and ensure its longevity as an outpost for winter sports.

Stefan Kern, head of PR and communications for ASA, says: “The project is heavily dedicated to sustainability. This is a core value of all our activities – from energy consumption to construction and gastronomy. We are proud to be on the way to being a fully carbon-neutral holiday destination.”

Looking down into the Ursern valley from Schneehüenerstock. Image by Valentin Luthiger

Demonstrating its commitment to the cause, ASA teamed up last year with the Swiss branch of American NGO Protect Our Winters (POW), which is helping it to devise sweeping, longterm initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint, as well as consumption of single-use plastic (none is sold at resort sites). At the beginning of 2020, ASA also launched Andermatt Responsible, a platform that “looks at the whole company’s footprint from heating to energy to water,” as Nicholas Bornstein, head and founder of POW Switzerland, explains.

Read more: Van Cleef & Arpels CEO Nicolas Bos on the poetry of jewellery

A political scientist with a Ph.D in Swiss environmental policy, there are few people better equipped than Bornstein to discuss combatting climate change in mountainous regions. He says that POW “allows me to combine my love of the outdoors with meaningful action”. He explains that his organisation works to “mobilise our community to implement climate change protection measures” via groups of local activists, professional athletes, companies and mountain guides, who act as ambassadors.

The Andermatt golf course. Image by Martin Wabel/Bildsektor.

How is climate change affecting Alpine ski resorts? In addition to making ski seasons shorter, Bornstein says: “The snow line has risen approximately 300 metres in the past 40 years, and is predicted to go up a further 500 to 700 metres by the end of the century, and this is putting a lot of ski resorts out of business.”

He also notes that conditions are becoming more dangerous. “We have seen avalanches in mid-winter of the kind that we would expect in April and May. They are becoming harder to predict.” Why? If the ground isn’t cold enough when it starts snowing, an insulating layer is created by the snow where heat is trapped and snow can slide off more easily. “We call these ‘fish mouth’ avalanches,” says Bornstein.

Read more: Jason deCaires Taylor on underwater art & ocean conservation

ASA has identified key contributors and is taking steps to reduce their impact. Bornstein says that approximately 50 to 70 per cent of CO2 emissions in Andermatt are from people coming to the resort by car so they are putting on extra trains from Zurich at weekends, offering discounted ski passes for people who don’t drive (driving in general here is restricted and there is a good bus system for those who don’t want to walk, including an electric bus). Andermatt Reuss is for pedestrians only.

Andermatt seen from the Gütsch ski lift

Food production and logistics are also big polluters, especially in Switzerland which imports a lot of goods. Bornstein says that POW has been working with restaurants in ASA to
put a more regional and vegetarian cuisine on menus. Andermatt’s gourmet restaurants are also reducing the amount of plastic-wrapped ingredients they buy.

Even more impressive is the fact that the entire SkiArena of Andermatt (from homes to ski lifts) is 100 per cent powered by hydroelectric and wind-powered energy supplied by Ursern electricity works, which exclusively serves the Gotthard region. (On the Graubünden side of Andermatt, Energia Alpina also provides 100 per cent renewable energy.) Not only that but all the buildings are heated in a totally carbon-neutral way through the burning of locally sourced wood pellets and surplus heat captured from Swiss army computers buried deep in secret bases in nearby mountains.

Read more: How Gaggenau is innovating the ancient art of steam cooking

“People want to see companies stepping up to the challenge and we believe it is going to become more important to position yourself with a ski resort that cares about the future of the environment,” says Bornstein. Even during the summer when people play golf surrounded by green meadows, ASA has ensured that its 20-plus species of birds have plenty of areas to nest around the course – in fact, there are more birds here today than there were before the course was built, demonstrating that being responsible can benefit both nature and mankind.

RING IN THE NEW

Arve Chalet Apartments

Arve Chalet Apartments
Arve is a five-floor block of 17 residences (73–116 sq m in size), each with open-plan living and dining spaces, and window seats offering views of the mountains.

Enzian Alpine Apartments

Enzian Alpine Apartments
Enzian  is a modern, three-floor Alpine villa housing 12 apartments measuring from 62 sq m to 136 sq m. Some come with saunas, private roof terraces and gardens.

Find out more: andermatt-swissalps.ch

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue.

L’Arbre aux tourmalines (1976) by Jean Vendome © MNHN/F. Farges.

The heritage of Parisian jeweller Van Cleef & Arpels is being honoured by an exhibition at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris, in which their gems from across the years are being shown alongside the raw stones that such jewels are made from. On the eve of the show’s opening, LUX meets with the maison’s CEO, Nicolas Bos

Nicolas Bos & Cate Blanchett. © Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty.

LUX: How does seeing the raw beauty of stones extracted from the earth affect your appreciation of fine jewellery?
Nicolas Bos: The aim of this exhibition is to show alongside each other the raw minerals, faceted gems and finished jewellery creations. This juxtaposition really emphasises the stones’ journey from the depth of the Earth into the craftsmen’s hands that will reveal their beauty. In front of raw minerals, we cannot but be humble and admire what nature can create. It is also with great pride that we can see what we are able to accomplish today with these treasures through our know-how.

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LUX: The exhibition shows that humans have always been drawn to adornment. Is the lure of jewellery today different to ancient times?
Nicolas Bos: Since ancient times, both men and women have enjoyed adorning themselves with precious and rare materials. Over the centuries, jewellery and lapidary techniques have evolved, new materials have been found and new sources of inspiration and artistic movements have forged new creations. Society has also significantly evolved, with changes in how jewellery is perceived.

Cravat necklace, 1954. © Patrick Gries.

Bluebird clip, 1963. © Anthony Falcone.

LUX: Jewellery companies seem to be doing ever more exhibitions – why is this?
Nicolas Bos: Exhibitions are a great way for a centenary maison such as ours to reveal the evolution of its style across the decades. Furthermore, for Van Cleef & Arpels, transmission, education and culture are fundamental values. That is why we conceive or participate in exhibitions (be it patrimonial or even contemporary). We display creations not just by the maison; we also focus either on the spirit of a particular era (the 1970s and Alhambra, for example), or on a source of inspiration, or on a particular material such as gems. The maison has over several years initiated relationships with great cultural institutions such as the Musée des Arts Décoratifs or the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, both in Paris, to encourage thoughtful and pertinent dialogues between jewellery and other fields such as mineralogy or the decorative arts in general. The collaboration with the American artist Bob Wilson, in 2016, with a scenography based on Noah’s Ark’s highlighting a high jewellery collection, also expressed this wish to link our creativity with other arts. Another example, in 2017, at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, paralleled traditional Japanese craftsmanship and Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery expertise in the exhibition ‘Mastery of an Art’.

Read more: How Gaggenau is innovating the ancient art of steam cooking

LUX: How would you summarise the brand or aura of Van Cleef & Arpels to a new client?
Nicolas Bos: I would say that the maison puts poetry and enchantment at centre stage in all its creations, be it high jewellery or jewellery or timepieces. Over the years, Van Cleef & Arpels keeps reinventing itself while always staying faithful to its original DNA. Its sources of inspiration range from nature and couture to dance, astronomy and imaginary worlds.

Eucalyptus seed clip, 1968. © Bertrand Moulin

LUX: The ‘Gems’ exhibition includes modern recreations of significant historical jewellery, such as the Toison d’Or worn by Louis XV. What does a piece of historical jewellery tell you about how the wearer once lived?
Nicolas Bos: I’m not a history expert and the maison did not participate in these recreations but it is true that they are impressive. The Toison d’Or underlines the magnificence in which French monarchs used to live and it highlights their taste for exceptional stones and adornment in general. I would like also to mention a special piece that belongs to the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle collection and is of real interest – the tourmalines mobile/tree created by Jean Vendome. This is a real masterpiece that exemplifies the fine work bringing together jewellery, sculpture and design.

LUX: Are lab-grown gems a threat?
Nicolas Bos: We do not consider them as such at Van Cleef & Arpels. They are another type of material which has nothing to do with our idea of jewellery. They are industrial objects which don’t have the rarity, the preciousness or charm that natural stones gain after spending millions of years in the depths of the Earth.

Gladiator clip, 1956. © Anthony Falcone.

LUX: Does learning about the origins of gemstones in an exhibition such as this teach us about the earth from which they came? Does it influence Van Cleef & Arpel’s attitude towards provenance and sustainability?
Nicolas Bos: Sustainability is a core value of Van Cleef & Arpels: we are a certified member of the Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) which has the strictest standards of responsible practices for the jewellery industry. We also ask our suppliers to be certified with the RJC in order to promote good practices in the supply chain and we audit them as well. All diamonds purchased by Van Cleef & Arpels are compliant with the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme which has worked since 2003 to put an end to the trade in conflict diamonds. We also work with multi-stakeholder initiatives on responsible sourcing and supply-chain due diligence, in particular for coloured gemstones.

LUX: Can you describe the Van Cleef & Arpels high jewellery piece that is inspired by the exhibition?
Nicolas Bos: In order to fit in with the central theme of the exhibition, the maison imagined a unique high jewellery object comprising stones, gems and jewels, some faceted, some polished, some raw. Through the work of craftsmen’s hands these stones speak with each other, adding a highly original piece to the history of Van Cleef & Arpels. It provides a fittingly precious and poetic conclusion to this exhibition.

The exhibition ‘Pierres Précieuses’ runs until 3 January 2021 at Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris 

View the collections: vancleefarpels.com

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

The Silent Evolution (2009) by Jason deCaires Taylor, at Cancún Marine Park, Mexico.

Artist, diver and marine conservationist Jason deCaires Taylor creates mesmerising underwater art that draws divers away from delicate coral ecosystems and helps scientists study the effects of pollution. He speaks to LUX about his new project near the Great Barrier Reef

Jason deCaires Taylor

LUX: How do you ensure the materials you use don’t cause harm to the environment?
Jason deCaires Taylor: I’ve been researching materials now for around 14 years with artificial reef companies and universities and marine biologists to find the best metal for the job that doesn’t degrade and that is pH neutral, doesn’t leach any toxins into the environment and encourages marine life to grow.

Follow LUX on Instagram: luxthemagazine

LUX: How does your work contribute to the ocean environment?
Jason deCaires Taylor: On a basic level my sculptures become artificial reefs designed to encourage marine life and create a habitat. We also use the sculptures to control tourism, as a way of drawing tourists away from fragile coral reefs so their impact can be minimised. Part of the process is changing the laws about how the sea is used in that area and to create marine protected areas. Also, most of the pieces have an environmental message behind them about themes such as global warming or ocean pollution.

LUX: How did you progress from being a diver to being a sculptor, marine conservationist and photographer?
Jason deCaires Taylor: It was a kind of a slow evolution. I studied to be a sculptor first. After that, I wanted to explore the world a little bit and so I became a diving instructor. I then decided that it would be ideal if I could try to combine my two interests and it just kind of evolved from there.

LUX: Your Molinere Bay Underwater Sculpture Park in Grenada has been listed as one of National Geographic’s top 25 wonders of the world. How did this come about?
Jason deCaires Taylor: That was my first project. I was living in Grenada teaching and diving and a hurricane that passed through decimated one of the bays and damaged all the coral. There was only one bay left pristine and so all the tourists were heading there and having a big impact on it. So, we needed to draw people away and that’s when I started producing artworks. I didn’t have a firm plan for it, I just thought I’d experiment for a year and see what happens. It became extremely popular and led on to bigger works.

Read more: How Gaggenau is innovating the ancient art of steam cooking

LUX: Tell me about the work you do with conservation organisations.
Jason deCaires Taylor: I have worked with the World Wide Fund for Nature and with Greenpeace on campaigns about ocean plastics and other issues. I have found the fact that the sculptures are dramatic and unusual means they’re good at generating publicity, so I’m able to smuggle in other stories as it’s not so easy to talk about some of these things.

LUX: You’ve started working with Gaggenau?
Jason deCaires Taylor: It’s quite a new relationship. They have a strong connection to the arts and often support artists. They contacted me a few months ago about working together and that was how the exhibition of work by myself and others alongside their designs came about.

The Coral Greenhouse (2020), Great Barrier Reef, Australia

LUX: You have a major ongoing project in the Great Barrier Reef. Can you tell us anything about that?
Jason deCaires Taylor: We have completed the first two stages, one of which is a piece called Ocean Siren. This work actually changes colour according to what the temperature of the reef is. It’s positioned just off the coast of Queensland, above water this time, standing on the water. It’s linked to a weather station on the reef and the figure, which is based on a local indigenous girl, changes colour as the reef changes and as the risk of coral bleaching becomes higher. The idea is that she issues a warning to an urban environment or to a coastal community about what’s happening to the reef. The other stage is a large underwater building called The Coral Greenhouse. We’ve been working with a group of marine biologists at probably one of the biggest marine science universities in the world, at James Cook University in Queensland, and also with the Australian Institute of Marine Science. We’re using this new building as a kind of underwater laboratory/art installation and we’re going to be planting thousands of different types of coral in this greenhouse and installing monitoring devices to see what the dissolved oxygen count is, to help keep tabs on what’s happening on the Great Barrier Reef.

LUX: It sounds like you do a lot of scientific research into these projects yourself. Do you have a scientific background or do you learn with each project?
Jason deCaires Taylor: I haven’t got any science education behind me. I’ve worked in so many places around the world and it’s impossible to be an expert in all of these different sites, so I work closely with local biologists. I also trained as an underwater naturalist when I was doing my diving course. I think I’ve learned what I do know by being underwater for so much of my life.

View Jason deCaires Taylor’s portfolio: underwatersculpture.com

Interview by Emma Marnell

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

Steam cooking can preserve the nutritional value and flavour of delicate vegetables such as mushrooms

The ancient art of steam cooking has gained new impetus with the revolution in healthy and mindful cuisine. Lisa Jayne Harris looks at the artful kitchen innovations from design-led German luxury appliance maker, and chefs’ favourite, Gaggenau

Alice B. Toklas, the celebrated 20th-century literary salon hostess, had one golden rule for cooking: “one must respect the quality and flavour of the ingredients”. Steaming is the most direct way to achieve her objective; it is an efficient way to cook that leaves the food tasting exclusively of itself. Just consider the simple excellence of steamed asparagus with French butter, one of Toklas’s stand-by dishes for entertaining.

Phil Fanning, the executive chef and owner of restaurant Paris House in Woburn and Gaggenau culinary partner, agrees: “You’ve got nowhere to hide with steam: It’s all about the quality of ingredients.” This is essential when you are working with delicate seasonal vegetables like asparagus, new potatoes or peas, but it is just as significant with good quality meat, baked goods or pastry.

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However, healthier eating is another powerful motivator behind the steamed food trend. Boiling vegetables reduces much of their nutritional qualities, such as vitamins C and B1, and other mineral salts readily dissolve in water. Lightly steaming does not disturb the food’s cellular structure or its aromatic compositions the way boiling does, so you preserve more vitamins as well as the colour and texture for a more health-conscious cuisine. “Gentle steam cooking can actually improve the nutrient status of food like asparagus, spinach and tomatoes,” advises registered nutritional therapist, Catherine Arnold, “It makes their nutrients more bio-available to the body.”

Gaggenau’s 400 and 200 series combi-steam ovens are ideal for the precise cooking of seafood

Gaggenau has pioneered steam cooking in the home for the past 20 years and continues to do so, including combination steam ovens: “Whether you’re cooking in pure steam, or in combination with traditional heat, you’re getting the health benefits of steam cooking, as it maintains food’s nutrients, colour and shape,” says Gaggenau’s category manager, Simon Plumbridge. Steam can improve other healthy eating habits such as juicing, too: “Our juice extraction setting gently steams hard-skinned citrus fruit such as oranges, so you get a much higher juice yield without impacting nutrients.”

Steam cooking is also gaining traction with chefs and home cooks because of the innovations in steam-cooking technology. For all its benefits – puffed soufflés, sumptuous bread, those crisp layers in a croissant – mastering the technique used to require an intimidating level of precision. Today, keen cooks are investing in internal temperature probes, gadgets and state-of-the-art appliances to emulate high-end restaurants at home. “The UK’s food scene has massively improved in the past 30 to 40 years, and this growth in skill and quality is reflected in passionate home chefs’ kitchens too,” Fanning reflects. Our private kitchens are becoming more technologically advanced, and ovens that enable amateurs to cook like professionals are both a luxury and an enabler of creativity.

Embracing both the old and the new makes us all better cooks. “Lots of traditional techniques benefit from having precise control over the humidity,” says Fanning. “Take bread for example. For the perfect crusty baguette, you need about 30 per cent humidity for the first five minutes and then very little for the remaining bake. In a traditional convection oven that requires guesswork, but it’s easily and consistently achieved in a combi-steam oven.” Brands like Gaggenau are making this trend for precision steam cooking more accessible. Their combi-steam ovens can be controlled to within one degree, which continually revises the estimated cooking time based on temperature-probe readings from three different sensors. There is no more guessing: “Steam in its basic principle is an ancient way of cooking,” says Plumbridge. “But controlling the level of steam in combination with a fan is only achieved by modern technology – and that’s what brings professional results into the domestic home.”

Read more: Fashion designer Erdem Moralıoğlu’s guide to east London

Steam is also about convenience; rather than waiting for an oven to preheat, a good steam oven heats to temperature immediately. When you combine that with smart, Wi-Fi-enabled technology that lets you control the oven remotely from your office, or even set the bread to prove whilst you’re watching TV, you have all the benefits of ancient cooking just a voice command away. “Connectivity in the home has a lot of momentum at the moment,” Plumbridge observes, “But we’re more interested in future-proofing, so our ovens have the capacity to integrate with apps on any system such as Alexa or Cornflake smart homes.”

As much as new food trends are about keeping pace with technology, steam cooking also allows you to take your time. Next generation combi-steam ovens can sous-vide for up to almost 24 hours on a mains-connected water system or 11 hours with a tank, and cooking meat low and slow with a good level of humidity means it won’t be subjected to heat expansion and contraction, allowing for a more tender and juicy dish. Chefs also use steam to impart more subtle flavours into a dish, laying herbs under a piece of salmon to infuse the fish or steaming couscous in a traditional couscoussier, in which spices, onions and meat cook in the lower compartment and impart their flavour to the grains above.

“Remember that with a combi oven, steam doesn’t have to be 100ºC,” Fanning advises. “You want to cook vegetables as quickly as possible at that temperature, but steaming a piece of turbot at 60ºC or even lower will give you a much more delicate result. Oxtail or lamb shanks can be very gently cooked sous-vide in a combi-steam oven for hours with virtually no chance of overcooking, and duck legs, pork belly, haricot beans or lentils – if vacuum packed with a fat or oil – can be very gently and accurately made as a confit.”

Icelanders have steamed their bread buried next to hot springs for generations and Chinese steaming baskets have been piled with fluffy rice buns and hot dumplings for thousands of years. Steam cooking might be an ancient art, but revolutionary technology, a modern regard for putting ingredients first and a drive to lighten up our diets means that the technique is equally relevant today. True innovation combines the heritage of centuries of steam cooking with precision and performance that inspires. “That’s why Gaggenau ovens are all hand finished,” Plumbridge says. “Only when you piece a product together by hand, the good old-fashioned way, are you actually putting soul into a product. And that’s what really means something to people.”

Gaggenau’s factory on the French-German border

Precision Engineering

Darius Sanai takes a rare tour of the Gaggenau factory, pictured above, on the French-German border, and is struck by the melding of industry and creativity

The huge sheet of matte-silver metal looks, somehow, tempting and edible as it sits on the machine bed, like a giant slice of space-age food about to be sliced and diced. Lasers home in on a pattern of points on the sheet, and an instant later, it has a precise latticework of holes and is being washed clean. A few metres away, an operator is in charge of a machine that bends metal. It bends it a tiny bit, almost invisibly, but the bend makes all the difference, our guide explains, as it allows the finished product a smooth, textured finish with no sharp edges.

There is a lot of this in the Gaggenau factory; a lot of working with metal, bending and shaping it, machining it, turning it from sheets, delivered through an entry doorway in one building, into the slick kitchen appliances so beloved by professional chefs.

Yet metalwork was not what I expected when walking into the factory of a manufacturer of the world’s leading kitchens. It’s hard to know exactly what to expect; my experience of factories is confined to manufacturers of cars and watches. Both of these are very obviously made of metal in a way high-end ovens, cloaked in a kitchen design and so proud of their electronics and technology, are not. Yet there is far more metalworking going on at Gaggenau than in, for example, the Mercedes-Benz factory at Sindelfingen an hour’s drive to the east, or the IWC watch manufacture at Schaffhausen an hour’s drive to the south.

Read more: Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar & the artistic revival of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat

Perhaps this ought not to be surprising. We are after all in a real factory, rather than a mere assembly plant where components made elsewhere are put together. Gaggenau may now be synonymous with expensive homes, but, as a timeline in the visitor experience centre where we had arrived earlier demonstrated, it has a history in metal. It was founded in 1683 as Eisenwerke Gaggenau, an ironworks which made everything from agricultural machinery to road signs, by Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden. Gaggenau itself is a town in the Black Forest of Germany, which, catalysed by von Baden, became a significant industrial centre and still houses one of the biggest Mercedes-Benz factories.

Gaggenau also made stoves, and eventually specialised in the high-end, highly designed, highly technical kitchen appliances it creates today, eventually moving to its current site from its original home. From the sloping road leading to the current factory in Lipsheim, you can see the curved outline of the Black Forest clearly. “I live there, it takes 30 minutes to cycle in every day,” one of our hosts tells me cheerily. The fact that he lives in Germany and we are just across the border in France’s Alsace is irrelevant: this is the new Europe, and there is, in effect, no border.

It’s a scenic setting for a factory, and also an interesting one: just down the road is Bugatti’s factory (really, a very chic assembly plant), so you could in theory pick up your Chiron and then watch your new steam oven being made. (Actually, the factory tours are not yet open to the public, which makes it even more special.)

The factory is a series of buildings each of which is filled with numerous sections and stations doing different creative activities. Gaggenau’s production process is still very manual; there are 350 workers, many of them trained in astonishingly particular skills pertaining to components or electronics of particular products. There is an air of extreme concentration among the small pods of workers, but unlike in watch manufactures, you don’t get the sense that you are the nth tour to visit that day. Workers are not slickly trained to respond to your questions; some of them are so lost in concentration in operating a particular piece of hot, huge or smelly machinery that they seem surprised to see you there.

What does remind me of a watch factory, or perhaps a pharmaceutical firm, is a ‘clean room’, which we observe from the outside. The room, which sits in a corner of the factory, and the people inside, assembling delicate electrical components of Gaggenau ovens, look like characters in a sci-fi movie of their own.

There is, in another section of the factory, a testing station, where every creation is subject to testing on its accuracy, function, and so on. I lingered a minute or two here, eager to see a malfunctioning multi-thousand-euro oven chucked on a scrapheap (or actually, returned to production to be corrected), but it didn’t happen.

The tour ended and we walked back to the Experience Centre, with its view of the Vosges and walls of the latest steam ovens, slick and architectural, beauty made out of, if not exactly chaos in the factory but certainly industrial creativity. More interesting than any watch manufacture I have been to.

Find out more: gaggenau.com/gb

This article was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

Erdem Moralioglu by Tom Mannion

Erdem Moralıoğlu’s flagship store is in Mayfair, but the heart of this designer to the stars is in hip east London, where he lives and has his studio. He gives LUX a pre-lockdown tour of his home patch

My favourite view…

The view from the restaurant at the top of the National Portrait Gallery

The most romantic spot for dinner…

St John on Commercial Street

The best spot to read a book…

The London Library

The best place to take a selfie…

No selfies!

Where you’ll hear the coolest music…

The Glory in Dalston

The only coffee I’ll queue for…

Violet on Wilton Way (they also do the best cinnamon bun in the world)

The perfect spot not in a travel guide…

The stacks at The London Library – I could spend hours getting lost in all the books

A tourist destination that’s worth the hype…

The Turbine Hall at Tate Modern

The best spot for some people-watching…

Broadway Market on a Saturday

The taste that reminds me of my childhood…

Mangal 2 on Stoke Newington Road, which is my favourite Turkish restaurant in London

My favourite museum/gallery…

The Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum or anything at Maureen Paley

The shop I never want to leave…

My shop in Mayfair. I spend a lot of time there and many of my clients say it feels like home

The best place to soak up some nature…

In the pool at London Fields Lido in winter

The perfect weekend brunch…

Allpress Espresso on Dalston Lane

I’m prepared to make a detour for…

The National Portrait Gallery

I’m at home in….

Hackney

View the designer’s collections: erdem.com

This story was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

Jean-François Dieterich (left) with Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar at the Villa Cuccia-Noya.

The south of France, home to Matisse, Cézanne and Van Gogh, has one of the greatest artistic legacies in the world. Now the mayor of one of its most exclusive communities wants to create a cultural heritage for the next generation, as Lanie Goodman discovers

“I am made of all that I have seen,” French artist Henri Matisse once famously stated. The grand master of colour certainly got an eyeful during his lifetime of world travels. But when Matisse first arrived on the Côte d’Azur in 1917, he was so taken with the sunlit vistas of luxuriant gardens, graceful palms and the shimmering blue sea that he decided to settle in the south of France for the rest of his life. The artist’s love of plants extended to a philosophical perspective on all living things. “We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe,” Matisse muses in his writings.

For over a century, European crowned heads, artists and writers have flocked to the south of France to create their own private Eden, and predictably, the 2.48 sq km commune of Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat – a lush secluded peninsula of seaside splendour midway between Nice and Monaco – has a rich history of outstanding artistic effervescence.

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These days, the town’s mayor, Jean-François Dieterich, is aiming to revive the cultural excitement with a contemporary art exhibition – with about 15 works in total – of French-Iranian artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar to inaugurate the beautifully restored Villa Namouna, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat’s brand new cultural space. This initiative is part of an ongoing programme to revive the once celebrated artistic enclave in the commune by showcasing living artists of international renown. “I find that the approach of Behnam-Bakhtiar – who has found serenity, joie de vivre and sources of inspiration through the outstanding natural landscapes of this peninsula – has a certain continuity with the artists of the 50s,” Dieterich says. “But he also has his own contemporary abstract technique and a rich palette of colours.”

My Tree of Life (2019–20) by Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar.

For the 36-year-old artist, Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar, who now lives and works in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the timeless Mediterranean landscape has had a profound effect on his point of view and his palette, much like Matisse. “My art has definitely changed since I moved here in 2010,” he says. “Although the technique I used, peinture raclée, was similar to now, a lot of the works were dark.”

Above all, explains Behnam-Bakhtiar, Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat has been a grounding force. “This place gave me a new life and something that helped me to become a more complete, balanced human being. It has helped me cope with everything that has happened to me. I shifted my whole focus on things that are truly valuable, such as the dormant energy that exists inside us and our connection to nature.”

Read more: Discovering Deutsche Bank’s legendary art collection

We are at Behnam-Bakhtiar’s studio, situated on an upper floor of a white villa on the Cap. The room is ablaze with colour, a mesmerising assembly of large abstract canvases, stacked one behind the other and propped against the wall; in the centre of the room is the artist’s working space, a table littered with tubes of paint and a scraper. From the window, you gaze out at a palm tree, a verdant garden and patches of sea.

The show, entitled ‘Rebirth’, will debut with a one-day private viewing of 35 new paintings held at Villa Cuccia-Noya, a sumptuous waterfront estate owned by distinguished businessman, philanthropist and art collector Basil Sellers. “What an enormous energy rises from his works,” Sellers enthuses, referring to Behnam-Bakhtiar’s latest canvases. “I was astounded.”

Blue Soul Groove (2019) by Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar

Energy is indeed the very term Behnam-Bakhtiar uses to describe the palpable vibrancy of landscapes that he tries to capture in his paintings. Under the umbrella of the rebirth theme, the artist will also unveil two public installations – one on the Cap and the other in the village. It will be a first for the community in terms of public artwork – one of the works will be a lightweight but huge wrought-iron sculpture in which three suspended figures of a man, woman and child look as if they have sprung from the earth. As Behnam-Bakhtiar explains, the idea of the work is to convey “harmonious living with nature”, something which he feels should be transmitted to future generations.

The Paris-born artist, whose previous exhibitions include ‘Oneness Wholeness’ at London’s Saatchi Gallery in 2018 and at a Christie’s Middle Eastern, Modern and Contemporary Art exhibition in London in 2019, spent his formative years in Tehran during the Iran-Iraq war. Articulate, calm and soft-spoken, Behnam-Bakhtiar briefly alludes to his imprisonment and torture but would rather speak about transformation. “My last exhibition, at the Setareh Gallery in Düsseldorf, Germany, was called ‘Extremis’ and it focused on all the hardcore experiences that happened in my past. For Saint-Jean, I wanted to do something that is the other side of the coin, to represent positivity and light.”

As you stand in front of his recent series of paintings, ‘Trees of Paradise’, the blended bright colours slowly conjure discernible shapes that “are part of the Cap Ferrat scenery”, Behnam-Bakhtiar says, urging me to touch the canvas. Despite the complex texture that meets the eye, the surface is surprisingly smooth. For inspiration, he adds, he often walks through a wooded section of the Cap, not far from the curvaceous Villa Brasilia, designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer.

Dieterich and Behnam-Bakhtiar at Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat’s town hall

“One painting may take me anywhere from five months to a year to finish,” he says, flashing a smile. “It takes a lot of time and patience.” Essentially, he explains, his process consists of painting, scraping, drying – hundreds of times – until he’s happy with the work. “When you know it’s right, you leave it. It just suddenly clicks for me.”

Whether mere coincidence or simply the glamorous allure of this privileged finger of land, a remarkable convergence of writers, artists, filmmakers and actors lived, worked and entertained on Cap Ferrat during the late 1940s and 1950s and the ‘dolce vita’ of the 1960s. Winston Churchill painted on the jetty undisturbed; Picasso sunbathed at the pool of Le Club Dauphin at the Grand-Hôtel du Cap-Ferrat. British writer W Somerset Maugham, in search of the simple life purchased a Moorish-style villa, La Mauresque, planted superb gardens and hosted everyone from artist Marc Chagall (who had a neighbouring home on the Cap Ferrat) to Noel Coward, George Cukor and Harpo Marx. Another illustrious resident was British actor David Niven, who lived in the villa La Fleur du Cap on the coastal Promenade Maurice Rouvier and often lent his home to his friend, Charlie Chaplin.

Read more: In the studio with radical artist Mickalene Thomas

“There were numerous films shot in Saint-Jean,” says mayor Dieterich. “There were also legendary actors and directors who spent time here, such as Gene Kelly, Gregory Peck, Rex Harrison, and Otto Preminger.” However, Cap Ferrat’s glorious artistic heyday revolved around the presence of two major figures: the Greek-born editor and publisher Efstratios Eleftheriades – known as Tériade – and poet, playwright, filmmaker and artist, Jean Cocteau.

In the postwar years, when the Côte d’Azur was a sun-drenched haven for artists, Matisse was a regular visitor to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat where his friend and collaborator Tériade lived in the turquoise-shuttered Villa Natacha, overlooking the harbour. The influential editor of Verve, who had commissioned every major artist of his time to design covers for his magazine, brought together the likes of Bonnard, Balthus, Miró and Derain. As a mark of friendship, the frail 83-year-old Matisse designed a stained-glass window – a Chinese fish surrounded by begonias – for Tériade’s dining room and also painted the villa’s walls with black enamel plane trees.

During that same period, Cocteau lived in a white-washed seaside house, the Villa Santo Sospir, owned by patroness of the arts, Francine Weisweiller, who had fallen in love with the rugged beauty of the then deserted Cap Ferrat in 1948 and turned it into her dream home. Weisweiller met Cocteau in 1950 when she financed Les Enfants Terribles, the film he had written, and invited him to the villa for a few days. He ended up staying 11 years and decided to ‘tattoo’ the white walls with whimsical mythological frescos. The privately owned villa is currently under restoration to preserve Cocteau’s Greek gods and local fisherman, plus the bohemian jumble of Madeleine Castaing-designed exotic wood furniture and curtains as well as vintage bric-a-brac.

The Villa Cuccia-Noya

Behnam-Bakhtiar, who was contacted by the owners of Santo Sospir just prior to the villa’s temporary closure in 2017, was enchanted. “They wanted me to do a show. The energy there was unreal and I went there every day, for about four weeks, trying to take it all in.” His exhibition, ‘Oneness, Wholeness with Jean Cocteau’, consisted of 36 sculptures scattered about the villa and garden, as well as an audio installation with a dialogue between Cocteau and himself.

Does Behnam-Bakhtiar feel in sync with the spirit of his artistic predecessors? The artist pauses, gazing at one of his ongoing ‘Trees of Paradise’ canvases. “You know, I was looking online and stumbled across a video of Cocteau sitting at the same table of Santo Sospir. He’s addressing the people of the year 2000 and saying the same things I’ve been talking about now – about how we are losing our humanity and behaving like robots. It’s a real honour to continue in his footsteps and work with the mayor to help revive what used to be here.”

Nostalgia aside, call it a reawakening of a state of mind when it comes to beauty. Or, as Matisse aptly summed it up: “There are always flowers for those who want to see them.” And Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar would be inclined to agree.

Benham-Bakhtiar’s exhibition ‘Rebirth’ will open with a private view at Villa Cuccia-Noya on 10 September 2020; the show will run at Villa Namouna from 11 September – 11 October 2020.

For more information visit: sassanbehnambakhtiar.com

This story was originally published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out now.

Mickalene Thomas with her work Clarivel #6 (2019). Photograph by Maryam Eisler

New York-based Mickalene Thomas is an important and innovative voice in the art world. Her dazzling portraits of African American women use collage, enamel and her signature rhinestones to explore femininity and ideas of beauty. Maryam Eisler visits her in her Manhattan studio to photograph her and talk beauty, sexual politics, identity and racial stereotyping

LUX: Your work is almost exclusively about women – real women, everyday women, in different sizes, with different stories, textures, colours. Tell us a bit about this.
Mickalene Thomas: I love everything about women and more – confident women, smart women, the I-don’t-give-a-sh*t women, with all shades of blackness. When I think of all the women in my life, I think of those who have mentored me, about those I’ve read about in books and their stories. I think about all the women who have trail-blazed and sojourned that I aspire to be, about all the women who I haven’t met yet and who protect me. When I think of blackness, I think of my grandmothers. I remember seeing one of them at 95 years old in her apartment sitting in her favourite chair, and the wrinkling, deep indigo colour of her skin, that blackness, the ageless glow in her eyes, and thinking about all of the history that she’s endured and the things unspoken, all those secrets. I think of her vulnerability, her beauty, her fragility, her strength.

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LUX: There are many stereotypes of black women set by white patriarchal societies. Is there an expectation for you to fit within a white canon of beauty? Not that you have ever conformed to that way of thinking, of course!
Mickalene Thomas: Yeah, especially when you think of the ideology of a beauty that was put forth, setting a paradigm and an agency for everyone to follow. I’ve always tried to figure out how that happened and how it remained at the centre of our world. Because there were so many other powerful empires that had their own notions of beauty and aesthetics.

The artist with her partner Racquel Chevremont, in front of October 1975 (2019). Photograph by Maryam Eisler 

LUX: How did you extricate yourself from this way of thinking about beauty?
Mickalene Thomas: As a woman of colour, I was fortunate to be raised by a very strong group of women. I never grew up wanting to be anything other than what I am, or wanting to question my own blackness. I never thought, “Am I light enough for you?” I’ve always had natural hair or locks. I’ve never straightened my hair. That’s never been an issue. So that white notion of beauty has never been imposed on me.

Installation view of ‘Mickalene Thomas: A Moment’s Pleasure’ at The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2019. © Mickalene Thomas. Photo Mitro Hood, BMA/The Baltimore Museum of Art.

LUX: Was this down to the influence of your mother and your grandmother?
Mickalene Thomas: Yes, they let me know that I was beautiful enough for myself and no one else, and that I’m of a new generation and can be a leader and that my blackness and difference is important. I questioned their ideas of beauty because they were vastly different from mine – but I also think that growing up with Black Power in the 70s made me think differently. Looking around the room and seeing women with hair in Afros was very empowering. It’s about freedom, really.

Read more: How Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah is establishing itself as a cultural hub

LUX: Yes. And owning it, right?
Mickalene Thomas: Yes, absolutely. However, you start questioning these ideas of beauty placed on you by the media because it’s the only representation that you see. You know that within your own community some things are considered beautiful, but then the media tells you otherwise.

Untitled (Maya #4) (2019) by Mickalene Thomas. © Mickalene Thomas.

LUX: Does that make you wonder if you’re creating your own bubble?
Mickalene Thomas: Yes. And you’re constantly up against creating your own agency. Where do you fit in exactly? How do you navigate this world and this image consciousness as it is? Forget double consciousness!

LUX: With the histories and background stories involved, it’s probably more like a tenfold consciousness?
Mickalene Thomas: Yes! I think that if we embrace the diaspora and look at ourselves as the melting pot that we are as a people, then we can start tolerating our differences and embrace the various forms of beauty that each of us harbour.

Read more: Why we love Hublot’s limited edition spring timepieces

LUX: Do you think we tend to forget about our humanity as the common ground?
Mickalene Thomas: Yes, that would be a much healthier way of looking at the world – to try and understand the way we are because we had to migrate and move around for a variety of reasons, such as adverse conditions, weather, food, nature and much more!

LUX: What does it mean to question such stories of migration within your own community on a daily basis, in this day and age and in the USA of all places, the country of migration par excellence?
Mickalene Thomas: The entire country is based on migration. And for me, to even have to think about it gives me an ulcer. To think that America is leading this atrocity of deportation, when it is built on people immigrating here for many different freedoms.

Studio shot of two works from Thomas’s 2019 series based on images from the Jet Magazine pin-up calendars from the 1970s. Image by Maryam Eisler

LUX: Where is this re-examination of colour, race, faith, culture coming from?
Mickalene Thomas: I think there are many people in the world who operate specifically out of hatred and fear. I was raised a Buddhist and I think that was one of the fortunate gifts my mother gave my brother and me, this sense of spirituality and the sense of philosophy of life. It’s not necessarily a religious practice, but more a philosophy of understanding, through knowing your causes and effects. The people who commit atrocities, such as mass shootings and bombings, are feeling displaced and threatened in society, and the causes are deeply rooted in their ancestors’ past. We want to live right now and right here, but there’s a lot we don’t look at in our pasts. I really believe that, as an artist, you have to look at history to move forward. We’re just moving forward without resolving our past histories. Times are tough. Our economy is about to take a huge shift, and I think it won’t just affect the poor or the middle classes – it’s going to affect many people in ways that they haven’t really seen before.

LUX: And there’s a lot of anger out there.
Mickalene Thomas: Yes. And people want something that they feel is owed to them, or that they are entitled to. And they think that immigrants and people of colour have been given some special privilege, not realising that most of us, if not all, have worked very hard to get to `where we are.

Installation view of the exhibition ‘Mickalene Thomas: Better Nights’, at the Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, 2019. Photo Jessica Klingelfuss, courtesy of Mickalene Thomas and Jessica Klingelfuss

LUX: Can we talk about ownership of one’s sexuality?
Mickalene Thomas: You’ve got to own it! You only have one life. Period. And it took me a long time to recognise my own power and strength.

LUX: And while it’s okay to flaunt it, it seems that women and men are judged differently when they do…
Mickalene Thomas: Men have much more access to self-expression as well as the freedom to navigate the world and go about doing whatever they want to do. I remember arguing with my brother and having to figure out how to deal with those complications and being very argumentative with my family about it: “So why is he able to do certain things and I can’t but that I do better?”

August 1977 (2019) by Mickalene Thomas. © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2020, photo Elisabeth Bernstein

LUX: Your work can be flamboyant, exuberant and cacophonous, with much layering and fragmentation. Is this a case of eye candy on the outside, but with deeper issues beneath?
Mickalene Thomas: These ways of telling stories, of thinking about how the women I depict collected their own histories, making sacrifices and compromises with little means and making the best of it. They went from one place to the other, transcending time and space.

Read more: Gaggenau presents new combi-steam ovens

LUX: So, it’s about stitching together a patchwork of life events?
Mickalene Thomas: A lot of the layering of material and patterning is about their own journeys, their own perseverance, their own struggles. The residue, the unearthing of time and space, is about their scars, and mostly it’s about the artifice of what you may think you see and the reality of it being another truth.

Installation view of ‘Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You Without Me’ at The Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio, 2018. Photo Luke Stettner, courtesy of Mickalene Thomas and The Wexner Center for the Arts.

LUX: The visual effect is powerful, and the nostalgia palpable.
Mickalene Thomas: There’s the power of the visuals, yes, and how we begin to believe our own truths or memories, whether or not there’s myth, and how they then become our reality. And so, as artists we create time capsules for histories. I find this very interesting, how people believe their own lies, their own truths, or their own memories or fantasies or dreams. These become reality to the point one might think: “Well, did that really happen?” When my mother passed in 2012, I came across photos that were almost a validation of my memory of childhood experiences. The photos encapsulated many moments for me – “Okay, now I have some evidence of what happened in my life. Now I have images from which to work. So now I have material to use for creative ideas and put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

LUX: So, above all, is your art a journey of research and self-discovery?
Mickalene Thomas: I think, as an artist, if you’re not doing self-discovery, then you’re really no longer making the art. It’s always a journey.

For more information visit: mickalenethomas.com

This article will also be published in the Summer 2020 Issue, hitting newsstands May 2020.

Crown (2006) by Wangechi Mutu. Courtesy of Deutsche Bank Collection

One of the key elements of this year’s edition of Frieze New York was to have been an exhibition drawn from the legendary art collection of Deutsche Bank, to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The fair may have been postponed, but the significance of the collection, its works and ethos, is undimmed, says Wallace Ludel

At Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in New York, several hundred exceptional works of art are hung throughout the building’s 47 floors. The Wall Street tower was built in the 1980s and certain floors still retain that era’s American wooden-clad banking aesthetic; long oak and cherry desks and accents provide a warmer, more characterful context for the high-calibre artworks than a typical white-cube gallery setting. The click of dress shoes and hum of conference calls in the background create an atmosphere quite unlike the usual art exhibition experience.

The artworks displayed here represent only a fraction of one of the largest corporate art collections in the world, comprising over 55,000 important pieces.

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Deutsche Bank employees are proud of the art that surrounds them, says Friedhelm Hütte, the bank’s global Head of Art. “They feel it helps the company and it does so not only in a general way but also when meeting with clients and prospective clients, because more and more people are interested in art, in going to exhibitions, or wanting to collect.”

Düsseldorf (2018) #1 (2018) by Maria Hassabi. Courtesy of Deutsche Bank Collection

In 2020, Deutsche Bank is celebrating the 40th anniversary of its art collection, as well as the company’s 150th anniversary. Part of the celebration was intended to involve a major exhibition at Frieze New York. The show, titled ‘Portrait of a Collection’, brought together works from more than 40 artists from the bank’s holdings, including works by Wangechi Mutu, Amy Sillman, Glenn Ligon, Camille Henrot, Lucy Dodd, Hank Willis Thomas and many more. And although the fair was cancelled, the importance of the artworks and the philosophy of the collection remains as relevant as ever.

“Deutsche Bank has both the foresight to champion artists such as these in the early stages of their careers, and the power to contextualize them alongside an established canon within their collection,” Loring Randolph, Director of Frieze New York, tells LUX. She adds that Frieze and the bank are “aligned in their commitment to innovative curatorial programming and public art initiatives, including our mutual support and enthusiasm for artists.”

Sugar Ray from the series ‘The Enclave’ (2012) by Richard Mosse. Courtesy of Deutsche Bank Collection. © Richard Mosse, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, photo Argenis Apolinario.

While Deutsche Bank’s enormous collection spans many decades and various movements of contemporary art, it does have a few points of focus – one being that the vast majority are works on paper. In this respect, Hütte and his team bucked the trend. “The bank decided to focus on an area in contemporary art that’s not so often covered by museums or private collectors,” Hütte says. “We wanted to build a collection that had a smaller focus placed on it. We now have one of the most important collections of post-1945 works made on paper in the world, even when compared with museums of the same era. This has allowed us to function as a kind of archive for artists and museums.”

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Preparatory drawings for larger projects, including studies for public projects by Christo and mural-sized paintings by James Rosenquist, constitute this informal archive. Hütte says he is fascinated by the way these works illuminate the artists’ creative processes. The insights they provide are worth pursuing. “If you are not an expert in art, you can see these works and understand more about how an artist is developing his or her ideas. You see the moment of invention and of introducing something new. This is very much linked to business, and the ways we come up with new ideas.”

“We are always looking to discover new artists,” says Hütte, adding that this “doesn’t mean that the artist has to be young; it could be that an artist is older but hasn’t found the success that we feel he or she should have.” Supporting emerging artists is also a financially advantageous approach; the company does not have to lavish the same kind of sums on their artworks that collectors often pay for well-established artists. Hütte says that the bank, which has high-profile art hanging in offices all over the world, relies on the experience of their own team of curators and – in some cases – regional art experts to look out for creative talent. Additionally, the bank employs staff to oversee the collection, arrange exhibitions, facilitate loans and more.

Four Little Girls (blue and white) (2018) by Hank Willis Thomas. © Hank Willis Thomas, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York

While the biggest concentrations of works from the collection hang in the private offices of Frankfurt, London and New York, the bank opened its new museum-quality exhibition space and cultural programme, Berlin’s Palais Populaire, to the public in 2018. However, you may not have to travel to Berlin to explore the art from the company’s private collection. “We loan artworks to museums on a regular basis – normally every week,” explains Hütte. “We feel we have to support the museums and the artists, so there’s no ulterior reason. We give works for temporary exhibitions as well as for more or less permanent loans; for example, we recently loaned 600 works to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt.”

The Deutsche Bank Artist of the Year

One of Deutsche Bank’s initiatives to support young artists is their ongoing Artist of the Year programme. Previous winners include Wangechi Mutu in 2010, Yto Barrada in 2011 and Roman Ondak in 2012. All have since gone on to have exceptional careers. “It’s not simply a prize of a sum of money; it’s really to support the artist so they can reach a new level,” explains Hütte. The artist is selected with the recommendation of the Deutsche Bank Global Art Advisory Council, whose council members have included the curators Udo Kittelmann, Victoria Noorthoorn, Hou Hanru and the late Okwui Enwezor. The winning artist is given a solo exhibition – the 2018 winner, Lebanese artist Caline Aoun, held her show at the Palais Populaire – with a published catalogue of their work. “Most often, it’s the first large catalogue for this artist, and it’s normally their first museum exhibition. We also buy works from the artist for our collection,” says Hütte.

Discover the collection: art.db.com

This article will also be published in the Summer 2020 Issue, out later this month.