Harper's Bazaar December/January 2022

THE ART ISSUE IN MANY WAYS, what we consider to be great art is not unlike what we think of as great fashion: unmistakable, powerful, statement-making, eluding definition just as it screams for it. Richard Avedon, who got his start as a photographer in Harper’s Bazaar, once characterized art as an attempt to control the uncontrollable. John Edmonds, who shot this issue’s cover story, has used his own art to explore subjects like identity and community. The Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli, whose pioneering collaborations with Salvador Dalí in the 1930s paved the way for our contemporary fashion-and-art mashups, felt that designing clothes was itself an art—and the pieces she created supported that belief. Valentino creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli says in these pages that fashion, to him, is not art, though…

The ART that MOVES US I’ve always marveled at what artists do. To create something beautiful from nothing, I think, is remarkable. My parents are artists, and from watching them I know that an artist’s existence is a humble one—one that is rooted in community. I’ve watched my mother and stepfather create stunning, fragile forms from just their hands and a ball of clay, which they believe is the purest form of earth. This issue is dedicated to art. It is an acknowledgment and celebration of the ways artists color and inform and add depth to our lives. We are so honored that Lorna Simpson, an artist I deeply admire, has created a new work for this issue titled Floating Actuality, a continuation of a series of collage pieces she…

“Everybody deep in their DNA is an ARTIST,” says Fred Brathwaite, a.k.a. FAB 5 FREDDY. “It’s about what you FEEL, what you want to SAY, and HOW you want to say it.” The hip-hop and street-art pioneer was an integral figure in New York’s downtown creative scene in the ’70s and ’80s, performing alongside Afrika Bambaataa and Rock Steady Crew and counting Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring among his closest contemporaries and collaborators. Inspired by Andy Warhol, Brathwaite and his friends began organizing more inclusive art shows that functioned like parties, with live bands and DJ sets. “We wanted to have fun, have music, and not have our art be seen in a corny ‘art world’ way,” he says. “We wanted to shake up all of that.” Five decades on,…

1 CATCH THE TENDER BAR Based on J.R. Moehringer’s 2005 coming-of-age memoir, set in the 1970s, director George Clooney’s latest follows a Long Island boy (Daniel Ranieri as a child and Tye Sheridan as a young adult) with a single mother (Lily Rabe) as he seeks out father figures in the patrons of his uncle’s (Ben Affleck) bar. 2 EXPERIENCE THE GREAT ANIMAL ORCHESTRA Presented by Fondation Cartier, soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause’s audiovisual installation at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, features recordings of animal habitats captured over 50 years and highlights the impact of humans on the natural world. 3 EXPLORE MEXICO’S CULTURAL HISTORY “Mixpantli: Space, Time, and the Indigenous Origins of Mexico” and “Mixpantli: Contemporary Echoes,” two new exhibitions opening December 12 at the Los Angeles County…

JOHN EDMONDS PHOTOGRAPHER: “The Book of Hunter,” page 119 “Walking through the Louvre museum in Paris was one of the most memorable and moving art experiences. It was less about specific artworks and more about moving through this immense building, which is art itself.” JASMINE SANDERS WRITER: “The Art of Change,” page 150 “The first time I can remember being moved by art was as a young girl in my home, which was strewn with all manner of family photos, religious imagery frequently described as kitsch, and photos of figures as diverse as MLK and Marvin Gaye. These induced my first notions of taste, decorousness, style, and politics.” HALEY MLOTEK WRITER: “The Book of Hunter,” page 119 “In September, I went back to the New York Film Festival for the…

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